The Harrison Free Press

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile

2010-10-10T15:59:00.002-06:00

So it's been awhile since I have posted. It's not that I haven't wanted to. It just seems like life always seems to get in the way. Here are a few things we have been up to the last few months (sorry about the lack of pictures. You are lucky to get this update!)

Ben
Ben has become such a big boy although he sounds like a little girl. He loves to "sing" all of the time which consists of a whole lot of screaming.
He loves to play hide and seek. All you have to do is start counting and he will either run and hide or run to find Nena (aka Jenna). He is quite the cheater but that is okay.
The kid eats a TON! Total opposite of Jenna who won't eat anything. When we get home in the afternoon, he goes straight to the cupboard and pretty much stays there until dinner time when he gets in his chair to eat dinner after his afternoon of snacking. I am scared for what he is going to be like as a teenager.
He is such a happy little boy. He loves to give and receive kisses. Today in church, it was perfectly quiet when Ben decides he needs to give me a giant kiss. The problem is, his kisses are actually "zerberts"--he will put his mouth on your cheek and just blow. It makes a loud fart-like noise. I busted out laughing and couldn't stop. No one else seemed to find it funny.
He turned one a couple months ago. Where did the time go? He's not my little baby anymore.

Jenna
Jenna is growing up fast, too. She will be four years old soon.
She loves to pretend. We spend a lot of our time going to the ballet, the store, and talking to cousins on the phone.
She has a friend that lives next door that she absolutely loves. Really. It's almost an obsession. She was taking a nap when Jenna went over there one day to see if she could play. Jenna wanted to wait on her porch until she woke up. STALKER!
She started pre-school this year and has already learned a lot. She doesn't have a whole lot of interest in writing. She has learned to write her name and other letters of the alphabet, but she really likes to do her own thing. You can't tell her what to do. She has to want to do it--just like her dad! Her teachers say that she is the leader around there. She is one of the younger kids, but even the older kids follow her around.
She has been taking gymnastics for a couple of months. It has been good for her although I think she is the "creepy" kid. She really likes to get the teacher's attention so she just hangs on her arm and follows her around. She is once again the youngest person in her class, but most of the time is the most well-behaved (which says a lot!)

Joel
Joel is really busy. He works full time and is in school. He is doing really well in school. We are all proud of him. He took part of the summer off of school so he was able to take us on a really fun family vacation to San Diego. We had a blast! He started back to school the day after we got back. This semester's schedule is not that bad--in that he is not in class a ton, but still has a ton of homework.
He is teaching Elder's quorum. He always gets a lot of compliments after he teaches, so I think he is doing a good job.

Kristen
I am keeping busy with work, kids, the house, and running.
When I went back to work after having Ben, they allowed me to work from home for part of the day. It is hard, but so worth it! I am able to do things with the kids in the afternoon as well as get my work done and housework done (for the most part). It is still difficult to keep up with everything house-wise, but at least we are not living in complete filth (although if you do come over, please give me some warning first!).
I have been trying to run a lot lately. I am considering running a half marathon soon so I am trying to train for it. It takes a lot of my little free time but it is fun. I have always considered running one, but have always talked myself out of it. I am determined to do one though. I am pretty stressed out about it. It is on my mind all of the time.

I think that is about it. Keep in touch! I know I will try to!

Ben always has a smile on his face...

2010-03-05T22:07:00.002-07:00

So we were at WalMart a couple of weeks ago. When we got home, I discovered we had purchased some stickers that I had not intended on buying. I thought I had put them away for a rainy day, but Jenna found them the next day and insisted on using them. I was busy getting ready for church and didn't really care that much what she did with the stickers. Here is where she was putting them...
At first I thought, "Poor Ben", but then I realized he really didn't care. In fact, he was kind of enjoying it. I figured no harm no foul so I let Jenna continue.

By the time we got to church, there were stickers everywhere! We left a little puddle of them when we left the chapel because there were so many. Even the next day at work someone pulled a sticker off the back of my shirt. These things were multiplying and getting everywhere. Did that make me stop Jenna from doing it again? No!

I guess I should be a stricter mom and protect Ben from all of this abuse, but it was kind of funny. All the stickers came off really easily except one that we had to wash off with water. There are only like three more sheets of those stickers around here. Speaking of which, I wonder where they went...

Another snow storm

2010-03-05T22:03:00.002-07:00

Back in January we had another big snow storm. It started around 9:00 on a Friday night, so of course the first thing Joel thought was that we needed a snow fort. So Jenna and Joel bundled up and headed outside to play.

Jenna ready to go. She got ready all by herself. Yes, those are her pj's underneath her coat because she was supposed to be in bed!Look at those ginormous snowflakes!

Packing a brick for the fort

Having a little snack. Don't worry, it wasn't yellow snow.

"I love snow!"

Sadly, the fort was never completed. It got too cold for Jenna (and Mom) so we called it quits. In the morning the sun came out and melted all of the building material.

Sad baby

2010-03-05T22:00:00.002-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to go give the kids a bath. For some reason, as soon as I put Ben in the bath he freaked out. I promptly took him out of the tub, wrapped him in a blanket and set him on the floor with some toys. He wasn't too happy about that, but he was so cute in showing his disapproval. I know I am a mean mom, but instead of comforting him immediately, I grabbed the camera :)

He forgot all of his troubles when he realized I was just going to take his picture.

Rice cereal...yum!

2010-03-05T21:56:00.003-07:00

Ben always stares at us when we eat. It's cute to an extent, then it makes me feel guilty. "We get to eat this yummy food and you just get this bottle." Well, I got tired of it one Sunday and decided to give him some rice cereal. I have friends who have started their kids on rice cereal at 4 months, but my doctor strongly suggested waiting until 6. He was 5 months, so I thought I would just try it. He loved it! He was so impatient when I had to refill the spoon. Hopefully he won't be a picky eater like Jenna.

Waiting
First bite
Not so sure about this
"Give me the spoon!"
"I said give it to me!"

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam!

2010-03-05T21:55:00.001-07:00

This picture was taken on Jenna's first day of Primary. I can't believe she is in Primary. She is just growing up so fast.

We were worried about her first Sunday because there were only 4 kids on the roll for her class. One child is kind of inactive, two neither I nor the teachers had ever heard of, and the last one was Jenna. I was nervous that she would be the only one that would come consistently and that they would move her to a different class. I didn't want that to happen because her teachers are AWESOME. I have been crossing my fingers that they wouldn't be released until Jenna went through their class. I have been doing this since she was born! I am not kidding, either. They were called into primary when I was in the presidency and they are just amazing.

Anyway, the first Sunday there were three kids there! Yay! She had a great time and came home with lots of goodies. In the weeks since there have been a couple of times that she has been the only child in the class but luckily two more little girls have moved in to the ward. I don't know that Jenna really cares, but I am excited! She has really loved the class and asks to see her friends, Sister Tami and Sister Julie.

Cousin Izzy

2010-03-05T21:53:00.002-07:00

Jenna loves it when cousin Izzy comes to visit. In January, she was in town for a couple of days. One of those days we went over to Jami & Leslie's house to hang out a play for a little while. There was a whole lot of giggling and joyful screaming. I don't know about Izzy, but Jenna had a ton of fun.

Izzy and Lion King, I mean, Jenna.
How cute! We miss you Izzy!

Our retirement plan

2010-03-05T21:46:00.003-07:00

Step one: Teach kids how to play basketball extremely well. They don't have to love it. They don't even have to like it. They just have to do it.

Step two: Make them enter the NBA/WNBA when they have completed stellar years in college basketball.

Step three: Sit back and let them pay for our retirement.

We are working on step one. It's not working too well so far.

Um, the ball is going the wrong way off of her fingers.

She was able to dunk with Daddy's help.
Yay! She made it! She has actually done pretty well in the weeks following these pictures. She is able to make baskets when the hoop is about four feet high.
Ben on the other hand gets easily distracted by the camera.
"You want me to do what???" (I love the drool dripping off of his chin)

Photo Shoot

2010-03-05T21:42:00.003-07:00

Just playing around with the kids and the camera...

Checking out his sausage fingers...and showing a little cleavage

Yummy fingers

Who, me?

Goofy face

Pouty lips

Up the nose

Cheese face

Cheesier

They just love each other

Christmas Day

2010-03-05T21:37:00.007-07:00

Christmas day was wonderful. Joel and I got up around 9:00 and had to wake Jenna up. We promptly went downstairs to see if Santa had come and fortunately for us, he had! He left out this great kitchen set which Jenna was so excited about. She ran over to get us all a drink and make a couple of phone calls before she even looked at all the other presents under the tree.

I love this picture of Jenna! I love how you can see in her eyes just how excited she is.

We took our time opening presents and just had a great time admiring each one. Jenna was so appreciative of each gift she got. She even thanked Santa again and again for the other pair of pajamas she got.

Hugging her pajamas. She hadn't even unfolded them to see what they looked like yet. She was just beside herself with joy.

Ben had a good Chrismas, too. Jenna was kind enough to help him open his gifts. He was more interested in eating the wrapping paper.

Ben with his stoking goodies. He got a bunch of stuff to chew on, but decided to chew on his new bibs instead.

Yummy presents

The tongue comes out in this one

I love the furrowed brow in this picture. He is determined to get the whole thing in his mouth.

After presents we watched one of Jenna's new movies and ate breakfast. We let Jenna play with her new things while we worked on a puzzle.

This is why our children were neglected for a day or two. Evil puzzle.

Both sets of grandparents stopped by later in the day to visit. I think they were a little disgusted with us because Jenna had just discover the "Flarp" in her stocking when they came over. It was this putty in a can that when you squeeze it into the can it makes a tooting noise. Jenna and Ben got such a kick out of it which then made Joel and I just crack up. We had hours of fun with that disgusting toy.

For dinner we had a wonderful prime rib cooked in our new roaster. It was fabulous! The rest of the night was filled with working on the puzzle and another movie. We had such a great Christmas and can't wait until next year!

Jenna was exhausted from all of the excitement of the day. She passed out on the couch for a little while with her new doll. What a sweet little girl.

Christmas Eve

2010-03-05T21:34:00.004-07:00

Every year Santa's elves come to our house and leave us pajamas. This year they pulled through and made it to our house.

Jenna going upstairs to see if the elves came. She is tightly gripping the movie she wants to watch before going to bed.

They came! You can kind of see how Jenna's jaw dropped when she saw that she got Tinkerbell slippers!
She loves them so much she has to rub them on her face. Weird child.
Goofy girl. She was so excited to wear her new pajamas! She looks so funny in them because the pants are tight fitting and the slippers are ginormous!
Ben was asleep when we got home so he had no interest in finding out what the elves brought him. He got these cute jammies with little monkies on the toes.
When he woke up, I put him in the pajamas. He was not too happy about it. To show his disapproval he had a blowout first thing the next morning. Gotta love it. They didn't even make it 12 hours before getting poop on them.

After getting in our pajamas we got the cookies ready for Santa and sat down to watch a movie. Jenna quickly fell asleep so that ended our Christmas Eve night.

As a side note, we are always looking for new traditions to start as a family. What kind of Christmas Eve traditions do you have? Yes, I realize Christmas was three months ago, but I would still love to hear any suggestions. There are only 9 more months to get ready for next Christmas :)

Another Family Christmas Party

2010-03-05T21:28:00.005-07:00

The Harrison's had their Christmas party on Christmas Eve.

This year started out with Janelle showing up and surprising everyone. She had come down for a quick visit and hadn't told anyone she was coming. It was nice to see her and she was able to meet Ben. Unfortunately he slept until right before she had to leave so they didn't get much "bonding" time.

I couldn't get a good picture of Janelle because the sequence on her shirt kept reflecting on her face. It was actually kind of funny.

Then we had a delicious dinner. We had chicken, veggies, rolls, etc. Joel and I made the molten lava cake for dessert...yum!

After dinner the kids prepared for the annual acting out of the nativity. Ben was the baby Jesus and Jenna was an angel. Jenna was just beside herself with excitement.

The cast. I love Bentley in this picture! (You'll have to blow this up bigger to get a better look at it, Chan!)

Then came what the kids had been waiting for...presents! Ben got a cute little toy cow from Grandma & Grandpa. They also gave Jenna a new doll. We got tickets to the BYU vs. Utah basketball game from Jeremy and Hillary. Thanks again everyone for the great gifts!

Jenna showing Ben how to use his new toy

Jenna was so excited to give her cousins a gift that she ended up grabbing it, unwrapping it and showing it to them. Fortunately it all happened so fast and she shoved the present so close in Preston's face that he couldn't tell what it was. Joel caught her and he wrapped it up again before anyone knew what happened. It was just so cute to see her excitement, though.

After presents, we raced home so we could start some our own Christmas Eve traditions (more to come on that later--if I remember)

Temple Square

2010-03-05T21:26:00.003-07:00

It has been years since either Joel or I have been up to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. We figured this was the year to go since Jenna is just fascinated with Christmas lights.

We had to wait until Joel was done with school for the semester (by the way, he got straight A's) so it wasn't until December 21st that we could go. We also had to wait until Joel got off of work for the night which wasn't until 5:00.

We got all bundled up and filled the trunk with more stuff to bundle up in once we got there.

Well, we hit rush hour traffic then realized that neither of us had been up to Salt Lake in quite some time so we didn't realized all of the construction that was going on. It took awhile to find a place to park but about an hour and a half later we were out of the car and walking only a few blocks to Temple Square. There were some people out playing Christmas carols just outside of the gates as well as some vendors selling hot drinks. It made it so much more festive. We walked in the gates and quickly had to find a bathroom. We walked in the visitor's center and it was wall-to-wall people. Joel went in the men's room and of course there was no line. The women's restroom, however, was like a twenty minute wait. Really, people??? We were able to find a hidden bathroom and were soon on our way.

Well, kind of.

We walk out of the building and Joel stops to take a picture. Well, the battery was nearly dead on the camera and he couldn't figure out how to take good pictures of the lights (new camera). So we spent about ten minutes playing with the camera, all the while getting colder and colder. We walked around until we got our fill of lights, then headed back to the car. We realized at this point that it was 8:00 and we hadn't eaten dinner. Luckily we were parked right next to the Red Iguana so we just went there to eat. Another hour later we were on our way home.

Even though it was cold and fairly uneventful we had a great time and hope to make going to Temple Square a tradition for our family.

Jenna is prepared with her all important glow sticks and cheese.
Ben was all bundled up; all you could see was part of his face.
One of the few pictures we were able to get.

Family Christmas Party

2010-02-07T19:06:00.016-07:00

My family's Christmas party was on December 18th down at Mom and Dad's house.

The evening started with me locking the keys in the car. I only mention this because I know it will come up. I went out to get a bottle for Ben from the trunk. I was mixing stuff together and put the keys down. Kevin drove up, I got distracted, and closed the trunk. It was about halfway down when I realized what was happening. I blame Kevin for the whole thing.

Being 30 minutes from home and the spare set of keys, Jill and RaShelle suggested we just call the police. Since Mom & Dad live in a smaller town, so it was kind of an ordeal to even contact the police. RaShelle took the lead and got ahold of someone for us. Joel went out to wait for them in the cold. When the police officer got there he was a little dissappointed. Apparently there was another Joel Harrison that had several warrants outstanding. He was hoping he had caught his man. Really, would a guy that has warrants out for his arrest call to have the police break in to his car?

Anyway, while Joel was out waiting in the cold, the rest of us started eating. We had a yummy lasagna dinner with salad and bread. There's nothing that says Christmas more than lasagna.

After dinner we sat around and talked for a little while the kids played. For the last two years, RaShelle has given all of us questions to answer throughout the year, for example, What is your favorite movie; Did you have a hideout as a child, etc. At Christmas she compiles everyone's answers and prints us all off a copy. It's really fun to read through. It was really interesting to hear that both Mom and Grandma wanted to be opera singers when they grew up. It was fun to sit around and elaborate on some of the answers--especially Dad's. Mom said that she had to edit some of his answers :) This is what happens when we leave the kids alone to play. I guess they weren't alone--Joel helped Jenna put Ben in the doll stroller.

There was only one family missing from the party and that was Jill's so we called her and talked to her through Skype. We were able to talk to her and Caitlyn. We saw Caleb really quick, but he must have been too busy for us. We didn't talk long but it was sure nice to see Jill.

Next we went and acted out the nativity. We read it out of a pop up book that we used to read every year growing up. It is really beat up but it really brings back memories.

The narrator

Kevin really gets into it. Here he is helping the angels with their part

Next was the part that all the kids were waiting for--PRESENTS! Mom & Dad spoiled everyone. The kids all got warm clothes and the parents got gift cards. We drew Kyle's name and got him a gift card to Famous Dave's. We thought it was kind of boring so Jenna drew him a picture. She spent about an hour on it as well as 1/2 a package of googly eyes and a bottle of glue. She was so excited to give it to Kyle. It was all wrapped up and she could hardly contain himself. Kyle was nice enough to let her help him open it.

Ben opening presents

He was more interested in his socks than the presents

Brian won an iTouch the night before and was playing with Kevin's all during the party.

We finished the night with tons of yummy desserts. We had a lot of fun! Thanks Mom & Dad for letting us crash your house!

Sister loves Brother

2010-02-07T18:50:00.006-07:00

Jenna loves to play with Ben. Her favorite place to do this is in his crib. She will have me put him in his crib while she puts every toy he owns in there with him. When she has fully surrounded him with toys, she will climb in herself. Most of the time they will sit there and play side by side, but sometimes she will just sit there and smother him with hugs and kisses. I have to put Ben in his boppy so she doesn't keep knocking him over with her love.

Yes, Ben's boppy has a girl cover on it. Do you have a problem with that?

I love my munchkins.

Ben chewing on his fingers--his favorite "toy" by far!

Snow Fun!

2010-02-05T22:18:00.005-07:00

Jenna was so excited when we had our first big snow storm back in December. She loves playing in the snow. It helps when Daddy gets really excited to go out and play with her. I am glad he does because I just hate the cold. I tend to use Ben as my excuse as to why I don't go out and play much.

This one Saturday was perfect. We got a lot of snow that was perfect for any type of snow activity--including shoveling.
We all went out and played for awhile, even Ben.
I felt sorry for him after a few minutes. We didn't have a hat that would go over his ears so we just bundled a blanket around him.

Jenna and I played for a little while. I pulled her around on her sled until I realized how out of shape I am. Good thing Joel came to the rescue and wanted to build a snowman.

I love this picture of Joel, Jenna, and their snow martian. They look so serious.

We all had a great time, but no one as much as Jenna. I love her excitement about everything!

Mrs. Santa

2010-02-05T22:07:00.005-07:00

The day after Santa came to the library, Mrs. Santa came to read stories. I always thought her name was Mrs. Claus, not Mrs. Santa, but that's a discussion for another day.

We showed up a few minutes early and got all snuggled in to our seats when we saw Grandma come in. She was there working, but Jenna couldn't take her eyes off of her. She was constantly pointing and saying, "There's Grandma!". I am sure Grandma got annoyed, but she was nice enough not to show it :)

It turns out that Amanda and Kayleigh were coming, too, so they were able to sit by us. I am sure they regretted it because Jenna talked the whole time. I think I heard about one word of the several stories Mrs. Santa read.

After the stories were done, Mrs Santa took time to talk to all of the kids. Jenna did a little better with her than she did with Santa. I think Kayleigh being there really helped. She was so brave. She had even colored a picture to give to Mrs. Santa! She is so cute.

I love how the library does things like this. I wish we would go to more of these activities. I think I am just too lazy. In my defense, it's hard when I work all day.

Waiting patiently
Watching with Grandma.
The kids with cute Mrs. Santa

Jenna and Kayleigh afterward. We sure do miss Kayleigh!
After she visited with Mrs. Santa, Jenna got a gift bag with a pad of paper and some candy in it. She was so excited!

Library Santa

2010-02-05T20:41:00.005-07:00

When we were at the library for Thanksgiving, we saw a sign saying that Santa would be there in a few days. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go, but when the time came around I figured what the heck. We got there a few minutes early and boy, was I glad. We were about the 50th people in line and by the time we got settled in line, there were about 100 people behind us.

It took awhile to wind around and get in the same room as Santa. Jenna was so excited until she could actually see Santa. Then she wanted to leave. If we had only been there for a few minutes I would have said sure, but it had been like half an hour. I wasn't giving up that easily. Plus, Ben was having too much fun flirting with all the girls. Every girl he saw he would smile big and giggle. Anyway, back to the story. Jenna was starting to get really nervous so I had to keep her occupied talking about Santa and what he was going to bring to her. I told her that she needed to tell him what she wanted. She thought for a minute and said "Presents" (her standard answer) "...and toys for Ben." I thought that was really sweet.

When it was finally her turn, she slowly walked up to him and gave him a couple of one word answers. She told him she wanted a tree and some presents. I had her get on his lap for a couple of quick pictures and that was the end. She talked about the whole thing for days later. I just love having a kid old enough to enjoy Christmas!

Waiting patiently
Hesitant
She did it!
I love the look on Jenna's face!

Molten Chocolate Cakes

2010-02-05T19:55:00.002-07:00

This is the recipe for the cakes Joel and I made for the family Christmas parties:

*Unsweetened baking cocoa
*6 oz semisweet baking chocolate, chopped (we used chocolate chips)
*1/2 cup plus 2T butter or margerine
*3 whole eggs
*3 egg yolks
*1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
*1/2 cup all purpose flour

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Grease bottoms and sides of 6 (6oz) custard cups with shortening; dust with cocoa. In 2 qt saucepan, melt chocolate and butter over low heat, stirring frequently. Cool slightly.

In large bowl, beat whole eggs and egg yolks with wire whisk or eggbeater until well blended. Beat in 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar. Beat in melted chocolate mixture and flour. Divide batter evenly among custard cups. Place cups on cookie sheet.

Bake 12-14 minutes or until sides are set and centers are still soft (tops will be puffed and cracked). Let stand 3 minutes. Run small knife or metal spatula along sides of cakes to loosen. Immediately place heatproof serving plate upside down over each cup; turn plate and cup over. Remove cup. Sprinkle with additional powdered sugar. Serve warm

My notes--must eat with vanilla ice cream! Also, have a large drink near by because it is very rich! We have custard cups if any of you would like to make it but don't have the cups. We are more than willing to help you eat them, too!

Go Cougars!

2010-01-31T15:20:00.004-07:00

Our little Cougar fan only minutes before the bowl game...

We had Joel's family over to watch the game and help us eat way too much food. Joel had wanted to go down to the game but wasn't able to get good enough tickets. I am so glad we didn't go! It looked so cold and windy! It was nice to sit in the comfort of our own home complete with DVR, clean bathrooms, and drinks that cost less than $3 each.

Setting up Christmas

2010-01-31T15:00:00.005-07:00

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was spent putting up our meager Christmas decorations.

Jenna was more than excited to help put the lights on the front porch. She couldn't wait to "flug" them in.
Showing me the lights using her Vanna pose.
Tada!
Wait just a minute...
So happy to be putting up lights
Supervising putting the tree up. We got a pre-lit tree after Christmas last year for 75% off, so putting it up this year was a cinch!
More supervising.
So proud

I didn't take any more pictures of the decorations. Just think of your own decorations minus about half or more and that's what our Christmas looked like. I love Christmas, I just hate putting out a lot of stuff. We still had a great Christmas anyway!

My cute babies

2010-01-02T21:07:00.002-07:00

Thanksgiving

2010-01-02T20:27:00.006-07:00

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We spent most of the day with the Harrison's, then went to my family for dessert later in the day.

The Harrison's went over to the basement of the library so we could accommodate both Dave and April's kids. It was great! We had such a great time. There was lots of room to mix and mingle, there was a separate area where April had set up tables to make gingerbread houses, and at the end, there was a movie in the little theater. The food was delicious and it was a lot of fun to be able to talk to some of April's kids and grandkids that we don't see too often.

The spread

The table
The gingerbread house making tables. Each kid got their own plate of graham crackers with a bag of candy and frosting.
The boys went outside to throw the football around. Jenna wanted to join in on the fun.
Too much fun for Ben.
Working hard.
Ben with Great Grandma
The girls just loved Ben!

Learning Early

2010-01-02T20:24:00.003-07:00

Ben has a little car that he sits in to play while I am cooking dinner or whatever. I was just looking through our pictures and realized that he is already giving the bird while driving. Isn't he cute, though?

Jenna's 3rd Birthday

2010-01-02T20:07:00.005-07:00

We celebrated Jenna's third birthday last month. It was pretty low key because things were pretty crazy with Joel being in school and me just barely returning to work. We had a fun time, though.

The Sunday before her birthday we celebrated with all of the Harrison cousins. Jenna had been begging for a Costco cake ever since Joel's birthday in June, so we had a giant cake for just the few of us. She got totally spoiled with lots of toys and clothes. She just loved being the center of attention!

On her birthday, Joel came home a little early from work and we headed over to Carl's Jr. Jenna loves the giant play land, so we let her play around for awhile. Joel had to go to school, but when he got back, we opened presents and had more cake. She had a great day and continues to ask if she can have her birthday again tomorrow.

Oh yeah, just for my future reference, she went to the doctor for her 3 year check up and she was in the 50th percentile for both height and weight (37 1/4 in & 30.6 lbs)

Her yummy cake
Practicing blowing out candles
So excited!
My baby girl
Crazy haired three year old
Waiting for daddy to come home. Jenna just loves Ben.
Sorry Mom & Dad. I meant to send this to you while you were in Botswana but just never got around to it. She loved the crown! Thank you! It was perfect for her princess chair!

Halloween

2009-11-08T18:12:00.004-07:00

We had a really fun Halloween this year. Jenna is at the best age to dress up and go get candy. We got the kids all dressed up and headed out about 5:45 (after we had already had several trick or treaters at our house). The weather was cool, but not too cold yet. Jenna, Ben and I then headed out to knock on doors. We left Joel to man the door at our house, which he was more than happy to do. Jenna got the idea right away. Her favorite part was ringing peoples doorbell. There were a lot of people not home so she started to get really impatient. She would ring the doorbell, turn immediately around and say "No one's home!" and walk away. More often then not, someone would answer the door as she was walking away.

We went around our ward and were out until almost 7:00. Jenna was such a trooper and didn't get tired until we were at our next door neighbor's house. She got quite the haul of candy and will be wired for the next six months.

When we were all done with trick or treating, Dave and Sophie came over. We made some yummy BBQ chicken sandwiches for dinner, played some Wii bowling, and watched Gremlins. To top it all off, we had chocolate molten lava cake for dessert! It was such a fun day!

Joel got this cute onsie when he was in Texas this summer.
Check out the "Baby of Steel" on his sleeve.
Too cute!
My super kids
My super family

October 22 Toddler Gym - Halloween Free for All

2009-11-08T18:01:00.004-07:00

Our last gym class was a week before Halloween so they just had some Halloween based games. They just let the kids move around however they wanted which was better for Jenna. When they had to move around as a group she was always looking forward to the activity that was last in our rotation.

I am so glad that I could take Jenna to these classes. They were a lot of fun. She still talks about them!

Jenna would have been happy to just ride the elevator up and down than to go into the gym.

There was a bean bag toss that Jenna was AWESOME at

Bowling again

Sliding into balloons

Mini golf. Sorry, grandpa. It doesn't look like Jenna will be much of a golfer.

In the words of Dora...

2009-11-08T17:53:00.002-07:00

We did it! We all survived the last week with me being back to work. Jenna is right back in the groove of things with all of her friends and Ben warmed up to his teachers right away. When I went to pick them up last Wednesday one of the teachers was saying how Ben was so spoiled. Since he is the only baby there right now someone is always holding him and playing with him. She went on to say that day care is for kids to be spoiled. That made me feel much better about leaving them everyday.

My boss has been really accommodating. He is allowing me to work half day in the office and half day from home. We are trying this out for a month or so to see how it works out and so far it has gone pretty well (at least for me). I must admit it is hard sometimes because when I am working I feel like I need to be doing more with the kids or with cleaning the house. When I am with the kids, I am anxious about getting all of my work done.

Well, wish me continued luck with this working mom thing. It stinks twice as much with two kids than with one!

Heaven help me

2009-10-27T18:59:00.003-06:00

We took Jenna and Ben to their first day of daycare on Monday in preparation for my return to work on Thursday. It wasn't too bad. It could have been worse. We have a really good day care so that really helped. Joel came with me and helped get Jenna situated. She was more than happy to be back with some of her friends and a bunch of new toys to play with. Ben just fell asleep and couldn't care less that we were leaving him.

I don't know what was up with our camera, but here are a few pics I took:

I told Jenna to make a sad face. This is what she gave me.
I told Ben to make a sad face. This is what he gave me.
The kids and all the stuff we had to take with us.
Ben looks like he is trying to hide his tears as he leave. He is really just sleeping.

It's been a really great 12 weeks being home with my kids. I only wish it could be longer. I guess all good things must come to an end. Wish me luck on my return to work! And wish Joel luck in getting the kids up and ready every morning! This should be fun...

You don't kill buggies!

2009-10-22T21:51:00.001-06:00

Jenna went out in the backyard for a few minutes where there was a red bug on the side of the house. She ran inside and said:

"I need something to kill the buggy"
"I didn't think we were supposed to kill buggies."
"But it's red"
"Use your shoe"
She proceeded to take off her shoe and go outside to kill the bug. I heard her talking to the bug/anyone in a 10 mile radius:
"You don't kill buggies. Only red buggies. And green buggies. And blue buggies. And yellow buggies. And black buggies. AND I LOVE ANIMALS!!"

Halloween Preview

2009-10-18T22:22:00.002-06:00

Jenna's Halloween costume came in the mail the other day. We just had to try it on her. She will be going as Super Jenna and is soooo excited!

St George Getaway

2009-10-18T22:03:00.005-06:00

Joel had fall break for school this week on Thursday and Friday so we decided to take a little road trip. We decided somewhat at the last minute to head down to St. George. We booked our hotel at 11 pm on Wednesday, Joel went to work until noon on Thursday, then we were off! We went swimming, shopping, to a movie (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), to Mesquite, and just relaxed. There was a lot of other things we would have loved to do, but just didn't have the time. We wanted to get back home for the BYU game on Saturday. The weather was perfect and we had a great time! Thanks, hon, for suggesting this little getaway!

On a side note, we did have some interesting happenings at all of the meals we had while we were there:
Thursday dinner - food not cooked all the way, water tasted like metal pipes, and Jenna's milk was "yucky" (she NEVER says that--was it another curdled milk experience?). We just dealt with all of this.
Friday breakfast - Joel had a hair in his food. He got his meal for free.
Friday lunch - consisted of popcorn at the movies served by an incompetent employee
Friday dinner - buffet in Mesquite where we nearly got in a fight with the older than dirt hostess who didn't understand what we meant when we asked for a high chair. Also, if you aren't a big fan of seafood, don't go to a Mesquite buffet on a Friday night.
Saturday breakfast - didn't happen
Saturday lunch - hit up from a couple for some "gas" money. Joel got mad at me because I gave them some.
Fun times.

We didn't take many pictures, but here are a few of the ones we did take:

Jenna watching movies with the giant headphones.
So excited to go swimming! I brought this floaty just in case and that's all Jenna wanted to play with.
Ben lounging by the pool in his giant diaper
Yay! Swimming! (Jenna woke up Friday morning from a dead sleep asking if she could go swimming. This girl is funny in the morning. She goes from zero to sixty in no time flat)
Ben's first dip in the pool. He did so well and didn't cry until he was tired and ready to go to bed for the night.
Ben was content to sleep in his car seat while the rest of us swam on Friday morning.
We went to the chocolate store when we were done shopping. We sat down to relax and eat our yummy treats!
Looking at the water features in Mesquite. You would have thought they would have lit them up at night.
This is what Ben did while Daddy and Jenna went swimming yet again!

Toddler Gym - Jumping

2009-10-18T21:53:00.004-06:00

This week's theme for toddler gym was jumping. I think I would have called it just up and down, but that's just me.

Station 1: Dunk animal crackers in chocolate and sprinkles. Yum!

Station 2: Ring toss onto a rhino, tunnel crawl, and a blow up slide (not sure what all of these had to do with each other, but Jenna spent most of her time on the slide.

Station 3: Bounce house with a basketball hoop in it.

Station 4: An inflatable castle with tunnels and balls. Jenna was quite the bully. One little girl came toward her through a tunnel. Jenna screamed that she couldn't come near her then threw a ball in her face and made her cry. Nice.

Station 5: Stamping. Jenna was a rebel and found a marker to just color with. I think she was rebelling because the stamps were not Stampin' Up! stamps.

Pumpkin Patch & Pink Cookies

2009-10-18T21:30:00.005-06:00

Jenna and I decided to head to the pumpkin patch the other day. I don't know that I would really call it your typical pumpkin patch, though. There were some animals, play houses, a play ground, and a corn maze. We went in to the nursery when we were done to pick out our pre-picked pumpkin. It was still fun--well besides all of the preschools that were there at the same time we went. There were a billion kids with moms standing off to the side not paying attention to their kids. A couple of them were pretty mean to Jenna and almost knocked her off this house thing, but that's another story.

Climbing on top of a house thing
Telling me about the animals
Doing a Rocky pose at the top of the pumpkin tower
Leading the way down the path
At the beginning of the maze
Leading the way so confidently. For some reason there were three entrances to the maze. We found all three of them but never found the exit.
Picking pumpkins (we found that the big one had big mouse bites in the bottom of it once we got it home--yuck!)
Going to buy the pumpkins
My little pumpkin!

We headed over to the Granny B cookie store when we were done since it was just around the corner from the pumpkin patch. I let Jenna pick out a cookie and of course she picked out the big pink one!

Open it!
Taking a bite (more like a lick) of her first pink cookie!

My Baby Burritos

2009-10-18T21:27:00.001-06:00

Whenever I swaddle Ben, Jenna just has to get in on the action. She is too funny.

Ben's Blessing

2009-10-11T18:35:00.005-06:00

Today Joel blessed Ben. He did such an awesome job! He was so worried but it all turned out great. I couldn't hear all of it because Jenna chose to scream the whole time, but my mom and mother-in-law were able to get some good notes of it (speaking of which, April--can I get a copy?). Also, I guess Ben decided to fart in the middle of it. You couldn't hear it in the audience, but let me tell you, his farts are rancid so sorry to all of you that were in the circle! I am glad to see that none of you passed out! After the meeting, we all came back to our house to have lunch and visit. I think it all turned out good. At least I had a good time! Here are a few photos from the day. I still need to get some from my mom. My camera was being difficult.

Oh, by the way. For those of you that I questioned on what Ben should wear--a blessing outfit or just a cute outfit, we just went with a standard Sunday outfit. We did get him a white little blanket to at least have some sort of special thing to remember the day.

My grandma and Ben
The grandparents and one of the great-grandmas. My diet starts tomorrow.

4 Generations

Ben with his cute blanket

Jenna says Ben is angry when he opens his eyes wide like this

My little guy
The closing song at church was "Count your many blessings". Here are two of mine.
Jenna had a long day. She fell asleep trying to climb on the table.

Doctor

2009-10-11T18:27:00.000-06:00

So Friday started out with Benjamin's two month doctor appointment. He is doing great. His stats are:
23 inches long (75 percentile)
11 lbs, 3 oz (50 percentile)
40 cm head circ (50 percentile)

He did really well with the doctor. He let the doctor poke and prod at him without letting out a peep. He did really well with his shots, too, although later that day he was in a lot of pain and was running a little bit of a fever. I just can't believe how fast my little guy is growing up!

After Ben's appointment, we went over to Jenna's ENT doctor to get a check up. We pulled up in the parking lot and Jenna asked where we were. I said it was a surprise because she hates the doctor. In fact, she went with me to my doctor and she was wining because she didn't want anyone to look in her ears. Anyway, we went in and she did awesome! She thought it was so funny every time they looked in her ears. Afterward, she said, "Mom, I liked my surprise!". I just had to laugh. Her tubes have fallen out and we are just hoping and praying that she doesn't get any ear infections. She had a cold coming on so they put her on some antibiotics to prevent an ear infection.

Toddler Gym - Animal Theme

2009-10-07T20:42:00.003-06:00

Today was toddler gym. I just love it! Jenna is starting to get excited each week for it, too. This week had an animal theme. The activities weren't really picture worthy, but they were fun. The stations included:
Duck, duck, goose
Turtle Crawl (crawl around on a mat)
Pin the tail on the Mom (they had cute little stuffed tails and the kids chased the moms around to try to put them on, then the moms tried to pin them on the kids)
Egg Collecting
Animal songs
A snack of animal crackers and swedish fish

Wiggling her chin during circle time
Wiggling her elbows (this picture is hilarious)
Crawling like a turtle
Got a little carried away and went off the mat
Covering her bum so I can't pin a tail on it
Dragging around the eggs she collected

Jenna's best week ever

2009-10-07T20:35:00.002-06:00

Monday: Costco. Jenna LOVES Costco. She loves saying the name, the carts, the movies playing right when you walk in the door, the books, anything she can reach, the free handouts, the long stretches of aisles to run in, the ice cream, hot dogs, and napkin dispensers that she can reach. We also went to Macey's. She scored by getting 2 packages of gum (only one of them had been approved) and a bag of cookies that somehow made it home with us. They were the pink and white animal cookies that she likes to look at but not eat.

Tuesday: Got to watch 3 movies. I don't know how that happened, but she loved it. She also got to help Mom with the shredder. Cool.

Wednesday: Toddler gym. She got to act like an animal. That was not too much of a stretch for her. She got to talk to Grandma AND Grandpa on the phone. She went and played with cousins while Mom went to a meeting. Now she is watching cartoons with her favorite parent of the moment: Dad.

Thursday: We are going shopping and to lunch with Grandma.

Friday: We are taking Ben to the doctor for his check-up. She loves to be a helper and try to calm Ben down when he isn't happy. She loved taking him to the doctor last time. Don't tell her yet, but we are topping her perfect week off with a trip to her ear doctor. It's just a check-up, but she HATES the ear doctor.

The Hulk

2009-10-07T20:32:00.003-06:00

The other day, Jenna and I worked with paper mache. When we were done, I had Jenna paint our creation. I turned around for a couple of minutes and when I returned to see what she had done, I discovered she had turned in to the Hulk.

Why?

2009-10-07T20:29:00.001-06:00

Why do we always feel it necessary to get right down in a baby's face and talk gibberish to them? I just think it's funny/cute.

You make me smile

2009-10-04T21:56:00.004-06:00

I was trying to capture Ben's cute smile. The pictures don't capture it as well as real life, but they are still cute. Yes, I know they all look them same, but I couldn't pick just one!

Toddler Gym #2

2009-10-04T21:47:00.004-06:00

This week's toddler gym was a little more laid back than last week...

Being uncooperative during circle time
Bowling
Puzzles
Play dough
Finding treasures in the sand
The tent!
The kids running under the tent
Popping balls on the tent
So sad that it's over

Random

2009-09-29T16:15:00.006-06:00

Here are a few pictures from some random stuff we have been up to...

Jenna and I had a dance party. Ben was not impressed.

"What are they doing?!?!"

"They are sooo weird..."

I couldn't find Jenna the other day and finally found her in my room asleep between the bassinet and the wall.
I love how kids sleep with their hands in weird positions
"Oh, no!"
We went to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point. Here is Jenna riding the plastic cow. She was so concerned because the cow had an owie (the paint was chipped off).
I love her face in this picture. She was so excited to ride the pony.
After a baby cow moo-ed at her, this was about as close to the animals as she would go.
Feeding the chickens.
Jenna lived the little play village they had there. She especially liked the jail. None of my pictures came out very well here.
Jenna LOVES milk, so the display on how milk is made fascinated her (actually it was all the buttons that she could push).
I knew she was getting heavier! (It says she is 120 pounds)
Jenna did not want to miss out on tummy time!
She just loves Ben!
Isn't she cute?
Still cute!
Ben is done!

Toddler Gym

2009-09-23T13:43:00.005-06:00

I love being a stay at home mom--even if it is only temporary. One of the best things about it is I have been able to sign Jenna up for a gym class. It's a 6 week class that meets once a week at the rec center. It started last week, but Jenna was sick so today was our first day. I have been so excited for this day--probably (no, definitely) more than Jenna!

It was so much fun! For the first 15 minutes or so we had "circle time" where the kids ran, walked, jumped, etc to get all warmed up. Jenna had the biggest smile on her face the whole time. I couldn't take her picture because I was doing the exercises with her and I had Ben in my arms.

They have themes every week and today was "The Outdoors". There were 5 stations that the kids went through.
*Go down a waterfall (slide), over a mountain(gym mats), across the river (balance beam type thing, and through the bear cave (tunnel).
*Be a bunny rabbit (hop on those balls with handles--I don't know what they are called)
*Feed the hippos (play hungry, hungry, hippos)
*???--I don't know the name (throw bean bags)
*Go fishing (catch paper fish with magnets)

After they went through all the stations they got a snack then we walked home. It was a blast!

Waiting for it to start
Jenna got a pink bracelet to show which group she was in
Listening to instructions
Going down the waterfall
Going over the mountain
Going over the river
Going through the bear cave
Being a bunny
Feeding the hippos
Bean bag toss
Cheating to catch fish
Got one (she got this one legitimately)

Picking Apples

2009-09-23T13:31:00.003-06:00

We live in a neighborhood that used to be an apple orchard. There are still a few trees left in the common area so we are able to go pick them whenever we want. We have gone out a couple of times and went out picking again this last Monday. We came home with a ton of yummy apples! I have already made some apple pie filling and am in the process of making applesauce. Here are a few pictures from our apple picking adventure as well as the rest of our walk.

Some of those apples were hard to get off the tree!
Picking flowers
Jenna's "treasures" from our walk

Nothing much

2009-09-20T18:21:00.007-06:00

We haven't done anything particularly noteworthy lately, so I thought I would just post some random pictures I have on my camera right now.

Jenna found an abandoned broken scooter on the pathway behind our house and claimed it as her own. She insisted on wearing her boots with no pants. This girl never wants to wear pants. I did get her to stop wearing her winter coat when it was 90 degrees outside.
Riding her "new" scooter
She collected all the "pretty flags" that were in the neighbor's yard. Yes, they are the flags that show where the gas and cable lines are.
Another spiffy outfit

Ben's first BYU football experience was a good one. You can tell by his many reactions.

Good play by BYU
Oklahoma scored
Nothing exciting happening

Other random pictures...

"You won't like me when I'm angry..."
We went to the PG Promenade last week. On the way home we stopped for ice cream at Purple Turtle (less than one mile away from home). Jenna fell asleep in the car. She woke up, came in side and quickly fell back asleep.
Jenna made dinner the other night. It consisted of several packages of fruit snacks. (Don't mind the mess in the background. I was busy making freezer jam and apple pie filling. I know you are jealous).
Ben likes to be swaddled for a couple hours a day. It helps him sleep. When he wakes up, though, he is mad because he can't move his arms.

Visiting

2009-08-31T21:31:00.006-06:00

Last week we ventured out and visited the grandparents/great-grandparents. The great-grandma's hadn't seen Ben yet, so we thought we would go show him off and in the mean time stop and have lunch with the grandparents. While we were at Mom and Dad's, Mom mentioned to Jenna how much fun she had had with her when they went to Salem pond together a couple weeks before. Jenna remembered that and insisted that we go. She kept calling the pond the "puddle". It was pretty funny. So between visits, we stopped at the "puddle" to feed the ducks, splash in the water, and play on the playground. Luckily it was hot enough that Jenna didn't want to stay long. The whole day was fun, but very tiring! We were gone all day long and it was nice to go home and lie down. Here are some pictures from our day.

Jenna had to strap Dolly into the car seat before we left.
She was very selective on which ducks she would throw bread to
Checkin' things out
I love how Ben's shorts crept up to make him look even more like an old man.

First time at church

2009-08-31T21:24:00.004-06:00

Sunday was my cousin Nelson's homecoming so we took Ben to church for the first time. He slept through the entire meeting, so it was nice and uneventful. I just thought he looked really cute in his little outfit. I couldn't get a good picture of it, though. The first one he has a poopy look on his face and the second one he looks like a giant because of the angle I took the picture at. Oh well, trust me, he looked cute.

2 week appointment

2009-08-31T21:11:00.003-06:00

Ben went in for his 2 week appointment and a little "nip and tuck" today. He did really well and has been sleeping most of the afternoon. Here are his stats:
21 1/2 in long--up 2 1/2 since birth! He's in the 85-90th percentile. Joel is ecstatic!
7 lbs 14 oz--up 5 oz since birth. He is in the 30-35th percentile
37.4 cm head circ.. He is in the 60th percentile. Another Tolley noggin!

Pre-appointment
Post-appointment

Ben

2009-08-31T20:57:00.009-06:00

I thought I would post some more pictures of Ben now that he is more than one hour old. Hopefully he looks a little more normal.

A few things about Ben:
*He has huge eyes that are fun to watch first thing in the morning when he is calm and just looking around
*He has really long fingers and toes. Joel says that should help him in the NBA
*He has a sister who ADORES him, but he is still not so sure about her
*He LOVES to eat!
*Going outside makes him fall asleep
*He is lots of fun to have in our family!

Pre-Ben Activities

2009-08-31T20:43:00.010-06:00

Two weeks before Ben was born, we decided to go up in the mountains to try to beat the heat a little. It wasn't much cooler up there, but we still had a good time. We drove the Alpine Loop and stopped off for a little "hike" around Cascade Springs. It was a lot of fun and pretty relaxing. We took lots of pictures, but here are just a few.
I had really been craving S'mores for most of the summer. Since camping was not that appealing to me being pregnant and all, and we hadn't planned ahead by inviting people to go into the canyon with us for a bonfire, we decided to make do with what we had--a charcoal grill.

We went out back and roasted marshmallows on our own little grill. It was perfect! We didn't come home stinking like smoke, if we forgot something we just went inside the house, and it was pretty quick. Not to mention, it was a beautiful night! The S'mores were yummy and we still had time in our night to watch a movie. It was great!

Baby Brother

2009-08-13T18:10:00.004-06:00

Jenna has no clue what is about to happen to her...
Baby brother's arrival...
8:45 Hospital called. Be there by 9:30
9:30 Arrive at the hospital
10:00 Baby's heart rate dropped and they couldn't find it, so they put an internal monitor on him which broke my water. They have to wait for the doctor to look over the heart rate history to see if they can start the pit or not.
11:45 The doctor finally gets back and says it's okay to get me started
1:30 Get the epideral. Life is wonderful
2:55 Dialated to an 8
3:50 Start pushing
3:55 Baby arrives with the cord wrapped around his neck twice as well as around his hand.

He is healthy and happy (as far as we can tell so far). We are both doing well and should be home in the next couple of days.

Pioneer Day

2009-08-02T18:13:00.005-06:00

I had the day off for Pioneer Day (July 24th), but Joel did not. Jenna and I took the opportunity to head down to Spanish Fork for their Fiesta Day parade. Joel doesn't like parades (which, really, who does?) so we could go without him. I was determined to let Jenna have a good time and in the process maybe help baby brother make his arrival sooner rather than later. The parade started and the candy went flying. Jenna was too shy to run out on her own and get the candy and her cousins hadn't arrived yet to help her, so it was my duty to show her how it was done. When you are only two and really cute, your success rate in getting candy is pretty high. I was dragging her in and out of the street shoving taffy in her pockets. It was a lot of fun.

After the parade we went back to Grandma's house (which fortunately was only 1/2 block away from the parade) and made lunch. We had hot dogs, corn, and chips. We sat around and talked for a while, then Jenna and I left. All the running around really took it out of me. We went home and rested until Joel came home. We told Jenna on the 4th of July that we would see fireworks again on the 24th so she was really excited. Unfortunately the only place doing fireworks in all of Utah County was Spanish Fork. We didn't want to head back down there so we went over to Jami's house and watched them set off their own fireworks. Those really scared Jenna so we headed home pretty quickly. The day went by really fast, but it was really fun!

Getting closer to the candy action. (Don't look at the fat lady next to Jenna)
Playing zim-zam at Grandma's just like I used to do when I was little.
Playing with "fireworks" (snaps) with Daddy.

We are in trouble

2009-08-02T18:09:00.002-06:00

Jenna has been so excited to help get ready for baby brother. She has helped put his clothes away, set up his room, put up the crib, etc. She has also tested out all of the binkys and put all of the diapers on her dolls. What makes me the most scared though, is that she insists she is a baby and must lay down in his crib, get her bum changed on the changing table, and sit in his car seat. I am really nervous to see what happens when the baby actually arrives.

She stripped down naked (because all babies are naked), climbed in the car seat, and whined like a baby.

Present for baby brother

2009-08-02T18:04:00.003-06:00

In preparation for baby brother's arrival, we went to Toys R Us and Jenna picked out a present to give to him. She picked a stuffed frog. She absolutely loves it. We had to hurry and wrap it up and put it away because she kept coming up with excuses to play with it. She had to "show baby brother how it ribbits". She wants to just "show it to him" all of the time. She is so cute with it. I am nervous to see what happens when she gives it to him. Maybe the present he got her will take her mind off of it.

She wouldn't let me take a good picture of her. She was tired of me asking her to pose.

A name--maybe

2009-07-05T20:03:00.001-06:00

We have been struggling with a name for baby boy. With time ticking down, I need your opinion. I think we have narrowed it down to Benjamin or Jeffrey with middle names of Joel, Benjamin (if we name him Jeffrey), Jeffrey (if we name him Benjamin), or David. I won't tell you the ups and downs of each name we have chosen, I just want to know what you think. I also want to know if you have any other good names. Nothing too out of the ordinary, yet not in the top 10 names. Please help!

A week without Daddy

2009-07-05T19:47:00.006-06:00

So Daddy went to Texas with his family a couple of weeks ago. I stayed home because we really couldn't afford for all of us to go and I need to save up my PTO for when the baby comes. From what I can tell, Joel had a really good time. He spent some time in Houston, Corpus Christi, and San Antonio. He didn't take the camera so I don't have any documentation that he actually went, but I am pretty sure he did.

While he was gone, Jenna and I had a good time. We dropped him off at the airport and I headed home to take Jenna to school. It was water day and she was really excited to play in the water with her friends. I had two doctor appointments that day so I figured she would have more fun doing that than hanging out in the doctor's office.

Well, we arrived at school, I got out of the car to open her door. In that 10 seconds worth of time, she had thrown up all over the back seat of the car. Ug. So we headed home. I had just enough time to clean her up and head to my first appointment. She did surprisingly well there. I think the puke was a one time thing because she was happy and well the rest of the day. We went to Roberts and picked up some things to do and spent the evening just hanging out.

The rest of the week we spent swimming, coloring, watching cartoons, and just playing. We did spend Saturday and Sunday down at my parents. Jenna had a ball. She spent the entire time just giggling. She is really getting to a fun stage. Everything just seems to crack her up.

Jenna couldn't wait for me to finish blowing up the swimming pool, so we had it inside and she watched cartoons while sitting in it.
Painting an apron for herself.
Painting an apron for Daddy. I love the concentration on her face.
Crazy hair day at school (which really isn't any different than any other day for Jenna)
At the park.

Huh?

2009-07-05T19:43:00.001-06:00

So a few weeks ago at my doctor appointment, the doctor said he was worried about how small I was measuring. He decided to order an ultrasound for me. I was not about to tell him that I measured small with Jenna and she was 7 lbs 5 oz when she arrived. I figured it was my chance to see the baby again before he was born without paying an arm and a leg to go to Fetal Fotos. So mid-June I went in for the ultrasound. The ultrasound said that he was measuring about 5 lbs--in the 61st percentile, so a bit on the large side. The doctor still measured me at 3 weeks smaller than I should be. So the baby is measuring big and I am measuring small. Should I be nervous about this??? I think this explains all of my growing pains, though.

Happy Birthday!

2009-06-14T18:30:00.010-06:00

So Joel turned the big 3-0 this month. I had the day off so we headed out to an afternoon movie. Afterwards we went to lunch at our favorite place--JCWs. Joel had to go back to work for a little while, so Jenna and I went gift shopping. I asked Jenna what we should get and she answered "a red one!". Later as we were shopping, she was determined that daddy needed a bright pink shirt. With matching shorts. And a matching tie. Anything pink, daddy needed. We ended up just getting him a shirt and tie (neither of which were pink). Jenna picked out a Kung-Fu Panda card (it was better than the fishy one that said "So glad you're 4" that she picked out at first) that she quickly confiscated after giving it to Daddy. The next day we went to Outback for dinner but didn't eat much because we had just gotten done celebrating Grandma's 90th birthday with a lunch with the family.

On Monday we celebrated with Joel's family. Dave had us over for a "chip party". He had a load of bark delivered and needed help laying it so the Harrison's and April's family went over to help then have a weinie roast. When it was all done we had cheesecake to celebrate Joel's birthday. I was having some serious growing pains all day so I wasn't much in the party mood. The cheesecake was good, though.

Joel always says that he doesn't want a big fuss for his birthday, but I don't know how true that is. Sorry it was kind of another lame birthday, hon!

***
Like I said earlier, we celebrated Grandma's 90th birthday a couple of weeks ago. We went to Salem pond and had lunch. The weather was a little chilly, but not too bad. The kids had fun playing in the park, feeding the ducks, and watching the fishermen. Jenna was the only one who dared go in the water. The water was actually pretty warm but I think the other kids were just preoccupied with everything else.

Jenna couldn't wait to leave for the party
Feeding the ducks. Later she wanted to feed them rocks. They didn't like that very much.
This looks like a T-Mobile commercial.
Swimming with the ducks
Having a blast!
Our little burrito
It was too windy to light all of the candles at once
Grandma blowing out the candles

It's been awhile

2009-05-31T15:22:00.017-06:00

So I haven't updated our blog in awhile. We have been busy, but not with much of anything of great importance. I am going to take a lesson from my sister's blog and just mention the highlights of the last month or so.

*Joel and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. Can you believe it? We are old farts. We were listening to something on the radio and this couple was saying they were going to put $10k towards their mortgage on their 10th anniversary. Joel said we should do that. Then we realized it is less than 2 years away!

*Jenna went to the ear doctor to have her tubes checked out. They are both about to fall out and should be gone by the time we go back this fall. I am still a little worried because her ears still get infected. I hope she doesn't have to get tubes again.

*Jenna got her first "bike". We had a coupon at Toys R Us so we headed out to get her one. The cheapest one there was a Dora one which she (and Joel) fell in love with. We are about ready to throw it out the window though because it is so annoying. It has all kinds of buttons on it, but Jenna only likes one of them.

It was cold and rainy the weekend we bought it, so she rode it inside--in the buff.

*Jenna had her first parent/teacher conference where I was told how brilliant and beautiful she is. Did I really need to go to a conference to find that out?

I told you she was beautiful! Check out this outfit! This is how she went to church a couple weeks ago--yes, all the way inside.

*Jenna had her end of year party at "school". It was fun to watch her play with all of her friends. She just loves them to death. Some of the older kids sang some songs. Jenna and her little friend wanted to join in, so they went up behind the big kids and started dancing. My stupid camera wouldn't work to take a picture, though. It was really cute.

Jenna and Dakota-girl

Jenna "singing"

They ran out of ice cream at the party so I told Jenna I would get her a small ice cream cone from JCWs. Since when is this considered "small"???

*Joel is half the man he used to be. He is down about 50 lbs. I was looking at some pictures of him from last summer and he does not look like the same person. He is still wanting to lose more. It's frustrating because his clothes are getting too loose and mine are getting too tight!

*Baby Harrison finally has some belongings of his own. I have been hesitant to buy a whole lot quite yet for some stupid reason. We went to Park City a couple of weeks ago and they were having huge sales everywhere so I bought him a bunch of shirts and a pair of pants all for like $10. Hey, it's a start.

*I had a really good mother's day. Jenna made me a planter out of a milk jug and put a marigold in it. She also made me a plate with her handprints on it. I had Joel buy me a Kitchenaid mixer. Joel made some yummy ribs for dinner.

*Our garden is growing! We planted peas, carrots, peppers, onions, and tomatoes. We had a spot for one more thing, so Jenna planted her mother's day marigold there. I can't wait for this fall when everything will be done and ready to eat!

*We had a fun Memorial Day weekend. Joel took a side job on Saturday to help pay for his upcoming trip to Texas so Jenna and I spent the day getting things ready for our ward party (we are the Activity Committee Chairpeople). Sunday was fairly relaxing. Monday we went down to Spanish Fork and spent the afternoon with family. Jenna had just given me a cold so I wasn't much fun, but it was fun to see everyone.

Jenna and her "sprayzer"
No family party would be complete without Kevin coming up with some game for the kids. This may look like jump rope, but it was more vicious. The kids had a lot of fun.

*Our ward party is over! Our 4 person committee (1 of which just had a baby) pulled off a pretty good BBQ if I do say so myself. I am so glad it is over. We have about a four month break to our next party. We are also on hiatus from our Sunday School class until at least this fall. It will be nice to just sit back and relax a little bit.

*Jenna has found a new place to take a nap. Joel was outside grilling some hamburgers and Jenna decided to open her sandbox and pretend to take a nap out in its lid. Silly girl.

Easter

2009-04-26T18:02:00.006-06:00

I just realized that I didn't take many pictures on Easter. Jenna had been sick for three or four days before Easter so we were a little behind on the prep. In fact the egg dye is now in storage for next year. You will also see that we didn't have time to get her new shoes--or at least shoes that matched her dress.

Being goofy.
Still being goofy.
This one will have to do.
We went to the Harrison's for dinner. I told Jenna she could go out and play with the other kids. I went out a few minutes later and found her just observing everyone else. It didn't take long after that for her to join them. She spent the next couple of hours playing and playing.

San Diego Part 3

2009-04-26T17:22:00.029-06:00

On Friday we went to LegoLand. I was a bit skeptical of going there before we left on our trip, but I am so glad we went. We had an absolute blast. There was so much to do and see . We didn't get to see everything, but what we did see was awesome. It was definitely suited for younger kids, but Joel and I had a fun time watching Jenna have so much fun.

Goin' on a safari through the lego jungle.
Check out the smile on her face.
Driving a lego boat with Daddy.

Oh no!
MiniLand was awesome. They had all sorts of monuments built out of legos. Here's the inauguration complete with all the people involved--Obama, Bush, etc.
Playing on one of the water pads.
One small portion of the awesome water area they had. We could have spent an entire day there. See that giant bucket? Well, it fills slowly with water than tips over dumping all of that water on unsuspecting children. Jenna was almost one of those children.
The aftermath of the water area.
They had a small aquarium there. Jenna had fun looking at all the fishy.
Jenna insisted on acting like a dog on the way out.
Five minutes after we left.

We stopped for dinner on the way home, then took the Pacific Coast Highway the rest of the way home. It was a gorgeous drive along the ocean than through little towns with interesting people and shops all around. It was a great day!

On Saturday we went to the zoo and wild animal park. While they were both fun, we wish we would have just gone back to LegoLand.

As soon as we walked in, there was a peacock waiting for us. Jenna walked right up to it.
Checkin' out the gorillas
Petting this animal (like a porcupine, but not one.)
Being silly
We didn't get to see much of the wild animal park because Jenna just wanted to feed the ducks.
Our little turtle.
The wild animal park was huge and gorgeous!

We didn't have anything planned for Sunday except some sight seeing. We decided to go down to the beach. Unfortunately it was the coldest day we were there so we didn't stay long. We drove around and did some sight seeing then headed to Old Town. I had wanted to go to the Presidio mission, but unlike everyone told me, it wasn't really a mission and it was closed indefinitely. So we headed back to the hotel and went swimming for a little while. We wanted to go to dinner somewhere nice for dinner since we had just been eating snacks for breakfast and lunch and fast food for dinner. We went to the concierge and they hooked us up at a place on the ocean. We were VIPs and even had "Welcome Harrison's" on our menus. They even gave us a free dessert! Unfortunately Jenna was acting awful so we didn't enjoy it as much as we could have, but it was still really fun!

The next morning we packed up and headed home. We were home by 5:00 and had laundry going, bags packed away, and Joel heading off to the gym by 5:30. Our vacation seemed to come to a screeching halt. It was fun while it lasted, though.

Walking out to the water
Walking away from the water

Jenna loved playing chicken with the water.
Looking for the seal we saw
Chasing the birds
Run away, run away!
Our hotel had music playing all the time. Jenna loved to dance to it. She reminded me of Elaine from Seinfeld. It made me laugh every time.

San Diego Part 2

2009-04-19T19:58:00.018-06:00

So on day 2 we had to go to the visitor's center to pick up the city passes that we had purchased online before we left. It allowed us to go to hundreds of different places at a discount for 2 days. We decided to use it for LegoLand on Friday and the zoo on Saturday. That left us an entire day to figure out something to do. We were able to ask the people there what we needed to do. They mentioned an aircraft carrier nearby and Joel was instantly hooked. We headed over to the USS Midway and went through their tour. It was an audio tour so it was difficult to do with a two year old running around with us. We bagged the headphones after like two stops. It was really interesting to see everything, though. There were a couple of planes that Jenna could get into, so she had a blast playing with all the knobs and stuff.

After the aircraft carrier, we went back to the hotel and went swimming. Jenna had been begging us since we got there to go in the pool, but we just hadn't had time yet. We spent about an hour there then got dressed and went to the temple. It is Joel's favorite temple, but he has never been there. He still gives me grief for not getting married there. The grounds were beautiful. We were able to talk to the missionaries for a minute and they showed us some pictures of the inside. The one missionary did give us a heads up that the Mormon Battalian place was closed for renovations, so I am glad we didn't head there next as planned. There was a wedding party taking pictures outside so Jenna got to see the "princess". As we were packing up to leave, there was a couple there waiting for their kids to come out of a session. They were babysitting their grandkids and their dog so they let Jenna pet their little dog for a few minutes. She was shy about it, but she loved it.

After the temple we decided to try to find the Hard Rock Cafe one more time since the missionary said that there really were two in town. Come to find out she was wrong. We drove around and did some sight seeing for awhile then finally ended up at Tony Roma's for dinner. We noticed that there were a million places to eat there, but no where to park so it really limited our choices. We wanted to branch out and eat something new but couldn't find a place to park near any of the places. Oh, well.

To Be Continued (again)...

Jenna could hardly fit into the itty bitty lockers that people who lived on the boat had to use.

Jenna on a part of the giant chain for the anchor.

Jenna flying the plane.

The planes were really cool. We couldn't believe how many they could fit on the top of that boat.

Daddy and Jenna.

Jenna declaring war in the war room.

Pushing buttons.

She was so tired from a full day already. This is her as we arrived at the temple. This didn't last very long.

Our little thief.

The temple.

Being silly in the car.

One of the restaurants we tried to go to was right on the beach. It was a gorgeous view, but an unappetizing menu.

San Diego Part 1

2009-04-05T19:04:00.010-06:00

About a week and a half ago, we headed down to San Diego for a little vacation. We figured it would be our last for awhile and Joel was getting ancy to go somewhere with just our little family. So about a month ago he found some good deals for San Diego and hurried and booked it. The whole thing was kind of thrown together but it was a lot of fun and everything turned out great. I hate to bore you with all of the pictures, but I need to remember what they all were when I finally get around to scrapbooking them ten years from now.
We stayed at the Hyatt Mission Bay (don't worry, we did NOT pay full price). It had a gorgeous view of the bay and some little island in the middle of it.
The hotel had 3 heated pools. Two of the pools had waterslides going down into them. Jenna loved going down the little slide by herself. She did have one little mishap when a kid twice her size was too scared to go down by himself. He was embarrased, so he turned around and pushed her down. Joel was about ready to take the kid out back.
There were these little cabanas that we walked by to get to our room. At night, they had a fire going outside one of them. We stopped one night to sit by it, but it was still too cold. Since we were on the bay, there was a constant breeze and the temperature was always about 10 degrees cooler than anywhere else we went.We wanted to take an extra carry on with us for some snacks, so we gave it to Jenna to carry (don't worry, it was super light). She looked so cute wearing it, I just had to take her picture!
Her own seat! We were debating on whether or not it was worth the money to have Jenna have her own seat and us have more leg room. It sure was nice, but I don't know that I would pay that much again for a few extra inches of room.

The trip to San Diego was easy and seamless. We didn't have to wait long in the airport and Jenna did so well on the plane. She fell asleep a few minutes into the flight. It was probably good because there was so much turbulence I would not have been able to entertain her for long. It was the first time I have come really close to losing it on a plane.

When we got to San Diego everything went well. We made a well worth it purchase a couple of days before we left. Joel found an awesome deal on a GPS so we bought it and took it with us. It made things so much easier! No more reading maps or figuring out where we are. We just listened to the GPS lady and she got us right where we needed to go! It only took us about 10 minutes to get to our hotel and a couple more minutes to get checked in. The trunk to our rental car broke by the time we got to the hotel so Joel had to climb through the back seat to get to our stuff in the trunk. I think that was the only hiccup.

We hung out at the hotel for a little while then headed out to find something to eat. We decided to try to find a Hard Rock Cafe. The GPS told us there were two. We went to try to find the one closest to us and couldn't find it, so we ventured out to find the other one. We found it fairly easily, but couldn't find parking. We drove up and down one way streets for about half an hour before we found a parking garage. By this time we were starving. We walk the block to get to Hard Rock only to find out that it was closed for a private event! Arg! We went another block to TGI Friday's. The food wasn't very good, the service was awful, and they gave Jenna curdled milk to drink. Other than that we were happy because we were on vacation! We headed back to the hotel after that, sat on our balcony for a few minutes, then went to bed nice and early.

It's a...

2009-03-20T19:34:00.004-06:00

Baby! And we couldn't be more excited. We went to the doctor today to find out the gender of our baby. It was so nice to finally see the baby and see that everything was okay. Before we went in, we asked Jenna if she wanted to see the baby. When we were all done, she kept asking where the baby was. I guess it wasn't too exciting for her. It was very easy for the technician to figure out the gender because the baby wasn't hiding a thing. That was nice because I was starting to worry that they wouldn't be able to tell.

Profile
The baby making a shadow puppet of a donkey.
These are the feet. The picture is kind of blurry because every time the technician would go to take a picture, the baby would move.
Going for a sucker punch
Hi!
Oh, did I mention that it was a BOY? This picture will be really embarrassing to him in a few years. It even makes me blush!

Bowling

2009-03-15T18:38:00.005-06:00

We went bowling again last night with Dave and Sophie. It was a lot of fun. We played boys versus girls and all did pretty well. I won't mention who won because it really doesn't matter anyway, right :) ? We played two games and we let Jenna play the second game. She did really well and scored a 99. There was a minute there when I thought she would beat me, but I came back with three strikes in a row--yes, I said three! I am awesome.

She was dying to push the buttons the entire time.
I love her stance here.
She got a strike on this one!

Helping in the garden

2009-03-15T18:32:00.007-06:00

We had a BEAUTIFUL day yesterday so we were in the spring cleaning/gardening mood. Joel had read that we needed to get some maneur to put on our garden soon, so we went and got some and started to put it out. Of course, Jenna wanted to help. She actually ended up doing pretty well. (Don't mind the spikes next to the garden in the pictures. We are in the process of building a wall).

Dinosaur Museum

2009-03-15T18:17:00.010-06:00

Last Friday, Jenna and I went to the Dinosaur Museum. I was going to take her to the aquarium, but decided against it since we were considering going to Sea World in a couple of weeks. I wish I would have picked the aquarium. Not that the Dinosaur Museum wasn't fun and had lots of cool stuff to look at, but Jenna just wasn't into it. She kept saying how she wanted to see the dinosaurs, but once we got there, they either scared her or she just didn't care. We had fun being together and had a nice lunch at JCWs afterwards, so it all turned out okay.

She liked anything you could touch. She especially like this one because it had a button. She loves to push buttons (including mine).
They had a section that taught about erosion where you could see how the water flow effected the sand. Jenna just liked to drop the dinosaurs in the water and spash everyone. I didn't care because the kids around her were brats anyway.
It took some coersion, but Jenna finally stood next to this dinosaur. She wasn't so sure about it.
They had cute little dinosaur costumes for the little kids. Jenna humored me by wearing this for all of three seconds.
Yay! Something to climb on!
This picture cracks me up for some reason.
Jenna "digging" for fossils. She had more fun flinging sand everywhere than actually digging.
I love this picture. Look close and you can see why. Hint: her pants just don't seem to fit the same now that she doesn't wear diapers.

New Hat

2009-03-15T18:14:00.001-06:00

Jenna LOVES wearing underwear--and not necessarily in the conventional way. This is her new favorite way.

Valentine's Day 2009

2009-03-07T19:21:00.009-07:00

We had a great Valentine's Day this year. Joel treated both Jenna and I like queens.

Jenna finding her gift from Daddy
She got a chocolate bar and a big red dog.
She couldn't wait to dig into the chocolate.
She loved her new dog immediately!
Joel got me a dozen roses, a card, and TWO boxes of chocolates. He also made us lobster tail for dinner!
Jenna enjoying her chocolate later in the day.
Getting ready to go to the Draper temple open house with my family. Isn't she cute? We had a good time spending the afternoon with my family going through the temple. Jenna was so funny with the things she said and did. My favorite is when she kept yelling out that she wanted to go swimming in the baptismal font--you know, the one with the "cows".

Best Day Ever

2009-03-07T19:03:00.008-07:00

About a month ago, Jenna and I went to Kangaroo Zoo on my day off. It was so much fun! You couldn't wipe the smile off of Jenna or my face the entire time we were there (except for the times when I had to give dirty looks to rude kids or when the little girl threw up right in front of me).

I decided to go ahead and pay for me to go with Jenna to play on all of the blow up toys. It was the best decision. I didn't think she would do it by herself and I was right for about the first hour. After that she left me in the dust.

We spent about 2 or 3 hours there then we went to lunch together. We then went home and took a quick nap. Jenna spent the rest of the afternoon helping me with things around the house. She was so happy all day and such a good helper. I had so much fun spending the day with my cute little "baby" Jenna.

Jenna couldn't figure out how to get up this ladder for the longest time (I have to admit it was kind of difficult and very tall). I had to carry her up this about 30 times before she could do it on her own. I didn't mind, though, because it was a blast going down the big slide at the top.
Jenna jumping--her favorite thing to do.
One of the smaller slides. Jenna loved going down any way she could--backwards, on her tummy, and any other way she could figure out.
Coming down the big slide--our favorite!
She's so big!
Jenna had fun with EVERYTHING--including the chairs! This is the look she gave me when I told her to smile.

Answers

2009-02-02T20:18:00.002-07:00

I guess I better answer a couple of questions that have come up surrounding my post from last week. Well, the answer to the first obvious question is, yes, I am going to have another baby. I am due August 8th, which makes me 13 weeks along. Joel and I decided early on to tell people at about 12 weeks, which we did. At the time it felt like an eternity, but now that it is out in the open I kind of feel like we told people a little too early. August just seems so far away it seems a little silly to be telling people in January. Oh, well. It's nice not to have to keep the secret anymore.

I have not been that sick. I have gotten sick maybe 10 or 15 times which is a lot different than with Jenna. With her I was sick every day for 13 weeks. This time it has been sporadic and didn't really start until about week 10. I am just hoping I am not one of those people who is fine the first trimester and a mess the second.

I won't find out what we are having until March. I would love to have another girl, but would also love to have a boy. I have a feeling this one is a boy because of the lack of morning sickness and because of Joel's family history of lots of boys. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

We don't have any names picked out yet. We are taking suggestions :) (Nothing too weird, please!).

Joel and I are really excited and a little freaked out. The excitement definitely outweighs the freaking out right now, though. It's been awhile coming, so we're glad it's finally happening. Joel has been really good to me so far and I am not that far along. You better keep it up, hon! Jenna has no clue. She loves babies, though, so we are hoping this holds true with her new sibling.

I think that answers the questions people have asked us. Thanks for being so happy for us!

Can you repeat that?

2009-01-29T18:49:00.002-07:00

Below is a conversation I overheard between Joel and Jenna the other night while Joel was watching TV.

Jenna: What's that?
Joel: A phone
Jenna: What's that?
Joel: A chair
Jenna: Who's that?
Joel: A corrupt senator
Jenna: Barrack Obama?

Both Joel and I swear that is what she said. I asked her to repeat it and she said it again. I haven't been able to get her to say it since, though. It was the funniest thing I have ever heard!

A picture that's worth a thousand words (or at least a couple)

2009-01-25T18:11:00.002-07:00

Monkey Movie Night

2009-01-25T18:05:00.002-07:00

Last night we had a monkey movie night. Jenna and Joel went to Blockbuster to get a movie, but couldn't find anything that looked really good, so they got Space Chimps. Jenna then came home, put on her monkey jammies and grabbed her favorite stuffed animal monkey. We popped in the movie, but she didn't want to let go of the box. We had a lot of fun and the movie was better than anticipated.

Anne Geddes watch out

2009-01-25T18:01:00.002-07:00

How come Anne Geddes never thought of doing a photo shoot around food storage? I was trying to put away some food storage, but Jenna would not let me have this bucket. It was pretty funny, actually.

Pretty in Pink

2009-01-25T17:59:00.003-07:00

We painted Jenna's bedroom a couple of weeks ago and it turned out soooo cute! I told her if she doesn't like it, I will move in there. This picture doesn't do it justice, but you can get the idea. There is a light shade of pink on top and a darker one on bottom. We are going to put up a chair rail eventually which I think will make things look even better.

What are you wearing?

2009-01-25T17:56:00.001-07:00

I came home from visiting teaching a couple of weeks ago to find this...

Christmas & New Years

2009-01-09T10:48:00.020-07:00

This is a little late, but here are some highlights from our Christmas:

Jenna eating dinner at my family's Christmas party. Nothing says Christmas like having lasagna for dinner!
Mom dressing Jenna up like an angel for the nativity. As soon as we started, Jenna was out of her costume. Oh, well. Joel & I played Mary and Joseph.
I really wanted to make cookies with Jenna, so we decided to make some sugar cookies for Santa. It was the most fun we have had in a long time! She was such a good helper! We made the dough Tuesday night, then finished them up on Wednesday (Christmas Eve).
Like I said, we had fun!
On Wednesday, Jenna helped me roll out the dough and cut out the cookies.
Daddy helped, too.
Decorating the finished product.
My cute $4 plate.
Cookies for Santa! We actually forgot to set the plate out. Oh, well. The cookies were REALLY good.
Grandma H. reading Jenna "Llama, Llama, Red Pajama". Jenna loves this book! She asks to ready "Nama, Nama" every night!
Cousin Lucy gave Jenna this fairy skirt for Christmas. She loved it! She pranced around in it all night.
Jenna in the monkey jammies that Santa's elves brought.
Santa brought Jenna a table and chairs for Christmas. He even took her toy dishes and her stuffed bunny and set them up ready to play!
Jenna had to open her presents sitting at her table.
New Years: "Can we go to bed yet?"
For New Years, we had some friends over. We ate pizza, sat around and talked, then bowled on the Wii. Afterwards we watched a really dumb movie. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

Tagged

2008-12-07T17:46:00.003-07:00

So Alice tagged me. Let's see if I can answer her questions.

8 Favorite TV Shows

Office
Prison Break
Ghost Hunters
Biggest Loser
Lost
Amazing Race
I can't think of anymore...

8 Favorite Restaurants
Cafe Rio
Costa Vida
JCWs
Pier 49 Pizza
Ruby River
Carl's Jr
Chick-fil-a
Ruth's Chris (We've only been there once, and that will probably be the only time, but boy was it good!)

8 Things that Happened Yesterday
Watched XFiles Movie (stupid)
Went bowling
Went Christmas shopping
Went bed shopping for Jenna
Worked on ward Christmas breakfast
Did laundry
Had to deal with Jenna not taking a nap

8 Things I am Looking Forward to
Christmas
The new year
The recession to be over
A raise
Jenna sleeping in a big girl bed
Jenna being fully potty trained
Organizing the garage
The ward breakfast to be over

8 Things on My Wishlist
A clean house
Jenna being potty trained
Go to Hawaii
Lose some weight
Run in a race
New carpet
More time in a day
A nap

8 People I Tag
Anyone who wants to do this (It's harder than it sounds!)

Catch up

2008-12-07T16:47:00.014-07:00

Well, it's been awhile since I have had a chance to blog (as Melissa likes to remind me:)). I know I have been busy, but when I sat down to write this blog, I couldn't remember what I have been busy with. So, I decided to check the camera. Unfortunately, I haven't been the best photographer lately, so I don't have many pictures to remind me what I have been doing. Here is what I did find though...

Jenna is really into going "bye-bye" lately. Here she is getting ready to go to church. She has put on her coat and zipped it up, put her lion hat on, and grabbed Mom's scriptures. She is ready to go! She has also neglected to clean her mouth after breakfast.

We went to both my family and Joel's family for Thanksgiving. Here is the setting at my parent's house. We eat in their garage since there is plenty of room out there and it is heated. It works out pretty well and Mom makes it looks more festive than just a garage.

Jenna had a great Thanksgiving. She got to eat all the bread she wanted. She did not want to let her baby go while she ate (by the way, that is my dad's old high chair she is in. Yes, we are a family of pack rats).

Dessert was yummy! (That is a toy cup in front of her, not our dessert)

We put up our tree last weekend. Jenna loved helping. We found a Santa hat in a box and put it on her. At first, she wanted nothing to do with it, but soon she didn't want to be parted with it. She even slept with it on that night.

My little girl is getting so big! I guess it's about time we keep her clothed.

Jenna had a rough day last week. She stepped on a toy at school and the other end came up and hit her in the mouth. It gave her a big ole fat lip. It must have happened right before I picked her up, because she was still pretty upset. When we got home, she walked right in, asked for cartoons, and sat down in her princess chair. She didn't even take the time to take her coat off. She just wanted her cartoons to comfort her.

We had a weekend of Christmas shopping this weekend. We went to the mall and splurged on some chocolate suckers from See's candy. Here is Jenna after I cleaned her up four times already.

I also celebrated my 30th birthday a few weeks ago. Joel and I went out to dinner, but that was about it. I wasn't feeling well, so we didn't want to do much. I think I caught the bug Jenna was just getting over (sound familiar, Anna Marie?). My co-workers decorated my cube, brought treats, and took me to lunch. They treated me really well. A couple of them were feeling guilty because they forgot my birthday last year, so they were trying to make up for it this year.

We have been frantically trying to plan the ward Christmas breakfast. It has been one roadblock after another. I can't wait until it is over. Hopefully it will turn out okay. If it's anything like the dream I had about it last night, though, we are in trouble.

We went bowling with some friends last night. Jenna was with us and was getting a little impatient waiting for us. I let her bowl with me on my first try every frame, and guess what? She got a strike! She's a natural. Sorry, hon, she might not be a WNBA star--she might be a bowling champion!

I think that about sums it up. I will try to be a better blogger, but if not, Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday Baby!

2008-11-09T17:56:00.010-07:00

This last week was Jenna's 2nd birthday. It was so fun!

It started on Saturday by going to the store to pick up another present or two, and Jenna picking out her birthday cake and treats for school.

On Sunday, we had a party with Joel's family. Jenna helped me bake her cake to get ready (by help, I mean she stood and watched so you don't have to worry that she stuck her fingers in it or anything). Once it was done, she just stood there staring at it saying "Happy Birfday!". To distract her, I pulled out a candle so she could practice blowing it out. She got pretty good at it, but wouldn't you know it, when the pressure was on she would have nothing to do with it.

The Harrison's came over and gave her way to many presents. She was swimming in presents between what Joel and I gave her and what everyone else gave her. She got a new doll, a peg/hammer toy, a book, some slippers, a cell phone, and the list goes on. Joel and I tried to get shopping for her birthday done early, but it just backfired on us because we just wanted to buy more. We are awful.

On Monday, they sang to Jenna and had treats at school. When I picked her up, she just kept saying "Happy Birfday!". Joel, Jenna, and I went to Winger's for her birthday dinner. Jenna wouldn't eat a bite of anything. Oh, well. We came home and opened presents from my side of the family and a couple more presents from Joel and me (I told you we were bad!). By the time she was able to play with them for a few minutes, it was time to go to bed. I was so sad it was all over because it was so much fun. I can't wait until Christmas!

Waiting patiently (sort of)
Practicing
Opening presents
Curious cousins
Her new doll, slippers, and cell phone
She got a new tent and tube thing that she LOVES!
We got her this cheep-o buggy thinking she wouldn't want to sit in it and break it like her doll stroller she has now. We were wrong. I guess it's good that it was such cheap plastic because it just kind of bends under her weight rather than breaking.

Harrison Halloween Party

2008-10-26T18:15:00.010-06:00

Every year, Dave and April host a little Halloween party at their house for all of the grandkids. They do such a good job. They feed us and have little activities for the kids. Everyone looks forward to it every year (Sorry, April, I guess that means you have to keep doing it!). Here's a few pictures from it.

Getting ready--oops! I forgot the gloves!
Is she a princess or a queen? Either way, she looks like a diva!
The fam
Jenna was being sneaky and tried to get out of the small hole in the chair. She got stuck.
Doing the bean bag toss.
Jenna found a book on the treasure hunt. She couldn't wait to get back and read it.
Playing with the glow sticks Grandma and Grandpa gave her. She came home with a ton of goodies. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-26T18:03:00.010-06:00

Since the one thing we forgot to do when we were at Cornbelly's was get a pumpkin, I took Jenna to the pumpkin patch yesterday. Although it wasn't really a pumpkin patch. It was a whole bunch of activities with pumkins there.

Checking out the chickens.
"Quack, quack!"
This one just feels right.
Trying to lose mom.
She loved these little cutout things. She had to stick her head in all of them.
Climbing the slide while avoiding the steps that are supposed to help you up.
Going down the slide.
Jenna has found her pumpkin!

Long day

2008-10-26T17:52:00.004-06:00

My new schedule at work allows me to have every other Friday off, so this last Friday Jenna and I spent the entire day running errands and getting things done. She was such a good helper all day long--even in the afternoon after not taking a nap due to a nagging cough that kept her up. Here is what we did:

Stripped all the sheets off the beds. We did have to stop and read a book every couple of minutes, but she helped me tear things apart.

Went to Costco. She did the best ever here. She stayed on the cart the entire time and helped organize things for me. We stayed and had a hot dog after we shopped and she went and found a table for us and carried her own drink there.

Went to the post office. She really hammed it up here. Everyone in line just loved her. She helped me pick out a box to ship a present and she helped by giving the cashier my credit card.

Did the laundry. She wasn't a huge help on this one, but she did make it fun. She just acted silly with all of the clothes and towels.

Voted. She was so patient. We were there for an hour and a half and there was not a single melt down. She even pushed all of the buttons for me.

Went grocery shopping. She was so patient and helped put produce in the bags and put things in the basket.

Oh--and she went potty all by herself without me even asking--twice! One of those times was even #2!

I am so lucky to have Jenna as my little girl.

She was finally able to catch a few minutes of sleep.

Drumroll please...

2008-10-26T17:46:00.002-06:00

So, we have made a decision. Jenna is going to be Cinderella for Halloween. I was searching for an outfit on the internet and Cinderella was on the monitor. Jenna saw it and kept saying "Pretty dress!", so I had to get it. I wasn't really into the princess thing, but she looks really cute in the dress. (Thanks for offering the turtle costume, Beth! It sounds really cute. Too bad we had bought the Cinderella costume the day before you commented. We still need to get together, though).
This picture was taken at like 10 at night after we got back from Cornbelly's. We had just gotten it in the mail and wanted to try it on her really fast.

Potty Time

2008-10-26T17:42:00.001-06:00

So we bought a new toilet for the basement bathroom, but it hasn't quite made it downstairs yet. I caught Jenna lounging in it the other day. It was hilarious! She was just drinking and swinging her feet. (Don't mind the mess in the back. She had just finished counting all of our canned vegetables. She can count to ten! Brilliant I tell you, brilliant).

Cornbelly's

2008-10-26T17:15:00.020-06:00

A couple of weeks ago we went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point with my family. I guess it is turning into kind of a tradition. We went last year for the first time and were kind of dreading going this year. Last year was freezing and there wasn't a lot to do. This year was tons better. The weather was great and they had a lot more to do. Here are some of the things we did:

Played in the princess castle.
Played in the princess bounce house.
Played in Cinderella's pumpkin carriage.

Played on Cinderella's carriage some more.
Dressed up like a princess (yes, she is my homeless child princess. I picked her up from day care and took her straight to Cornbelly's so I didn't have time to clean her up or fix her hair).
Played with cousin Abby and Bekah.
Rode the "horses".
Jumped on the giant air pillow.
Played on the many slides they had.
Played on more slides.
Went on the "train" ride.
Went through the David Archuletta corn maze.
Survived the corn maze (we almost didn't because we were all going crazy listening to David Archuletta music the entire time).

We also went on the very bumpy hay ride, looked at various carved pumpkins they had, and watched the pig races. Afterwards, we headed to the slowest McDonald's in the world and ate dinner. Aunt RaShelle gave Jenna an early birthday present as we were leaving. I made the mistake of letting Jenna hold it. It was open by the time we got home. It was a book and some candy jewelry. Jenna absolutely loved it. I just read the book to her 4 times in a row earlier today!

Thanks for taking us Grandma and Grandpa! We had a lot of fun!

The layered look

2008-10-26T16:59:00.004-06:00

I have been going through a lot of clothes lately--pulling out the 2T's and putting away the 18 monthers. Jenna likes to help by trying everything on. A couple of weeks ago, I was putting away the swimming suits and pulling out some underwear. This is what I got...
This one is blurry, but you get the point. She is wearing two swim suits. This is what she was wearing when the home teachers came over.
This one is dark. She is wearing 11, yes ELEVEN pairs of underwear (plus her diaper). When I took them off, she had little red marks on her legs where they were cutting off her circulation.

Halloween Ideas?

2008-10-05T20:01:00.002-06:00

So Halloween is just a few weeks away. We have no idea what Jenna should be. We don't want her to be the typical princess (although that is probably what she would want to be, but it's not about what she wants--kidding), but can't find anything else we really like. Any ideas? What are your kids going to be this year?

Blindsided

2008-10-05T19:55:00.003-06:00

So Joel and I were asked to go see the bishop this last Tuesday. We assumed it was about our calling as the Marriage & Family Relations teachers. We haven't had a class for a couple of months so we thought he wanted some input on how it's going and who should attend the next session of classes we will teach. We were dead wrong! We got another calling. We are now the activity committee chairpeople. I never would have guessed that. We are excited. I guess the committee was disbanded about 6 months ago when the last chairperson got a new calling, so we are starting from scratch. We are supposed to have 4 activities a year, and since we have never been to a ward activity, we need any help we can get. Let me know if you have any suggestions!

It's done!

2008-10-05T19:29:00.004-06:00

So, we are done with the basement for awhile. We got the carpet last Friday. The color wasn't what I really wanted, but it is growing on me. It's really soft and clean. Jenna loves to run around in circles down there now. As soon as the carpet guys left, she ran down there and just ran and jumped. She likes all the extra space we have now.

When the carpet came, Joel was at a conference for the weekend for work. He was anxious to see what it looked like, so I made a little video of it for him. It's not that exciting and has no sound, but here you go. Sorry I am focused on the carpet, but you can kind of get the idea of what the rest of it looks like. I was going to make another video so you could see more, or at least take pictures, but we are in the process of moving all of our crap down there so it is a little bit of a mess right now.

Happy Birthday Gampa Harrison!

2008-09-21T19:24:00.005-06:00

September 11th was "Gampa" Harrison's 70th birthday. Yesterday we had a big surprise party over at the park across the street from our house. We had dinner, visited, and played with the kids. It was a nice little gathering and I think everyone had fun. Thanks, April, for planning all of it.

Of course the only pictures I took at the party were of my little princess. Here are a few shots.

She can't wait for cake!

Still so excited (don't worry, she didn't actually touch the cake.
So serious
She is SO big! She can climb the ladder to the slide now!

The end is near!

2008-09-21T19:07:00.002-06:00

So we will be "finished" with the basement this Friday! We have an appointment to have our carpet installed then. I put "finished" in quotes because there will still be work to be done after Friday, but we can start moving our office and stuff down there once the carpet is installed. I am so excited!

Joel, his brother and his dad worked on the tile in the bathroom the last couple of weekends. It looks really nice. Hopefully it will be done this week. There was not that much tile to lay, but the BYU games keep getting in the way of the work :)

Here's a picture of the tile. All the red stuff is some crack resistant stuff we put down first (in case you were wondering).

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Jealous

2008-09-14T18:17:00.000-06:00

Okay, I started this blog a few months ago, but it was kind of depressing so I didn't finish it. I started it when I was first getting on to the blogging "scene" and was just beginning to stalk people. I guess I was having a down day or something because every blog just made me feel jealous and I started to make a mental list of things I wish I had that my friends have. Here is what I came up with.

A nicer house. My house is sufficient for our needs (and probably more than that). Of course there are always things that could be better, but it doesn't really matter in the long run.

A cleaner house. My house has been a disaster since Jenna came into the picture. I try to clean up, but Jenna insists on keeping things a mess. I have to keep telling myself that I would rather spend time with her than cleaning. Plus, Joel is pretty good at helping out.

Be a stay at home mom. If I have to work, I am glad that I have the job that I have. I really enjoy it for what it is worth.

Have a house full of kids. The one I have is wonderful and the cutest in the world (sorry to break it to all of you other moms!).

More time to blog. If I had more time to blog I would spend way too much time doing it. This stuff is addicting!

Something more interesting to blog about. I have noticed that people are interested in what you have to write about no matter what it is. Even if all it is is posting a picture of your child's poop for the day (Anna Marie!).

A child that goes to bed at a decent hour! It is actually nice that Jenna goes to bed late because that means I get to spend more time with her at night.

A chance to catch up with old friends. That's what blogging is for, right?

I never finished this post several months ago, because I realized soon after starting it that I need to stop comparing myself to other people. I am really blessed in my life. Sorry this is so sappy!

What have I done?

2008-09-07T21:15:00.003-06:00

I knew this was going to happen one day, but I was hoping it would be a little while down the road still. I was reading, but the TV was on. I looked over and Jenna was actually watching. It was on a kids show and she watched nearly the entire thing.

My child is now in to TV. I am not too excited about that (although it may give me a little free time).

10 minutes later...

Ear update

2008-08-31T18:15:00.001-06:00

Jenna went to the doctor on Friday for her six month check up on her tubes. The doctor was so far behind on her appointments, we didn't get to spend much time with her. The tubes are still in and, yes, Jenna had an ear infection! No doctor appointment would be complete without one. Things look good though, so I guess we just keep plugging on!

Trying on clothes

2008-08-31T18:11:00.002-06:00

Last night I was pulling out some 2T clothes for Jenna from the basement and she was helping me go through them. She found a pair of shorts that she wanted to try on. She went into the bathroom, took her diaper off, then proceeded to put the shorts on upside down with both legs through one leg hole. Weirdo.

Sorry the picture is kind of blurry, and don't mind the total mess all around her...