Everything Jensen

Melinda has been itching to get our Christmas decorations up since Halloween. Only lack of a free afternoon prevented her from climbing up into the attic and liberating the nutcrackers early this year. But, we waited until the Sunday after Thanksgiving to break open the boxes. Putting up the decorations around our house is a big job for two reasons: 1) We have a lot of decorations, and 2) Eleanor thinks they all look delicious. So, to prevent Eleanor from ingesting any manager creatures, shocking herself with multi-colored lights or cutting herself on a breakable ornament - we rearranged all the furniture. The couch now effectively blocks off the Christmas tree and window lights. Everything else went on high shelves. We waited until the kids were in bed to put up all the really breakable things, like nativities and stocking holders. But, Adelaide had a great time putting up the Christmas tree and the ornaments. She's been asking when we could get our own tr...

This year, since it was just going to be the four of us for Thanksgiving, we decided to head out of town and do something fun. We haven't gone on any kind of vacation since Matt started his MBA, and we were itching to get out of the beltway, even if it was only a short trip. We made reservations to eat Thanksgiving dinner at Chowning Tavern in Williamsburg, VA (a city restored to look like the 1700s). We drove down Thanksgiving morning, and  Adelaide couldn't wait to start exploring. Adelaide thought the 18th century outfits were great,  but had no interest in wearing them. She brought an actor out of character when she exclaimed, "You have a funny hat on!" You'd think someone that wears a tricornered  hat would have heard that one before, but he got a great laugh. Eleanor was happy to try on anything that came her way.  Keeping each other company while Mom and Dad listened to boring ol' lectures from the tour guides. Y...

We'd been waiting all month for Grandma and Grandpa to come, not only because we were excited to see them, but because we had been postponing our pumpkin patch trip until they arrived. Alas, ALAS, Sandy rained all over our planned pumpkin patch day. But, Melinda wasn't going to let a little thing like Halloween being over and done with spoil her holiday plans. So, everyone humored her and bundled up to go to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. At Cox Farms, they were sending Halloween out with a bang.. and a splat... and a squish. The remaining pumpkins were dropped from a crane, thrown against spikes and generally annihilated in medieval ways. It was awesome, or would have been, if it wasn't so cold. We buttoned up our coats and made the most of it. Adelaide loved the slides more than anything else. The higher and faster the slide, the more she smiled and laughed. She probably would have done them all day if she hadn't been turning into a kid-sicle. We kept it short. Bu...

Post-tropical Storm Sandy or Frankenstorm, depending on which meteorologist you are listening too, had completely moved out of our area by Halloween. We were so lucky to have beautiful weather yesterday for trick-or-treating. We got all our pumpkins ready the night before. We take pumpkin carving seriously in this family - with lots of time spent on complicated patterns. Adelaide is a little too young for knifes. We set her up with a mini-pumpkin, crayons and stickers. She was thrilled, until she looked up and saw the rest of the family with big pumpkins and carving equipment. She could see when she was being short changed! Adelaide became Mom's carving buddy. She picked a Dracula pattern and helped poke all the holes.  It's a good thing Melinda is a master pumpkin carver,  because Adelaide was pretty haphazard when poking the pattern. Eleanor was happy to adopt the mini-pumpkin.  Somehow this year, we got onto a list for the Obama ground cam...