Easter 2010

After all that playing in the snow we headed back down to Plain City for a big Easter egg hunt with lots of Jensen cousins/second cousins. Ben and Marsie got to attend the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference and then we spent Easter Sunday at Grandma and Grandpa Jensen's house. Uncle Joe Bielefeldt joined us for a fabulous Easter dinner.

Snow in April

Doesn't this look like a Currier and Ives painting? The day after our trip to the dinosaur museum we took a trip up to Ben's parents cabin. This is one of the amazing scenes we got to enjoy from their cabin. It was snowing the day we drove up and it made the ride a little scary. I don't have much experience driving in the snow. Kit was riding with me and I'm sure she had to be a little nervous. But we made it there in one piece and the kids played outside in the snow till past dark, sledding down the driveway! Ben was in Arizona for work and met us up there the next day on April 1st.

Here's Ben taking a phone call just after he arrived. His employees were playing an April Fool's Day joke on him!

Ben helped the kids build a little snow fort on the porch. He is such a good dad. During the day it seemed clear and sunny so we drove out to find a good hill for sledding. We found one but it was snowing pretty good and it was so cold. But we got out and the kids had fun anyway... at least some of them did....mostly Nate and Liesel.

Ben played and had fun with the kids even though it was freezing!

Annika lasted a few minutes and then sought the truck for refuge.

Liesel was pretty determined to have some fun regardless of the weather.

Although James is smiling here he did not like the snow in his face one bit and didn't have any fun till he was back in the warm truck.

Elora didn't last very long either before she gave up and climbed inside too!

I mostly sat with James and then near the end got out and had a ride down the hill on a sled a couple times. It was bitter cold! Growing up in the Valley of the Sun in AZ I am pretty much a wimp in snow! But I have to admit it was kind of fun sledding down the hill with my kids. : )

March 2010

A kind neighbor let the kids pick some of her daffodils to give to G. Grandma Jensen who had just had surgery on her toes.

I love daffodils. It's too bad they have such a short blooming time.

Annika lost her first baby tooth. It's always a little sad for me somehow. It always catches me by surprise. It seems like she just got them and now they're already falling out!

James absolutely loves riding this with Grandpa Jerry.

We went to a great dinosaur museum in Utah while visiting Grandma and Grandpa.

James is such a funny boy. I love all his little personalities. He is silly....

... A little fragile at times ....

.....And LOVES to show-off and be a tough guy!

He found a stick and pretended to attack the dinosaurs with it!

My Dangerous Creatures...Okay they are mostly soft and cuddly and cute but when they are hungry or tired...Watch OUT!

James falls

"Fallguy" James does his own stunts!

Two Long #2

I wanted to make my 2nd "Two Long" post something controversial. I decided to list my 2 favorite underwear models! Yes, I realized this could take a lot of research and time, but I was able to skip all of that because I already had two of them in mind!

Marsie can correct me if I am not remembering this right - but I think this was one of those rare mornings when the kids wake up before the parents, get themselves dressed(well, put shoes on, anyway) and head out back for a day of fun. I know this was in Albuquerque, but I'm not sure how old they were. At least this time wasn't as surprising as the time Nate and Liesel work up early and decided to shred a few heads of lettuce and spread it all over the living room to feed their imaginary pet bunnies. Ahhh, memories...

February 2010

In February my Grandma Sevey turned 90 so we took a trip to Arizona for the celebration. This picture is at the end of the night and I think she was a bit worn out. She was watching a slide show on the TV and I don't think she realized we were getting our picture taken with her! She is a wonderful Grandma and has so many wonderful traits that I admire. She is so resilient and a hard worker. She and Grandpa farmed together. She has done an incredible amount of genealogy work and is so knowledgeable about the work she has done. She also continues to sew and crochet even though her hands are very shaky! I have some wonderful things she made for me over the years like dolls, baby quilts and a beautiful wedding quilt. She is an intelligent, talented, hard-working lady.

Last year in March 2009 my Oma Bielefeldt turned 90. Here she is in the picture below with my kids. I admire my Oma (which is German for Grandma)too! She has so much enthusiasm for life and is so very creative and fun! She was an elementary school teacher and was a special education teacher for many years. She has so many fun stories to tell. She spoiled her grand kids and it was always exciting to go visit her and Opa. She was always making us things or doing sewing and craft projects with us! And she was the best cook! I love my Oma!

These two intelligent, accomplished women are such examples to me of faith, hard work, and dedication. I am glad I was named after both of them. My creative Dad combined their two names together Margaret and Dessie and came up with Marsie which is why I have the unusual spelling. I really miss my Grandpas who passed away several years ago but I am glad I still get to have my grandmothers around.

While in Arizona we also got to spend some time on my sister, Beth's, farm. There were lots of spring babies to hold. The kids loved it!

Below: Elora, Liesel, Felicity (in the back) Elsa, Nate, Samantha, Allyson, Annika

Below is my niece, Felicity. I thought this was too cute of her holding the little goat that matched her outfit. : )

Piano Notes Game

The following is a link to a Piano Notes game Nathaniel programmed all by himself! Check it out!

Scratch | Project | Notes



He still has a few bugs to work out (and still needs to edit his instructions for it!) and he is planning on doing several different levels to eventually cover all the bass and treble clef notes. It's been a ton of work and he has learned so much!

Leave a comment and let him know what you think. The game works best if you have a Scratch account but you can still play it if you don't.

Two Long

This is Ben writing. I have felt the need to lay bare my soul to all the world - and since I don't have a blog of my own, I will do right here! I know, exciting, huh? But I really don't have a ton of time for soul baring, and nobody out there has time to read about it. (OK, if it was really exciting, I know you would make time. But guess what? It's not.)

Anyway, I thought I should come up with some great gimmick to hook readers. My first thought was, "Ben and Julia!" and I would cook all of the recipe's in one of Julia Child's cook books in one year and write about it. But I found out it has been done. So then I thought of "Ben and Chef BoyRDee!" Only this time I would open a different can of stuff every day for lunch and write about my increasing weight.

But I abandoned that as well and I have settled on, "Two Long." I will post a list of and/or review a list of whatever I feel like. But to save everybody time, my list will only be two items long. I figure it is way shorter than a top ten list. A top three list is currently taken by the Olympics with their whole 'gold, silver, bronze' thing. But a list two items long is still twice as long as a list of only one item.

For today's post, I shall list my top favorite prayers said by children in my family:

1. Elora (age 3), "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for......MEEEEEEEEE! Amen."
2 Annika (age 5), "...and please help me to stop sneaking into Nathaniel's room and stealing his Halloween candy..."

January 2010: New Year's

Daniel and Jodie drove down from Utah on New Year's weekend. We had so much fun with them and their kids while they were here.
This is Liesel and Emma Kate at one of our favorite hamburger places. These girls are such good friends.

The restaurant takes a picture of you with this giant hamburger if you can eat some ginormous hamburger. No, Nathaniel did not do it, but some other kid did while we were there and they had left the prop sitting out so we snapped a picture of Nate with it.

We took care of the kids while they were here so they could do some fun things downtown. Here's Annika with Sadie.

Here's what happens when Ben watches the kids. Can you believe these pictures?!

Did we scare you?! I know I was a little startled when I saw these. Ben took the kids to the top of a hill at a park near our house. He assures me that it's not as dangerous as it looks! He says the ground was actually only a few feet below the girls so they would only get a little hurt if they fell.

December 2009: Christmas

On Christmas Eve, T.Jay (Ben's brother) was flying from Texas to Utah and had a layover in Las Vegas so we picked him up and went out to eat for Christmas Eve. Then we took him back to the airport and went downtown to the Billagio to see the amazing Christmas displays. There was a giant Christmas tree, giant polar bears made out of flowers, huge snowmen made out of flowers, a huge rocking horse, reindeer flying near the ceiling and so many other magical things. It was pretty amazing!

Outside of the Billagio we watched an amazing water display synchronized to Christmas music. While we waited for it to start I tried to distract the kids from looking at some inappropriate advertisements going on in the distance. Do I look worried?!

And then it was Christmas morning. Maybe not as spectacular as what we had seen the night before but still plenty of fun.

We got a family gift of Lego Rock Band for the Wii. It is so much fun and better for little kids than the regular Rock Band. You can also see two of Liesel's most favorite toys she got. I wish I had a better picture but you can see laying on the floor a little mermaid my sister Beth made and a doll Grandma Kit made. The girls each got one and they absolutely love them. And Aunt Shaunna sent the kids all pajamas to open on Christmas Eve. Liesel's wearing hers here. We are so spoiled!!!

The girls got these adorable dresses from Aunt Colette! They absolutely love them and would wear them every day if I let them!

The day after Christmas we headed up to Cedar City where we met Ben's parents and his brother T.Jay and his wife Crystal. We all stayed in a hotel, swam, and just enjoyed each other's company as much as you can while being crammed in little hotel rooms with little kids (mostly James)who don't want to sit still! The kids also had a chance to play in a little snow! Each of them had different reactions. Actually, they all liked it except for James!

And these following pictures are of Sunday night, back home, relaxing enjoying some of our Christmas presents and just enjoying a time of no stress!