hello?

full circle

So I think Sum & I have the best set up around. Being childhood (& now adult) friends was so convenient because we lived across the street from one another. And now our children can enjoy the same convenience. We LOVE when Brookelynn & Brynlee come for the summers and we have even more excuses to go to Grandma's house. Dallin just adores Brookelynn and announced to the entire primary during his Spotlight that he was going to marry her in the temple when they were bigger. (I'm sure it hasn't even entered his mind that she'll be a good foot taller than he!) Swimming lessons together were hilarious to watch (and apparently traumatic to go through from all the crying & screaming beforehand). And we especially loved our "girl day" when Kacy came to visit. Somewhere in between all the fun Brookelynn got a hold of my camera.. not bad shots girl!

Sergei Rachmaninoff & Ludwig Van Beethoven

in the making.

4th of July

We started off the morning with flag ceremony where Dallin led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. He didn't even ask who "Richard Stands" was! (When Whitney was little she asked Mom that question in reference to ..."& to the republic for "richard stands", one nation, under God....") And as all good summer holidays end.. swimming & a barbecue at Mom & Dad's!

We're lame about bedtimes and staying out too late with the kids... so we forgo the live

show and "spoil" the kids by letting them stay up a few minutes to watch the good fireworks on t.v. I mean how is Tempe Towne Lake supposed to compete with Boston Harbor?

Christopher Maughan Jensen

Is he not the cutest baby ever? For some odd reason, I think I have anticipated this baby almost more than my own! I have just been so excited for Whit to enter the motherhood realm. (Maybe now she'll understand why I call her all the time because I have nothing better to do, and always have to hang up because I'm too busy to talk.)

His car seat turned out so cute.. I did work extra hard on it for my newest nephew!

I thought I could get some tender picture of my kids with Christopher.. whatever. But just as I was about to delete this picture it struck me as kind of cool.. I love that all the noise, the distractions around are just blurry compared to the quiet, peaceful clarity surrounding the baby. Hmmmm.. very reflective, let's ponder on that for a moment. :)

gourmet

I don't claim to be gourmet.. but every once in awhile I bust out something delish. This pizza was a concoction of whatever I had in the fridge. (Although the picture does not do it justice.) Luckily I had some great stuff hiding in there... homemade pizza dough, fresh basil pesto, tomatoes from Mom & Dad's garden, and goat cheese. OK.. now I'm salivating.

bitty's shower

Whitney's shower was actually a lot of fun to do. She was mortified at the thought of having so much attention (seriously, are we related!). But everyone came and the food was delish! We had a Curry Chicken Salad, Pesto Pasta Salad, a Goat Cheese Tart, Quiche, Citrus Slush, Beasties, and Judy's most devilish Orange Rolls. My mouth is watering just remembering it!

Wow Whit.. this better be a big baby! :)

Amanda & Rachel are always so good about coming to these things. You know they're just thinking, "These old ladies are just crazy!"

The dozens of lilies finally opened the day after the shower!

domestic divinity

I wish I felt like this every time I did dishes...

Queen of my Castle.

I think tonight I'm going to borrow Ella's crown.

Instead I usually feel more like this!

memorial day

I've always loved going to Marty & Marci's house for Memorial Day. Marci always has such a great spread and the kids all have a ball. A pretty fierce game of water volleyball usually takes all the adults attention while the kids are left to find their own trouble. This year it was soap on the trampoline. Dallin & Carter were in heaven!

Auburn & Allison hate the feel of grass. We were trying to get dinner on and it was driving me nuts going back and forth between the two making sure they weren't crawling into danger (the pool has no fence). So I found a temporary solution. I put them both on a grass surrounded step. It was so funny (ok, maybe just a little mean) to watch them stuck on the little stone not able, or willing, rather, to touch the grass to get off. Eventually Auburn got pretty mad and Allison thought it was funny. After a hug from Sis they made it work...at least till the hamburgers were off the grill!

dallin's preschool graduation

Dallin just loved Miss Christi's Preschool. It was sad to see the two years end. (Although with all the boys in that class I'm not sure she was all that sad!)

He became part of a group she called,

"The Three Musketeers".

I loved picking Dallin up each day to hear all about Tate & Tommy. (Some days I dreaded it...depending on what kind of stories he was reporting!) Dallin didn't know a soul when he went to school, so it was fun to watch him make his own friends... and he stuck with them like glue. From the reports I got, you'd never know there were any other kids in the class aside from those three boys!

Carter & Ella came along to support Dallin in the grand accomplishment!

one

Happy birthday Allison Gable & Auburn Harrison. I can't believe a year has gone by. And wow, what a year! I'm still catching my breath. Everyone always told me, "The first year with twins is all a blur." And now that it has come and gone so quickly I can see what they are talking about.. but yet in that blur I have some vibrant, clear memories and images that I hope will not go hazy.

*Remembering the color codes for who eats on what side on what day. (I would switch off who wore pink every other day. Whoever wore pink ate on the right.)

*Stacking my swaddled babies one on top of the other to carry them around in the middle of the night.

*The giant pink nursing pillow that we thought would plague our family room forever.

*The attention we got every time we carried around their pink and brown carriers.

*Having to explain to everyone "No, it's not a boy and a girl" even with pink dresses and bows.

*Clogging the halls at church with all the women that had to get a peak at the twins.

*Their blinged out Converse shoes.

*No matter how far away from each other I put them, they always woke up with their heads together.

Now that I actually try to go back and think of things, it is more of a blur than I remember... It has been a lot of work, so most of the memories are of trying to smile and laugh at the challenges that two babies pose (not always successfully). But coming into this next year I'm already dying laughing at how fun and silly these two are going to be and what a different dynamic it will be going through it with the both of them together.

We didn't do much for Allison & Auburn's birthday. (Dallin & Ella were both sick for their first birthdays.... so why mess with tradition, right?) But, since they share a birthday with Sydney.. we couldn't pass up a little cake mess! Karen gave them puppies that bark and flip.. a huge hit of course!

...and yes boys, you've been caught!

take me out to the ball game

This was our first year of T-ball and it turned out to be a good sport for Dallin. It was fun to be on the same team as some of his friends, cousin, and the coolest coach around! (I don't know who was more into the game... Dallin or Troy!)

Dallin even made the "All-Star" Team.

When told, Dallin's response echoed our thoughts exactly, "How am I on the All Star Team?"

Not that being the smallest kid on the team means you can't be good... there are just so many kids out there that "get it" already...the sliding into bases, growling when they make an error, that"we will, we will rock you" competitive spirit. And Dallin's still following his mom's "cartwheels in the outfield" playing style...just havin' a good time.

So I liked how they chose the All Star players this year; instead of the coaches picking the best players, they let the kids vote for who they wanted to be on the All Star team instead. So popularity over athletic talent... sounds good to me! :)

Dallin's uniform was so big I decided to take in the seams a smidge... A smidge became so much that the team logo ended up being under his armpit instead of on his chest!

My favorite play of the game was when Carter was up to bat and made it to first base. The next kid up to bat hit it right down the middle where Carter was running to second. Seeing the ball, and sensing his perfect positioning, he stopped mid-run, caught his teammates ball, threw it to first and got his teammate out, then continued running to third. Karen had tears from laughing so hard. Way to go Carter! What a team player...

The Cheerleaders!

mella

I don't have any cousins my age on the Farnsworth side... neither does Maryella. As a child, Maryella was very ummm.. "spirited". She must have been 6 or 7 and was giving everyone in the family fits at our reunion, so she became my special charge. Being a teenager and accused of the same "spiritedness" as Maryella, we bonded immediately. And I think we've had a pretty cool relationship ever since. Even though she towers over me now, and is this amazing young adult...I still like to feel like the "cool older cousin" who gets to hang out with Mella.

My kids were huge fans too when she took them swimming at GG & Gpa Farnsworth's!

baby proof

I was delighted hearing such cheerful sounds come from the kids' room. Allison and Auburn love playing with the older ones and it was nice to have a minute with free arms to be productive. Well, the babies started pulling all the pajamas out of Ella's bottom drawer...Dallin and Ella found it so funny they joined in by pulling every article out of every drawer and making giant piles, burying the babies. The picture does not do the mess justice! Well, my productive minute turned into an hour of refolding and organizing drawers....with babies unfolding as fast as I could fold. And I wish this were an isolated incidence.

Sunday morning I was making breakfast and Allison and Auburn completely emptied the first two shelves of the pantry. As I was in cleaning everything off the pantry floor, they pulled out each DVD and video we own, and dumped them out of their cases. So I spent the next 30 minutes matching Book of Mormon videos to their correct cases. It didn't help that each time I would find a video-cover match, Dallin would decide that's the movie he wanted to watch and pull it out of the case...over and over. Meanwhile, the unsupervised toddlers have pulled out all the toy bins from their shelf and dumped them. Next, my jewelry from the bathroom counter, breaking yet another beaded necklace. I literally spent the entire morning walking from disaster to disaster. You would think after a few incidences I would lock them up or something.. (the kids or the cabinet doors - take your pick). I was spoiled with Dallin and Ella because they never got into things, so I never had to mess with those silly locks that are so annoying each time you need to open a drawer or cabinet. But I think it's time. We need to baby proof!