Thanks for the Markers Nana

...we LOVE them! Mom got a nice long nap in the car while we played with them. (we loved the rest of your car ride surprises too).

xoxo

Cousin Visit

Since blogger is somewhat cooperating today I can do a blog post. We had a great visit with cousins on our cross country trip. We only had one full day and two nights, but we fit in as much as possible. Jared's sister Camie and her family live in Minneapolis and we enjoyed our time visiting them.

Like I said... we fit in a lot of stuff, and the boy cousins were spent by the end of the day. Good thing they have each other to lean on.

We went to a great lake/pool with a beach that they have nearby... it was a fun place for the kids to play together. Claire and Lydia were looking very cute in their matching suits from Nana.
We had plenty of snack breaks... (Clayton was really enjoying just laying on the sand that day).
We also got to meet sweet baby Wyatt and see their beautiful home.
The cousins all played so hard together and had WAY too much fun sleeping in the same room (not as much sleeping as the parents had planned). We had a great time... Thanks for having us, we hope we can come back soon!

Leaving Cinci

So, I am really not a sentimental person, so leaving Cincinnati wasn't as hard for me as it maybe should have been, but it was still a hard thing. It was sad to see Claire's sad face as she sat in the car not wanting to say goodbye to Nana and Papa, and Nana's sad face as she was trying her best to be a supportive Mom and Nana but didn't want us to go. Papa and Nana were very forlorn the morning we left. We miss them (and Andrew).

Our car was packed to the max for the move with the back to seats folded down and the back chuck full of stuff, the car-top carrier up top and the bike rack on the back. By the time we were to Portland we had logged over 57 hours in the car (some of that was for the sake of fun vacation side trips)... Jacob and Claire were sooooo good, such troopers and only watched 2 movies in the whole 57 hours!
Our moving truck, which was also packed to the max... they packed it up then walked in the house and said "are those couches going?" They got them in, but barely and they were at the very top in the back.
One last picture with Uncle-T cutout!
Claire and Jacob really enjoyed spending our last few days at Nana's castle. They played to their hearts content and Claire found her favorite dress-up outfit ever ever.
We are loving it here in Oregon but we miss you family and friends in Ohio!

We made it

Sorry it has been so long since the last post.  We made it to Oregon, we are in our beautiful new house (finally) and surrounded by boxes.  There is so much to do.  I will have to post later about all of the fun vacationing we did on our way here and all of the people we got to visit.  I will also post the saga of getting into our house!  For now it is back to unpacking boxes!

Something About the Kids

Yesterday Jared pointed out to me that there has not been a post about our kids in awhile...I told him it was because our camera isn't working.  I am going to buy a new camera today, but in the mean time I am posting some pictures from April and some of what Jacob and Claire are up to lately.  

As I type this they are in there room dressing up... Nana gave them great dress ups for their birthday and now they love to dress up... Claire thinks princess dresses are the greatest and Jacob actually really likes to put on his knight and police costumes, he just doesn't like keeping them on for very long.  They have been so good at playing nicely together lately... they still have their fights, but they can really imagine up a great game of make believe that they both enjoy so much together.  A couple of days ago I went down to the basement to find them sitting in two small chairs that they had set up directly in front of a big cardboard box (we have a lot of those in our house right now) talking non-stop to each other about how they were watching TV and a movie.  Also last week they found a box full of packing peanuts and have been having a great time making huge messes playing 'popcorn'; the first day I found at least 12 containers (buckets, cups, tupperware, etc...) full of packing peanuts shoved in various places in the fridge because Jacob was 'freezing popcorn.'  

They say some pretty funny things, here are some of my favorites: tonight, tomorrow, tomorning....lasterday and sometimes it is even to-lasterday, for example..."oh mama, I said the prayer to-lasterday?"  
They also think (especially Claire) that the cream that we put on to protect our skin from the sun is 'sun scream'.  They both think that their tub toys and a hose 'squirk'.  For example "hehehe Jacob squirk me" (with the squirting tub toys).
I have to write this down because I know that someday I will find it funny... the thing that causes the most conflict between them right now is who gets the yogurt cup in the morning.  They split a yogurt every morning and one person gets it in a bowl and one person gets it in the cup that the yogurt comes in... you would not believe how important it is that I remember whose turn it is every day.  Somedays even if I do remember, my children do not and there is a MASSIVE meltdown about the yogurt cup... it is a VERY big issue and they yell at each other and me a lot about it.  Like I said... someday I may think it is funny.  Today was a good day though, we all agreed about whose turn it was to have the yogurt cup.
They are really learning and remembering a lot about the Book of Mormon stories that they read every night.  Their favorites are Ammon watching the sheep and cutting off the arms and Samuel the Lamanite standing on the wall and the people who are 'not very nice' shooting arrows at them.  Jacob has really gotten to the point that he will get excited looking at the pictures and exclaim "they gonna fight!?!?!"  He is such a boy.

I Can Finally Blog About This

Jared has now given his work notice, so I can make the official announcement, so... sound the trumpets, here it goes:  We are moving to the Portland Oregon area (in less than a month). Jared has accepted a job there and we are really excited about the move, it is such a great place! And... we have a house!  I LOVE my new house.

Here it is!
Here is our small, but flat and fenced backyard (lots in Portland are really small).  That awning is retractable and the patio wraps around the side of the house.
This is the front door and the front room.
The view from the front door to the dining room and the opening to the living room/kitchen.
My (drool) Kitchen... I love this kitchen!  It is such a beautiful kitchen and I can't believe I am going to get to use it!
More of the kitchen.
This is from the living room, you can see the light where the eat in area of the kitchen is and the stairs to upstairs on the right.
The living room.
Master Bath.
Master Bath (I am so excited to have a tub in my bathroom, right now we only have a shower).

The big master bedroom looking to the sitting area and bathroom.
Same room from the opposite view.
The landing at the top of the stairs.  You can see three of the bedrooms and the vaulted area from the entry, the bathroom is to the right and the master is behind.  I have a ton of pictures, but I am sure I am much more interested in them than all of you are... so there it is!!!  We have about 15 days before we load the moving truck and about 1 month before we move into this house... we have a family vacation in Montana on our way to Oregon... so busy, but so exciting!!!

WAY BEHIND

Did you ever notice that the farther behind you get, the harder it is to motivate yourself to start the catch up... so you just get farther behind.  Anyhow, it seems as though most all of my blogs lately have started with a disclaimer about how far behind I am!  We have been very busy lately, so here is a quick rundown of everything:

We have been working really hard on our house!  It looks GREAT!

We had our annual trip to Red River Gorge, this year we had two cabins and went with the Lesans, Cupps, Forbes, Guffeys, and Bluedorns.  It was so much fun and we did all of our favorite hikes, had lots of yummy food (including our traditional dutch oven dinner with fire cooked corn on the cob), canoed, played games (not forgetting the ipod game), relaxed, spent lots of time around the fire, tried to keep the children at least alive (they had a lot of fun together), and attended the teeny tiny branch nearby.  A successful trip!

We have had lots of visitors... my parents came to visit with my oldest niece for about 10 days... we made them all very busy days.  We spent a full day at Kings Island, we went to church and I performed with a small choral group.  We shopped and ran errand, we went to the new Wake Nation (a boatless wake-boarding park) in Fairfield for their grand opening and watched lots of world class wake-boarders and wake-skaters perform.  We went to the zoo, ate out and in (lots of good food) spent time swimming in Nana's pool, went to the movie "UP" (took Jacob and Claire to the theater for the first time... they did not even blink!), and did more errands and shopping.  We also took a weekend trip to Chicago where we spent an afternoon at Navy Pier taking a shoreline boat tour, eating yummy things, watching people, mini golfing (first time for Jacob and Claire... quite an experience... we didn't keep score), driving little toy boats, and riding a giant ferris wheel.  We stayed with my Aunt and Uncle and then took the train downtown on Saturday to go to the Aquarium for a large part of the day and then have many fun times with public transportation (first subway ride for many... complete with totally drunk bum who insisted on having a conversation for the entire ride) to get to Due's pizza, take a quick walk to ESPN zone or Michigan Ave while we wait for our pizza, enjoy the goodness that is Chicago pizza, and then take the long hike back to the train.  We got to see Pat, a friend of Jared's, in Chicago.  On Sunday our attempts to go to church were foiled by a dead car battery; my cousin came down for a big brunch and then we set out for home... on our way we stopped in Lafayette to visit an old BYU friend from Argentina who is doing his PHD at Purdue.  Martin is still very much the same.

The first weekend that my parents were in town Jared's cousin Devin and his wife Nicole came to visit, so we spent the day with them at Kings Island too!  It was a fun time.  

We also got to have a quick visit with Barry, Bridgette, and Ryan on the way home from Ryan's mission.  It was great to have a quick visit with them.

Other than all of those things we have just been working to keep the house clean and I have been spending some sunny days at the pool with Holly!  Summer is here!

Unfortunately when we were in Chicago our memory card in our camera decided to go totally blank and stop working, so I lost every single picture from Red River Gorge, Wake Nation, and Chicago.  The pictures I have to share are a few my mom took while she was here.

Our visit with Martin.
Navy Pier.
Grandpa and Jacob at the zoo.  There is something so satisfying about watching someone else wrestle to keep him under control.
Claire in anticipation of the ride on the zoo train.

Kylie, Mom, and I at the zoo.

3 Year Pictures

We had 3 year pictures taken on the kids birthday... like always it was a lot of work for a few ok pictures, I have lots of blooper pictures to post, but here are the best ones we got.

Yep... This really is one of the best ones, Jacob had a death grip on her and it was smashing her face.
He is pretty easy to get a good picture of, so I have a couple good ones of him that I am not posting... it is not because he will hold still, it is just because he happens to be photogenic.
The one good one we got of Claire... she is such a big girl now, she is really losing her toddler look.
These are there Easter outfits by the way.
We've had better, but it could be worse.  At least you can see what everyone is looking like right now!

The New Addition!

Yesterday the newest addition to the Jensen family was born!  Jared's sister Camie had a baby boy and we are all so excited to meet him!  Congratulations Camie and Matt!  You now have a family of 5... WOW!  If you know Camie and want the details she has them posted on her blog!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Today is my sweetheart's birthday!  He is 28.  I love him!  In honor of his birthday I decided to mix some of my favorite pictures of him with 28 of my favorite things about him, so... in no particular order, here it goes:

1) He is a really good Daddy.

2) He is passionate about sports... I love his enthusiasm about them.

3)He can talk to anybody about anything... he makes friends with perfect strangers in minutes.

4) Kids love him... he is a favorite among many of our friends' kids, they flock to him.

5) He is smart... REALLY smart.

6) He isn't afraid to be silly.
7) He makes me laugh.

8) He's Hot!

9) He laughs as hard as his kids when they play together. (they laugh really hard)

10) He works hard to provide for me and kiddos.
11) He loves to mountain bike (he taught me to love it).

12) He loves to ski (we love to do this together).

13) He loves to dress up for crazy parties... he loves parties in general!
14) His eyes are beautiful blue.

15) He loves his family.

16) He is so patient with his kids.
17) He calms me and reminds me not to be to serious.

18) He can remember just about any number. (I always tell him if we had conversations in #'s he would remember them).

19) His face lights up when he throws a baseball, football, or frisbee... really, lights up!
20) He cares about other people.

21) Stories about children that are sick, orphaned, in poverty, etc... really effect him and fire him up to want to do something.
22) He loves to teach me things... like accounting laws, economic ideas, baseball plays, etc...

23) He encourages me to do things for myself.

24) He has a very competitive spirit and loves to play games.
25) He is a really good friend.

26) He tells me thank you for every meal and quite often does the dishes.

27) He always remembers to say "I love you".

28) He makes me want to do better and be better... he lives by example.
Happy Birthday Tub!  I love you!