Wonderful Photographer...Grandma!

Did you notice the new photos on my blog of the children? Our wonderfully talented photographer is none other than our Grandma Ryan. She lives in Syracuse near Layton, Utah. She always does such a wonderful job with our photos! Thanks Grandma! Her blog is carrie-ryan.blogspot.com. She is for hire! The beach photos were taken at Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake, with tons of little gnats flying all over the place, but you can't tell can you?!

Computer time

This week while I have been glued to the TV watching the Australian Open, Bryant has discovered his love of Nickjr.com and pbskids.com... The poor child has been so neglected this week and one more week to go still. But, I did get my ironing done!

CrAzY hair day

Last week was Spirit week at Sydney's school and this is what she came up with all on her own...no help from mom at all!

Here's To Forty Years!

This is me at forty. We went to Portland for the day last weekend to cheer up Nana and Papa. Looking at this photo of myself I am determined to lose twenty pounds or more so I can feel healthier, have more energy, have a hot flat bottomed body (good thing Todd isn't a booty-man, he he), be able to wear a swimsuit this summer without feeling self conscious, and so I can go shopping!!! I had a great birthday and thanks to my good friend Ali for cooking dinner, we had a great time!

New Crown...

Okay...what we have here is my drilled down stub of a tooth, the one in the middle. Two weeks ago I sat in the chair for an hour and a half while they replaced the filling in the middle of the center tooth from the photo. After the filling was done they then drilled and sanded my tooth down to a stub, molded my tooth and fitted me with a temporary crown. Today I went in and once again I can't feel the whole right side of my head! This is a great deterant to eating... who wants to eat when you can't taste a thing?! They removed the temporary crown and fitted my nice wonderful permanent crown! My dentist found it quite funny that I would ask for a photo of my tooth stub. No one has ever asked before! I didn't tell him I wanted to blog about it though. I find this whole ordeal fitting as I turned 40 years old yesterday! What will need fixing next?

DVD's + Train tracks = Taylor's involved somehow

Reflections Art Project

As I mentioned before, Sydney made it to District with her pen and paper drawing. The theme was "Beauty is..." The children could use art, photography, music composition, or literature to express their interpretation of the theme. The top 50 participants out of hundreds were invited to attend the awards ceremony, they all left with a ribbon and certificate. Sydney was pretty excited, even with her Honorable Mention!

The boy on the far left and Sydney on the far right were both from our school in the top three in the art catagory. The boy in the middle continued on to the state level of competition.

This is our friend Josh from church who entered a photograph of the sunset at Cannon beach. And we didn't think we'd know anyone! He attends another school in the area.

Sumo Wrestling...Jensen style!

This is what my kids have been up to lately. Syd is always the referee!

And he's down for the count!

New Year... new job!

Bryant has a new job around the house...unloading the dishwasher!

Christmas 2009

Christmas morning the children woke up early and came in to get us and we kicked them out and said they had to wait until the clock said 7am! So, we lay in bed making them wait! Here they are waiting for mom and the camera to get into position...

Santa brought Sydney her Felicity book set and Bryant got a marble maze!

I think Sydney was just a tad bit excited about receiving her Snuggie, child size too!

Taylor got a tool box with some whittling tools from Santa!

I decided Tay was too old to be walking the hall to her room after a shower in a towel, she loves her super soft robe!

What would Christmas be without Sydney adding to her expansive Littlest Pet shop collection?

All Bryant wanted for Christmas was Star Wars The Clone Wars toys, a marble maze and a race track (his track from Nana & Papa broke already).

Let me tell you a little story... One day not too long before Christmas Todd called me from work and said, "I got you your Christmas gift today". I said, "Really?", knowing he never shops early or at all. I usually buy my own gifts. So I was a bit impressed, thinking he's finally getting it! He says, "Do you want to know what I got you?". I responded with a "sure". "I bought you a new da, da, da fly fishing reel!". I was stunned into silence as you can imagine! Wow! Then I said, "Oh, you mean you bought yourself a new fly reel for Christmas." Then when it came in the mail, I wrapped it, put his name on it and put it under the tree. Christmas morning as he was opening the gift... he started laughing and said "You wrapped the reel for me?" You bet honey, Merry christmas!

We had the kids open a gift together that had new snow gloves in it. Then we explained that we were taking a trip with the Hansen family to take skiing/snowboarding lessons at Mt. Baker! They were excited, especially Taylor who has been asking for a snowboard for years now!

After we opened our gifts and had breakfast, we loaded up the car and drove to Walla Walla to see the Ryan family. This is Christmas dinner at the kids tables.

What is Christmas without performing the Nativity scene from Luke.

Mario Kart... times four!

Wrestling Uncle Ben was a huge hit. There are about three kids that were on him that are now on the floor with him behind the ottoman.

Grandma brought her shadow puppets book and they all had to take a go at it.

Can you see how excited Sydney is at her glitter white elephant gift?! he he! Mom ended up with a Jesus night light that we are saving for the Rigtrup party next year, it is so cool! All in all, we had a great trip to see family!