Gracie Girl

Happy Birthday Annie Grace. I can't believe you are five years old already. You are our lesson on how God knows what we need and want before we even know we need and want it. I love you Grace.
Mommy

Dance, Dance, Dance

Annie Grace, our dancing queen. She loves dancing with her friends, Madi, Addi, and the twins, Sarah and Rachel. Recital outfit coming soon...

Tanner Halversen - Master of the Cube

Activity Day Recognition Night

On the couch

The scene. It's 11:00 at night and Gary is on call. The kids are in bed, I've finished the dishes and sent out email for Young Womens. I thought briefly about folding the laundry, but decided that since it surely isn't going anywhere it can probably wait. I've turned on the TV to pass the time until Gar gets home sometime after midnight.

During an ad break I hear tiny footsteps tip-toeing down the stairs. Sure enough, Annie Grace (who should have been asleep quite some time ago) is coming to give me the "I can't get to sleep" speech. I figure among parents anyway, this speech is only slightly less famous than the "I have a dream" speech. So she climbs on up. I love how kids never ask if they are invited to sit on your lap, they just climb on up. I guess I'm glad my kids always assume they are invited. In about 15 minutes, she's out.

Half an hour later I hear crying. Consider my position all stuck under a sleeping child while another one needs me upstairs. Fortuanetly Annie sleeps like a rock and so I call for the crying Ethan to come downstairs. It takes him a while in his groggy state, but he eventually finds me. Nightmares are not uncommon for Ethan, he just needs someone to snug with for a minute. So he crawls on up. He's so half-asleep he doesn't even seem to notice that he has to crawl over Annie. In about 15 seconds, he's out.

Ten minutes later I hear the cat on the prowl. If you think the cat is any different from the kids when it comes to being invited onto my lap you are sadly mistaken. She takes a moment to size up the situation. As she peeks over the edge of the couch I'm thinking any reasonable creature would surely decide there is no room left, but who ever claimed cats to be reasonable creatures? She hops up and in aout 5 minutes, she's out.

By the time Gary gets home every muscle I have aches. I've been needing to stretch for a while now, but I'm happy. It won't be too many years in the future until my kids won't do this any more. You'll notice my older kids managed to stay in their beds. I know parents with grown kids are always saying to appreciate the time you have while they are young because despite the chaos involved in child-rearing, you will miss it. These are the moments when I'm pretty sure it's true.

Fridge Art

Thought I'd share a little kid artwork. Tanner and Lauren are my most prolific artists. Tanner is very much into cartooning with his current favorite subjects being penguins, potato heads and ninjas. Lauren draws anything that catches her eye and has lately been learning a lot in her art class at school. Annie and Ethan are your basic little kid artists. Audrey doesn't really draw much except for during church. She draws cartoon people for the little kids to color, so these drawings from Audrey are torn out of our church notebooks.

Love and fingerpaint-
Jenn

50's Boy / 80's Girl

Our elementary school has a uniform policy. Most parents really like it, but some kids aren't thrilled. To help ease the pain of having to live under such totalitarianism, once a month the school has some sort of a costume day so the kids can let loose. They have crazy hair day and green day for St. Patricks etc. Today was Decade Day. Ethan chose the 50's and Lauren the 80's. Ethan liked it when I told him 'this is how Grandpa Steve once dressed'. Lauren's biggest experience with the 80's is Napoleon Dynamite so she is workin' the fanny pack and the side pony tail. Flippin' Sweet.

Sixteenth Anniversary

Sixteen years ago today Gary and I got married. It is sometimes hard to remember a time when our lives weren't a practical course in time management, our conversations didn't center around carpooling, and we could watch a movie all the way through without interuption. I am sure those times existed, but they seem a long time ago.

It can be hard to feel like a couple now instead of managers of a small business venture, but I wouldn't have anyone else as my partner. Thank you Gary for chasing me down with that 2x4 (figuratively speaking of course) all those years ago. Our life has it's crazy moments, but as I think about it, all those big dreams I had back then have come true. (I know Gary, I am knocking on wood as I say it.) I wanted to be a stay at home mom, have a best friend for a husband, and be in a book club like my mom was when I was growing up. Well...Viola!...you've made my dreams come true. Yes, those kind of dreams do come with sticky fingers, messy bedrooms, and all the rest, but wow. Who knew how much fun I would have being your wife and my kids mom?

I love you Gary. Thanks for never forgetting a birthday or anniversary, thanks for listening to me ramble, thanks for being willing to stand up to me when I need it, thanks for being a great dad, thanks for being there for all my lows and all my highs over the last sixteen years.

Let's go to dinner tonight.
Jenn

Check out Gary's hair and my sleeves.
All I can say is 'totally awesome'.

Ethan the Defender

Ethan is the blonde kid who keeps turning the ball around and then walks toward me at the end of the video. Tanner makes the comment about shoving. If the music bothers you during the video, just scroll down to the bottom of the blog and pause it.
Love and soccer moms-
Jenn

Soccer Kids

Lauren and Ethan are both playing soccer this year. Ethan has played before and loves nothing more than game day. Let me make myself clear. He eats, breathes, and sleeps anything having to do with sports, balls, or competition in general. When we go biking with friends he gets mad and shouts things at me from back in the Burley if I'm not 'winning.' My walls are all banged up because Gary just can't quite bring himself to ban Ethan from playing soccer in the house. Great.

This is Lauren's first year playing. She is doing better than she anticipated she would. After the first practice she declared herself the worst one on the team (not true), so I guess it didn't require much for her exceed her own expectations, but she has. She is having fun and has proven to have a good head for the game.

Tonight their games were at the same time and Gar was at work. It was also freezing. I spent my time running back and forth between games. The other kids cheered their siblings until half time and then headed to the car and blessed heat. Lauren and Ethan have the same color jersey not because they are on the same team, but because they attend the same elementary school.

Final note on the photos: I know it looks like my kids never touch the ball, but it's really just that they have an amateur photographer for a mother and I'm not so great with the action shots. I missed it every time, but the kids are still cute. Audrey took a couple of awesome shots of Ethan. I'll try to get them on here sometime!

Halversens and the Bag Game

So the Halversen family has this long standing tradition of playing 'the bag game.' I'm not really sure how long they've been doing this, but at least for the 16 years I've been in the family. It's a funny thing because I think most of the adults rather dread the bag game, but the kids seem to love it, so Grandma Charm keeps doing it. Again, yeah for Grandmas. Here is how it goes. You have probably played something similar in your lifetime. Grandma buys a zillion little gifts. Some are good gifts like a candy bar. Some are not-so-good gifts like a potholder. Some are good gifts if you are a 4 year old girl, but a terrible gift if you are a 13 year old boy, like a pink feather boa. Each little gift is put in a small paper sack. The sack is folded closed. All sacks are placed in the middle. Everyone sits in a big circle around the sacks and takes turn rolling dice. If you get seven, eleven, or doubles, you can take a bag from the center. You show everyone what you got and then close your bag. This continues until all the bags are taken from the center. Then a timer is set for 15-20 minutes. Now if someone rolls the magic numbers they get to steal someone elses bag. At the end of the time, you keep whatever bags are currently yours. The fun part is when someone thinks they have stolen their neighbors Hershey bar and have accidentally stolen wart remover. In theory, it is a good game. In reality, it is crazy, loud, competitive, and more often then not someone ends up in tears. In keeping with tradition, we played the bag game at Grandma Charm's during our Spring Break trip. We played with Maren and the Drapers. It was lots of fun and this time we were lucky...no tears! My favorite pictures are probably of our cousin Cole wearing the feather boa he was so lucky to get, and of Aunt Maren delighting in rolling doubles.

Love and family game night-
Jenn

The Bag Game

"Spring" Break?

This is our car trip to Utah. As you can see, someone seems to have forgotten to put the 'spring' in our 'spring break.' Gary's bike eventually got so covered in ice from the road that the wind resistance his tires created kept causing the bike to creep back toward the edge of the bike rack. If he hadn't had it cabled onto the rack we'd have lost it for sure. The photo of Gary shows him holding a section of ice from off his tire. Charming, I know.

It's the wonder of nature baby!
(10 points to anyone who knows what movie that line is from)
Jenn

Terrible Bowlers

Okay, we may have rocked at rock climbing, but we are one terrible group of bowlers! Grandma managed to win the day with a "burnin' down the house" score of 104. Sadly for the rest of us, Annie Grace came in second with 102. Now, I will grant you that she had the benefit of bumpers and help from siblings and parents, but still. Despite our serious lack of bowling skill, we had plenty of fun.

Love and bowling shoes-
Jenn