Jammin with Faith

Jammin with Faith

That's your daughter, no that's your daughter, was what was going through our minds as Bret and I watched the first grade perform during the Elementary Schools Christmas Program.
Faith was one of Three guitar players picked for the performance. She had told me earlier in the week how excited she was to have been picked. She would often show me her great guitar skills, I had no idea that it would turn out to be such a standing ovation from the crowd. She literaly had them in her hand. I received many comments afterwards that I should really get her into guitar lessons. They all don't understand this is just her. A Ham, Just like her Dad!!

Faith's School Christmas Program

I wonder how her Ballet Performace will be tommorrow night???

Our Thanksgiving Turkey

I lucked out this year, We were invited to some friends house for Thanksgiving and they wanted to do the turkey! Only wanting us to bring side dishes. Well this is what we came up with for the kids. They loved it. I only wished that I would have thought of it sooner. Would have been a great treat for snack time at the twins Pre-school!

Fun in the Sun

The girls and I took a vacation to California over Halloween, Did I say just the gils and me! No boys. Not that we don't love the boys, But the girls are old enough to walk,enjoy Disneyand rides and do not need naps. We met my mom there and spent 5 wonderful days in cali, while there we met up with my sister and her husband at Hunnington Beach. It was so good to see her. The gils loved playing in the sand and running up and down the beach. The water was still cold but air was warm and the sun was shinning!

I really enjoyed watching my gils play in the Hotel pool while I layed in the sun. They spent four hours in the Hotel swimming pool one day. We also went trick-or-treating up and down the shops on Hunnington Blv. It was so random, we kinda ran into a great trick-or treat party while looking for a place to eat dinner on Halloween night.

We spent two days in the famous land of Disney! We did Disneyland and the Adventure park, among my favorites was the Aladin play and watching the girls get excited to have their pictures taken with the Caracters, Faith was very into getting all the signatures she could.

Bret held the fort down at home with the two boys (missing out on a phesent hunting trip) He and Austin were sick, Not the funnest weekend for him. But he was so nice to let me enjoy the time off cooking and cleaning and enjoy my girls!

Hunnington Beach

Disneyland

Austin is ONE

Austin has a cute little pumpkin cake. It was angel food cake, A big improvement from when my last child turned one and I had choclate cake with bright red frosting "Elmo Cake" Jace was covered in red for days. This was just perfect! Small, and easy to clean up. The kids had fun hanging up streamers and letting him open there gift. I am so glad that we have Austin in our family. I will have to admit it did not start out that way, when I found out I was pregnant I wanted to cry. Now as I watch my family interact I know we would never be complete without him.






When did my baby grow up??

Boys will be boys

"Jace you have got to be more careful".. Yes that is a phrase that leaves my mouth quite frequently. The pictues below is one of Jace on Daddy's 4-wheeler with a freind. The next one is a picture of a common accurence in our home. Jace and Austin wrestling. You know Austin is only 12 months old. The craziest thing is that even after being tackled by his big brother, Austin seems to want more and chases Jace down. Most of the time Jace is cute and let's Austin lay on him for kicks and grins, but I did say most of the time.

Fire Station

Allie and Lindsay were able to go on a field trip with their pre-school last week. I was so glad that they let siblings come along, Because we were going to Jace's dream place, The Fire station. Well it might be a toss up between that and Grandpa's house. Anyway we all had a really great time meeting the firemen and trying on their helmets along withe watching the latter go up and down.
Faith was not feeling well that day so I was going to keep her home from school. Lucky for her we had the little outing!






They loved watching the latter go up and down. The latter was 105 feet tall, It looked high from where we were standing. The fire men were all so kind to the kids. However when we got back in
the car to drive home Jace put on the long face. The one that makes my heart melt, and said, "I didn't go for a ride in the firetruck" No we can't full fill all those expectations.

What happend to Fall?

September was the most beautiful month of the year, perfect temperatures. The leaves on the trees were still green and then booom. A freezing spell. It got down to 19 degrees last week. We had snow for almost a week straight. I was thinking I still had time to get snow bibs, coats and gloves. But the sudden storm had me on a last minuet rush.

I have to admit the first snowstorm of the year is always beautiful. And the kids were all excited to go play in it, All but Faith. She will always be my southern girl I think. She was trying to come up with a plan to miss school so she would not have to go out to recess. But I sent her off anyway looking like a snowman. She tells me that her best friend and her always eat lunch very slow, to waste time in the cafeteria avoiding going out for recess.

Anyway it is suppose to warm up this week, maybe we will see some leaves falling off trees and experience a little bit of Fall.

Looking back

Jace turned 3 on September 15th, sometime after that I lost the battery charger to our camera, it has taken me this long to finally decided I needed to buy one. So it came in the mail the other day and whoa la I want to post some pictures.





Jace had a firetruck themed Birthday Party. My mom came up for the weekend and helped control all the neighborhood kids invited to the party! She helped hang the pinata and came up with a cool obstacle course for the kids. They were to get into a motorized car, then weave through some cones, climb a latter, pick out a fire hat and then find their way to me where I was shooting off rockets from an air compressor. Super fun idea, except when all the kids want to go at the same time then it is more like chaos.
Needles to say the kids had a blast and that is all that matters!

The picture below is Jace with his two best friends, Chandler and Craig!










While Mom was in town she also did the cutest Tea-party for the girls. She is so creative and the girls really enjoyed it. Most likely because I took the boys to McDonald's so she could have the house with just them. The girls and Grandma.

update

Things have been busy around the Jorgensen household lately. Allie and Lindsay are in Pre-k 3 days a week, Faith started piano lessons, and all the girls are in Ballet. I also enrolled Jace in a rock-tumble-roll class at the YMCA. It was a fortune of $15 a month.(j/K) worth every penny, he loves it. I think with the girls involved in school and in Ballet this year, It really gives him a sense of ownership on something. His own class that is just for him and not his sisters. I thought of the idea one day when I was taking the girls to ballet and he said he wanted to go to tractor ballet. I guess it was his way of saying, what do I get to do mom?. At rock-tumble roll class they have a zip-line, rock climbing wall and lots of mats for jumping and doing somersaults on. Just what he loves.

The kids are busy and happy. Austin has started to recognize Daddy, I mean really recognise Daddy. He screams when he comes in the room and screams when he leaves. He wants to be in Daddy's arms if Daddy is home.(O.K. by me!)

And me I am just trying to keep everything in balance. I struggle as every mom does I'm sure on how much time to give to the house cleaning, the cooking, exercising, reading books with the kids, doing crafts with the kids, getting fresh air outside. teaching them correct principals (money saving,friendship, Honesty etc.) All the Joys of Motherhood. However I truly am enjoying watching my children grow. Allie has taken to playing with Jace. She enjoys the farm play as much as he does. Lindsay has become my companion most of the time. She likes to follow me around the house asking me lots of questions. And Faith when home still enjoys leading her siblings in roll play or making crafts. I have been surprised how the twins enjoy so many different things, they do not play together as much as they used to. Allie especially wants to be her own person. If her sister is wearing something pink she will go out of her way to wear something purple. Just as long as she does not look like her sister. At first when I signed them up for Ballet, because Lindsay wanted to do ballet, Allie said she would only do Tap. ( she has since complied to do both)Maybe it is just a phase, But I think it is good for them.
My only concern is that they both grow in confidence and self assurance in whatever they decide.

Here comes a first grader

Waiting at the Bus Stop
I followed the bus to school and waited with the mass of parents for the kids to get of the bus. It was actually worth it to see her face when she walked off the bus, She was so excited! then we waited together with some friends for the bell to ring so they could line up and walk in to see their teachers.

Suprise visitors and first day of School Cookies

We could not have had a more exciting week. Last Saturday night we got a call that our good friends Annette and Sterling Elliot were passing through. If Seattle is on the way from Texas to Houston? Maybe they detoured a little but we were so happy they did. They were going to just stay one night but then ended up spending most of the week with us. Sterling helped Bret put a lift kit on his Jeep, We took a day trip out to Pompey's Pillar ( A Clark & Lewis National park and Monument)and Annette helped me run errands and get Faith ready for her first day of school.



These are the Now traditional first day of School Choclate Chip Cookies, This time we had M&M ones.

Summer is coming to an end. Wow did it fly by. That in itself is a really good thing. Somehow most of the house chores have been put on hold, I never knew it would take such a concentrated effort to let some things go. And it has been worth it. I usually am the person that likes my kitchen clean before I leave the house. Have my girls hair done and in matching socks with shoes on their feet. But I have changed some of my priorities this summer and tried to just enjoy the moments more. Hence we have been to the ice cream store shoeless, Lindsay ended up at church once without shoes (not sure how that happened) Been to visit friends, parks and stores completely looking like rag muffins, the children and myself. As long as I have extra diapers and wipes in the car it's all good.

Other than lots of park days the kids have been spending a lot of time in the front yard/colta-sac riding their bikes/tricycles and the motorized jeep and Hummer. It seems that when my kids go out to play it creates a magnetic atmosphere and the neighborhood children all end up at our place. Most mornings I would end up with three or four extra kids. and at least once a week when our friends the Christensen's came over it was around 12 total. It has actually been quite nice for two reasons. 1. they like being at my house 2. When they are all gone it makes my own five children feel like a piece of cake. Never thought that would happen.

But the best thing is that the kids are outside enjoying the suns rays and not sitting in front of the T.V.

Yesterday was the cutes sight. Bret was out washing the vehicles. The kids decided that they needed to wash their bikes and jeep and Hummer, so along side Dad were 4 little kids with sponges in hand and a water Bucket washing their own recreational vehicles. It was supper cute. Wish I had a picture but I have misplaced the rechargeable battery pack for the camera. Yep It is dead.

Faith starts School next wends day, we go Monday to meet her teacher. Then the Twins will start Pre-School in the following weeks. They will be going 3 days a week for 3 hours a day. They are all excited. I suppose the schedule will be nice.

Lulu Pass 4 Wheeling Expedition

I (Bret) got invited to go on the yearly "Men's 4-Wheeling Expedition". This year, we returned to Goose Lake which is just outside Cooke City, MT which is just outside Yellowstone. There were 9 men in total and we all stayed in a Cabela's 12'x20' tent with built in stove. It got down below freezing at night, but we stayed nice and cozy inside. I am quickly learning how to camp up here, unfortunately it is going to cost me a fortune to catch up. I am learning that there are at least two types of camping gear needed (one is light weight stuff of overnight back packing and the other is for car camping where you can haul everything to your tent). Let's just say they don't rough it up here. Anyways, the 4-wheeling was pretty good and we got to see some beautiful country side. We rode into Goose Lake the first day and fished for trout and rode around a couple old abandoned mines and even got up into some light snow. No one got hurt and we only had a couple flat tires, so all it all I guess you would have to call it a success. Everyone brought their pistols but didn't get to use them. Supposedly the Ranger said there were 4 bears roaming the camps (3 blacks and 1 grizzly). All it all, it was a good outing. I can't wait for the boys to get big enough to go.