Well this week seems like it's been a couple of weeks rolled into one. Monday started off with Ben's birthday. To celebrate we went to Tucano's for dinner. The kids love it there because "there's fruit!" Anyone that has been to Tucano's knows it's all about the slabs of meat that they deliver to your table but my kids are sooo excited about the fruit-I promise they get plenty of fruit daily at home- but I guess Tucano's fruit adds to the cool factor! Nick was a little bummed that we didn't go to "Red Losber" but the fruit won him over quickly. We rarely take our kids out to a restaurant to eat because it isn't the funnest adventure but we had a fun time. Afterwards we headed home for cake and presents. The kids got Spiderman 3 for Ben and it included a mask. Either our kids have incredible huge noggins or the mask was made for extremely tiny people because we had quite a difficult time getting it on anyone's head. Eventually we succeeded and everyone had a fun time!
On Tuesday Skylar had her Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast and I went to help out. I was quite impressed with the spread that was provided for the kids! They had a "moment of silence" so that all the kids could think of what they were thankful for. It made me think how sad it is that we can't have a prayers of thanks in school even when celebrating Thanksgiving. Isn't that the entire point of Thanksgiving?
Wednesday was a busy day as I took the kids to the library so that Skylar & Nick could go in the "little door" for story time. Skylar usually doesn't get to go because she's at school so she was really excited to have the day off. I then scrambled the rest of the day to get the house in order and things ready for our trip to California-which we didn't end up taking. We decided to wait awhile until Ben has more vacation hours and we can see his sister, Emily, for a longer time. I'm a little bummed that we didn't go-especially since we were supposed to be at Disneyland right now-but at least I got the house clean, huh?
Thursday was Thanksgiving! We went to my parents house and had a very tiny Thanksgiving compared to what we're used to. There were only 11 of us-my parents, my Grandma, my Aunt Yvonne, my cousin, Mark, my brother, Al, and us Jordans. We had a nice time though and it was kind of relaxing to have such a small group. Thanksgiving always reminds me of my Grandpa Jensen who really made a big deal out of it, including sending a Thanksgiving letter instead of a Christmas one. I'm thankful to him for teaching me the importance of this holiday. I have so many blessings to be thankful for. I'm so lucky!
Once we left my parents house, stuffed of course, we headed home to put up the tree! I am very strict on the Christmas stuff staying put away until after Thanksgiving (via Grandpa's example) but once dinner's over, bring it on! I love the whole Christmas season. We broke out the tree and decorated away. This year should be an interesting one with the decorations since we have a trouble-making 20 month old and a tiny kitten who have both already caused destruction to our tree!
The rest of the weekend brought shopping, shopping, and more shopping! I love going out on Black Friday to get a good deal. This year didn't have that great of deals, at least on the stuff we were looking for-in fact, Ben found better deals online. But it is fun to at least see how crazy people are. I wasn't completely crazy and I didn't head out to the stores until 7:00. The line at Toys R Us wrapped from the front door all around the store and people were saying that they had stood in line for two hours just to check out! I only had 2 items and found that the electronics department had much shorter lines so I lucked out. My goal is to have all of our shopping done by December 1st so that we can spend the entire month enjoying the season-that leaves just this week-I'm a little overwhelmed! Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone!!!

33 Reasons I'm Glad Ben was born

Today is my wonderful Ben's 33rd birthday. I am so glad that he was born. Here's why:
1. He is my best friend in the world.
2. He's willing to be with me forever.
3. He is my perfect spoon.
4. He gave me my sweet Skylar.
5. He gave me my funny little Nicky.
6. He gave me my cuddly McKade.
7. My kids adore his every movement. He is the best dad in the world!
8. He has these beautiful dark eyes that smile when he's happy. I call them his "smiling eyes".
9. He has always treated me with greatest respect.
10. He makes me laugh, everyday.
11. He is extremely nice to everyone.
12. He's is completely selfless.
13. He stands up for what he believes. This is the first thing I fell in love with.
14. He loves Heavenly Father and tries to make him happy.
15. He honors and respects his priesthood.
16. He takes his calling in the YM Presidency seriously and his boys totally respect him.
17. He is the greatest example of Christlike love that I know.
18. He always tries to do the right thing.
19. I have never seen him say or do a mean thing to anybody. Honestly.
20. He supports me in all that I do.
21. He is the person that everyone can count on.
22. When I married him, a high school friend of his told me " We all think that you got the good one." I've always agreed.
23. He's willing to go on the many millions of adventures that I drag him on.
24. He lets me steal the covers and take over the bed and is still willing to sleep with me.
25. He gives me great massages, especially when I have a migraine, even though I'm horrible at giving them in return.
26. He does the dishes every night since it hurts my hands.
27. Even though he's not particularly a fan of all our pets, he is very kind to them.
28. He tolerates my obsession for a clean house and helps me to maintain it.
29. Without him, I'd be totally computer illiterate.
30. He works very hard so that I can stay home with my kids.
31. He always saves the last few pieces of popcorn for me.
32. He has always loved me unconditionally, despite my many, many faults.
33. He still gives me butterflies.


I love you Ben!!! I hope that you have a wonderful birthday!!!!

Weekly Wrap-up

Ben has been in great pain all week so it hasn't been that great of a week. Poor Ben. He somehow messed up his neck a week or so ago and has had an almost constant headache since. Add that to my constant headache and it hasn't been so pleasant around our house. So, our week has been filled with chiropractic visits. I did get a massage on Thursday and I definitely can't complain about that.
The weekend was fun though. We had another Tong weekend. It seems like we go a few weeks and don't see them and then have a weekend full of them. On Friday we went out to dinner as couples with Spencer & Adrianne and Quinn & Brittany to celebrate Ben's upcoming birthday (today!). It was so nice to be childless and actually get to talk with adults!! We haven't done that forever! The Tongs came back to our house later with the kids and we reminisced about good times. Then on Saturday night we went to see the Bee Movie with them. Our kids think movies with the Tongs are always better. The movie was pretty good and had a good message. Plus, it inspired these cute (yet loud) quotes in the middle of the movie:
"Wow, we need bees." -Little Dylan
"We sure do!!"- Little Nicky
On Sunday, Ben's mom and sister, Jessi, came over for cake and ice cream to celebrate all of their birthdays that are in November. It was fun to have them over. Happy Birthday everyone!!!!

Weekly Wrap-up

Well this last week has been busy but nothing too exciting happened. We did do Joy School at our house and learned all about the five senses. It's so much fun to be able to set aside those 4 hours in a week just to hang out with Nicky (and the other kids) and watch him learn about the world. I'm so glad I did Joy School this year.
The weather has been absolutely awesome this week. It totally felt like mid-September instead of November. I love this kind of fall weather! I think it's supposed to snow this week so I'm a little bummed about it. Anyway, we did do a couple trips to the park and the kid's favorite climbing tree (a pine tree!?) to enjoy the warmth while we still can.









I guess the big event of the week was moving McKade to a big boy's bed-well, actually our ghetto version of just putting the mattress on the floor (and not even a real mattress, the crib mattress-we are ghetto)! The first morning after the switch I found him asleep in the middle of the floor and felt bad but he's since figured it out and is staying in the bed throughout the night. Now we just need to get Nick to do that!!
Our ward had the Sacrament Meeting Primary Program on Sunday. It was seriously the best one I've ever seen. Skylar has had her speaking part memorized for weeks and did really great! The spirit was really strong and everyone was tearing up. Even McKade sat through the entire meeting and watched!!

McKade's 1st Haircut

McKade had his first haircut the other day. It was sad to see the sweet little curls go but we were starting to get the "pretty little girl" comments so it was time to say goodbye. He loved getting his haircut by Daddy, just like his big brother, Nicky. I got a bag to put the hair in and he insisted on holding it and collecting the hair-I guess trick-or-treating skills do come in handy for other things!
Nick and Kade now look exactly the same from behind except for their height (by the way, Kade is now less than half a pound away from Nick in weight!). Kade instantly went from a cute little baby to a handsome little boy after the haircut was over! It's a good thing that he's still our little Linus so he can retain some of that baby charm!

Wild Weekly Wrap-up

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that I'm going to die soon from some sort of stress attack or something because for some reason I like to keep myself so busy and running ragged that I really don't have time to think. This week was a great example of this. It was soooo busy and I was all to blame.
On Monday, the kittens took the long drive to the pet store to find new homes. I read somewhere that if you don't know the person that they are going to that it is really much better for them to go to a pet store where people are willing to pay for them because they are then more invested and will treat them right and not torture them or something. When I had tried to take them before the pet store had too many kittens already so I had to wait. While waiting I decided to just try advertising them at the message board at the store and in the newspaper. No one called so I felt good when the pet store called and wanted them. So, as soon as I dropped them off (followed by an hour of sobbing from sweet Sky), the calls started coming. I'm pretty sure I've had at least 20 calls since. On Saturday we went to see if the kittens are still at the pet store and they all are, so I felt so bad that they haven't found homes yet when I know I could've found them one. I just really feel an obligation to these sweet little kitties so I am crossing my fingers!!
By the way, Ben gave in to the desires of his family and allowed us to keep Q-tip so we are now officially a two cat home! Poor Q-tip just moped around the first day after the others left and Soffee wandered around quietly calling for them. It was so sad to see! But they have now adjusted to the two of them and are so sweet together. Soffee has really gotten so much more playful with just Q-tip around and it's really been fun to see.
On Tuesday I headed up to my parents house so that the kids could do the trick-or-treat thing there. My mom and dad don't get any other trick-or-treaters because they live in a gated community so they pile on the candy and my kids are more than happy to accept. After my parent's house I decided to go to the Thanksgiving Point Farm thing because we hadn't used up all of our punches at the Barnyard Boo when we had gone for Joy School. Skylar was so excited because she was jealous the boys had gotten to go without her. We had a lot of fun doing all the fun Halloween stuff they had there.
Since my accident last month my neck, lower back, and knees have been bugging me a little bit. I finally decided to go to the chiropractor just to get an adjustment or two and see if it would help. So I went to my chiropractor who is really the most awesome one out there and apparently I am totally messed up and have just not been feeling it. It's totally different than any other pain I've had from accidents before because this is the first one that I've been broadsided. I'm so glad that I went in to get help and didn't just keep ignoring it. So to top off my busy life I will be going to the chiropractor every day for the next couple weeks. Yeah for me!Of course Wednesday was Halloween and so busy but so much fun!! I'm totally into dressing up and celebrating right along with my kids. We always try to do a family theme-this year we were the Justice League complete with Superman (Ben), Wonder Woman (me), Supergirl (Skylar), the Flash (Nick), and Batman (McKade). We spent the day totally busy with parades at Skylar's school and Joy school. We also did the trick-or-treating rounds to Ben's work, my brother's house, and my Grandma's as well as the neighborhood haunted house, the trick-or-trunk at our church, and then going around the neighborhood that night. Kade figured out the candy thing very quickly and turned into a gluttonous monster-he was practically running to each house and wouldn't even let us touch his bag! The kids all ended up with way too much candy that hopefully will find it's way to the garbage instead of their teeth!
This weekend we spent a lot of time with the Tongs as we went out to eat with them and our other friends, the Hoens, on Friday night and then babysat their kids on Saturday night. It's so much fun to hang out with them! We seriously miss living next door to them and hanging out every night. The things we know about each other would be cause for serious blackmailing! Anyway, as we were babysitting on Saturday night we put McKade to bed and then turned on a show so the other kids would be quiet and he could sleep. Ben and I were in the office and heard from the other room "Skylar, do you want to cuddle with me?" Skylar and "Dado" have had this romance going on since birth but it's starting to get more & more serious! Skylar insists that they are getting married, she will love him forever, and never change her mind! It's kind of cute but something we definitely need to keep an eye on. Don't worry, Ben quickly put the cuddling idea to rest!
P.S. Happy Birthday to my sister, Sters!! You are the best sister and friend and I love ya!