The night before Christmas

Before we get to Christmas day, we need to show the show Jacob and Claire put on in the Jensen Family's annual Christmas Eve Party show.  My parents have a tradition of having two families over on Christmas Eve, and we all do some sort of talent for the show.  Claire and Jacob made their debut this year... over and over! 

 

After hearing the applause, they each had to do a solo!

Notice the M&M's below - Claire started taking M&M's after every performance, so I think that's one reason she wanted to perform so many times!  She loves candy!

They did another duet upstairs, then when the show moved downstairs, they did another duet on the hearth.  I think it's funny how Jacob bows - he did this after every time!

HAPPY (early) BIRTHDAY DANI!!!

Dani turns 26 on Christmas day - since her birthday often gets overlooked, I decided to dedicate a post to her a couple days early with some of my favorite pictures of her

- Mexico.  Awww, cute.
- Red River Gorge, KY.  This is something I know she would love to do more of - maybe without having to carry a child on her back, though!  I love that Dani loves to be outside.
- I love her cheesy happy smile face.  Her eyes can light up a room.

- I love that Dani loves to entertain others, whether it is throwing an Olympics party, a golden birthday party, an ugly Christmas Sweater Party, murder mysteries, or dressing up as Vanna White, and making her friend do likewise, for a ward relief society party.  She throwing parties and thinking of ways for people to have fun.

- She loves to do the hold-the-camera-out-and-take-a-picture-of-yourself thing.

- I had lots of pictures to choose from - not as many that got her in the picture, though!

Happy Birthday to a loving wife, mother, and best friend.

Story time with Nana and Papa

One of the few times we can get our kids to hold still is when reading.  Here they are reading with Papa

Nana was the third person to read Claire this book in 10 minutes! 
He may be still, but he's up to something - click on the picture and get a look at that face!

Jacob-style reading - watch his legs never stop moving!

Ploby Super So Blogging

This post is dedicated to what these two are up to.

Claire's favorite thing to say might be "ploby" (trans. Probably) but she uses it for most everything, not just things that are probably.  Example: I just went downstairs to where my children use the lamp as a 'music stand'  holding a board book (aka music) to sing or 'play oboe' (a sippy cup, block, etc...).  Anyhow, they knocked down some pictures from the music stand and when I walked up Claire declares "they ploby fall down."  She also told me earlier that the rubber band for her hair was "ploby Claire's" and that the big one that she knows is mine is "ploby mommy's."

Jacob's ploby favorite thing to say is..."super so".  Usually he uses this if he is "super so stinky." Sometimes he is "super so playing" or his lunch is "super so yummy."  The best part of when he is 'super so stinky' though is the way that he says it.  It is a deep throaty "AH oHHH SICK, I super so stinky, sick mommy."
Claire also likes to repeat everything you say, so if you are on the phone or reading a book or if Jared and I are having a conversation at dinner or in the car there is a constant quiet mumble happening as Claire tries to quietly repeat every single word.  She has also started singing about everything...usually to the tune of ABC/twinkle twinkle.
Jacob has started to break out in song.  He is always singing something that I had no idea he knew and I have to rack my brain to figure out where he would have heard it.  Yesterday I was sitting next to him and he sang "glory to God, glory to God, glory to God" over and over, I figured out that he was singing "Far Far Away on Judea's Plains" and I sang "Peace On Earth" which finally moved him on from the "Glory to God" part.  I think we sang it either in church on Sunday or at a concert on Sunday.  He has a good memory.

Their favorite things to play together are:

*making and eating a meal (usually their beads are marshmallows or their blocks are nuggets, etc...)

*Playing oboe and singing at the music stand

*night night, they like to put each other and me to bed and they have been dragging blankets, bears, and pillows all over the house and they go through every motion (even a prayer and a drink of water).

*Going on a trip.  They pack up their suitcases or their back packs with random small toys and then come tell me that they are going on a trip and to give them a kissy and say "I love you" then they walk off and go either upstairs or downstairs then return to start over with packing up. (sometimes they are going to work, usually if there are a pair of daddy's shoes around to wear on the trip.)

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

So, we started what is to be an annual occasion last week.  We kicked off the Christmas season with an Ugly Christmas Sweater Party and it was a huge success (if I do say so myself).  We had ugly tablecloths and wall hangings to set the mood.  We ate soups, appetizers, and lots of yummy Christmas treats (thank to all of you who helped out with that).  We had a white elephant gift exchange, and ugliest sweater contest, and a rousing game of Christmas Bunko. Everyone seemed to have a great time and I loved the sweaters that people came up with. 

Here are the invitations that I made.

Some of the girls playing Bunko.
Lucky Kyle picked this box to open, he didn't keep it for long though!
Another table during Bunko (do you love the hat for traveling Bunko?).
This was one of the great white elephant gifts!

Yes, I am aware that there are a million pictures on this post and I apologize that I am not smart enough to know how to do one of those blog slideshow thingies, but I wanted to make sure that we didn't leave out any of the great sweaters (I think we missed pictures of a few), so for your viewing pleasure, here are some of the great sweaters that appeared (vests and sweatshirts were allowed).







(sorry that this picture is blurry, I have one in focus but they are sitting down so you can't see how gloriously short Nick's vest is)



Now, which sweater do you think was the winner of the 'Ugliest Sweater Contest'?

Thanksgiving Pictures

So, again, I know that this is late, but here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving, it was our first time hosting a Thanksgiving and it was a huge sucess.  We had our friends the Cupps and the Nickles come for dinner and everyone contributed to the dinner making it very low stress and very yummy for all of us.  Here is the whole crew (Jacob is behind Jared) and my seat is next to Claire.

We had a perfectly cooked turkey (moist and flavorful), homemade cornbread stuffing, Cranberry pomegranate grape salad, sweet potatoes with a sugar pecan topping, whole grain rolls, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy, and pickles and olives.  Here is Jared carving a turkey for the first time.
We all had a great dinner and talked for awhile and watched football, then we got ourselves and our kids in their pj's and watched "Elf" while we ate the delicious chocolate mousse cake and pumpkin pie that we had for dessert.

So, I feel so ungrateful because Thanksgiving has come and gone and I have not posted one thing that I am thankful for, so here is a short list:

*Great family and family that is close by

*Great friend that leave near and great friends that live far

*Two beautiful, healthy, hilarious children

*Jared, he is a great husband, daddy, provider, and friend.

*Potties (even though they don't always get use when they need to, I change ALOT less diapers

*Blogs...I am excited for Christmas cards, but I feel like I know what most everyone is up to

*Food..I LOVE food

*The gospel of Jesus Christ

*My Savior Jesus Christ

..Stay tuned for pictures of our latest party...

Too Much Temptation

We put up our Christmas tree on Monday for FHE and Jacob and Claire were beside themselves with excitement.  I have been constantly coaching them about not touching the tree or the nativity set or any of the decorations.  This morning I woke up just after 8 to a totally silent house…bad bad news.  I just knew that my two little sneaky stinkers had made their way downstairs as quietly as possible instead of waking me up like they do every other morning.  I ran downstairs and found two little children undecorating the tree, they probably had almost 20 ornaments off, one of them in about 40 pieces (luckily it was an ugly nutcracker bulb that I got for free on fountain square one summer).  They really new they were in trouble because they sat in total silence as they watched me put all of the ornaments back on.  I then had to give them a good talking to about how I could never use the ornament again because it was broken and they are not to touch the tree but only to look at it.  Anyway…they have their own little Little People Nativity set that is for them to play with that I keep finding characters mixed in with my nice Willow Tree Nativity Set.  Now they keep setting up the pieces from their Little People set on tables all over the house and telling me “No Touch my decorations Mom.” Oh Brother!