The Biggest LOSERS!

Last night we had our ward trunk or treat party. We created a family costume of being the "Biggest Loser Family." Everyone particiated.

The Jensen-Ward Family.

We had lots of fun in our costumes at the Halloween Party.

Grant just wore Mitchell's clothes. They were plenty big on him!

Mitchell was the hardest one to convince to dress up in our family costume. He seemed to have a great time though.

I found Mitchell and my supersized pants at Goodwill. Very fashionable and comfortable!

Brent I think had the biggest pants of all!

What a Mess!

On Saturday I went in the backyard to trim some trees and noticed something strange. The week before I had blown all of the leaves out of the rocks and did weed eating along the border around the grass. Grant mowed the lawn and it looked great. Now my kids are big enough that they don't go and play in the rocks. So I was surprised to see rocks dumped all along the paver border. I pushed all of the rocks on the pavers back into the rock bed. I even took time to get all of the rocks out of the grass. I attributed this mess to the cats. Maybe they were digging in the rocks for a bug or to go to the bathroom. Who knows, but it was strange.

On Sunday afternoon, Brent and I were looking out at the backyard and noticed a funny bird. This bird was digging in the rocks, picking them up and tossing them on the paver border. I couldn't believe it! Brent recorded the bird creating this mess. Who would have thought the culprit would be a bird!
Here is the bird picking up the rocks and creating an additional mess on our paver border. Where are the cats when you need them to control the crazy bird population!!! j/k

Boy Scout Fishing Day

Yesterday Grant was able to participate in a Boy Scouts of America Fishing Clinic. It was put on at Kiwanis Park in Tempe. He was able to go to classes to get the requirements done for his fishing merit badge and his fly fishing merit badge. He had a wonderful day.

He said the classes went for a long time but then he was able to go fishing for several hours on the park lake. Normally, when we've gone fishing, we never catch anything. It took Mitchell 2 years to get his fishing merit badge because every time he went fishing, none of the fish would bite. Well, yesterday, Grant caught all of the fish. He lost track after 11. He loved it. He said the majority of the fish he caught were blue gill.

He is so excited about fishing now that he wants to go again very soon. Please call and invite Grant to your next fishing trip. He will bring you good luck!

Phoenix Symphony

Last night was an amazing surprise! Around 6pm my 15 year old neighbor, Savannah, came over and invited me to go to the Phoenix Symphony with her family. They are season ticket holders and her dad was unable to go. I was so excited to go. I loved going to the symphony when I was 18 and in Cotillion. I also thought of Grant and how much he loved music and how he would really want to go. But he wasn't back from fishing at this point and they were leaving at 7pm.

So I got to go. Symphony Hall is a beautiful building. Most everyone is dressed up. There are no little kids anywhere to be seen. Here is a picture of the hall before the concert started.

I also tried to get a picture of my neighbor, Julie, and her two mature kids, Savannah and Dakota. (Dakota is a year older than Grant and the two of them get a long pretty well.) However, our picture is very blurry.

The concert that evening was conducted by Lawrence Golan and they performed Symphony Pops No. 2. The songs included Rock Around the Clock, Back to the Fifties, Music from Guys and Dolls and music from the movie Grease. They symphony is incredible. I sat there and thought about how much Grant would love to be hearing these talented musicians. I am going to have to get him to a concert soon.

After intermission, the Phoenix Symphony was joined by the band Sha Na Na. This group was so fun to watch. They were in the original Woodstock Festival lineup, starred in Grease (sang and wrote almost all of the music), and hosted the Sha Na Na television series for four years in the 70's, which I was too young to know about. All of their music was 50's style music that they performed. Some of the songs were At the Hop, Blue Moon, The Peppermint Twist, The Twist, The Stroll, Hand Jive, Teenager in Love, Love Potion No. 9, Sandy, Shake, Rattle and Roll and Goodnight Sweetheart. It was fun to see the mostly senior citizen crowd sing along to some of the songs. At one point in the concert they had everyone get up and do the Hokey Pokey. I have no idea how long its been since I've done that. Maybe we should do that at Thanksgiving to teach all the little kids that song so it doesn't miss a generation.

The first guy in the picture above, on the left, wore that same shirt last night in the concert. It is pink with purple stripes. He was very funny on stage. The third guy from the left is the amazing writer and pianist of the group. His outfit was pink with piano keys on it. It is the same outfit that you see in the picture above. He also has a silver star on his butt. Kind of strange. The 5th guy from the left wears a red rayon slacks and top. I'm sure that must be what he is wearing in this picture. This guy sings all of the very deep bass notes. He also has more energy than everyone else in the group. He is an amazing performer.

Needless to say, it was a fun night. I am so lucky my neighbors thought of me for their extra ticket!

Ultimate Fat Lip!

Thursday night was Ultimate Frisbee night. I went to play for the first time. I'm not very good at throwing or catching a Frisbee so I was a little nervous about playing this sport with a bunch of teenage boys and men. So on the sidelines, before the game started, I was playing catch with Grant and a random little kid that happened to be hanging out. I actually was doing pretty good during warm-ups until the last throw. I missed catching it with my hands and it smacked me in the mouth. It hurt so bad. I was so grateful, at the same time, that I didn't have braces on because the damage would have been worse.

I ran to Brent to tell him what happened and to show him my bleeding mouth. He told me it wasn't that bad and not to worry. But it really hurt and I could tell my upper lip was swollen. The bleeding stopped, the game started and it was a ton of fun. Lots of running. Brent and I were on the same team with three other men. Grant was on the young guys team which consisted of a bunch of teenagers and 20 year olds. Mitchell was a wuss and didn't come to play. It was a very competitive game. I did so much better than I thought I would. I can hardly wait until next Thursday's game!

When I got home, I saw how terrible my lip looked. I've included a picture so you can laugh at my grotesque lip. Yuck! I iced it for quite a while that evening. By the next morning it was sore but most of the swelling was gone.

We Got Chalked!!!

Tonight while we were playing "Hide and Go Seek" at the end of FHE, someone was outside our house drawing on our driveway. The picture above says "Woot Woot You got Chalked!" I've never been "chalked" before. I think it is much better than getting teepeed. The messages were pretty cute and the authors did sign their names. The chalking experts were some teenagers from my Sunday School class. I teach the 16 year olds and Brent teaches the 15 year olds. This last Sunday I taught both classes and brought cinnamon rolls (Brent was still in Alabama). I guess they were a hit.

This picture says "U R Awesome." Although Brent is awesome and wanted to be in this picture, the words were meant for ME!!!

This one says "I'm crying cause I love you so much." I must have really made an impact with my superb teaching skills with these kids. Its only been one day since I taught the class :)

This one says, "Hey, we were driving by your house and it looked nice and clean so we decided to chalk it. We love you Sis. Jensen." See this is how I know that all the lovey dovey things are about me. Ha, Ha.

This note says "Mitch Feel Better. Kelsey, Becky, Justin, Josh" Okay, so there was a little love on the sidewalk for Mitchell because he came to church yesterday with his chipmunk cheeks from his oral surgery.

This says, "Thank you for the cinnamon rolls." Yes, I guess they were yummy. But then again, I fed a bunch of teenagers. I think they would eat anything!

This says, "You are the best Sunday School teacher. We love you!" It's always nice to know you are loved. I can turn this into a missionary moment with my neighbors as they question me about the interesting graffiti on my driveway. I gave them cinnamon rolls on Sunday too.

This says, "You park here." So in case I don't know where my car is parked, I can now just follow the easy to read directions on my driveway.

Thank you to my wonderful teenagers in my Sunday School class and their accomplices for giving our family so much fun stuff to read! You are the BEST! We feel loved and bribed enough to continue making cinnamon rolls!

By the way, I encourage you to spread the love and chalk someone today!

Meet Stan...

This is Brent's cat Stan. Stan is a funny cat. He doesn't care much for the general public or kids. He stays far away. However, he does like to go for walks to the park. All Brent has to say is, "Do you want to go for a walk?" and Stan is at the door. He will then walk down the street to the park and play for a while then follow Brent back to the house. Stan also is good at opening doors. If he wants out of the house or into the dangerous garage, he just reaches up and pulls on the door handle. So at night, we have to make sure all the doors are locked so he won't escape to the night time world where coyotes and mean kitties prowl. Stan also likes to demand to be pet. When he wants to eat his cat food, he will meow until you come and pet him while he eats. (This trait is rather annoying but he really enjoys it.) Although these are rather quirky traits for a cat, he is a good kitty. The other night he came up on bed while Brent was gone and fell asleep. Grant and I laughed at how he was sleeping. What do you think?

He looks like he may be a contortionist too. He is half twisted on his back and on his side. He didn't even wake up when flash on the camera went off. Too funny!

I'm Done Painting

I finally finished painting the downstairs and the downstairs bathroom. Brent has been gone for 10 days and during that time I have been painting the house. He comes home tomorrow so he will definately be surprised at how the house has changed!

The last part of my paint job was the downstairs bathroom. I painted it a pale green. It's almost a green grey color. Once it was done, I had to get new towels and a bath rug to accent it better.

Wisdom Teeth

Today Mitchell had his 4 wisdom teeth removed by the oral surgeon. On the way to the appointment, he told me that when the surgery was over, he wanted to go to the bike park and watch his friends ride. I told him he had to go home after the surgery and rest. He was rather adamant that he would be able to go.

The surgery went fine. When I saw Mitchell after the surgery was over, he looked dazed and confused. His eyes were wide open and his cheeks were stuffed with gauze. The nurse said she would help him to the car. Mitchell said he could do it himself, but as he sat up he swayed back and forth, then laid back down. After she went over the directions for taking care of his mouth for the next few days, Mitchell managed to get up by himself. He was very woozy. He was convinced he could walk on his own. He staggered from side to side. I was afraid he would fall over. It was rather comical to watch though.

Once we were in the car, he informed me he wanted to go back to school. I told him that school would be out in 30 minutes and the doctor had just told him to go home and rest. The teenager mentality is so incredible. Drugs and a cocky natural attitude can really get a person in to trouble. When we got home, he was a little more stable on his feet, but told me he was going to ride his skateboard. He wasn't going to give up on going to see his friends. Thankfully, two of his friends came over after school and told him he looked disgusting and should go lay down. The rest of this afternoon, Mitchell has been stationed on the couch watching TV.

The bleeding in his mouth has stopped (finally!). He is hungry and is enjoying a variety of pudding. He says that three of the four holes in his mouth feel okay, just one of them is bothering him. Mitchell goes in next week to get the stitches out. Sounds like more fun! I think I'll let Brent take him :)

Mitchell really wanted a copy of his x-ray. So here it is right before the 4 impacted wisdom teeth came out. I guess you'll have to turn your computer screen sideways in order to view it. Sorry!

Family Home Evening

Tonight Grant was in charge of family home evening. He decided that he wanted to decorate the house as a family for Halloween. This meant that I had to brave the dangerously crowded garage to retrieve the Halloween boxes. It was a tricky process to squeeze by a big motorcycle and frame for a gate, climb over a chest with stuff piled on it, manuever over a tetering box and move a shelving unit to retrive the boxes. Despite the high potential for injury and becoming trapped, I managed to get all of the boxes into the house so our night of fun could begin.
The boys had to try on old Halloween costumes as they decorated. Grant has fit into this Ninja costume for the last 5 years! He says it is so comfortable. Mitchell was in charge of decorating the front window. He taped up several scary pictures.


Mitchell loves the clown hair. He said that he is going to keep it in his room for the rest of the year. I think the variety of colors brings out his softer side.

Mitchell doesn't care much for the LOVE glasses. He wore them for a good half hour before deciding that. I'm thinking that I'll find them in his room too later on tonight!

Our Home

This posting was Amy's idea. When her and Bob were out here a week and a half ago, she mentioned how I should post pictures of our home since most of you haven't been in town yet to stop by. So I will give you a virtual tour of our home. You are still welcome to come by anytime for a visit. We love company! This is what you will see from the curb of our home. Neither car will fit in our three car garage. It is so full of stuff I am too embarrassed to post a picture of the interior of it. I need to let you know that the Brent couldn't park in the garage before we got married so it's not all my stuff filling it up. Now that the weather is cooler, the garage is a project we can tackle.

This is our living room. I just painted it this week while I was on fall break. The walls are now a lovely tan color. The room looks so much better now that there is some color on the walls. The coffee table and the table with the candles on it are tables Brent made. He is a talented furniture maker!

This is the view of the living room and dining room from the balcony. The sailboat painting leaning against the wall still needs to be hung. It is a huge painting that Brent's grandfather had in his movie theater a number of years ago. It is a neat print and it will look great above the sofa.

I am not decorating the family room yet. Brent has had these sofa's for the entire 14 plus years he as lived in this house. The plan is to get nice leather sofas for the living room and move the tan sofas into this room. Then someday we will get a sectional. I won't paint this room until we are done remodeling. We are going to put a second floor above this room so that there is a game room upstairs. We should be starting on that within the next year. Anyone want to come and help? Also Brent plans to build an entertainment center for us. I think that is on the 5 year plan.

This is our wonderful kitchen. There are lots of cabinets in this kitchen. I painted it yellow right before we got married. A lot of the greenery on the cabinets is from our wedding. It is some of the ivy that was used to decorate the reception.

This house has an indoor laundry room. I couldn't fit the whole room in from any angle. It does have a deep freezer in it too. Very cozy. I painted this room a happy shade of blue. But it's just a laundry room. Grant told me yesterday that he didn't even notice it had been painted.

At the top of the stairs is the loft. There is a lot of space in this room. When we build the game room above the family room, we will also build another bedroom in this area. My vote is to put two bedrooms in. Then I can quarentine my little office in one of them.

This is Grant's bedroom. It's a pretty good sized room.

This is Mitchell's room. Yes, it looks like a teenager lives here. And according to Amy, it smells like it too. Yuck! I aired it out while he was on the pioneer trek so it's not so stinky anymore!

This is the masterbedroom. You can only see a portion of this room. I painted most of the walls in this room "cookie crumb" and the wall you can't see is a shade of blue that matches the comforter. We also put up new blinds in this room because the old plastic blinds had portions cut out of them so the cats could climb into the windows. I like how this room turned out. Very comfortable.

This is our master bathroom. Not too exciting. It also has a double sink so we don't have to worry about sharing.

So this is our home. It also has a great sized back yard and Brent has his office attached to the house that he built this last year. Come for a visit anytime.

Back From Pioneer Trek

Mitchell made it back from Pioneer Trek early this afternoon. I was disappointed when I pulled up to the stake center, with my camera out, and not to see him still dressed up like a pioneer. However, don't you think he looks more mature in this picture? The reason he wasn't dressed like a pioneer anymore is because at 3am this morning it started raining. Everything got wet. His sleeping bag was not only soaked, it was also covered in sand. Mitchell said that he slept in a creek because the sand would be more comfortable. I guess no one thought of possible flash floods and you don't sleep in empty washes!

He said the trek was pretty good. He was a member of the Smith family. He said that there was another family that was the Mitchell family. That would be kind of funny for him to be Mitchell Mitchell for a couple of days! There were 7 kids in his family: four boys and three girls plus a ma & pa. On the first day he pulled a handcart 16 miles. They pulled the cart well into the evening (more like 1am). He was super tired that night and didn't feel the cold. They pulled the handcart half has far the next day. He said it wasn't that hard to pull the cart. I'm guessing they needed to put some more weight in it :)

Mitchell isn't one for divulging the whole story all at once. I get little pieces here and there. I'm sure when I teach the teenagers in his class for Sunday School tomorrow, I'll get more of what happened for the last three days. Then I'll fill you in too.
Update: Tonight we had a post-trek fireside. It was wonderful! Afterwards they had all of the lost and found stuff on the stage. This is where we found Mitchell's hat. It is hammered! It is completely destroyed. Mitchell said that it was pretty windy and it kept blowing off. So he stuck it in the handcart. He blames the handcart for ruining his $3 Goodwill hat.

Fall Break

The Kyrene School District and Tempe High School District has had this entire week off for Fall Break. I can't believe that it is Friday and the break will be over soon. I still have so much to do. My week has been filled with uneventful things.

For example, on Monday both boys had dental cleanings and Mitchell had a bonus appointment with the oral surgeon about getting his wisdom teeth out on October 17th.

Tuesday I had an ultrasound in the morning and a orthodontist appointment in the afternoon. While I was in Phoenix, I surprised Grandma at the Senior Center with a visit. Too bad she was in the middle of a board meeting and couldn't chat for long.

Wednesday was also filled with appointments. First I had to take Brent to the airport so he could spend the next 10 days in Alabama working on his brother's house. Lucky! I wish I was going. Then I had a chiropractor appointment and a follow up visit with my OB doctor about the ultrasound. The update is that the large fibroid is about the same size. This is good. The small fibroid doubled in size since July. He also states that the lining of the uterus is thicker than normal. Since neither fibroid tumor is intruding into the uterus cavity, I should be able to get pregnant someday. Bummer. I was hoping that the fibroids would be gone.

Thursday started off with taking Mitchell to the Stake Center to go on the Pioneer Trek. I wish I took a picture of how he looked when he left. He had on tan pants, plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat. He's never looked like this. He definitely seemed taller. Then I was at the dentist again. Grant had 2 of his cavities fixed and had two of his chipped teeth fixed. Later that night, Grant and I went on a date to Olive Garden. It was his idea. We had a splendid feast and then watched movies at home. He is so adorable. Lots of hugs and kisses.

And now it is Friday. My week has been sucked up by somewhat meaningless appointments. We were back at the dentist again to have Grant's other 2 cavities fixed. He was an expensive kid this week. As for the rest of my time on this blessed break, I'm planning on going to the temple, getting work done for my job and getting various odd jobs done around the house. Although my week off hasn't been exciting, I'm really glad I've been home!

School Pictures

Its that time of year again where schools hire exceptional photographers to take pictures of all of the students and teachers. The pictures are always memorable. Some are fun for a laugh. So here are our 2008 school pictures!

Mitchell is a sophomore at Corona Del Sol. His shirt is advertising his interest in BMX Biking. He rides bikes almost every day after school.
Grant is a 6th grader at Pueblo Middle School. Grant is trying to make friends and get good grades this year. His scary skull shirt represents his desire to try to fit in.

This is my scary school picture. I have naturally super straight hair, don't be jealous, I don't even iron it. Although the picture isn't that great, Brent was nice enough to point out that my teeth are super straight. Smile!

Ultimate!

Are you planning on gaining pounds during the holidays by eating tons of the delicious foods that will be available? Are you planning on eating tons of delicious food during the holidays but haven't thought about all the extra pounds you get to keep when its over? Well, if you need a way to deture the pounds that are in your future, come and join us here in Chandler on Thursday nights for some Ultimate Frisbee!

Brent has rounded up a few interested athletes and play Ultimate at the stake center on Thursday nights starting at 8pm. Grant is a natural at the sport and eagerly takes on the big guys as they play. His skills are improving each week. Mitchell thinks all the running is stupid but goes anyway and does pretty well. Last week they had 10 athletes show up to play. Come and join the Ultimate exercise program and play Ultimate. You will be able to shed pounds now so when you induldge during the holidays, you won't feel guilty!