Arrow of Light Ceremony

I am very proud of Jordan for earning the highest award in the cub scouting program...the Arrow of Light. He turned 11 in June, but the Arrow of Light ceremony was this past Friday. Since Doug and I are the Cubmasters in the ward we were able to plan and conduct the ceremony. I made sugar cookies and a special cake for Jordan and Rowdy (another boy in our ward). We had fun decorating and putting it all together. That's hard to read, but it says "Rowdy & Jordan 2010 Arrow of Light"

We went to the church early to set up. We had a fake fire, a table with electric battery operated candles, a tent, trees, the bridge, and white Christmas lights strung around the room. My flash on my camera actually worked pretty well. All of the lights were off in the gym. Jordan walked across the bridge and was met by the boyscouts. I don't really have a picture of the bridge, but it is pretty cool. Some of the boyscouts made it for the crossover ceremony and they put holes in the outside to post the flags. Very cool. We decorated it with Christmas lights. In the ceremony we painted some stripes on their cheeks and across their foreheads. They also got that really cool Indian hat that I made out of duct tape. :)

Congratulations Jordan!

Starting Solids, Sleeping, and Silliness

Noah started eating solids and he absolutely LOVES it! (Really, who wouldn't?!) Mason fell asleep listening to his "tunes".
I found this picture on my camera of Kaylee and Noah. I couldn't resist sharing.

First Day of School

I can't believe the summer is over. Today is the first day of school. Of course, I HAD to take pictures. Lexi is in Mrs. Feit's 2nd Grade Class:

Kaylee is in Mr. Call's 4th Grade Class:
And Jordan started Middle School this year. He is in 6th Grade. I can't believe I'm that old...I mean that Jordan is that old. :)
I didn't take a picture of Doug on his first day of school. He was up at 5 a.m. I was still sleeping. Goodbye to summer and Hello to the busy 2010-11 school year.

My little helper

Mason can be such a help sometimes. Here he is helping me with the dishes:

He is very disappointed when there isn't more dishes to "help" me wash.

He cracks me up sometimes. The other day, when I started the van, the radio immediately came on and he said "I love this song". The radio was tuned to my station and I'm pretty sure he had never heard the song before. He has obviously heard me say this in the past.

Noah will be 4 months old this week. I can't believe how fast he is growing up. He is now big enough to sit in this activity bouncy chair that his Grandma gave him:

He loves watching action around him (which is good since there are 6 others in the family). Sitting up makes him really happy. For journaling purposes: Noah laughed for the first time on 07/21/10. Noah rolled over from back to tummy on 07/22/10. (It was a very eventful week for him)

Marching Band 2010-11

Doug has been very busy this last week with Drumline and Marching Band Camp. He loves teaching band. It is his "2nd Family". Kaylee and Lexi love to go to band camp with him and hang out with the Flag team. The flag team loves the girls. Last year the Colorguard instructor made them their own mini flags so they can learn the moves and twirl too. Notice Kaylee and Lexi in the upper left corner of this last picture. This is on lunch break. I can't believe school starts in one week. Where has the summer gone?

I made it! (and so did Mason)

I made it through potty training another child. Mason has been successful in learning how to use the potty this past week. He still isn't potty trained at night, but at least this is a start.
He now goes in on his own...even when he's playing outside. It's great! I am so proud of him. Only one more child to go...WOO HOO! I sooooo hate potty training.

On a side note...my kids are totally in to the slug bug game whenever we go anywhere. They have now added "Cruiser Bruiser" to the game as well. I must be terrible at this game because I get punched A LOT! Mason doesn't quite understand this game and he'll come up to you (in the house), say "red one" and punch you as hard as he can. I think he just likes hitting people. He is definitely ALL BOY!

Kaylee turns 9

Kaylee turned nine years old last week. I can't believe how fast she is growing up. In some ways, she acts 16. She talked me in to letting her get her ears pierced one year early. Originally, I told my girls they had to wait until they were 10. She has done an excellent job of taking care of them, so I think she was mature enough to get them done. She chose a ruby for her birthstone:

Kaylee and I had a mommy-daughter date. We went to see "Despicable Me" in 3D, had her ears pierced, and then went out to lunch. We had a great time! Before we headed home, I let her buy the newest Justin Bieber cd. I remember my first "famous boy crush". As a tween, I loved watching Kirk Cameron on "Growing pains". Awwww....life was so simple back then. I still feel like she is too young to have a boy crush though. I think I still thought boys were icky when I was 9. Lucky for her, the new cd had a Justin Bieber poster in it: The day before her birthday, her Uncle Kevin and cousin Tui visited from Utah. They were able to watch Kaylee open a few presents, eat brownies, and join in on a little bit of the festivities.
I think she was spoiled this birthday, because in addition to all of that, she went to the funplex twice in the 3 days over her birthday weekend. Once while Uncle Kevin and Tui were visiting, and once with Lexi and a friend. Instead of a birthday cake this year, she wanted donuts with ice cream in the middle.
I put together a small slide show of Kaylee growing up over the years:

Happy Birthday Kaylee!

Independence Day 2010

We've really enjoyed the holiday weekend. On Friday, we went to a concert and pot luck at Glenmere Park. Doug's marching band performed and we all enjoyed eating yummy food. Then, on Saturday morning we headed over to the parade. I went with some friends in our ward. It was fun to visit and not have to watch the parade by myself. Doug's group sounded great. They call it the "All City Band" because several students from different High Schools join together to march. Lexi, Cassidy Whetten, Jordan, Kaylee, and Mason

Later in the afternoon we rented "Alice In Wonderland" and "The Tooth Fairy" from Redbox. All of the kids went to Walmart and chose their own candy, popcorn, and soda. This is sooooo much cheaper than going to the theatre. It's definitely easier this way when you have little ones. So much fun.

We threw some burgers on the grill and had a BBQ. Yum! Once it was dark, we let the kids do sparklers (which they absolutely loved) and a few small fireworks. Definitely a fun day.

This morning I dragged all of the kids to the front porch for an Independence Day picture. I've been wanting to retake the "front porch picture" ever since we took the one in May because I just couldn't stand that Mason wasn't smiling in that first one. I had to make some farting noises, but was successfully able to get everyone to smile except for Noah. Hooray!
I hope everyone had a great weekend too!

More pics of Noah

Whenever I have a baby, I like to take lots of pictures of them because they develop so quickly. Here is Noah at 2 1/2 months:

Jensen Visit

Last week we had the privilege of having my sister and her family visit. She has 5 kids as well, so we had a house full of kids! It was fun and exhausting. On Monday, Doug and Darren went out to a movie (The A-Team) and lunch. A little guy time without the kids. Later that night we went to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate Jordan's birthday (see previous post). On Tuesday, we had an "Under the Sea" theme day. We headed to Windsor Lake. My sister Marilee and my nephew Nathaniel joined us for this fun day. Lexi:

Jordan:
My Niece, Emily:
We didn't take a lot of pictures, but my sister Stacie did. I'll have to steal some from her later. After the beach, Jordan and Jacob went home with Nathaniel and they had a boys sleepover. Fun for the boys. The rest of us had Seafood for dinner to complete the "Under the Sea" meal. There were plans to watch Little Mermaid and read sea books, but that really didn't happen. My Nephew, Joshua, had an allergic reaction to something and they ended up taking him to urgent care for a breathing treatment. This was a weird freak thing that has never happened to him before. He turned out to be fine the rest of the week. Whew!

On Wednesday, Stacie and I headed to Marilee's for a little girl time. We left all of the kids with the guys and were able to relax a little. We went to the movie, "Letters to Juliet" and out to eat at a Mexican Restaurant. It felt short, but sweet. We also counted this as a celebration to Stacie's birthday (which is the 20th). While we were gone the men had taken the kids to the park just to get out of the house.

On Thursday, we had creative day. We started out with an invention table (thanks to Doug's mom for the idea):

The kids had a great time inventing robots, fish, faces, etc. This was something that both the older kids AND the younger kids liked to do. Hooray. Later that night we had appetizers for dinner. My favorite was the Honey BBQ wings and the Sausage & Cream Cheese stuffed mushrooms (Thanks Crystal for the recipe). Very fattening dinner, but DELICIOUS! And to finish off the night we had a talent show. This turned out to be so fun and hilarious. Darren did some magic tricks, Stacie and I showed off our talent of picking up items with our long toes, the kids played the piano and danced. Jordan and Jacob did a funny skit. It was a very enjoyable evening. Darren: Jordan and Jacob:
On Friday we went to the park and let the kids play for a while. Then we headed to Marilee's house for a BBQ. I had a great evening spending time with both of my sisters and their families. The Jensens left the next morning for Utah, but will be heading back through here again on their way back to Minnesota. We had a great week.

Happy Birthday Jordan

Jordan turned 11 this month. How time flies. Here is a slide show of Jordan starting in his early years:

Jordan wanted a Bakugan cake this year:

He also wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. His cousins were visiting from Minnesota so they were able to go too. So fun. (Left to right: Jacob, Jordan, Alison, Lexi, Kaylee, Rylie, Joshua, & Mason) The two youngest ones (Emily and Noah) are not in the picture.

Jordan and Jacob went to their cousin Nathaniel's house for pizza and a sleepover. They had a great time.

Jordan had a great birthday!

Visitors

During the past weekend we've had a lot of visitors over to celebrate Noah's blessing (see next post to see blessing pictures). We were able to...have some girls time (shopping), have a BBQ (which it started POURING rain while we were grilling. Mason is still talking about it and is afraid to go outside now), go to Swetsville Zoo (which is half flooded), and swim at the funplex. It was a short visit for everyone, but it was super fun to visit. Here are some pics from the weekend:

Noah's Blessing

We've had lots of family visiting this weekend to celebrate Noah's blessing. He was blessed yesterday. Everything went great. Here are some pictures: