UPDATE!

Here is a little update on the Jensens.

To say something that totally bugs my sister, I am amazing! I took the contents in this can...and turned it into this loaf of whole wheat homemade bread!Thank you Jaime V. for teaching me how to be a true mormon and do all those things that I thought only old Relief Society ladies did. I now know how to can apple pie filling and also make homemade bread out of cans of wheat that I have in my food storage since being married...I better quit hanging out with her before I become to perfect and get exalted to Heaven.

Funny story about Emma. Over the weekend she decided to make a fort in the family room. While I was in the den I hear her shout, "Eli no!" I go out there to see what all the fuss was about and I ask what happened and she proceeds to tell me, "mom, he just wrecked my fort that took minutes to make." Jared and I got a good laugh out of her minutes comment.

Elias is the older protective brother already. We took the boys out for the first time to Costco 3 weeks ago and we were pushing them around in the stroller while we were shopping. Jared had walked away from me and the boys and Elias decided to follow him. While they were gone a lady came over to stare at the babies and talk to me about them. When Eli discovered that someone was close to his babies he came running over and pushed his way through so he could stand in between her and the babies to protect them from her :) Boo on the City of Chandler and their recreation activities. We decided Elias needs to have an opportunity to get out of the house and do fun things like Emma did so we were going to sign him up for this parent/toddler activity which was every Friday for 45 minutes and he would get to run around and play on some gymnastic mats. Well, of course it was full with 4 people already on the waiting list so I was pissy of course and then I remembered reading on Amy's blog that she took her girls to this gymnastic place and let her kids play all over so I gave her a call and found out that less than a mile away from me on every Friday they have open gym from 10am-12pm so we went down there last Friday and the kid went buck wild, he thought he was in Heaven running all over the place, jumping in the foam pit, hanging from the bars, etc. Thanks Grandpa Rodgers for watching the twins every Friday so Bubbas can have a little excitment in his life and get all of his energy out!

Tyler's turn. At 2 months old he now weighs 11 lbs 13 oz (25% - 50% range) and his height is 22 inches(5% - 10% range). He is so fun to have around, its like re-living the baby Elias stage since they are practically identical in looks and personality.
Oh smiley face Tyson, he has been a smiler since in the womb and we actually have the 3D pictures to prove it. He is 10 lbs 15 oz (10% - 25% range) and he is 21 1/2 inches tall (3% for his age). We have never had such small babies before, its kinda fun not lug around a baby in the 95 percentile for a change :)

Ok, so dont ask why they are sleeping in our closet just pay attention to how cute they are. We put them to bed side by side and then found them like this...it cracks us up how Tyson just makes himself comfy on his brother and how kind his brother is to just let him lay all over him :)

BABY BLESSING!

The baby blessing day finally arrived! The boys were 7 1/2 weeks old and we were excited to bless them this Sunday because it was our last Sunday in our ward before the big split so we were excited to share this with our ward who had supported us so much.
It was a beautiful day. We had 63 people come out and support our family on this very special occasion. Jared did an amazing job. I loved watching him standing there in his suit looking all dapper and holding each boy in his arms and giving them a kiss before and after their blessing (I am grateful to the 2nd counselor for pointing that out during his testimony to remind me what a great man I am married to). I even enjoyed watching the circle part down the middle after each blessing so he could have the infamous "Lion King" moment (holding each baby up for all to see). I do enjoy hearing everyone say "awhhh" when he holds them up and I let him know if he didn't hold them up good enough for everyone to enjoy that I would have to take them up to the podium with me while I bore my testimony - ha ha! Tyler's blessing went great and I was really able this time to sit back and just focus on the words that Jared was saying. Then it became Tyson's turn. The first half of the blessing was great just like his brother's but before I could enjoy the second half I found myself quietly running down the aisle chasing Elias who found it most exciting that he could escape because every adult was quietly sitting with their eyes closed so no one was paying any attention to him. Thank heavens my mom and Kara were writing the blessing down otherwise I would have no idea what was said. After the blessing the Bishop had me stand up so everyone could see me, well that was easy to do, I was standing in the middle of the chapel holding Elias so I gave a quick "I cant believe I am standing here chasing my cute son down the aisle who I secretly want to beat right now" smile and went and sat back down on my bench. After Sacrament we all headed back to our house for some food, folks and fun. Thank you to my parents and Jen Rodgers for watching my kids on Saturday so I could prepare everything, thank you to Caryn and Cade for helping with the kids on Sunday while we went to the meeting, thank you to Jared's mom for staying and cleaning up while we ran out to the meeting while there were still people in our house and thanks to my homo cousin Randi for making more pretzel desserts even though I told her not to and now I am stuck eating them all (when I say "stuck" I secretly mean enjoy).
I am truly grateful for the amazing husband and kids that I have been blessed to have in my life. I am so glad they are stuck with me for time and all eternity!

WATER BABIES!

Tonight we had a surprise birthday party for Jared's mom. All the kiddos had a great time swimming, throwing some water balloons (I must confess, mom it was me who hit you with the balloon, not Bryant)eating and the big boys enjoyed diving contests, etc. My favorite part was seeing the twins in their little speedos and afterwards when they wore their bathrobes, sorta reminisent of Hugh Heffner in his robe all chill :)

1st GRADE BABY!

Well the first day pf school was quite a success. It started out Sunday night with Emma receiving a blessing from her dad that she has been wanting and waiting for since the last day of Kindergarten. Monday morning at 7am Emma came running into our room to wake us up and get going on the big day. We asked her what she wanted for breakfast the first day and she said eggs and donuts because she had pancakes last year (how does she remember that?). Like last year, I sucked it up and let my daughter pick out her first day of school outfit, she has several new outfits from Gap, Tilly's, etc but she chose the Target clearance shirt to wear, kinda funny, oh well. We got her to the bus stop and all the kids loaded up but one did not because her grandma said she was to ride the "red" bus and this one was yellow (the school assigns each bus a color so it is easier for the kids to remember which one they ride and this year ours is "red" which means a big red circle hangs on the side) we had to explain to her that this was indeed the right bus and so she reluctantly put her child on the bus. If any of you remember last year's first day of school (see July 2007) it was pretty crazy so we wanted to make sure things were better this year and still secretly followed her to school. She was a little confused and wandering around so I guess it was a good thing I was there although I am sure she would have figured it out eventually. I got her to her class line to wait for the teachers to come and get them and me and all of the rest of the nerdy parents followed the class to their classroom. I wanted to get a cute picture of her sitting at her desk like last year but before I could get in the classroom the teacher said, "whose first day of school is this...yours or your parents?! Blow your parents a kiss and tell them that you will have a great first day and you will see them at 3pm" and then she shut the door on us...good for her. So this is the best picture I could get. I went to the school at lunch time again to volunteer and help out with the kindergartners on the first day with their lunches and help anyone else who might need it. I did very well and only got teary eyed one time when I saw a little girl with a note from her mom :) I was a super mom this year and actually remembered to put a note in Emma's lunch unlike last year, oops. This year after school instead of kids getting off on the wrong stop and police getting called they sent a teacher home on every bus with a list of all the kids and what stop is theirs so when the bus makes a stop the teacher calls the name and if your name is called you get off and if its not, your stuck on the bus...much better, love it and they got badges for their backpacks which are color coded with their bus color and their name on it with their student id so if they do get lost, you can call the school and they will have all of their info there, LOVE IT!!! Well, needless to say this first day was pretty uneventful but that is probably good although I do realize it makes for a boring story :) I did however manage to capture this dad walking behind me...notice the fanny pack around his waste..he carried a water bottle in it, a still camera and a video camera, he would rotate between each camera so he could capture each step the child made on the way to school...look close at the picture, he is still video taping him. This is going to be a great year for Emma she got the teacher we wanted and looks forward to going each day!

SAY CHEESE OR JUST LAY STILL!

We finally did it. We went and had pictures done of the twins, you know the kind that the other people get that you always think are so cute but never do yourself. Annie Randall took our pictures and she is amazing, I highly recommend her to anyone, check out her websites; www.annierandall.com and www.annierandall.blogspot.com. Here are a few samples of some of the pictures she took of our boys.

WHY?!

The big question of the day is...Why?! Why did I put myself through the stress of trying to be a good doobie and go to church yesterday?!

At the last minute it was decided that I would take Emma and Elias to church and Jared would stay home with the twins since I hadn't been to church for 4 weeks. Let me break down my day for you. First we got there 30 minutes late. I decided if I was going to go I needed to look good since they hadn't seen me since I was pregnant so I did my hair, some make-up, blah blah blah and then since I was dripping with sweat while I was getting ready I had to dry off and get the older 2 ready so needless to say we were late.

I refuse to sit in the chairs in the back because that's where the noisy kids sit and they will be disruptive to Elias and make it harder for him to behave so I found a spot in the middle section of the soft benches that we could sit so we did. Had I known how the rest of sacrament would have gone, I would have chosen the hard chairs. Elias was all over the bench, trying to escape out of our side, crawling over the boys on the other end of the bench, whining for food, toys, sorta playing with the boys behind us, etc. Then it happened. He escaped. After he made it out of our row he was heading toward the front of the sacrament room but he turned and looked back at me and flashed me a big smile so I thought for sure he was going to head back once I motioned for him to, NOPE!!! He bolted up the few steps to the podium where the bishopric sits, the speakers, the whole kit and caboodle. I did not want to embarrass myself by taking claim to that ill behaved child so I sent Emma up there to go get him. He sees her running for him so he runs faster across the podium which in turn means Emma runs faster to get him, all this is happening right behind the speaker. The 2nd counselor helped stop Elias and Emma was able to get him down and start to carry him back towards our bench but then he decided to be a stink pot and drop out of her arms so she is sorta wrestling him at the front of the sacrament room trying to get him back to our bench. And where was I during all of this you might be wondering? I was slowly sinking down into my seat and covering up my bright red face and wondering how I was going to make it through the rest of church. I used to wonder about those parents who let their kids run wild in church well let me just say...they are pretty :)

Finally Sacrament was over (15 minutes late) and we headed out to our classes. Elias helped me get the nursery rooms ready and then I spilled bubbles all down the front of my skirt, my leg and my shoe. After carrying the boxes to the appropriate class rooms I realized I have big-time sweaty armpits, etc. Finally church is over and I went to go get Elias from his classroom only to discover that he had been mauled by a fellow classmate.

Ok so I would go into more details but now I decided I would tell you about my day so far today. Jared took Emma to the movies this morning, Elias went to a friend's house for a play date and my friend Kristi came over to take care of the babies while I cleaned my house and what not. I decide to start a load of laundry and continue cleaning while it was going. About 15-20 minutes into the cycle we hear this very load crash and everyone stops and looks around. I thought, "oh crap, my shelf has fallen down in my laundry room and my food storage is going to be all over." We wait another few seconds and hear some more noises and then I sucked it up and went to investigate. I braced myself for the food disaster that I was about to walk into but I couldn't get the laundry room door open all the way, something is blocking it...what it is it you might be wondering...it was my 1 year old washing machine completely turned around 180 degrees and the top of it blown off and dangling off the side with the sides all dented outward and water spilling out onto the floor. I called Jared's cell phone and gave it to Kristi and told her to tell Jared to come home right away and I ran across the street to get my neighbor thinking he could help me lift it back up. My neighbor and Kristi are smarter than I am and they shut the water off and looked around at my washing machine disaster. As an added bonus, the only thing thing that fell off the shelf above the washing machine was a brand new bottle of cleaner which costs me $75 - so that was really fun. Ok, another long story short, Kristi took my clothes home to wash them since a repair man wont be out until Wednesday and I am sure then he will tell us it will be a week before they can get us a new one anyways but I did manage to take a picture to share with you all :) PS - THANK YOU Kristi for all you have done us today and before I get 500 comments about this, the load was only 1/2 full so it wasn't my fault!

THE THINGS I'VE LEARNED...

...since giving birth to twins:

1. The best form of birth control is hospital food because after one meal one will never want to stay there again! An hour after pushing 2 human beings out of my body the last thing I wanted to do is eat crap but crap would probably taste better than the weird meat they tried to serve me. Actually I am not even sure if it was meat, it could have been something else with some brown color to it.

2. If one doesn't want to cook a meal for 3 weeks straight, give birth to twins. The free meals stop tomorrow, dang it. Who can I sign up for tomorrow's dinner? JUST KIDDING!

3. Cutting 6 inches off one's hair makes one feel like a new pretty person for about 24 hours, then reality sets in and one realizes that one's hair dresser only cut off hair, not left over baby fat; then the pretty feeling is all gone.

4. There is never a safe place for the twins in our house except for the play pen pushed away from the couch. Cute little Elias loves his brothers so much he has figured out how to climb onto or into anything so he can give them kisses. The only exception is the play pen, Elias hasn't figured out how to get into that yet.

5. Even though the boys are laid down apart from each other they somehow figure out to get next to each other to snuggle while they sleep.

6. Moms are programmed somehow to function and be happy with very little sleep (and the sleep they do get is interrupted every hour or so). Dads are DEFINITELY not programmed the same way!

7. I have hidden beast deep down inside that comes out and argues with people when they are wrong and I am right which manages to somehow get the things I want and feel I am entitled to. This beast disappears after having babies and is evident when I get my insurance bills that I refuse to pay. I lose all my beast gusto when I break out into tears on the phone and have to make Jared finish the call. Dang it! When will I return to normal and be the beast that I love so much?!

8. They may not look the same but they sleep the same.