A Glimpse.......

Our house is just like any other house. Rough and rowdy with 2 boys and 1 crazy girl. We have our fair share of temper tantrums, wrestling matches, fighting, hitting, complaining and the list goes on. We definitely have The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! But today I got a glimpse of the good (the REAL GOOD). Now don't get me wrong, this has happened before and I'm sure it will happen again, but today I am especially grateful because I needed it. I dropped Chase off at preschool and a friend volunteered to pick him up and then take him to her house for a play date for the rest of the afternoon. At about 12:30 I received a call from her telling me that Chase wasn't feeling well and that he had a fever. I told her that I just had to wait for Carson to get home from school and then I would come and pick him up. A few minutes later Carson came bursting through the door excited to have a short day (due to Parent-Teacher Conferences) and ready to play with friends. I explained that we would have to go pick up Chase before he could do anything. Needless to say he was disappointed that he would have to wait. We got to her house and went in to pick up Chase and while I was chatting with her I looked towards the car and noticed Carson walking with his arm around Chase's shoulders. What a sweet sight. I got into the car and noticed Carson helping Chase buckle up and then he turned to Hayden and started playing with her. The entire 15 minutes in the car was peaceful. When we got home I laid Hayden down for her nap and came out to find Carson getting Chase a cold glass of water to help with his fever, he then got Chase some ice-chips to chew on. All of this being done without my prodding. After Chase was done with his ice I took him into his room for a nap. Carson came with me and helped tuck Chase in and told him to sleep good. When we left Chase's room Carson acted as though nothing were out of the ordinary and proceeded to make plans for the rest of his afternoon. As a mom you look for those little moments when your children actually act like the people you know they are. What a blessing it is when you actually get a glimpse into that really amazing side. Just made me realize even more how much I love my kids and how grateful I am to be their mom. Even though we'll still have the temper tantrums, hitting, complaining, etc......

Quail Lake-Labor Day weekend.....

Having a four day weekend is wonderful, but it presents issues about how to keep the kids entertained. Earlier on in the week I told Cody that we needed to plan something for Saturday. We usually end up waiting until Saturday to talk about it and then we can't decide so this time we planned ahead. We decided that we'd take the boat out to the Lake. We called a couple of our friends and planned on leaving Saturday morning at 9. We got to the lake and spent the day tubing, rafting, bbqing and relaxing. It was so fun to get away and the kids had a blast. For lunch we bbq'd hotdogs and then spent a few more hours tubing. We ended up heading home at about 4. Thanks Afualo and Sandberg families, we had a blast. We should try to be social more often!

sUmMer ProGrAm paRtY 2o09

After a long and busy summer we calculated each of the boys points to see if they had accomplished enough goals and earned enough points for their Summer Program Party. Both boys had earned their required points. Chase with 100 points and Carson with well over his goal of 150 points. We had homemade pizza (made by Dad-wish I had a picture of him tossing it in the air), played Buckaroo-Junkyard Jalopy-and Hayden's favorite Hungry Hungry Hippos. We gave each boy their certificate and a little toy and finished off the night with hot fudge sundaes with lots of toppings. We are so proud of you guys for reaching your goals. Can't wait until next summer!

A few of the things Carson accomplished:

-Read stories to Hayden
-Bore his testimony
-Read articles out of the Friend
-Vacuumed the Explorer
-Memorized a scripture
-Brushed teeth morning and night for 2 weeks
-Hit a home run
-Played catch with someone everyday for 1 week
-Read 400 pages of approved books
-Watered the flowers and the garden
-Did 3 secret good turns
-Sat reverently in Sacrament meeting


A few of the things Chase accomplished:
-Learned to count to 25
-Brushed teeth morning and night for 2 weeks
-Learned to like a new vegetable (squash and cucumbers)
-Went 1 whole day without going to timeout
-Went to Primary without crying
-Sat reverently in Sacrament meeting

(Some of these things they did more than once along with a few other things to earn their points)

Carmel Junction.....

Well, it was time for another trip to Carmel Junction. We got babysitters for the day and headed out for a fun day 4-wheeling. This time it was a small group that went, just Cody and I, Mom & Dad and Lisa & Jeremy. What a fun day and a nice break from the kids who were happily at home playing with their cousins. Some of the more memorable moments were: Dads funny Bang-Bang story, Love letters in the sand, Cody running to beat the timer (twice), bees following me and only me, Lisa's face as Jeremy flew through the water, Cody's lovely portrait pose, Mom's comic story (Sweaty-Pie & Angle Face), Ice-cream from the dairy (what's in that ice-cream?), Jeremy going all day long with a cut finger that ended up with 7 stitches. All in all it was a great trip. We came home exhausted, but happy. And the kids had a good day too!

Summer Program 2009

So we kicked off our 1st Annual-Hansen Family Summer Program a couple of weeks ago at FHE. This is something that my mom did with us when we were kids, and it was something I wanted to continue with my own family. Since we aren't moving back to our house for about a month we are definitely going to have to work hard at keeping the boys busy! Both of the boys have a list of things that they can do this summer that will earn them points. (This helps when they come to you and say they are bored.) We set a goal for each of them and if they earn these points Mom and Dad will have a Summer Program Party to celebrate at the end of summer. Both of the boys were anxious to start and they are both doing 1 or 2 things from their list everyday. Hopefully this will help us keep busy this summer. And hopefully they will both reach their goals so that we can have a super-fun Summer Program surprise party! Good Luck Boys! Maybe this will help you keep your kids busy this summer.

Summer! What do we do now?

I have been so excited for summer to come, but now that it is here I am a little bit worried that I'm not going to be able to entertain my kids. We don't move back to our house for about a month so we definitely are going to have to think hard. Today we built a hut and that seemed to keep us busy for a little while.

After lunch and naps we headed up to the Rec Center. Aunt Lisa was supposed to join us, but she couldn't make it. The kids had fun swimming and eating the snacks that we brought. Mom even took Chase down the Hydro-tube (I'm sure that was a sight!)

We spent the last hour playing on the splash pad.

Grandma even came up with a list of things to do, here it is:

-Work on Summer Program
-Throw pitches at the wall and catch them
-Pull 50 weeds in the garden
-Pick up the rocks in the lawn
-Find a worm
-Bird watching
-Play trains
-Learn something new out of the Encyclopedia
-Count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's
-Burp the ABC's

Well, 1 day down! How many to go?

Carson, Carson, Carson......

"You know, The Fourth of July isn't just about fireworks. It is also the day we celebrate when they wrote the Doctrine in Covenants!"


For Mother's Day one of the things Carson gave me was a coupon for a free day of babysitting Hayden. I told him how excited I was to use it. He then explained that it expired today and that I wouldn't really be able to use it today since Dad was already home to watch Hayden. Well, I guess it's the thought that counts!