Here we are at our ward (church) Halloween party with Stillman and Michelle's family.
Katie wanted to dress as a Carebear again this year:
A great family pic (thanks to Michelle for enhancing our photo):
Trunk or treating:
The cake walk:
Katie with her yummy cupcake:
We opted to go trick or treating on the 30th (Saturday). Curtis and Deedra's family joined us for pizza and then the guys took the kids out trick or treating while the gals stayed home to pass out candy and watch a movie.
Nikki was dressed as a princess so Katie wanted to wear her dress up clothes too instead of the Carebear costume. She choose a cheerleader (princess) outfit.
As I was putting Katelynn to bed tonight she kept wanting to talk. So I said - Okay you can tell me one more thing and then it is time to go to sleep. Here's what she said: "Mommy, I want to go to Hong Kong." (Today she had watched an episode of What's New Scooby-D00 where they went to Hong Kong - in fact it's her favorite episode). I got a good chuckle out of it. (I'm still smiling about it).
Chris and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary in August. First we went to Olive Garden for lunch. Chris had lasagna and I had ravioli di portobello - mmmm - they were good. And Katelynn had mac & cheese. Then we went to a theater to see a movie called "How To Train Your Dragon". We loved it! Very good movie! Definitely recommend it to anyone.
Here we are at the restaurant:
Later we went to Wahooz. Chris and Katie rode on the go-carts.
And we all played a round of miniature golf.
(Katie's clapping for me in the background).
We had a great day!
Later that week we celebrated Grandpa and Grandma's 60th Wedding anniversary (celebrated a few weeks early - it's actually in September). I made them a cake. There was a lot of good food and memories shared. And it was fun to see so much of the family.
Hi everyone. Sorry it's been so long since we've posted anything. Things have been a little crazy lately. I hope to get a good post on soon. But for now I've got a funny little story.... Katelynn is very artistic. She's always drawing and coloring. I've been trying to teach her not to color on herself, specifically with markers. She keeps coloring her fingernails and toenails. She loves to have me paint her nails but I just don't get it done as often as she would like (which would be everytime a little bit of nail polish wears off :-) So I put the markers up for a while and told her as soon as she can be a big girl and not color on herself I'll let her use the markers again. So we tried again the other day. I let her do some coloring with the markers to see if she can be a big girl and not color on herself. But true to form I find her with colored fingernails and toenails again. Blue fingernails and red toenails. So I take the markers away from her again and go on with the day. Later at bedtime when I am helping her get her pajamas on guess what I discovered? She had also colored in her belly button. She has a blue belly button. So so funny!!!!
We had a Happy Fathers Day for Chris. We celebrated a couple days early. The Friday evening before Fathers Day we went to the Pita Pit. It was really good.
Katie and I made him a card and a pen holder for work. We also got him some Home Improvements shows on DVD (with Tim Allen). Happy Father's Day to a wonderful husband and father.
We went to Utah for my Grandpa Hansen's funeral the weekend before last. The funeral was very nice. I loved hearing stories about Grandpa's life. He lived a fulfilling life. Here is what was said about him in his Obituary (sent to by my Aunt Karen):
Obituary for Omar Milton Hansen
Omar Hansen, devoted husband, father, former Springville High chemistry and physics teacher and principal,B.Y. High teacher, Art Museum board member, Kiwanis Club member and WWII Navy Officer passed away peacefully, June 1, 2010.
Born in Provo in 1922, Omar married his high school sweetheart, LaVon Gurr in the SLCTemple.
Following 3 years of Navy service in the Pacific, he was awarded the Bronze Star for valor as gunnery officer aboard the USS Brown. Omar and LaVon then settled in Springville.
Omar loved his family, his students and nature.Each day was an adventure: camping, scouting, water skiing, hunting, fishing and snow skiing.He shared his appreciation for the beauty around him by capturing the color, texture and feeling of life in art.He produced over 90 paintings of Utah mountains and other scenery, several winning awards at Art shows.
He is survived by his wife, 4 siblings: June Henrichsen, Victor, Roger, Patrick; seven children: Robert, Judy, Craig, Deanna, Marsha, Gilbert, Spencer; 39 grandchildren; 65 great grandchildren.
Here's a picture from his funeral (they are folding the flag)
Cousins:
On Friday after the funeral we went to my brother Derek's house and hung out to play games and watch a movie (National Treasure) with most of my siblings and their families and my mom. It was fun. Derek and Rachel have a lovely new home.
On Saturday we hung out with Stillman and Michelle's family. We ate at Chuck Arama:
We visited the Clark Planetarium. We went by train (Trax).
Here's Katie and Alex hanging out on Mars:
Walking on the moon:
We also visited one of the visitor centers on Temple Square. I thought this was a really neat picture:
And we watched the Joseph Smith movie at the Legacy Theater. Very good. Very touching. Later that night we watched National Treasure 2 and went swimming at the Condo. It was a very memorable and fun weekend. Thanks so much to Stillman and Michelle for letting us carpool with you. It was fun to ride together.
Some of my memories of Grandpa and Grandma Hansen:
Camping; hiking at Bryce and Zion Canyons; swimming in a creek on one of those outings (we had fun pouring Grandpa's hat full of water onto his head - especially Melissa and Derek had fun with this, we also had lots of fun trying to catch pollywogs); visiting a dinosaur museum and an aircraft museum; Grandpa's hotdog mustard joke; Grandpa's magic tricks with his fingers; Grandpa pretending to be a car - a few of us would hop on his back and he would pretend he was a car driving and then get a flat tire and we would have to get off and fix the tire and blow it up and then get back on and drive some more - we thought that was the funnest game ever; hiking Y mountain (driving to Utah we always watched for Y mountain because we knew we were getting close to Grandpa and Grandma's house); playing on the playground at the park that was just behind their house; the cuckoo clock; I remember fresh air coming in through the open windows; sleeping in the camper in the driveway; the mural painting in their driveway of Lake Powell; bear and deer heads in the den; playing computer games in the den; sitting at the barstools in the kitchen to eat or on the little table and chairs on the back patio - I remember begging Grandma for more sugar on our Cheerios; the marble rolling game; building with Legos; the family reunion at Bear Lake; visiting the art museum; Grandpa and one of my uncles took my wedding pictures; Grandpa asked me what I wanted a painting of and I told him a waterfall, he gave me a painting of Bridal Veil Falls; we visited Bridal Veil Falls twice with Grandpa, Grandma and Mom; family reunions.
Thanks for all the love you showed to us grandkids. I love you Grandpa and Grandma Hansen.
My Grandpa Hansen just passed away this morning. I'm so glad we were able to see him last year at the Hansen Family Reunion. I love my Grandpa and Grandma Hansen very much and have fond memories of them - especially from the visits we had when I was a kid. I'll share some memories in a future post. We love you Grandpa! Here are some pictures taken last summer at the reunion and at his house.
I hope everyone had a great mothers day! I had a great one. Most of my surprises came on Saturday. Chris and Katie picked out flowers for me to have planted in the garden (Katie picked up one for herself too) and made me a card. Then Chris and Katie planted the flowers in the front by the rose bushes. Later we went to the book store and I got a new CD by Jessie Clark Funk called "Everything Speaks His Name". I love her! Now I have 2 of her CD's (the other one is called "You Know Better Than I" - I love them both). Then we went out to Wendy's for dinner and Dairy Queen for dessert. I had my new favorite flavor of Blizzard: chocolate covered strawberry - mmmmm - chocolate and strawberries - the best! After that we redboxed "The Princess and the Frog". It was a pretty cute movie. Thanks for the great mothers day Chris and Katelynn! Sorry I didn't get any pictures. But here's a youtube video of one of the songs from my new CD:
April Showers bring May flowers….. right?I sure hope so.April has been a difficult month.To make a long story short: the day after Katie’s party I started feeling sick.By the end of the week I was pretty miserable and went to the doctor Easter morning.We thought it was strep and I started taking antibiotics.Later in the week I started feeling worse so I went back to the doctor and had some more tests done and it was discovered that I got mono.So I stopped the antibiotics and I had to have bed rest for 4 days without watching any kids.I have slowly been recovering and I am feeling a lot better.I am still quite fatigued and have to get naps in whenever I can.I also discovered about 8 canker sores in my mouth just over a week ago (just when I was starting to feel better from the mono symptoms).Thank goodness those are starting to go away now.I can’t wait till I can eat without pain.It takes the bad to appreciate the good.I am so thankful that I am pretty healthy most of the time.I want to thank everyone who helped with watching kids, bringing food and for everyone that called or emailed to see how I was doing.I appreciate and love you all.
To top off April: our oven burned out.But hey – it went out in style and we got a light show.Last night we were cooking a pizza and we noticed the coils in the oven were sparking.So we figured we better clean the oven out next weekend.It sparked the whole time we were cooking the pizza and was sparking in different places and kept moving along the coils, which was making us pretty nervous.When the pizza was done we turned the oven off and it was still sparking and the coils were still red and it was starting to burn the coils right up.Chris poured baking soda on it but it didn’t help.Then he unplugged the oven and it finally went out.Check out the pics:
Katie was so distraught that the oven was broken - she started to cry. We told her not to worry we'd get a new one. We'll be going oven shopping tomorrow.
Katie had a great birthday.The Friday before her birthday we took her to the dollar store to pick out a balloon.Then we took her to Artic Circle for ice cream cones and she also got a pack of Starbursts at Wal-Mart.The next day we went to the church in the morning for an Easter breakfast and egg hunt.Then we spent the afternoon getting ready for Katie’s party.She kept telling me for about a month that she wanted a dinosaur birthday cake.She loves dinosaurs and The Land Before Time movies.So I made her a dinosaur cake and we decorated the kitchen with color sheets of dinosaurs and green streamers.She loved helping to decorate for her party.During the party we had a Land Before Time movie playing for the kids and they got to color Land Before Time color sheets.
Here she is with her balloon:
Family pic:
Blowing out the candles:
Loves those new shades:
And her most favorite present:
After the party we took her for a ride on her new bike. She was loving it (and still partying - you can see the party blower in her mouth)
We went to story time at the library on Wednesday and all the kids got free helmets from St. Luke's. The ladies were very nice and fitted the helmets to their heads too. Katie's has plants and ladybugs, butterflies and flowers on it. Here she is riding her cousin Nikki's scooter last night.
Ever wonder what your floor might look like covered in cake and frosting? Well though I did think about taking a picture, I was too upset and I felt like I didn't want to remember this at the time.
Katie and one of the little girls I babysit (who is Katie's age) come into my room while I'm doing my hair and makeup and Katie informs me that they had some cake. (This was leftover cake from a church party from the night before). So I put them in timeout and reminded them they are not to get into food without permission. (They had just had snack time not too long before too). Then I went downstairs and saw cake crumbs and frosting strewn all across the living room and kitchen floors. And I mean all over. After putting them back in timeout, I had to carpet clean and mop the floors - I figured sweeping and vacuuming would only make it worse. I had the girls sit out of the way on the stairs or couch while I cleaned (I didn't want them to step in it). Eventually one ended up asleep on the couch and the other (Katie) finally took a nap in her room. It takes time to carpet clean with a hand held carpet cleaner. Definitely considering getting a full size one. And to top it all off I also discovered they had pulled dirty dishes from the dishwasher to plate their cake with. Errrr! I guess this is payback for when my brother and I smeared shortening all over the house when we were kids. (Sorry about that by the way). Too many times kids just don't think about the consequences of their actions. Later after I had it all cleaned up I asked Katie were you guys throwing the cake or something? She replied - no, it just got on our feet. Trust me it was a mess! But on the bright side - my floors are nice and clean now.
I had a great birthday! We went to the temple and out to dinner at Applebee's restaurant. Thanks dad and mom for coming with us. I had a yummy pasta dish and Chris had a hamburger. And we all shared my birthday dessert which was a really big chocolate chip cookie with ice cream, chocolate syrup and whip cream on top. MMMM! I got some Celtic Woman CD's from Chris; and from dad and mom I got a journal, notepad, bath soap and lotion. And best of all - Chris surprised me with a new wedding ring! I lost mine last summer when we went on vacation. I love my new ring! And I love that Chris picked it out and surprised me with it. (He actually gave me the ring last week so we could get it sized and ready to wear before my birthday).
Katie has become quite the artist. She is always coloring and drawing pictures. This time she decided to try out a little drawing on herself. Chris and I started laughing and had to get a picture. (With a reminder not to draw on herself again please). Luckily it came off pretty easily with some diaper wipes.
We've been getting cabin fever. Here's a picture from last month. We took Katie to the park for about a half hour. It was so nice to get out.
This picture was taken in January. We send Katie to her room occasionally for some quiet time (hopefully take a nap time). Most of the time she just plays. She pulled all of the towels and sheets off the bottom shelf. And here is where we found her fast asleep:
Other news: Chris is enjoying his new job. We are thankful to both have jobs and hope that Chris will be able to find a permanent job by the time this one ends. Things are going very well with me watching 2 kids now and doing preschool with the older sibling and Katie. They love it! And Katie loves having a girl just her age to play with every week day. They have a lot of fun together. And I am really enjoying teaching them preschool.
Here's a little update on what we've been up to. Chris got a temporary job with the state that will last till the end of June. Tamara has been watching a little girl since the summer and starting next week will be watching her sister too. Tamara has been real busy getting ready for her to come as she'll be teaching preschool to her and Katelynn. (She's been getting preschool curriculum materials and supplies, and reading through the lessons). Katie is going to love preschool. Tamara has been doing a little bit of preschool with her but now she'll be doing a lot more.
Here's an update on things Katie has been saying or doing lately: She says last day instead of yesterday. She draws people - very cute - circles with arms and legs and faces. She is finally learning how to wear big girl panties. Yay! She absolutely loves to color with markers. It's just so much more fun than crayons.
We are so very thankful for all our blessings! Happy Valentine's Day!
Here we are at our ward (church) Halloween party with Stillman and Michelle's family.
Katie wanted to dress as a Carebear again this year:
