Christmas party

A week and a half ago was our ward Christmas party, and Dani and I were happy to be there without the added stress of planning it this year! We sat front and center with the Browns during dinner - Jacob loved sitting at the table like a big boy!
Our kids ate a ton! They ate everything, too - rolls, veggies, salad, and ham.
Afterwards, they watched the ward talent show (or at least the first 3 performances):



We then walked with our kids around the gym with our kids, who were searching for anyone who would feed them chocolate. They found quite a few people who were glad to share! We were really just waiting for Santa!

Claire ran right up to Santa and happily sat on his lap.

Jacob would've rather just said, "Santa" and "Ho ho ho" from a distance.

Here's our family Christmas photo. And our christmas tree
We're looking forward to being in Wyoming this year for Christmas!

Random photos (and stories - worth a skim)

Here is Claire with her head in a mixing bowl
Jacob also thought the mixing bowl was better used as a hat. Side note: both of these mixing bowls are in a cupboard they are not allowed in (because months ago, Jacob threw one of these mixing bowls and cracked it pretty badly). Dani was upstairs for 10 minutes ago and came down to her kids laughing at each other and saying, "Hat."
This is a picture at Nana's from Thanksgiving weekend. Claire and Jacob were practicing for the big Turkey day... little did they know that they'd be sleeping through dinner!
They loved to sit up to their own table and play. They're really getting into make believe. Dani watched one day as Claire took one of her favorite stuffed animals (a monkey) over to table with the diapers in it. She took out a diaper, laid the monkey down, and tried to put the diaper on. Very cute!
Click on this picture and take a close look at that face Jacob is making - it's hilarious!

THANKSGIVING TURKEY-BOWL SHOUT-OUT: to my dad! For the first time ever, we had 4 Jensens on the same team, which proved to be a winning combination. The official Turkey Bowl patriarch (by multiple years, may I add) more than held his own, playing quarterback and guiding his team down the field with a very New-England-Patriots-like efficiency. He was the unanimous MVP of the Turkey Bowl. Good on ya, mate!

Once there was a Snowman (videos!)

Jacob loves this song! He's so excited that he's always a few beats ahead. The four or five times before these were recorded, Jacob would flatten himself on his belly by the first time I got to, "In the sun he melted," then he'd lay there until the end, pop himself up, clap, and beg for more.

Claire wasn't nearly as interested. She had places to go.

Walking in the Snow

We recently awoke to snow on the ground, so I took Claire and Jacob out on our deck to walk around a little bit in it.
Jacob wasn't sure he liked it very much. He liked to talk about it, but actually being in it didn't excite him.
Claire, on the other hand, marched right out and did some laps around the table. She loved crunching the snow under her feet (just like she loved crunching fallen leaves). Notice her little turned-out-feet walk (except Vicki, don't notice it because it'll make you worry)
Jacob just stood in the same place the whole time. I got him to move only when I held his hand. It was cold, but he really just didn't want to walk in the stuff!

Little artists

We posted the fingerpainting fun we had with the kids. A few weeks ago, I came home to some more art, hung on the wall! One day, the one on the top was there. The next day, Claire and Jacob done had their own individual art

How fun! Claire really went to town with the crayons.
Jacob grabs the crayons full-fisted and upside down, it's funny!
The table spread and prepared for some artwork!

Kiddos love being outside!

Jacob and Claire love to be outside. Claire is becoming a little bit of a tomboy when she's outside. She loves to play with the dirt, bring rocks and sticks back from the parks, pick flowers, and get dirty. Jacob isn't sure he loves the dirt much. He'd rather run around, bark at the dogs, and point at planes.

We got kiddos a little cozy coupe, and Jacob loved it! He's saying, "oooh," which involves making that little face that moves his mouth to the side. It's cute.
So is Claire. Especially when she takes a handful of dirt and shoves it in her mouth (and all over her face)
Another day, more throwing dirt

One of her favorite things to do is to empty the dirt from the potter (which, by the way, yielded 7 tomatoes from its 3 plants - which is an improvement from the last time we planted tomatoes). Notice this is pre-dirt eating (the second picture).
Crazy man

By the way, we're feeling grateful that our kids have gotten over their colds. Jacob and Claire traded the flu back and forth for almost 3 weeks. Jacob was constantly on the edge of a meltdown for an entire week, then Claire took a turn. They really weren't acting like themselves and it was not fun for anyone (except for Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales, which got more TV time than usual!). We're happy to have them feeling better and acting like the happy little energy-balls that we know and love! And Dani is glad to be able to go through a few days without Veggie Tales or Baby Einstein!

Pizza Party!

Months ago, I made up my mind that Dani and I were going to host a little pizza competition, and after much discussion, afew weeks ago, we finally hosted it! Everyone invited brought the pizza of their choice from a different restaurant. We ended up with 7 pizzas from Pizza Hut, Domino's, Donatos, The Works, Bravo (2), and LaRosas.

All the different pizzas looked pretty awesome in their boxes...

But once opened, it looked even better! What to choose...

A little slice of each, of course!

The Domino's pizza gave us the best story. The pizza was ordered for delivery and was late because it was not ordered from the Domino's that serviced our house, but they brought it anyway and included an order of Cinna-sticks. When we opened the box, there was a metal nut in the cheese (look just above and right of the middle of the pizza). Jamie Savage, who had ordered the pizza, called and informed them that there was a nut in our pizza, in it turned out that they had been looking for the nut because it had fallen off the pizza slicer! We ended up with yet another pizza at our house from Domino's!

In the end, I think that the Works might have been the winner, but it was certainly far from a consensus. It was lots of fun!

Candy!

Kiddos love Halloween candy!

Fingerpainting!

Kiddos did some fingerpainting recently. It was pretty entertaining! We got them into just diapers, set them in their high chairs, and gave them paint. We had to show them to dip their fingers, then go to the paper. Claire, of course, took a lick.
She also liked painting herself!
Their painting styles were very different. Claire liked to pat her paper, Jacob wanted to spread it all around

Thanks to Crayola's washable paints, the kiddos and high chairs came perfectly clean that night!

Dani's adventurous morning

Last week, Dani and Sara Brown planned on getting pictures of kids. This morning was the morning. It started off different than normal because Claire and Jacob needed baths since we had a babysitter last night so Dani could go to her interior decorating class and so I could do my Cub Scouts calling. After getting Claire out of the tub and spreading Magic Butt Cream over her bad diaper rash, Claire was basically inconsolable. So, with Jacob happily playing in the tub, Dani held and clalmed Claire down.

Upon returning to the tub, Dani saw Jacob drinking the water (which kiddos both love to do) - which had poop in it! (side note, this is tub-poop #3, all of which I have been absent for - and I'm there for almost all their baths!) Gross!!!

Dani said pictures were a mad-house with the 3 very busy toddlers. She said it was especially difficult to get one of Claire and Jacob close to each other. They're good buddies, but they don't like to have to be close to each other! We'll see later this week how the pictures turned out!

I'm just glad Dani is able to laugh at a morning like this one!

Learning and growing so fast

We've taught Claire and Jacob to say, "Please" (or "PEEEE!" in a really high-pitched voice) when they want something. If you're eating anything, or if there's something on the counter that they want, they'll walk up to you and say please. The next step, and certainly the more painful one, will be teaching them that saying please doesn't guarantee that they'll get what they want! We've already had a few big tantrums about that.

We're also trying to teach about prayer. Claire is pretty good at folding her arms at meal prayers. Jacob, not so much (he just wants to eat). Claire is also good for at least 1 prayer at church. Last Sunday, the person conducting the meeting stood up to welcome everyone, and Claire promptly folded her arms. It was very cute. When we said the first prayer, Claire again folded her arms, and then 6 seconds later, said "May-Men" and was off to read a book.

Here are some fun pictures of Claire with the Sockem-Boppers

They haven't figured out what they're supposed to be used for (yet).

Jacob looks like a little 4-year-old in this picture! They love having us put them up on these stools. So far, we've only had 1 little fall.
Cute Claire!
Jacob is seriously always on the phone. And when he's not, he's holding something (remotes, cars, his foot) up to his ear like it's a phone. Phones are a little bit of a problem toy at our house sometimes because Jacob likes to take them from Claire.
Dani thinks this picture of Claire and Jacob with their friend Abigail looks like one of those pictures from 100 years ago when you weren't allowed to smile at the camera, so we had to put it into black and white. Funny, huh?

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween! Claire was a flower and Jacob was a bee. After procrastinating until the day before, we ended up finding these cute costumes from a friend in the ward and from my sister Camie. Thanks guys!

Jacob really had very little interest in carrying his candy bucket around. Claire, however, didn't want to let go of it!

Our cute little flower! She's saying, "Shoe," which is said by sticking her tongue out and making a machine-gun-like noise.

Jacob and Nana. Both kiddos are always pointing at things. I think Jacob was hearing a doggie. He also points at cars, trees, and planes ("Pway?" - he always sounds like he's asking a question). Claire loves to point at the "Yee-ight" (light).

Kiddos' favorite part of Halloween, of course, was the candy! We were mean parents and have limited the candy intake, especially seeing how they wanted to wolf down the sweet tarts and licorice!

We first went to a friend's house for chili (it was yummy!) and a little get-together. Then, we went trick-or-treating at a number of houses. They really liked putting candy into their buckets, and Jacob especially saw no point in walking to another house when he could just transfer candy into his bucket at 1 stop! Claire eventually got it and would happily walk between houses; I don't think Jacob ever did! As always, we had lots of comments about our cute little kids!

Little buddies

2 posts in 1 day!

Kiddos love when their friend Abigail comes over! Jacob and Abigail chase each other around the house, and Claire joins in the fun when she feels like it (she likes having some time when Jacob is occupied!).

Abigail is good for Jacob - if you go back into the history, you'll see a picture just like this of Jacob hopping into Claire's lap!
This is at the pumpkin patch - Claire wanted nothing to do with being in a tight space with those two!

We watched Abigail recently, and they took a bath together. It was crazy!
Click on the picture to get a bigger image of the water flying!