Over Two Years???

Wow. I am THE Slacker! Maybe I will find time to update this summer. Much has changed in two years. I do have to say I enjoyed reading the last entry though. I hope to start again knowing that it is a type of record keeping that my children will hopefully enjoy viewing. So here it goes...

10 things I like about you

This afternoon Ian and Joshua were ready to throw down in the living room... okay so I exaggerate a bit. My boys have yet to get into an actual physical fight, it's come close..but not yet. They were highly irritated with one another so I made them sit on the couch and hold hands :) They've been doing this since Josh could tackle Ian. Tonight I gave them the idea that they could take turns telling each other 10 things they like about that person...Here's a take

I: I like your hair
J: I like your hair
I: I like your eyes
J: I like your eyes
Me: Josh you can't just repeat his answers, come up with something different
I: I like your butt (laughter erupts)
J: I like your nostrils (more laughter through out the house)
I: I like your brain ( the situation has pretty much been diffused by now)
J: I like your brother (Ian took this as a complement at first)
Krystia, who is studying the body systems in science says: Tell him you like his epidermis
I: I like your epeidermis
J: What's that?!?

They got to the 10, I think, and everyone had their dose of daily humor.

Helicopter, helicopter, over my head....

So here I am tonight, researching car seats, when I hear for the second time the circling of the helicopter in my neighborhood. If hubby were closer I wouldn't mind as much as I do right now. I'm a paranoid person by nature...add police helicopters circling and I think they're after me..I mean chasing some crazed lunatic outside my door. So I'm breathing deep, saying my prayers, setting the alarm and heading to bed. I'll be sleeping with the lights on. No conserving electricity here.

Yes I'm alive/summary

Ok..so I haven't blogged in months...It's not that life was boring or too busy. I'm just lazy I guess. We had a great Christmas. My mom came out and visited. We saw my sister and her family over break as well as my auntie and her little family too. She was brave enough to have me and minions (as their daddy calls them) over for a sleep over too!!! We all had a blast. We went to the snow, fell on the ice, fed the ducks and psycho seagulls that attacked. Trav has gone to a convention and is headed to another shortly. Sophie has begun to babble and has wrapped her daddy aroound her pinkie with her "da da da da da da" She scoots...backwards, rolls everywhere and oh yeah...growls. Joshua is now a cub scout and gets baptized in less than 2 weeks. Audrey participated in a Christmas program or two and spelling bee. Krystia and Ian marched in a parade, spend hours at school for drama, and got rockin' grades. Trav hurt his back pretty good recently and is on the mend just in time to throw it out of whack once again at a convention. I have juggled school and church meetings, failed at blogging, housekeeping, christmas card writing and the such. I have also entered the world of facebook...but my sister burst my bubble by informing me that I need to post pictures. I knda like the grey blue question mark. It's curvy, like me.

What's Wrong with California/Education

In the last few weeks my second grader has said "This is funny mom, look" while doing his math homework. I proceed to look over his shoulder to see a typo on his math worksheet. These worksheets are not teacher made worksheets that are whipped together in little time. No siree...these are "Official" State of California, standards based curriculum worksheets by some big publishing company that's paid top dollar for their curriculum..curriculum that's been proofed and edited so that our youngin's can benefit. Todays worksheet looks like this:

Can you see what's wrong with this page? When I asked my 11 and 13 year olds they came up with one other thing...

Did you find it yet?

I'm thinking I'm not gonna give the answer here. If you're really stumped leave me a comment and I'll give ya the answers :)

All I have to say is that I wish I had taken pictures of the others too.

Joshua, leopards, & Joseph

After church yesterday Joshua was telling us about his classes and explained that the person who was to give the talk in primary was not there. He went on to say that he volunteered to give the talk because he had a favorite scripture story to share with the rest of the kiddos aged 3-7. He was so proud when he told us that he shared the story of "The ten leopards." At first I thought I heard him wrong. I mean the kid is missing 6 of his front teeth! When I asked him to repeat himself it was till leopards. So trying to restrain a laugh, I asked him to tell me the story. He went on to tell me that Jesus healed 10 leopards but only one leopard came back to say thank you. I'm pretty sure the boy knows it wasn't large cat creatures, but I guess leopards sound pretty close to lepers.

A little while later I got a phone call from a lady at church. She wants Josh to act out the role of Joseph when the kids do their Christmas program next week. My little man is gonna be Joseph! I was a bit concerned that he would not want to do it because he can be shy, and they do want him to put his arm around a girl...But he was actually okay wit that. He's quite excited too. His count down last night was of how many days until he gets to be Joseph rather than the usual how many days until Grandma comes or Christmas.

Oh yeah..the one request Josh was given for his performance was that he smile while he's up there. I guess I'm not the only one that loves that almost toothless grin.

Oh pooo!

Sunday morning was a bit more hectic than usual. As I scrambled to get myself and 5 children out the door before 9 I felt that I may have been on the brink of success. Our scriptures were ready, lessons prepared, talks written, hair combed, shoes tied, Sophie all dolled up in her cute dress and custom made hair bow to match. Then it happened. I lifted my darling daughter out of the exesaucer to place her in her car seat and discovered what? She had decorated her outfit, tights and all with poo! Well, we changed her, rushed out the door, and actually arrived to church about 5 minutes after 9. Not too bad.

30 minutes later I take the girl to the mothers lounge for a quick fuel up. As I stand her in front of the large mirror that is conveniently placed to aide mommy's in making sure they're fully put together after a feeding I discover that my blue sweater has something added to it.... A large yellow line from the earlier catastrophe! I have poo on my shirt, at church!!!! I return to sacrament meeting and tell my hubby of my discovery. He looks at it and proclaims that he could turn it into a Christmas tree if I give him a green marker. Isn't that soo sweet. Gotta love my man!

The joy of holiday pictures....

This picture is what started it all.....



It was a great spur of the moment photo shoot and it went well. BUT My mom complained about the date stamp and asked that I redo it without the darn stamp across Joshua's mug. So thought we'd try for a holiday themed picture....



That my friends is what pictures are like in the Hanson household..... Joshua insisted that the flash was killing his eyes. He started off about it so dramatically that I had to shoot a few more quick ones to capture the true hanson family essence. Then Dh walked in and decided that we had to move a light and that HE needed to stand just so and got these....


We'll try again next week....








By the way....Do you think we can get reported to CPS for torture by pictures???

And He's Humble Too

Joshua had a substitute teacher today in class. When I was waiting to pick him up my friend who works at the school smiled as she told me the following:

Joshua raised his hand in class and when the sub called on him he said "I'm the quietest one in my class." I guess he works really hard at being good in class and wants EVERYONE to know it. Good for him! :)

Even the Magic 8 Ball knows

It's no secret that I am house keeping challenged. I'm not lazy, just scatter brained. Maybe they'd call it ADD? Anyhow, I was trying like crazy to get the house presentable for a guest (sweeping, vacuuming, general picking up after everybody kinda stuff) and came across a mini 8 ball one of my kids got from their cousins b-day party. I asked the almighty mini ball "Will I get the house clean today?", shook it, waited eagerly for the answer to appear through the blue water and what did it say?????

"DOUBT IT"

Apparently the 8 ball that has resided with us for less than a week knows me well too!

Thanksgiving

So, I'm a little late.. Happy Thanksgiving!!! I hope your went very well and it found everyone happy and healthy. This Holiday seems to be the hardest for me because it is close to the time that I lost my Father. I try really hard to look at my blessings ( I have 6 in my house right now) and enjoy the day as much as possible. Thanksgiving this year was pretty mellow for us. Ian ended up with a fever and that canceled our plans to see either of my grandfathers. We'll just have to go out their and visit them one of these weekends! It's always good to visit with family. I hope yo uhave many things to be grateful for. My sister inlaw mentioned writing a list of things that you're thankful for in an alphabetical list...she never posted hers...I thought about it but did not go any further (the story of my life). I AM grateful for many things I'll list a few



My Savior
My husband
My children
Family
My church
Mountains
Home
Sunlight
Fluffy white clouds against a blue sky
Sunsets
Computers
Books
Love
Health
Happiness

Family weekend

This weekend has been very nice and it's not even Sunday yet. My brother in law and his family are here from Northern California. We've spent the last two days at Trav's parents house just hanging out together. The kids have had a great time riding bikes, jumping on the trampoline, and spending time together. Tonight all the guys played Risk and earlier a few went shooting together. My poor hubby came back with a battle wound to the head..but they all seemed to have had fun. I am so very thankful for all of my family. Travs family is great and have always been a wonderful support to us. I'm grateful for the holidays and the excuse it gives all of us to spend time together :) I wish we all lived closer so we could have more times like this.

Twilight

My dear Krystia turned 13 this weekend and wanted tickets to Twilight. So I bought 3, one for her, a friend, and myself. We went to an early morning show and Sophie was almost asleep when the trailers came on. What was the 1st one for? A freakin' Friday the 13th movie. The woman been chased down by the psycho lets out a blood curdling scream and Sophie follows suit. MInd you my 13 year old and her friend ditched me for better seats so ther I was a 30 something mom, with an infant coming to see a teen movie. I had a few rude comments and saw half the movie standing near the exit, swaying the baby to sleep.

Onto the movie though..I heard it had bad reviews, I heard that it would be laughable to non-fans, but I was not prepared for what followed!!! I am a fan...I'm that 30 something crowd that Stephenie Meyer speaks of. However. it was really pretty bad. Edward was all wrong in my mind..appearance and manners. Inthe book he's an old fashioned gentleman not an impatient teenage snot. Bella, Kristen Stewart, was so emotionless at times I wanted to slap her. Some serious parts were actually funny due to the lack of acting and directing. The meadow was wrong and the SPARKLE...don't get me started....

So I was disappointed and secretly hoping that the movie would NOT do well enough to warrant a sequel. I woke up this morning to learn that I'd be disappointed again. The movie has made enough to ruin the 2nd book in the series. Bummer.

Baby's got a big butt....

My dear little Sophia was sick AGAIN this week with another fever. Not sure what this is all about. While I had her checked out by the BEST pediatrician EVER I asked him to take a look at her leg creases again. Some days they just did not look symetrical to me and I was hoping he'd see what I meant. Well, unlike the car that's making a weird noise until you take it to the mechanic, the leg creases were doing what I had been seeing off and on.... This means my already rolly polly baby has to wear 2 diapers again. So I put her in a size 1/2 (what is withthat odd size at Sam's club???) and then put a size 2 diaper over that. This limits most of her 3 month sized clothing options now because they become way too tight. BUT (hahahha) she does have enough 6 month clothes to get by for now. Unfortunately she has to be int this 2nd diaper set up until she is 6 months old. We are praying that this will allow the hip to grow in the socket properly. Until them my dear lil' Sophie has a big bum and fusses that her diaper changes take a bit longer. She's working on that rolling from side to side thing while I change her..so that does not help :)

Utah

Well we made it home a week ago from Utah and I've had yet to make time to blog... Our trip went very well considering we had a sick baby in tow. Sophie came down with a fever on Wednesday and I took her in to urgent care. The dr gave me the green light to travel with her and so it was set. We left Friday at 12:00 in the morning and after packing in the kids with their blankets, pillows, etc we had to then fill up the gas! Ooops..I forgot that part. Well Sophie did cry inconsolably for the first 10 minutes of this trip and then Josh joined her because he couldn't fall asleep. At that point I joined them and prayed that we would not spend the next 11 hours trapped with a cranky baby. Just like that Sophie fell asleep and the journey went well.

The kids woke up at State line and through Vegas around 3:30 am and then again as went through the gorge in AZ. The sun was beginning to rise and it was absolutely beautiful! They settled down to sleep again for a bit. Then around 7 we entered St. George and Trav took us on a short detour so we could drive by the temple there. Yes, you can see it from the freeway but driving right next to it was wonderful.

We arrived in Provo around 11 and visited with a couple that are very important to Travis. The husband, brother McKell, was a teacher of Travs at church when he was just a young pup and left quite the impression on Trav. We visited their lovely home for a good hour and then went onour way to Trav's sisters house. She and her hubby when kind enough to let us stay with them and the kids LOVED being able to spend time with their cousins.

After we unpacked we went to see Grandpa Earl J. He is in his upper 80's and is facing the sunset of his life. The main purpose of our trip was so we could see Grandpa Earl J and Grandma Alice. The kids got to play their instruments for them and Ian was very proud to play the trumpet..the same instrument grandpa used to play. We got to hear the fun story of how Grandpa got his first trumpet, that he still has! The kids also got a demo on latch hooking and enjoyed their visits.

We then traveled home early Sunday morning and all I can say id THANK GOODNESS FOR THE DVD PLAYER! It took us over 12 hours to get home and that thing saved us from many hours of "he's touching me" "She's inmy space!" and such.

On our trip home Trav and I did come to a realization..we actually like Utah...we'd LOVE to move to Cedar City. This comes from the 2 of us who said we'd "never" move to Utah. But the air is so clear, mountains so pretty, ..sigh...it was very nice. I can't wait for the next trip!!!!

Got brakes, will travel..& stop too!

So this weekend was a bit unordinary. My hubby came home Thursday night to proclaim that he was taking off Friday to do the brakes on our van. (Our van by the way, has quite the taste for brakes. that sucker eats them up at least every 6 months. And NO it's not my driving..it's really a proven fact that our monster van has a rep of going through these suckers like crazy. Don't believe me? Google 2004 Kia sedona and brakes) I thought this was wonderful news. That would mean we could use our Saturday for family fun, or cleaning the house, or something. With in 10 minutes of his declaration he threw his back out!!!! How? By walking, I guess. So he was down for the count and there were still brakes that needed changing.

So how did he spend his glorious day off? Lying on his back. Come Saturday he's still hurting but those brakes were still calling. So we loaded up the fam, went to the inlaws and Trav showed me how to change the brake pads. My dad would be proud. Of course I did not do much of it. Part way through the baby woke up and needed to be fed. I took care of that and headed back to the garage. Trav really did most of the work and a great bro in law, who knows how to do everything, helped out when I got a lug nut stuck in the one wrench thingy. However, I do know how to take off my tire now, how to put them on, how to jack up my car..safely, yeah. So my poor hurt hubby still did most of the work..but I lent a helping hand and am happy that I gained a little bit of knowledge about things mechanical. Ohhh and it was i who noticed the car sounded funny as we left and that the van was shakey....the lug nuts were not tight enough. So the other important lesson....make sure you tighten your, uh, lug nuts! If not, the tire might fall off...ooops!

So now I'm off to go get 2 stinkin' tires for the van...That'll be the last of our van prep for our up coming road trip to Utah... Next will be making sure I have winter clothes for my kiddos...That's another post for another day....

The end of an era...

for our family that is. When Krystia went off to speech in 99 we had no idea how many years we would spend in speech therapy. She'd go to a special pre-school twice a week and participate in speech therapy there. Then in homeschooling we'd travel down to the church building the charter school used to have more speech therapy 2 times a week. Off to public school and she was still in speech. Even in middle school she was still in speech... Well just last year she was exited out. I teared up a bit and was very happy to know she had reached that point.
In the midst of Krystia's speech career Mr. Josh came along and decided he didn't need to talk because everyone spoke for him! When he did begin speaking we could not understand what he was trying to say and he'd get soooo mad!!! I tired to get him into speech at the age of 3, no luck (darn therapist..I KNOW he qualified) anyhow before Kindergarten he "qualified" and had been in speech since. Just last week I had his annual IEP and he had his triennial review/test that we were going to go over. Well, he no longer qualifies! I have to admit he's improved dramatically...if only we could get him to slow down it'd be great!

Sooo after 8.5 years of speech, 13 IEP meetings, countless speech homework forms and a mountain of parental rights notification forms, we are done! I'm proud of my kiddos and how hard they work. I'm grateful for the wonderful speech therapists we've had throughout the years. Let's see what little miss Sophie does....speech or no speech. That question will be answered in about 2.5 to 3 years....

A politically minded child...

I'm not very political, anyone who knows me could tell you it's not my cup of tea. I research issues, candidates, and make an informed choices. But I do not get wrapped up in the hype of it all. Trav is more informed and up to date, but political issues do not rule the dinner table. That's why I am surprised that Ian had such a strong opinion about issues and candidates. He was telling me why I should vote for Obama over Mc Cain and what propositions he felt were important and why he'd vote yes or no on each. I was impressed. This morning the first thing he did after falling out of bed with his blanket wrapped around him, was to mosey on over to the computer to see what had changed since bed time. He enthusiastically announced what props passed that he agreed with. Then I had to chase him away from the computer to get ready for school...but not before I peeked at where prop 8 stood.

This is Halloween....

That was actually for crazy hair day....I had to add it here somehow :)

Okay here is the group halloween pictures taken last night before the school Halloween party:


Not the most flattering pic of my munchkins...but it captured the moment well.




Here's the carving party:

Ian picked out mood music. He settled on.......
The Evan Almighty soundtrack????


Here are the costumes & pumpkins in no particular order

Sophie the Ladybug

Krystia the princess & her twilight pumpkin


Pirate Audrey & her happy pumpkin

Ninja Josh and his pumpkin (It has bullet holes and scars too...but it's still a jolly fellow)

Last, but not least, ninja Ian & his gourd of many faces



One last lady bug for the road.....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

A song for Christmas

Audrey has the opportunity to audition at the local high school for a solo part in the h.s Christmas concert! Her elementary choir teacher chose her and 2 other girls to go audition on the 14th of next month. So as she practices singing the song over and over and over the family will be in the Christmas spirit in no time! She'd sing a verse from Hark the Herald Angels Sing solo and then she'd sing a song I hadn't heard before with the rest of the choir. We all have our fingers crossed for her and we're happy that she has this opportunity. I have to say that she has confidence in her abilities. She told me, "I have a beautiful voice so I should make it." I feel like I've done a good job on the confidence factor for at least one of my children!