Yearbook Mania

This is a blast! I have seen these before, but finally got motivated to do ours when my cousin Lisa posted her "Yearbook Youself" pics on her blog, and I thought they were so fun! Tanner loves Brandon's 1998. Brandon really likes 1990(mullet) of himself. He says he thinks he really had a sweater like that. Brandon's 1994 looks like an actual photo of him. It is so fun! I'm not sure which is the fave of myself. Maybe I could get some input on that? :) Comments welcome!

Horsey, Horsey...He's on his way!

My baby finally got to ride on a horse! He loves horses and here he is! He loves all animals in general but is pretty partial to horses right now. I'm just trying to savor every moment of his cute little 17-month old self. His little chubby hands and feet and the way he is still a baby, but is fast becoming a big boy. The way he says "hi" every time one of us comes into a room or comes home. The way he is constantly climbing on my lap with a story every chance he gets. The way he will still let me rock him when he is really tired. I just love him to pieces!

A Tribute To Dave

Dave is my stepfather and he passed away 10 YEARS ago today. Sometimes I can't believe it has been that long. He was an exceptional person and an all around fun man, but apparently he was needed more on the other side than he was here-although I think my mom has a bone to pick with someone on that subject! I wrote this little list quite a while back. It has some of my favorite memories and qualities about him. Although my children won't know their "Papa Dave" in this life, I have wanted to preserve some of my favorite memories about him as I've done with their other grandpas as well. Here are a few:

He loved to make breakfast and would always save me a pancake if I slept in.

We always had four-wheelers and for years I would have parties and have friends come over and also have the neighbors come and ride them. He was very generous with them and really enjoyed it when people had a fun time with them.

He loved Mexican food and knew how to find good guacamole and put salt on it! Yum! He is one of the reasons I love Mexican food so much.

He liked to dry the wet newspaper and other items off in the open oven! And it worked!

He loved to grill and was so good at it. (Even tried It in the house once-whoops!)

He loved to "tinker" in the garage and could fix anything.

He loved a good burger.

He loves my mom.

He was the epitome of true charity and would help anyone.

He was friendly, tolerant and respectful to all. He really was loved by many people.

He was one funny man and just plain made life fun! We still laugh at some of the things he said and did. We sure miss him!

P.S. Since it is game day, and he LOVED the Cougars...Go Cougars!!!

Little Cougar Fan

We start 'em young around here!



(You can pause our lovely Halloween music and please excuse my loud voice! Sheesh...)

Happy 8oth Birthday Grandma and Grandpa Jensen!

Grandpa and Grandma Jensen's birthday is in September just a few days apart, and Saturday it was a celebration of their 80th birthday! Brandon is pretty lucky. He still has ALL FOUR of his grandparents alive and well! I never even knew my grandpas so I am glad to know and love his. My kids won't have the opportunity to grow up with their own grandpas either so we are very thankful for these great-grandparents and love them lots!

Megan playing in the sand

The party was at Aunt Sue's house. She has a fabulous yard and playground for the kids. It is beautiful. The kids had a blast with cousins. The teeter totter was great fun! Here are Meg and Zach on the teeter totter.

Gavin loved the dragon statue!

Grandma and Grandpa opening their cards with Grandpa's sisters and Brandon's Aunt Sue in the background. They got a hot air balloon ride and Jazz tickets. Grandma was so excited to go to her 1st Jazz game! Yeah!

Eating cupcakes is fun!

Messy cutie pies!

They have this merry-go-round that is a blast! Check out the video if you can stand it!


It was a fun day!

Zach loves Lady Liberty

Zach loves the Statue of Liberty. He wanted to pose for a picture last week, complete with a book and a miniature light saber for his torch!

So if you can't get to New York, or Las Vegas, how about...Red Robin??? Yup. We ate at Red Robin this past summer and Zach remembered their version of the statue. There is a hamburger for a torch and a menu for the book! He settled for us finally taking him to eat there again to see this Lady Liberty. A grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate milk made the trip even more worth it for him!

At least it was much cheaper than a trip to New York or even Las Vegas for their small version at New York, New York Hotel/Casino. I remember being fascinated with the Statue of Liberty when I was a child. I was able to go see it in person 10 years ago, and it really is spectacular! A childhood dream fulfilled. I would love to do the same for Zach someday. He really wants to go to "Yew Nork" someday! He really CAN say it correctly, but haven't you ever gotten tongue tied and said it that way? I have.

Here I am heading out to the Statue of Liberty in August '98

Me & Meg at Red Robin

What a lucky boy!

Remember this guy?

Brandon e-mailed me this picture from last week's pre-game events. Curtis Brown is one of Tan's all time fave BYU players. Those are Tan's cousins: Noah and Xander with him. We have quite a few fun pictures like this with BYU players from various activities(I know...shocker!), but I really thought this one was especially cute!




The "Wicked Fun" post is below. I worked on it for a while, so if you tuned in and it wasn't there...sorry! Here it is now:

Wicked Fun Moments

As soon as I came home from my girls’ getaway trip to LA(see THIS post for details) to see Wicked, we downloaded the Wicked soundtrack off of iTunes for $10, burned it on a CD and it has been a mainstay in the van ever since. The twins have especially enjoyed the music and me telling them a little about the story and how I went to it. They both LOVE The Wizard of Oz so it has been very interesting for them to hear the music and story. If you haven't seen Wicked or don't know the story, it a re-imagining of L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the witches of the Land of Oz. If you have seen Wicked or at least know a bit about it, you may find these funny. Here are some funny moments since they've been listening to the music:
When Megan was listening to No One Mourns the Wicked, there is the part where Glinda is telling Elphaba’s story(that's the Wicked Witch of the West) and the chorus sings, “The baby is unnaturally…………..GREEN!” Megan said, “Mom why do they say that the baby is a MACARONI FREAK?”
No sweetie not macaroni...


They say, unnaturally GREEN!(although I always think of macaroni now!)








It is that time again…McDonald’s has the Madame Alexander miniature Wizard of Oz dolls. We collected them all last time, so here we go again! BTW, you don’t HAVE to buy a Happy Meal, you can purchase them alone. Last Sunday, Zach happened to slip in the church bag to sacrament meeting: the Wicked Witch of the East (Nessa Rose) and the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba) dolls. So during the meeting he was playing with them and it got a little out of hand when he started to sing his favorite Wicked song, Popular a wee bit TOO loud! I couldn’t help but chuckle!










Tonight at dinner, Megan was just about to say the prayer and Zach was singing, “Have another drink, my dark-eyed beauty, I’ve got one more night left here in town!”(again from No One Mourns the Wicked)…Brandon laughed and said, “Great song to be singing right before the prayer!”

The Twinners Through the Years

The twins just had their 5 year pictures taken. They have had their pictures taken together since birth. Oh, and separately also of course!

Here they are over the last five years:
2003
3 months


2004
1 year


2005
2 years


2006
3 years


2007
4 years


2008
5 years


I plan on doing this 'til they are AT LEAST 18!!! ;)

Summer Randoms

Well, it's probably because my camera is broken, because I am so lost without my camera! But I decided to post some random things I missed posting over the summer. After all, I didn't blog about Tan's baseball games or the kids' swimming lessons, or Brandon's trip to Boston, or some of our get togethers with cousins etc. So I call this "Summer Randoms" and I do so with a little touch of sadness to see the summer gone! This year, when I the kids and I first saw the Halloween things in the store we were actually a little ticked! We were just NOT ready. Now we are at least DISCUSSING costumes. The slideshow is running a little fast and I couldn't figure out why. Maybe I just picked a fast format. Farewell summer!