Jensen's Birthday Week Recap

I think all in all Jensen had a good 5th birthday...the celebrating lasted 3 days so I hope she had a good time. Her actual birthday was a Thursday and we started a tradition a few years ago that we let the kids pick somewhere to have dinner on the night of their birthday. All week leading up to Thursday she had said she was going to pick Chik-fil-A. Fine. On Thursday morning she suddenly changed her mind and said she wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. Ugh. I actually thought Chuck E. Cheese might not be open for dinner during the week. After all, I'd only ever been there a few times for lunch during the week or for parties on the weekend. I mean who goes to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner? Well, apparently quite a few people. The place was just as packed and loud as ever. There was even a birthday party going on. At least our local Chuck E. Cheese was recently remodeled so it was a tad cleaner than it used to be.



After dinner we came home for cake and family gifts.



One thing Jensen has been asking for for a while now is to get her ears pierced. I've been all for it but it took us a while to convince Jim that 5 wasn't too young for earrings. He finally relented and I took Jensen in to get her ears pierced on Saturday. She was such a trooper! She did not shed one tear. Her eyes welled up when it was over but no tears spilled out. Luckily we went to a place where they pierce both ears at the same time so it was over very quickly. She picked out a cute pair of pink CZs on 14k gold posts. She looked so adorable with them!




Everything went just a little too smoothly so I should have known something would happen. That night Jim and I were out and the kids were with a babysitter. We got a call from the sitter that one of Jensen's earrings had fallen out and she didn't want the sitter to try to put it back in. We were downtown in the middle of a play and couldn't get back home right then. Once we got home I tried to put the earring back in while Jensen was asleep but the hole had already started to close up and I couldn't get it through the back. I took her back to the store the next day, but they said we'd have to wait a week or two for the ear to completely heal closed and then have it pierced again. Poor Jensen. I don't know if she'll be quite as brave the next time now that she knows what to expect.

And, finally, on Sunday we had her birthday bash. We had it at The Little Gym where Jensen is taking gymnastics and dance classes. There were almost 20 kids there running around like crazy and having a good time. You can view all the pictures here if you're so inclined. Here's a few highlights.

Thank You Nintendo!

The kids got a Wii earlier in the year, May, for doing so great in school last year. For Christmas they got several new games that they were dying for...mainly Guitar Hero. On Christmas day our Wii decided it didn't want to play Guitar Hero, or any other games, and died. Jackson just about died along with it. We sent it off to Nintendo for repair and it finally came back home today! Jackson could not get that thing hooked up and the game inserted fast enough. Luckily he's been practicing on all the neighbor kids' Wiis since Christmas. And as the machine said, Jackson, "You Rock!"




Long hair? Check. No shirt? Check. Skinny arms? Check. Rock star? Check.

Happy Birthday Jenny 'Rie

FIVE!! You are turning 5 today! I just can't believe it. In honor of this momentous occasion here are five things I love about you.

1. I love how eager you are to be able to do things. You taught yourself to roller skate and you practiced and practiced until you were able to do it. You really go at it with no fear and lots of determination. You make me cringe every time you take off down the driveway, but each time you fall you just get back up and keep on going. You want to be able to skateboard and ride your bike without training wheels next.

2. I love the way you say some words. compuga = computer; cause = pause (as in "Can you cause the movie?"); wis = with. I think these words are so cute that I never correct you. You'll figure that out on your own soon enough.

3. I love that you enjoy spending so much time coloring, drawing, painting and all things crafty!

4. I love how you run down the hall to greet me when I pick you up after school. This always just makes my day!

5. I love your smile and your sassy attitude. You learned to snap your fingers recently and you do an awesome "Oh no you didn't." It makes me smile every time.

In short, I love you, little one and can't wait to see what the year of being 5 brings you.

Love,
Mom

From Christmas to Today: Part 1

That posting everyday in December business really took a lot out of me. And I didn't even make it through the whole month. But I made it to Christmas, which was really the point anyway.

Since Christmas, we've actually done quite a bit so here's the round-up of what's been going on since then.

On December 28th, I had to take Jordan to the orthopedic doctor to look at her foot. She was playing tackle football with kids on the street, with no shoes on, and someone stepped on her foot. This actually happened on Dec. 23rd. Her foot turned pretty black and blue, but we figured it would go back to normal after a couple of days. By the day after Christmas her whole foot was bruised and it was still pretty painful so I made an appointment to take her in but couldn't get her in until Friday. It turns out she had three hairline factures. Her first broken bone(s). They gave her a boot to wear instead of a cast, which is great because she can take it off for showers etc. They said it would take about 4-6 weeks to heal. When we got home, Jim wanted to know if the doctor asked why we waited so long to bring her in. I was definitely feeling a little like a bad parent at that moment!



We took her in for a follow-up after about three weeks and the doc said to wear the boot for two more weeks and come back in. It hasn't really slowed her down much except in gymnastics where she really can't do much of anything except her conditioning. She's only been going to the gym for about an hour each time instead of the usual two hours.

On December 29th, which was mine and Jim's 17th anniversary, we left for a week in Michigan. We had a great visit and the kids got to see tons of snow which they loved and I don't mind if it's only for one week per year! The picture that is in the header of my blog was taken in Jim's mom's backyard. Beautiful.

We had our Christmas get-together with Jim's family on the 30th which was a great time. All but one niece was there...about 18 people in all. My niece, Kaity, gave me an awesome gift. My whole blog up to that point printed out in a book...with photos and everything! She had it done at blurb.com. It's so awesome and I'm going to do this every year with my blog. Thank you Kaity!!

During the rest of our visit we got together with two of Jim’s friends and their families and all went bowling; saw my mother…she’s apparently going to be moving to Phoenix at the end of February. None of us left in Michigan and she’s ready for warmer weather I guess; I took Jordan and my niece Kaity to Somerset Mall one day for a girls’ day of shopping; we took the kids to see National Treasure 2 one evening; we spent a nice New year’s eve with Jean and Jim’s brother Tom’s family. We all played games and watched the ball drop then Jean made us go to bed at 12:05 so she could get some sleep! Jim and I even got out for one night alone and went to dinner and a movie. We saw Juno which was okay as far as the writing and acting went but I was a little disturbed by the story…a 16 year old girl gets pregnant and everything goes so easily and smoothly for her. Wouldn’t want my teenage daughter to see that movie. Our flights to and from Detroit were uneventful which is always good and we even got 2 first class upgrades on the way home. I put a few photos from the trip below and you can see the rest of the pictures here.





This brings us up to about January 6th. :-)