2nd Grade Patriotic Program

Ada had her 2nd grade program last night. It is the third time we've seen it and possibly the 6th time Nathan and Kielle have seen it, because they do the same program every year (during school and then at night for the parents) and this is the 3rd year in a row that we have had a 2nd grader. (We have similar situations with the 1st grade program, 3rd grade etc. --you get the picture.) But We all went to see little Ada sing her heart out.

She looks a little bored here and she was yawning through the whole performance!

Finally! It is her turn to say her part that she has been working on for the last 2 months! Her speaking buddy there is Liam. "James Gillespie Blaine said this about Independence Day, "The United States is the only country with a known birthday. All the rest begun, they know not when, and grew into power, they know not how." (you can almost hear her reciting it can't you?)



Am I the only one who doesn't know who James Gillespie Blaine is?

Happy Birthdays

Aaron & Tessa's Birthdays are a day apart. We got to plan it that way since she ended up being a "planned caeserian." We wanted her to have her very own bday. Aaron & Tessa shared a cake this year. Tessa wanted Roses on it for her and kisses on it for Dad. She really wanted lips, but I was lazy and put Hershey's kisses on it.

Since Tessa has dubbed herself "Monkey" We got her a monkey stuffed animal--which she LOVES! She named it Kissy because it has a lips kiss mark on it's cheek.  You can't see Kissy's face cause Tessa'a lovin' her so much!



Happy birthday Tessa and Aaron. I love you both so much!

Almost 5

I ran across a post somewhere where somebody had taken pictures of his daughter the day before her birthday--in an attempt to preserve her youth a little longer. I thought It was a neat idea. Showing your child on the brink of the next age and so I took some of Tessa the day before her birthday and tried out some Photoshop actions while I was at it.

Last year Aaron became a Certified IRB Professional (CIP). There are less than 1000 in the US and he is the only only one at BYU. An article was just written honoring him for his achievement. Read it here. I am so proud of him and all the hard work he does to do his best in everything.

You need to visit Pioneer Woman!

I have been trying out several recipes from The Pioneer Woman Cooks and EVERY SINGLE ONE gets RAVE Reviews from my family. I am going to have to try them all out eventually. So far I have made her pot roast, roasted garlic mashed potatoes (I never knew roasted garlic was soooo good--I will be using it more often in all cooking!), beans and cornbread (OK, I admit that I made Betty Crocker Cornbread, but the beans were so good that Nathan wrote me a thank you note for making it!),and pico de gallo.  Her food is so scrumptious.  Thanks Heidi for introducing me to Ree and her wonderful cooking!  We're doing the beans again this week for dinner!

Can I just say that I have THE MOST AWESOME brother ever!?! Last week I was listening to 101.9 the end--they were playing an End Zone concert which is a private concert for 20-30 or so people. The End Zone artist was Sarah Bareilles. I have her album and love her music. My favorite songs are Love Song and Gravity. As I was listening, they were interviewing her and they introduced somebody from the "home of Chunga" then I heard MY brother's voice! Where's my rewind button! Was that MY brother, Paul!? We got together with my bro today for a birthday celebration (for Aaron, Tessa & Paul). And I learned that not only was that my brother asking Sarah Bareilles a question on the radio and getting to particpate in an intimate concert, but he got me her CD signed specially to ME. He Rocks! I love my CD and I love that he was thinking of me at her concert! Paul you are the greatest! By the way, I'll be posting birthday photos within the next day or two.

Time with Tessa

Tessa needed some special Mommy time this afternoon. She wanted to play a computer game so we went on Illustrator and she drew a picture of herself and then asked me to draw one of her. Following are some of the results of our hour together:

P.S. to digital scrapbooking

If any of you out there--Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts or Uncles, or friends have photos of Tessa or Ryan as babies please forward them to me so I can put as many different photos in their books! Thanks!

Digital Scrapbooking, Here I come. . .

I have talked about how I am working on Personal Progress for Young Women so I can be more familiar with the program. It actually is helping me to progress too. (Who knew?) So for one of my value projects, I've determined that I am going to FINALLY make Tessa and Ryan their baby books. I started pages for both of them but don't have anything concrete to give them. And the other 3 children have baby books of their own.

I am soo excited about this. I know its going to take me a long time to do it, just sneaking in time here and there. I decided that instead of Scrapbooking the "traditional way" (ie print out photos, buy cute stickers and paper and diecuts etc.--then, glue, cut mix and match) I would make a bound photo book. For about $50 I can have a bound book-- which will cost me less money than the old fashioned way and I'd have a nice polished product when I'm done.

My friend, Heather Walker, does that kind of thing, so she sent me to a place called Heritage Makers where you can make the books and then she gave me all sorts of tips and tricks for putting together photo pages and where to find free digital scrapbooking images. I found a lot of cute images, but I wasn't finding exactly what I wanted when it hit me! I can draw the images I want! I had so much fun going into Illustrator and making my roses and a little wreath to put around Tessa's picture and now the Baby book will be MY style completely! I am so excited about that! It takes a lot less time for me to draw what I want than to search all over the internet for it too! Woo Hoo! This is the first page I did for Tessa's Book! I am so excited to get this project going! Yeah!

(if you click on the picture you can see it even better)

Million Dollar Shot!

OK! So it was really a $10 shot, but I got your attention didn't I?

Last night was Kielle's last Basketball game of the season. When we arrived all of the baskets were clear up to the ceiling-- a good 20 feet high. The girls really had nowhere to practice right off, because I guess the person who had the keys to bring the baskets down hadn't arrived and once he did it took a VERY long time to figure out how to get them down. The game only started 10 minutes late, but in kid minutes--that's, like, Forever!  So since the baskets were so high, the girls' coach, Marnie Reynolds, offered $10 to the girl who could make the basket (because it was an impossible shot.)  Little did she know that she had several determined girls out there (or that it would take SO long to bring those hoops down.)  Kielle kept trying and trying she finally figured out a modified granny style over the back technique that kept hitting the rim and finally went in!  I was really impressed that Marnie made good on her offer.  I think I would have said I was just kidding or something.  But Marnie paid her that $10!  I was really impressed with her integrity--cause I'm pretty sure she didn't think she'd have to end up shelling any money out at all.  Kielle was really excited to have made the shot and won.  Now we need to go get that coach a big Thank You gift!

iTunes Rental

So, I have been intrigued by the concept of being able to rent a movie to your computer and have been wanting to try it out--see how it works. The kids really wanted to see a movie on Friday night which is our typical movie night. I figured that I could quickly download a movie, sync it to my iPod, connect it to our TV and we'd be in business. First off--it took 45 mins to download, so in the future I will need to plan a little more in advance. It was 8pm by the time the movie was downloaded. Next was trying to download it to my iPod. After multiple failed attempts I did some searches on the internet and found that my iPod (which is brand new, but apparently not the "current generation") does not support iTunes rentals (yet--they are supposed to fix it eventually.) By the time I had figured this much out it was 9pm and I was too tired to try to figure anything else out. On Saturday we decided that the best course of action would be to bring my computer (a mac mini) into the family room and hook it up to the projector. It worked beautifully. So, will I be renting from iTunes again? Maybe, but I might wait until they make my iPod compatible so I don't have to move computer (simple as it may be.) We saw "the Game Plan," by the way, which was absolutely adorable. We all enjoyed it very much! We thought it was even worthy of purchasing. Now that 24 hours have passed the movie is gone. It simply disappears 24 hrs after you begin viewing it. (You have 30 days to watch it after you down load it). One drawback I see in that is if you fall asleep during the movie--which I typically do but just happened to not do last night--You have to watch it the next morning so it doesn't disappear on you without being able to finish it!

This past week has been a lot of fun. Aaron is back from his trip and we always enjoy having him home. On Monday, Tessa and I "kidnapped" Aaron for lunch. It was a day where the sun was shining and not too cold. So we called him up and invited him to come to lunch. Luckily, he was available. Tessa was all lit up. She loves going on "dates" with Mom & Dad.

For Valentine's Day, Aaron & I had a date scheduled for lunch at the Sky Room restaurant on campus. It took me forever to find a parking spot and I ended up parking pretty far away. There was a sci fi convention at the university that day too--which is the reason behind no parking. Anyhow. Our lunch date was so nice. We figured that we should get together for lunch since there was hardly a possibility of getting a date in that evening! We have so much fun together. I am so glad that I am married to him. He treats me so well and is my best friend. He is everything I've wanted in a husband and so much more.

Friday was the Shade half yearly sale. Usually you can get tee-shirts for $4. But they were all $8 this time. Starr and I went up together and we were disappointed at the lack of GREAT deals on t-shirts, however I did get 2 great dresses for $15 each and some cute camis and t's for Ada.

I'm glad I saw Starr yesterday because she told me about a program that Ada's class was doing that I had no idea was happening, so I got to go see Ada & her classmates perform these cute little plays that they have been working on in class. They made their own sets and props! They all did an awesome job. I think Ada's play was called Tacky the Penguin--she was a hunter. I wish I had brought my camera.

What's in a name?

The younger kids' primary teachers have asked for us to send in a little note explaining how they each got their names and where they come from. I thought I'd type every child's up here and then maybe I might remember to print it out and send it to church with them as part of their lesson next week.


For Nathan's name we came up with several. We liked Christian a lot. We had actually settled on Crispin Tate and then, my sister, Juli, chimed in with "Oh! We can call him crispin tater tots!" And the name was instantly killed. We decided we wanted to go with a family name. Nathan is huge on my side of the family. We have lots of Nathans or Nathaniels in our family history on my paternal line and we decided that we really liked Nathan; his middle name is Aaron after his father. We thought it flowed nicely too, because Aaron's full name is Jason Aaron--Nathan Aaron seemed to flow well. I don't know what other people think about the names we came up with, but I always wanted to make sure the names "sounded right" to me. And these sounded right and they are family names.

Kielle's name comes from a great great great great great great grandmother on Aaron's maternal line. Her name was Kiele Mortensen? (I can't find her baby book right now and the family history book is buried in a box so we'll go with my memory for now--which could spell trouble, but here we are.) I knew I wanted a daughter named Annie and all of my girls were going to get middle names because I didn't have one and always wished that I had. So as we were searching for a name for our daughter we went through all the family history books and I was reading through every girls name. As I read Kiele, Aaron said "That's it" He fell in love with the name instantly. I was planning on spelling it just like we had found it, but Aaron wanted to add an extra "l" to make it look more feminine, so we came up with Kielle Anne. She has been called both Kielle and Annie since the day she was born. In fact she actually thought that her middle name was Annie until she was about 6.

Both Aaron and I have Great Aunt Adas and I have always loved the name. I love to say it- Ada, Ada, Ada. We thought long and hard on her middle name and the name that sounded the best and fit so perfectly was Bryn which is the name of my best friend since high school, and who still remains my dear and cherished friend. I can't remember if I called her and asked permission to use her name or not, because you're not supposed to name after the living as we learn in the amazing movie "Avalon" (Go watch it now, if you haven't seen it.)

We just liked the name Ryan. I had heard it around and I just really liked it! We worked on names we thought would flow well with Ryan and we came up with Alexander. As far as we knew, these were not family names, we simply liked them! After Ryan was born, my Grandma Petersen told us that she had a brother, who was the fourth child-like Ryan, named Ivan Alexander! I thought that was soo cool that we had chosen a name so close to my great uncle without even knowing it and that they were both the 4th children. Pretty cool!

Lastly came Tessa. With her, I knew our family was supposed to be completed with a little girl and I knew that her name should be Elise. Every name we came up with as a middle name just never seemed to work. Elise always sounded better as a middle name. The name Elise come from my maternal line--Elise Christensen. I read a story about her and was impressed with the type of woman she was and I loved the name. I struggled with making Elise her middle name even though three of the dearest people in my life go by their middle name (namely Aaron, Bryn and Ximen.) So Aaron assured me that we could give her a different first name and then call her by her middle name. I believed it could be done. I continued trying to come up with the right name and narrowed it down to two, Elise McKenna and Tessa Elise. As soon as I presented these two options to Aaron, he instantly latched onto Tessa. It is a name he has always loved. Right before she was born, or maybe right after--during the hospital stay I brought up the 2 options again and he had no recollection of me bringing up Elise McKenna and he really liked it too. So we briefly considered naming her Tessa Elise McKenna (and actually on occasion call her that) but we decided that one middle name would be enough. My assurances that she would be called by her middle name disappeared. From the time she was born, Aaron and the kids called her Tessa, I called her Elise and my sisters and sister-in-law, Teresa, called her Elise too because they knew that was what I wanted to call her. But it just didn't stick and finally I had to admit that she really wasn't an Elise--She is Tessa!

Does Anyone Else Tire of Coming up With Creative Titles to your Posts?

Sorry, as I was trying to think of what to title today's entry I had nothing new creative or interesting so you get a question instead.

So this past week Aaron was out of town in New Orleans on business. Here on the home front I felt like I was turn my kids into little latch-key children. I had meetings for work and YW during the days he was gone and on Wednesday in particular the kids were left home alone for most of the afternoon & evening. I had a meeting that started at 3pm at work, came back by 4:30 turned around and took Nathan to Webeloes and then came home for a short while, picked him up made sure everyone had dinner and then was off to mutual. Their special job for the evening was to not fight--and amazingly enough they DIDN'T!!! I wasn't too worried about the afternoon. The kids are used to walking home, but my meeting started when school got out and I didn't know what to do for Tessa because she is too little to leave home alone at all, but I had neglected arranging a babysitter and was debating as to who I could call last minute to help me. Tuesday, in the middle of the night, Ada started throwing up again--and my first thought was "This is the answer to my prayers!" Now that Ada was sick she couldn't go to school and would be able to stay with Tessa for the half hour before the older kids got home while I was at my meeting. Am I not the most wonderful mother? Being grateful that one child is sick to allow me some peace of mind for the other child while I go to my meeting? The kids did great on Wednesday and also on Thursday when I had to go to a YW camp meeting. I am glad that they are starting to get older and more responsible and able to take care of themselves better. It definitely makes it easier for me.

What is wrong with this picture?

At first glance there is nothing inherently wrong with Ryan's choice of clothing.  The long sleeve shirt under the t-shirt is fashionable, the colors even co-ordinate well.  Ryan finds that this outfit is particularly comfortable.  So comfortable, in fact,  that this is the 3rd day in a row that he has worn it to school (and it has not been washed during that time.)  I don't know if this is a sad commentary on my parenting or simply evidence of his lack of desire to change out of comfy clothes.  I mean who can blame him?  The kid is all about comfort.  If I would let him, he would go to school in his PJs.  Typically he stays in them until a half hour before he goes to afternoon Kindergarten.   I'm supposing that this is his solution to not being able to wear pajamas but still wanting to be comfortable.  He goes and changes at the last minute, puts this on (for the 2nd and 3rd day in a row) and I'm too harried trying to get lunch and him on-time to school to make him go change again.  Its a battle I don't want to deal with and he's on to that. But I wonder if his teacher is thinking, "Why does his mother let him wear the same clothes 3 days in a row?"  Maybe she is. . .Oh well, maybe I can at least sneak them into the washer before he decides to wear it again every day next week!

Lunch Date

Today, Tessa and I had a Mommy/ Daughter date. I took her out to Bajio for lunch. We had so much fun! She is such a sweet and silly girl. We giggled a lot and talked about preschool and her upcoming birthday, but mostly giggled a lot. I will miss having the opportunity to do this stuff when she starts school.

Belated Birthday!

I was reading back over all of my posts and I realized that I thoroughly neglected to mention that Kielle had her 9th birthday.  I thought there is no way that I can be coming upon 2 more family bdays without marking her day.  She brings me such joy and is such a great helper with everything.  She is still heavily interested in sports much to her father's delight!  We love you!  Happy Birthday! Even if I am a month and a half late in posting it!

My Crafty Daughter

I don't mean crafty as in mischievous either (at least not this time.) So Ada got hat looms for Christmas and she started working on a hat but wound it so tight that it was impossible to continue and gave up. I am crafty in an artistic way but not really a knitting, crocheting, sewing way--Which, by the way, are all things that interest my little Ada. We had an activity in YW a few weeks ago where the Beehives made loom hats. I provided hooks and yarn and sat back and let the girls instruct eachother (and me) on the fine art of knitting hats on a loom. I learned a lot from those girls that night. We had 2 girls who were particuarly accomplished in this skill both named Ashl(e)y (but spelled differently hence the injected e. am I making sense?--keep up.) They helped everyone whenever they ran into a snag. I took mental notes and yesterday since we were all at home because half of us still had the flu, I had Ada pull out her hat, undo it, and start all over again. I was able to guide her through it thanks to my experience with those wonderful 12 & 13-year-old girls! She insisted on doing as much of it on her own as possible I think I only helped with one or two rows that got a smidgen tight. But I sat by her the whole time and encouraged her and helped her when she messed up. She did an awesome job and is now excited about making MORE hats! Yeah! So I have a question? I am working on getting the Young Womanhood Recognition Award (for 2 reasons a-so that I understand this program better cause it's different than when I was in YW and b- the medallions are prettier and even come in SILVER!) I am thinking helping my daughter with something completely foreign to me could count for something in Divine Nature, because a portion of our Divine Nature is motherhood and in helping my daughter with this, I feel like I am in some way fulfilling that role just a little bit better. What do you think?


She is posing here with her American Girl Doll, Nicki, that she got for Christmas. Nicki has the same blue eyes and dirty blonde hair as Ada--as well as those cute little freckles sprinkled across her nose. Nicki is our hat model today.

Flu Bug, Ugh!

Well, this week the flu bug came to visit our house. We are hoping it will be packing its bags soon as it has now officially visited each and every one of us! The good news is our toilets were cleaned and so when it came time to go running it that direction it was as bad as it could have been. I think I only had to clean vomit out of the carpet twice! Hallelujah! I've had a suggestion that we should have gotten our flu shots, but I don't really want the flu shots. I would rather go through the week of illness than get the shot. So here we are. And hopefully it is over!