Here's a little random sample of my kids' unique behavior today.
Henry walks out of my room, having gotten a hold of and experimented with my mascara, looking like this:
Then Ruby's running around with a death-grip on her favorite cars.
I'm going to pretend I'm not drawing any conclusions from this behavior.
Henry gave his first "talk" in church yesterday and a few people have been asking for the follow-up.
This story would not be quite as good without the background detail, so here it is.
As we were hurriedly getting ready for church yesterday I asked Scott to hurry and type the notes for Henry's talk about the Biblical prophet, Noah.
So he goes over to the computer and is typing away for like 10 minutes while I get the kids dressed. All the while I'm thinking, "I'm glad he's typing this instead of me -- it'll save me time."
Boy was I wrong.
I walk over there only to discover this is what he had typed:
This is it, the moment you've all been waiting for, my talk on the prophet Noah. Settle down, please hold your applause until the end, there will be plenty of time for celebration and jubilee. So, how many you peeps heard of Noah? You know, the dude with the boat? Well, you ain't heard the half-a that story, it's a doozy. Before I start, I'd like to give a shout out to all the little people that got me here today, especially my daddy 'cause he drove the car and took me to Sunbeams. Also, can I get a woop woop from all the Sunbeams?! Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about!
Okay, so back to Noah and his magical floating animal bus. One day God tells Noah to build a boat 'cause He's gonna flood the whole earth. Crazy! The Big Man tells Noah to proclaim repentance to all the peeps that have gone astray, know what I'm sayin'?
And that's where I stopped him. Seriously? That's what he was doing for 10 precious minutes as I rushed around getting our kids ready? At the time I did NOT think it was even one bit funny but now I can give him a tiny little bit of credit for the, "can I get a woop woop from all the Sunbeams?!"
Anyway, after all the preparation and practicing, it turned out that the Primary's microphone was broken and nobody heard a dang word Henry said. Of all the luck!
I was just proud that he was brave enough to get up there. My little shy guy is growing up!
Here he is a couple hours after church celebrating his victorious (I realize the word "victorious" may be a bit strong considering no one even heard what he said, nor was anyone converted to Christianity by his persuasive ways, but hey, he was brave, so we're stickin' with victorious) day:
Just an officer of the law, keepin' the peace.
Speakin' of peace, peace man.
Like many other little three year-old LDS kids, Henry became a Sunbeam on Sunday. The interesting part of this story is not that he cried and threw a fit (because he didn't) or that he dazzled his fellow "Primary Participants" with his understanding of the book of Isaiah (which he's never even heard of), the interesting part is what happened AFTER primary. Here's how it went down:
Primary Secretary (handing me a piece of paper): Hi Sister Christensen. He did great! Here's a little paper for you. Henry is going to give the talk next Sunday in Primary.
Me: [silence]
Primary Secretary: [Smiles]
Me: Seriously?
Primary Secretary: Oh yes! [still smiling] He volunteered!
Me: Seriously?
Still Me (but only in my head): Who holds a three year-old to his word, especially when he has no idea what you're talking about?
Anyway, so apparently, Henry is giving a talk, in his second week of Primary--ever.
Just so you know, I have to bribe him with cookies just to get him to talk to his grandparents on the phone (which he mostly ends up refusing to do anyway). So, this ought to be interesting.
He's supposed to choose one of his favorite scripture stories and tell it in his own words. I sure hope he doesn't choose Daniel and the Lions' Den or he might end up with a nasty case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder if he starts having flashbacks.
Today is my lovely sister's birthday. Adrienne is 28 years old. That is so strange because I still think of us as crazy 19 and 21 year-old roommates at USU. Man, those were the days. All my guy friends wanted her and that really does something to an older sister's self-esteem -- and it doesn't really do anything good to the self-esteem, I can tell you that much.
Here are just some of the reasons I love Adrienne (these are just a few off the top of my head as there are far too many to list in one blog post):
1-She's funny. Seriously, one of the funniest people I know.
2-She speaks her mind.
3-She's a cute mom. This becomes very apparent once you spend even one minute with her little Kate because she's just as spunky as her mom.
4-Every trip we go on together, we will undoubtedly, unquestionably fight with each other. We usually have one major humdinger of a "discussion" on every trip. What I love about her is that she ALWAYS forgives me for the dumb things I say. (Sometimes I say dumb things. But that will probably come as no surprise to anyone who has ever taken the teeniest, tiniest glimpse at my blog.)
5-She's beautiful (on the inside and out. I can't tell which side wins out because they're both so darn attractive!).
6-She makes me happy. It's a selfish reason but it's true. It's hard to get time with her, now that we live so far away, and she has so many darn friends that it's difficult to even get any phone time with her but when I do, it somehow makes my days better.
I love you Aids! (No, she's not suffering from the disease; that's just her oh-so-attractive nickname from high school.)
I've been trying to be a good girl by de-Christmasing my house before sitting down at my computer and piddling my time away.
Alas, tonight we finally cleaned up our Christmas crap so ... YAY! I can blog now!
Besides having to drive on terrible, snowy, winter roads all the way down to Utah (and part of the way back), we had an excellent Christmas. I'll spare you the painful details (because my sister, Adrienne, says I give WAY too much background info when telling a "short story") and let our pictures paint their thousand-word stories (that's probably a few more words than I would even say about each picture so it looks like I get to have my cake and eat it too on this one).
Here are some of our highlights:
FINALLY! getting Ruby to calm herself down enough to get a good Christmas picture in front of my Mom's tree (why does it seem like Moms always have the best trees?):
The new bulldog puppy my parents got for Christmas. Seriously, is there anything cuter than a bulldog pup? Seriously? Seriously!
Scott's grandparents, Hal and Mary, reveling in the heartfelt gift he gave them. Grandma Mary was getting "weepy" in this pic. I love Grandma Mary. She cries at almost every gift she gets. This year, I think she cried when Kate gave her hand soap -- she thought it was so thoughtful that Kate remembered how much she loved soap!
We went to the cabin the day after Christmas. I triple-dog dare you all to find a more comfy, relaxing, enjoyable place than the Christensen Cabin. Is there anything more beautiful than snow? Yes. Only one thing -- a mountain cabin covered in snow. Okay, one other thing -- my babies playing in the snow in front of the mountain cabin covered in snow.
Howdy Partner. Henry playing dress-up with "Frampy" Hal's 32-gallon hat:
I got a new camera for Christmas so here's me experimenting with Henry and Ruby as my beautiful subjects. Don't judge my photog skills because I don't really have any. I always wanted to but was never able to take any photography classes in school because my electives were always taken up by other exciting, cool, popularity-enhancing classes like orchestra, choir, French, etc. (Remember how Adrienne says I give too much background info? I have no idea what she's talking about.)
Ruby contemplating the meaning of her existence:
My little sledders:
Tau, the Sled Dog, digging for mice in three feet of snow (go, Boy, go!):
Henry summiting Mt. Everest (aka, the big mound of snow-plowed snow right down the hill from the cabin, right after making his first snow angel EVER!):
Mother and Son Snow Angels (mine's the one on the right, just to dispel any possible confusion):
Look at all that snow! I absolutely LOVE going to the cabin in the winter.
Anyway, it was fun but I'm so glad it's over. Both Christmas AND this post. I've been sitting here for two hours (my computer is so old it takes it FOREVER to upload the higher resolution pics from my new camera. Hmm...old computer? Where were you on that one Santa?)
