Come and Play

 Grandma and Grandpa Jensen came to visit this past week! We had a fun and productive time. I always feel bad because there is NOTHING to do in this sad little town of ours. You have to drive an hour to Reno to do anything halfways exciting- but hopefully they enjoyed there visit anyhow.

 Tyson was of course shy for the first couple of days...accept at the dinner table. He seemed to think we always needed dinner and a show! He loved to jabber in his little language he has come up with and loved the attention and laughter her got each night(notice the Cardinals World Series shirt!!!)

 He did love to knock down blocks that Grandma and Grandpa would build into towers! And REALLY loved posing for the camera!

 We gotta put our guests to work right?!!! The tree in our front yard grows like crazy and especially this year. It hid our entire house by the end of the summer and people started calling that were coming over because they didnt recognize which house was ours. So we went out and started cutting. Kurt and his Dad got up on the ladder, in the tree and cut about 6+ feet off of the top.

                                    

 We piled the branches into the driveway(this picture shows about 1/4 of them!) the first day and Marita and I used small hand clippers to cut all the branches up into small enough pieces to put into garbage bags. The next day the guys helped with that part and we plowed through it all in 2 days!

 By the end people were pretty sore and pretty worn out! But we are SO greatful for their help and it looks 100x's better now! Tyson also warmed up to them by the last day(of course) would even put his hands out for Grandma to hold him. Stayed by himslef in his bedroom with her and read books, played with Grandpa with out needing Dad right there and even gave them hugs and kissed goodnight! Thanks for the fun times!

Halloween with the Jensens

This was Tyson's first Holloween that he actually got to participate! And he really enjoyed it!

Here is our little Tigger. He looked SOO cute!!

                                    Kurto is starting to love carving pumpkins as much as I do!

                                                             Tyson's first house!

                                                          Here is my 2011 pumpkin!

                                                    And Kurto's 2011 pumpkin!

        Tyson's first pumpkin. He liked coloring on the paper better then the pumpkin which suprised me. I      thought if he had the opportunity to color on something else he would but I guess I thought him well!

Skoobers...a girls best friend

My Mom called with some sad news today...
When we were little my Dad repetedly told us we could absolutly not get a dog. My Mom and all 5 children's vote for one, out weighed my Dads vote against one and so....we got him a Dog for his brithday! That was a long long long time ago. Skooby was his name (grubs,scrubs, goobers and skoob were just a few of his nicknames). I LOVE this dog. I can recall the day we went to the pound to get him. We walked up and down the kenels hoping for a dog to "just feel right" and one did! The workers told us not to reach through the fence or to pet the dogs at all but my Mom reached right through to Skooby where she recieved licks and licks of love and I hoped that he would be the new addition to our family! And he was. My Dad wasnt happy with us at all but he fell in love with him almost as quickly as we did and he soon became my Dads buddy! I like to think that this is how my husband will feel when we some day get a dog. He has some negative thoughts about what having a dog is like. But I believe if you train them right they can truely be mans best friend.
I showed Skooby in 4-H for a couple of years which he LOVED! My mom made a bag that I would carry his leashes and treats in when I would take him to "class" once a week. He quickly learned where we were going when I had this bag in hand and even started carying it around by himself hoping to go more often. He would ride in the truck, proud as any dog could be as we drove to class, and then once we were there he would prance up and down the isles as we showed. He was perfect! My instructor often used Skooby as the good example in class. I honestly think he was sad when we stopped going.
He was our buddy, like another brother to us. He went everywhere with us. Even when we would go up to the mountains in the deep, freezing snow we would put his coat on and he would trudge through right along with us. He went camping, hiking, sleding, to outdoor church activities to celebrations. Everywhere.
Well he is gone now. He was getting pretty old. Recently my Mom said that he stopped eating, drinking and even walking. She said he slept all day long and sometimes had little seizures. It had gotten so bad that my Mom finally had to get him put down. I think she is having a really hard time with it especially since she is home ridden for the most part since her back surgery and Skooby was by her side constantly. When she got home from the vet she found a tennis ball and pushed it to the side with her foot and said she thought she heard Skooby run after it. It will be weird going home to visit and not have Grub run up and greet us. But I'm sure he is happier and healthier now where he is and probably enjoying some catch up time with his buddie Chewbaka who passed away a year or so ago, his other buddy frisky who chased him all around the house years ago and my Mom's horse who she passed down to me who passed away after having a stroke.
I hope that some day my children can grow up and share a bond with a pup such as Skooby. A friend that never judges you, you never fight with, will never leave you. But will stand by your side through thick and thin and greet you at the door with his tail wagging, ready to brighten your day from whatever things have gone wrong.
I'll miss you Skooby, and I love you!

Lately

I haven't posted in a while...I havent been feeling good and I'm either busy with Tyson or sleeping! But here are a few things that have happened lately.
I was asked to run a table at a career night, one of the Young Women in our ward was putting on for a Personal Progress Project. It was a lot of fun and the girls seem to really be interested in what I had to say. Some just had silly questions like, "what is this thing on my face!" Which I am happy to help with. But for the most part they hadn't heard of the things I did for a career and found it interesting..maybe a little gross too!!! It made me miss work for about 20 minutes until I came home and found my handsome husband sitting alone on the couch waiting for me and my beautiful boy sound asleep in his bed and I remembered how much I love staying home to be a wife and mother and wouldnt change it for the world!
Tyson has recently discovered tantrum throwing, going limp when you try to pick him up and screaming when he doesnt get what he wants. Its not too fun, especially when it happens in public or at the park when everyone is staring at you. I'm not sure exactly how to handle it in public, Im sure I'll figure it out though. There was a little boy around 3 or 4 at story time that was not listening to his mother and she loudly put him into time out in the same small room where story time is held. The little boy is screaming at the top of his lungs while she is yelling at him to shut up. No one was paying attention to the story anymore let alone could hear it. Anyways the moral of this story is that I know well enough to remove Tyson from the room or area where people are, to take action!
Saturday night we were getting Tyson ready for bed and while running, trying to get away from getting his jammies on, he slipped on the tile in our entry way and landed face first. His mouth instantly filled with blood and I just knew we would be heading to the ER. Kurt instantly sprang into action and got a washcloth to clean his mouth out so we knew if we needed to go. After fighting Tyson for a little while we could see that his tooth cut/scraped his lip all the way up to the outside of his upper lip. It stopped bleeding after 10 minutes or so and we didnt have to go get stitches! THANK GOODNESS! But for the rest of the night and the next morning he couldn't stop touching it. I bet it felt wierd cuz it was pretty fat! It has healed quickly and he seems to have forgotten about it now.
I got my haircut on Saturday. I have been trying to grow it back out but it needed a trim and a change of style for it to grow. I was so excited and told Kurt that everytime I get excited to have my hair done the lady always calls and cancels but luckily that didnt happen. Instead I got there, explained to her what I needed. And then left the chair...sad. I felt like a hillbilly with a mullet. NO- actually my Mom has this punk rocker wig she always use to wear for halloween and THAT is how I felt it looked. The hairstylist gave me very short, choppy layers in the back and chopped my bangs off above my eyebrows. I was not happy. When I went out to meet Kurt, he wasnt there and wouldnt answer his phone. Finally he called back and was still at Wal-mart. Normally that would have been fine, no big deal I would just enjoy the time to myself and go for a walk while he came to get me. But I felt so self conscience about my hair I was very mad at him. I didnt get a good look at my hair before I left so i wasnt sure EXACTLY waht it looked like. All I could image was this girl walking up and down the sidewalks with this punk rocker wig on! People probably thought I was crazy. Then when Kurt got there to pick me up, he doesnt say a thing about my hair which is a bad sign! Usually he'll say oh let me see, oh it looks good. But he just pretended I didnt just get a haircut, which made me feel even more self conscience. I mean I want my husband to think I am attractive, what wife doesnt. Anyways I decided it was time to get rid of my highlights today and dyed my hair which came out a lot darker than I had planned but much to my suprise my horrible haircut didnt look as bad as it did with the highlights. I'm quite a bit happier now and can smile while I do my hair instead of aggressively comb it into a ponytail for the next month while it grows out!
Well those are a few things going on lately! There are a few more but I'll wait til next time for those!

Leave it at the pulpit!

I think my sister will appreciate this post the most!
"Leave it at the pulpit" is a saying my sister and I have come up with over the years when we give a talk or a lesson that we think didnt go so well. We cant help but think about all the things that went wrong and how stupid we must have looked. It gets so deep into our brain that nothing else can seem to sneek its way in. This can last for days. So we tell each other to "leave it at the pulpit. You cant change it, you cant do anything about it. It is what it is and people most likely forgot about it 2 seconds after you sat down while you are beating yourself into the ground about it."
Well I am writing this post because I am having a hard time leaving it at the pulpit! Here is my story...

Tonight for our Young Womens activity we had a camera crew from Salt Lake for vineyard.lds.org come and film us for a "Mormom Message". We had fun at first touring their site and sharing service experiences. But then it got serious and here's why.  The other reason they came was because they wanted to get a story of our Leaders who has gone through breastcancer/chemo 2 times and in between had a baby when she was told there was no way she would have any more children. So 3 AMAZING miracles in her life. Well they asked if anyone would like to share how we feel about this great Leader of ours. No one raised their hand at first so I thought this was an opportunity for me to let her know how much I appreciate her. Well Im not sure if she or anyone else including the camera crew could even understand what I was saying through my bauling. I didnt feel emotional in anyways until the time came for me to say how I felt. I'm pretty sure I snorted a couple time, I'm pretty sure I stared off into space the whole time, and I'm pretty sure I will not be included in the video. It was bad. Im really hoping Im making a bigger deal out of it then it was....but Im pretty sure Im not!! I'm having a really hard time leaving this one at the pulpit.
But what I was TRYING to say was how great of an example she is to me and to everyone else around her. Sometimes I may feel tired from Tyson waking up once in the middle of the night and feel like staying home from Young Womens but she comes every single Tuesday no matter how she is feeling, no matter what she has gone through. I dont think there is a time I havent seen her doing something for someone else. She is simply amazing.

Forget me not

General Relief Society

Take a number please

Today I stopped by the fabric store and much to my surprise the entire store had been rearranged and "updated". After finding my way through the newly laid out fabric, I brought the ones I chose to the lady at the cutting table. There was only one other person in the store that was all the way at the other side of the store checking out. When I laid the fabric on the table the lady asked, "do you have a number?" Confused I told her no. She pointed to a number giving gadget and told me, "take a number please." 2 seconds after I took a number, a small screen above the ladies head started to flash "55". I looked at my number which happen to be...55! The lady walked all the way to the phone, got on the intercom and announced, "now serving number 55, now serving number 55." I looked around me and then again at my number and then handed her number 55. She smiled and said thank you and then proceeded to talk to me like this awkward moment had not just happened. As I was telling Kurt this story he laughed and reminded me of the above Meet the Parents moment! Funny but awkward!