Keala's 5th Birthday!

Keala was so excited to have her birthday ALL DAY today! She was excited when she woke up, excited at church, excited after church. It was just an exciting day!

We spent all afternoon decorating her cupcakes and birthday cake. She helped me by putting all the silver (edible) balls on the flowers. Everyone kept asking me if they could eat them!

These cupcakes were so pretty. But without a plan, it takes a lot of time to figure out what you're doing. And a lot of time passed this afternoon trying to figure it all out!

But it was fun to work with different piping tips and see the different designs we could make.

At the last minute Keala wanted me to change the plan from making a princess cake to a mermaid cake. But I was relieved because I really didn't want to work with fondant at the last minute when I didn't know what I was doing and people were already showing up.

We ate a delicious BBQ chicken dinner cooked by Brent, with awesome potato salad from Erika, great fruit from Cindy, yummy soda from Meeja, delicious Foccaccia bread from Jacque, a super veggie tray from Bre, and yummy corn from Mom. Thank you everyone for the great spread!

All the cousins and neighbors played outside while we ate and then sat in anticipation for the present opening! There were lots of ooohs and ahhh! Thanks everyone for the great gifts!

Baby Jane traded lots of hands during the evening. Shes so spoiled... but can you blame us?!

Keala decorated some of her wrapping paper. She was so excited that it was going to wrap real presents! She did such a good job, I was so impressed with her artistic skills!

Keala is one of the most spoiled kids I know! She had such a blast ripping through every gift!

Then Princess Belle came and that was the highlight of the night! All the girls were so excited!

Keala ran and got her doll Belle to show the 'real' Belle that she was a fan! It was so cute!

This was such a fun evening! I think I had just as much fun as Keala did! She told me next year that she wants Belle to come again! She was just elated!

Princess Jane just passed out during all the commotion! There was alot going on!

Keala's best friend, Rachel, reminds me of Eden so much. I just had to take this picture!

So many highlights of the night! Mom and dad got Keala this Barbie dollhouse after she asked for one for a couple of years! Her face just lighted up - and everyone oohed and ahhed for effect!

Time to get ready to go. Snug like a bug in a rug! She's so cute!

We tried on our new swimsuit and had a quick dip in the hot tub before bed. So much fun!

"Mom - take a picture of me in the water!" Isn't she all smiles?!

" Mom - take a picture of me under the water!" ...Its time for me to retire!

Annual Jenson 'Green Dinner'

On the far right is Randy. She and her mom, Joni, (Brent's sister,) came up to Utah for the week. They joined in on the St.Patrick's Day annual 'Green Dinner' at the Jenson home.

This would be Kai sporting his 'grumpy'face. Can you tell the bread is green?

At least Keala's fake smile is still a smile. The juice was 'lime-aid'... the kids had a hard time with that.

Joan made me the rice and spagetti, while everyone else had a 'green' chicken cassarole.

Yeah! The teenagers are getting involved! (They're just happy to eat!)

Do we make green look good or what! (Don't answer that!)

A party wouldn't be complete without some of my cupcake creations... I ought to have a blog!

What a beautiful garden! Can you see the cute little lady bugs? I have too much fun!

Kai and I took a couple to his parent-teacher conference last night... its bribery! I know!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Free greeting card generated with Smilebox

Causing Waves

When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate this is what he said:

"Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, "Woe to those who call evil good", but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it free expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Amen!"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 weeeks, the Central Christian Church where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea...

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayed on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story', and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.

From my point of view, I don't know if I agree with 'where' he did this, but I like that he had 'gumption'. Having myself been on 'welfare' I am not saying I agree with everything he said. But I think sometimes I feel we are too far from bringing 'God' back into politics, however if we call ourselves 'One nation under God' then....

On the Upside...

Well, first on the downside... I finally talked Kai into riding his bike to school today so I could take a break from driving him when a neighbor called and asked me to take her girls. (I love to help so I agreed!) But then Keala wanted pancakes for breakfast this morning instead of an easy bowl of cereal... which resulted in me breaking my diet to join her with gobs of cool whip and blueberry syrup (our favorite pancake tradition). So I reconciled the extra calories by jumping on the treadmill but my music genre (through Pandora.com) kept throwing in slow songs so my rythm kept getting thrown off. Then in the middle of it all, Brent's father in law (G'pa Stig) was re-routing our dryer vent and knicked the hot water pipe and had to shut off all the water. After that, my rythm was gone and I tanked my workout. After throwing myself on the couch in exasperation, I slowly realize ('slowly' because thats the speed at which I think) that I can't jump in the shower! Gross!

On the upside... our dryer should work wonderfully now (instead of taking 3 hours to dry a load), and eventually, sometime today I will get the salt encrusted texture washed off my skin and feel like a brand new person.... eventually.

On the upside, at least I don't have to fix the broken pipe! But I feel bad for G'pa Stig who added as he walked out the door and points to the dog and says in his Swedish accent, "did you know that thing can jump OVER the fence!" I just nodded my head and laughed. Yep she does it every day. Most days I don't care, cuz usually one of the 4 year old twins brings her back to my house or she just scratches on our door to come back in.

On the upside... the twin usually staysto play with Keala which she loves (cuz mom is boring). Then his twin shows up and they both stay to play. But now that their older brother is 'off track' he has been staying to play too! Then when Kai gets home from school he brings a friend over too. Yesterday I had 6 kids running through my house and before long I yelled at them all to go home. This is the usual day of chaos at my house. I don't know why I bother mentioning it.

On the upside... I got to the yelling point yesterday right about the time Brent got home from work. So after I sent the 'friends' home and ground my kids until their room is clean, at least I have 'muscle' to back me up! And my wonderful husband wrestles the kids while I catch my breath. See, life can have its 'up-sides'.

Just for Laughs

Did you know...?

Last week Meeja and I reunited on Facebook, so Saturday we met for breakfast. I forgot to bring my camera so I stole this picture of her and her son, Sam from Facebook. I think its been close to 3 years since we've seen each other, and we had so much fun catching up. I love Facebook! Everytime I saw the photo mom has on her fridge of all of us eating dinner at The Roof, I see Meeja and think "I miss her so much!" Ya' all may see more photos of us together in the near future, now that we're BFF's again! Lol! We can't wait to get our kids together again, now that we've got our 'catching up' out of the way.

I thought I would add these cute photos I took of Keala after I bought her a new swim suit. I have already got her birthday presents for her party at the end of this month, but I couldn't wait to give this to her, and she loved it! I will let you all know what we decide to do for her birthday in the next couple weeks. Now that she's older she'll be helping me make the plans. (I really hope Chuck E. Cheese isn't involved this year!) Keep you posted on that!

I thought I'de mention Keala loves to eat corn meal/oat bran cereal that I make for breakfast. She also steals half my salads for lunch, and loves to eat rice for dinner. I am just thrilled that she can actually eat good food on top of all the sugar we consume in this house! Things have GOT to change! And yes, we did take the swim suit out for a test run last week in the hot tub. After all the snow tubing last weekend mom needed a good water massage. (Love that hottub!)