Meeting Malachi

Malachi is my first nephew! He was born in February just two days after my birthday to Brett's oldest brother and his wife down in So Cal. He's been up to Portland once to visit but it was when we were in Hawaii so we didn't get to meet him and I was SO bummed!! I love babies and babies that are related to me are even MORE fun!! Malachi is only 18 months younger than Everett and I am so excited for them to bond later in life. I have two nieces that are 15 and 9. Emersyn is pretty close to the 9 year old but I suspect in a few year things will change as she enters teenage years and Emersyn is still very much a little girl. Malachi is so close to my kids ages that it makes me happy!!!

My sister in law texted me to say that she had an interview up here in Portland for a nursing job so I was going to get to meet Malachi sooner than I had been expecting. I was so excited!! 

While Marcy and Malachi were in town, we headed down to Albany to visit the great grandparents and got some cute pictures. Malachi's little grin is the cutest! I'm pretty sure I'm his favorite auntie....I just got a feeling that he adored me. :)

I so wished this sweet little face lived closer to us, especially for Everett's sake. Well, guess what? My wish came true....Marcy got the job and they are moving to Portland next month!

 

Part two of Summer 2013

Looking back over the summer in pictures via Facebook and my computer, I am convinved that this summer was the most fun one we've had yet! Here is a hodge podge second part of summer recap.

This summer we......

 Washed our cars as a family! 

Went to Oaks Park on a girls date with Sophia and her mama! 

 

Sophia's face is so pathetic and hilarious at the same time, poor little lady!!!! 

We celebrated our little friend Emma's second birthday at the Farmer's Market! 

 

We ran into our friends Emery and Caitlin at the fountain too! 

 

We watched some of the air show and fireworks with our friends Tim, Sarah, Ben and Ellie! 

Emersyn finished her ballet class and is moving onto gymnastics this fall. She might go back to ballet someday....we'll see. :)

 

We participated in our second year at Young Champions! I was the coach for Emersyn's red team and it was a blast! Emersyn had two friends join us this year too, Sadie and Ellie who also did it last year with us. :) 

 

 

 

Everett got tubes put into his ears and it was the easiest procedure ever!!! His surgery started at 8:30am and we were leaving by 9am. He was a little tropper and the picture below sums up the experience. He was a happy clam. We've noticed tremendous improvements in his speech since the tubes were put in. He's speaking more clearly, in sentences and lots of new words including his new favorite thing to talk about....hot tubs. :) 

 Went to the zoo with friends.

 

  We harvested lots from our community garden including these yummy cherry tomatoes, Emersyn's FAVORITE!!! 

A gift for Caitlin

This blog post is brought to you by my friend Caitlin...kind of. I am writing it but it is per her request. Her birthday is today and she requested this as her gift. Thankfully, blog posts are comfortably in my budget for gifts. :) So here is a random update, per her request. (I blogged about how cool Caitlin is once HERE) 

{1} I cannot believe how quickly summer is going to be ending. These are the things we have on the docket in the next three weeks: lots of playdates, including a new spray park in Oregon City with friends, a few trips to the Play Boutique to use up our Groupon, a girls day at Oaks Park with friends, and more. We're going to the beach for three nights on Everett's birthday weekend (yippee), next week Everett is getting tubes in his ears (minor surgery), Emersyn is having her 5th birthday and then a big party two days later. We're doing a dance party at the park, complete with a DJ (Uncle David) and lots of rainbow themed fun. The day after Emersyn's party we have a wedding to attend that evening and then our church picnic. Labor Day will hopefully involve fun with friends (yes Rachelle?) Emersyn starts school the first week of September and then we have a super fun concert on the 6th (Sara Bareilles and One Republic, woot woot) and then our favorite little Sophia is turning 3 and having a Doc McStuffin's party. Do you care about all those details? Probably not...but it's therapeutic for me to write it all out. :)

{2} Last weekend we went to Albany to visit Brett's grandparents along with Brett's sister and parents. Albany is about 90 minutes from our house and the kids love going there to visit. The kids were playing outside their great grandma's retirement home and having a blast. We also had our dog with us, adding to the chaos. We all headed out of the retirement home and I looked and realized that we were missing a certain toddler!!!!! We turn around and see Everett peering into the door, watching his family abandon him! I was both horrified and amused. He was so darling, watching us leave. And this wasn't even the window of Brett's grandma's apartment. I suspect that he looked in those windows and didn't see us so he went to investigate. Losing Everett is pretty much my worst nightmare at this point in life. He's at such a busy wandering age and it's hard when I'm with Brett because we both fall into this, "I thought you had him!" pattern. Granted, we've never actually lost him, but after yesterday now we have to say we came close! Thankful he was safe and sound. We only actually lost track of him for a few minutes but I shudder to think of what can happen in even just a few seconds with a crazy toddler on the loose!

(We don't let him wander around with his binky normally, FYI. We had a long day and he missed his nap time so we were extending him a little grace later in the afternoon.)

{3} Sadly, I am no longer employed by my friend to watch her kiddos. I started watching Tanner when he was 6 months old one day a week and it gradually grew into three days a week, and I started watching his baby sister this summer too! His mom quit her job and is now staying home with her babies and I'm very happy for her, but very sad for us! Emersyn was very attached to the kids and had really taken to looking after a baby. And I thought that I would maybe be kinda relieved to just have my kiddos to myself now all the time but I'm not! Yes, I love having my own kids but watching these other two was just like an extension of my own family. It's hard to explain. I didn't set out to be a *daycare provider* per say, but on the days I watched these two kiddos, it was like I got paid to be a mom which is always nice, right? It's normally a job that doesn't pay in a monetary sense at all! I'm crossing my fingers that their mama gets a job again down the road sometime but if she doesn't, that's okay too. Everyone deserves the chance to stay home with their kiddos at some point. Lord knows it was my dream for a LONG time! And still is, I'm very very thankful. But I love being *busy* and this new season of being footloose and fancy free with just my own kiddos will be interesting! 

{4} I'm obsessed with the library. Books and movies make me so happy!! Our library has this "hot new releases" shelf with new movies (like the same as the ones at Redbox!!!) and cd's and it's like a thrill to go check the shelf and try to score a fun movie to watch during the week. Best of all, it's free.

{5} Nerd alert: all of the sudden I am into the Star Trek movies. I'm ashamed to say it but the two movies that have come out in the last few years are really good!! We rented one on a whim a few weeks ago because we'd heard it was really good and were skeptical but decided to check it out. We loved it!!! We loved it so much in fact, that we decided to go watch the newest one at the THEATER which is super crazy for us. We had a nerdy date night and I loved it! I pretty much love any date night though.

{6} The summer has not been a season of healthy living in the Jensen household. Yes, we love our summer produce but also have indulged in other items that summer seems to bring...like burgers and ice cream. Gotta get back on track SOON!

Okay, this wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped it would be for Caitlin but I did my best. I REALLLLLLY am hoping that with Emersyn being at school and my newly unemployed status (with the exception of real estate, still doing that and going strong!), blogging can become a bigger part of my life. I look back on old blogs occasionally and they make me happy, they really do. I want Everett to have some of those memories recorded too, like his big sister.

Happy birthday Caitlin.....I hope we can get together and celebrate SOON! xoxo

Catching up

Is anyone still there? :) I really need to get a new header...I don't even recognize those children!!

A sweet friend of mine texted me the other day and said she missed reading my blogs and it made me smile. I miss writing blogs! The last blog I posted was about how I wanted to blog more and have more content and now here we are months later. It's not that my life has lacked content {entirely} but I am kind of over the blogging about daily life. Ain't nobody got time for that! :) I love looking back on blogs like that though and remembering how I spent much of Emersyn's much younger years. There's not much hope for remembering Everett's toddler years other than Facebook. Maybe there's still hope for him in the blog world if I can just get back into it. I also always think, geez...where do I start?

Here's a recap of life since I blogged last:

*The kids and I went to Sacramento in April for my Grandma's 80th birthday. It didn't work out for Brett to go but I decided to go anyways, braving the plane and 4 nights in a hotel sans Daddy. Thankfully my parents were there and were super helpful. I'm so thankful I made this trip a priority because it was the last time I saw my grandpa. :( He passed away in June from cancer and some complications from kidney failure. I got a very special picture with my grandparents and my kids that I will cherish forever....

My grandpa was a pretty reserved man. But I love his hand on Emersyn's shoulder in this picture. He had a tender heart and he always thanked me so much for the pictures that I sent them of my kids. He was very into photography and liked seeing our pictures.

*At the end of April we did our annual trip to the tulip festival with some of our besties who appreciate a good tradition as much as I do! Their daughter is two years younger than Ems and one year older than Everett. She's the cousin my kids always wanted but never had. :) We had all sorts of fun....

 I mean, are you kidding me?!? They are just too darling!

Rachelle (Sophia's mama) and I didn't even plan on them both wearing white. We are just that in tune with each other. ;) 

 
*Our family was blessed to be able to go to Hawaii in May!! My generous parents offer to let us come and stay with them in their timeshare and the kids even sleep in their room since it's a one bedroom. My dad works so hard and deserves a nice and peaceful vacation and yet, they let us and our chaos crash their party. So sweet. We had an amazing nine night adventure that included lots of pool time, beach time, a one night getaway for Brett and I (hey-o!!), snorkeling, eating out, and having a ton fun enjoying the beautiful scenery. Hawaii is one of God's best creations in my opinion. I always feel closer to God in Central Oregon and Hawaii.

*Right before we left for Hawaii, Emersyn completed her second year of preschool in the 4's class. Next year she will be in pre-K. She could *techincally* go into Kindergarten but only makes the cut off by two days. After some prayerful consideration, we decided to start Kindergarten next year. We feel this is the best choice for our girl! Emersyn is looking forward to pre-K though very much and will be going 4 days a week, Monday through Thursday. I'm going to miss her being gone so much but it will be good for her. I am looking forward to some time with Everett too and hope to do some swim lessons with him or something like that.

*Last weekend Everett spent the weekend in Albany with Nana and so Brett and I had some quality one on one time with Emersyn. After we dropped Everett off on Friday afternoon I told Ems that we could either go to a special lunch or get pedicures. She picked lunch at Old Spaghetti Factory and we sat in the trolley. Going to a resteraunt with Everett is possible but not always the most enjoyable experience. ;) We had a fun lunch and then went and did things that aren't as fun to do with brother, like shopping!  Fri night we went out to dinner with Daddy, then home to watch "Wreck It Ralph" and stayed up late. Saturday morning we went out to breakfast (are you sensing a theme for the weekend? ha) and then to see Monsters University which Emersyn loved but she did get a little restless. Saturday night we went to our first Hillsboro Hops game! Our hometown just got a new minor leage baseball team and it's very exciting. Naturally we all had to get team shirts. :)

We went to the game with Brett's Aunt and Uncle, and Papa too! 

*Summer has been fairly uneventful. Our days consist of playdates, trips to the library, trips to the fountain, story time at our favorite toy store, playing at the park, going on dates to Starbucks, you know...the usual. :) We go to the Farmer's Market nearly every Saturday, some Sundays and often times on Tuesday nights. The other night there was a disco cover band and Ems and I had so much fun dancing. She knew all the words to "Dancing Queen" and so many people were impressed that she knew them! She's a big "Mamma Mia" fan which is how she knows the words. :) Brett and I are heading down to CA for 5 nights for my Grandpa's memorial and leaving the kids behind. We're driving.....should be interesting. I know it's kid free but it's still TEN.HOURS. I got some audio books much to my husbands dismay so hopefully that will help keep my attention. I wish I could read in the car but alas, I cannot! 

 *Emersyn has been taking a ballet class on Fridays this summer. She loves it and it's so cute.

Okay......I think I'm actually kinda caught up now! Lots to look forward to this summer....including a trip to the beach for Everett's birthday weekend and Emersyn's 5th birthday party which is a rainbow/dance party theme! I love parties!!