Happy New Year

Wow! December has been quite a month for our little family. We have been so busy and the month FLEW by. I had good intentions to post, but just did not have the time with all our other things going on. I hope you all had a happy and safe holiday. We had a great one. It was great to see some of our family, Ryan's brother Kyle and his family and my brother Curtis, who both live out of state. We don't get to see them but once or twice a year so it was good to catch up with them. It was great to be with family and enjoy and strengthen those relationships. Here is a little catch up of our whirlwind month of December. I hope you all have a Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all of you. I enjoyed getting cards from you who sent them. Thank you. We had a wonderful Christmas. It came and went so fast this year. But we had fun. Santa spoiled the kids again. :) They were pretty excited. Hailey and Hunter got big sets of Legos, which we spent all day building but forgot to take pictures of, baseball cards, Bakugons, and clothes. Hunter also got a Ben Ten and Hailey got her very own blow dryer. Harbor got a princess sleeping bag and duffle bag, flashlight and compass, a Littlest Pet Shop house with lots of pets, clothes and the Barbie and the Diamond Castle movie. Hailey also asked Santa to if he would leave a treasure hunt for them. Good 'ol Santa came through and Rock Band was the treasure. We have gotten to spend a lot of the weekend with family and have enjoyed being around them. My brother Curtis came in for a week. They kids love to see him since we don't get to very often. Collin and Whitney came down for the day on Saturday 27th. My mom has a big buffet dinner whenever we can make it all together during Christmas. We exchange all our gifts then also. This has become a favorite part of Christmas for me. I love when the whole family can be together. Jared and Michelle and their kids were at Ryan's parents' house also, so we got to spend some time with them too. That is one of the good things about both being from the same town. We get to spend time with both families. My mom and dad and Curtis came to our house Christmas day to see what the kids got from Santa. We had dinner and played a little Rock Band. I think the adults have had more fun with that than the kids. We had a slight little disaster fixing dinner, but I will tell about that later. Here are a few pictures of our fun Christmas.

Our cute tree.

Hunter's pile.

Hailey's pile

Harbor's pile.

Rock on Dude!!

So as I said we cooked dinner at our house on Christmas day for my mom and dad and Curt. I made twice-baked potatoes which is one of my favs. I had just taken them out of the oven and set them on top of the stove. I proceeded to put some corn on to heat up on the back burner and was hustling around to get everything ready to eat. I started to smell something burning and went to stir the corn when I realized I had turned on the wrong burner and my nice casserole dish was on top of a flaming orange hot burner. I kind of froze and a million things started to run through my head. Do I turn off the burner, do I grab the dish, where are the hot pads?!?!?!?!? I grabbed one hot pad and started yelling for help. Just as I started to pull the dish off the stove it exploded and shatterred into a million little pieces of hot glass which then melted into and burned my kitchen floor. Needless to say my delicious potatoes that I had been making all morning were ruined. We tried to see if we could salvage any but there were microscopic pieces of glass all over them. But the good news is I get a new floor! We have wanted to redo it with tile, so now we have an excuse to do something different. Wood or tile. We don't know what to do yet. Hopefully our insurance will cover it. So it was quite and eventful day. I didn't have my camera much over the weekend. Now I wish I had. We had so much fun.

Las Vegas Bowl

We took a quick trip to Las Vegas to watch BYU play in the Las Vegas Bowl. Thanks to Paula and her brother-in-law who got us the great tickets. We took Hailey and Hunter, Ryan's dad and brother Derek, and his other brother Jared and his wife Michelle. Our tickets were on the 8th row. Just in front of LaVell Edwards. BYU played horrible but it was a fun experience. I love college football games. We were prepared for freezing cold since that was the weekend it had snowed in Vegas, but it wasn't too bad. We had such a good time.

Before we went to the game we went to eat at a yummy buffet and walked through the ProBass Shop. It was neat. The kids loved looking at all the stuffed animals. The even had a giraffe. Their favorite was the tropical fish aquarium. A diver was feeding the fish when we got there and it was fun to watch them. When we left Santa was diving with the fish and posing for pictures.

The national guard spread out this gigantic flag that covered the whole field. It was pretty cool.

Knight Rider himself-David Hasselhoff-sang the National Anthem. I guess he was the only celebrity desperate enough for a little cash they could get. He didn't do too bad though. Two fighter jets flew over the stadium after the National Anthem. The rumble of those jets gave us all chills. It was sooo loud, but it was AWESOME. Hunter thought it was the neatest thing to see those jets. He loves planes.

Terry and Derek waiting for the game to start.

Here is a picture we got with LaVell Edwards behind us. I didn't want to be obvious taking a picture directly of him so we got one of him behind us. He is just between Michelle and I.

Jared and Michelle

Us and the kids. Thanks to my mom and dad for keeping Harbor.

Merry Christmas Ryan!

Ryan got his Christmas present early. A shed!! We are so excited. We have been debating on adding on to our house and building a garage, but it was going to cost soooo much. We decided if we could just have some storage we could use the space in our house better. It is so nice and I can't wait to get all the stuff out in the shed and start better organizing our back room and extra bedroom. I can finally have a place in my house to put food storage now if I get my back room cleaned out. Ryan is so glad to have a place for all his tools and fishing stuff too.

Dance Preview

Both Hailey and Harbor are in dance this year. Every year at Christmas their teacher has a preview of what they have learned so far. They both have done really well and love it. Harbor can't wait for dance each week and counts down from one week to the next. It is the highlight of her week. They both did really well and I am so proud of them.

Christensen Christmas Party

One of the highlights for me during Christmas is my dad's family's Christmas party. We always have so much fun when we get together. We have dinner and play games and open white elephant gifts. My favorite part is going caroling. We put together baskets of treats and fruit and take them out to families that my Grandpa feels need a little Christmas cheer. It is usually very touching and I love to see the people's faces as 50+ people are standing at their door singing. It brings about the true meaning of Christmas and I hope that my children will learn the meaning of giving through this tradition. It is my favorite part of the season. This year however we did not get out to carol. There was such a bad storm that day that many of the family members didn't get there until later, so Grandpa just delivered the baskets the next day. I was disappointed to miss out on it this year, but will look forward to next year. Ryan was supposed to take the kids to the Jazz game that night, but decided not to go with the weather so bad. The kids felt bad but were glad to get to go to the party.

We had a surprise visit from Santa this year and all the little kids were sooo excited. It was so great. Hunter would still not sit on his lap. Hailey still wants an motor scooter, but Harbor has added a compass, flashlight and tent to her list.

He even had the all the big kids sit on his lap. They were good sports.

And even Grandpa took his turn.

Here are the kids waiting to open their white elephants. Hunter got a little Lego set and Harbor and Hailey got Little Pets.

Our last activity of the night is playing animal. It is so much fun, but gets quite wild. We have pairs of animals written on little papers and they get thrown in the air. You have to pick up a paper and make the sound of that animal to find your partner and sit down. The last pair to try to sit is left without chairs and is out. It is quite entertaining.

Welcome Home Derek!

Ryan's brother Derek returned home from serving in the Mexico, Guadalajara mission. All the nieces and nephews were so excited to see him again. He has always been so good to play with them, and they all love him so much. I am thankful for the awesome example he has set for them. He was such a great missionary. We were all glad to get to have him home for Christmas. I can't believe how quickly the last two years flew by. It hardly seems he has been gone. We are thankful he is home safe. He had some scary experiences this summer. I think it took a little adjusting being back home, but he is still the same Derek we know and love!

We hurried and made a sign in the car. I had planned to make one before, but ran out of time. On the way to the airport I realized we had a posterboard from one of Ryan's Sunday School lessons and a Sharpie.

Derek walked to us with open arms and all the kids rushed to hug him. They were so excited.

Derek and his mom and dad.

Derek and our cousin Zack. They have been best of friends.

The whole family. We were just missing Kyle and Matt's families. After we went out to eat at Los Hermanos. We are glad to have you home Derek!!

The following Sunday Derek had his mission report. He did a great job. He has such an awesome testimony. It was fun to hear of some of his experiences. Kyle's family came in. it was good to see them and meet their new little baby. All the little cousins had so much fun playing.
This is Hunter, Kaeden, and Braylon. Best Buds.

The little girls had so much fun together. They loved helping grandma push the vacuum to clean up the church.

Ward Christmas Program

We had our ward Christmas Party. This year's theme was a Cowboy Christmas. They served a great meal and the kids put on a great program. All of them dressed in cowboy outfits unless they had other parts in the nativity. I always love watching them put this on every year.

Hunter's part was to be a cow. He is the one on the right. He would not even peek out so I could get a picture of him. He doesn't like his picture taken right now and will do anything to get out of it.

Santa made a visit at the end of the night. All the kids were so excited to see him. Harbor was excited this year to tell him she wanted a bike and a littlest petshop house.

Hailey told him she wanted a motor scooter. That will be a tall order and Santa will have to approve that with mom and dad. ;)

This is the closest I could get Hunter to Santa. Along with not wanting his picture taken, which you can tell he is thrilled here, he did not want to sit on Santa's lap. He always has been a little hesitant, but he really does not like being put in the spotlight and having all the attention on him. So I don't know what Santa will end up bringing him. We told him he would get nothing if he didn't tell Santa.


I tried to get a picture of the kids in their cowboy outfits but all I could get was Hailey and Harbor. Oh, and baby Annabelle. Harbor had to bring that for a prop. What cute little cowgirls. Harbor LOVES her pink cowboy hat. What little girl wouldn't.

Ice Fishing

Ryan decided to take the kids ice fishing yesterday. He has the rest of the week off with the kids, but I had to go to work. I always worry a little when they go out without me. I know Ryan will take care of them and everything will be okay, but I just get nervous that they will fall in the ice without me there to be the protective mother over them. It is probably better I'm not there to be so uptight making sure they are careful. What is a mother to do. They had a lot of fun and caught quite a few fish. Harbor caught 1, Hailey caught 4, and Hunter caught the most at 6! He was quite proud of himself. Poor daddy didn't catch a thing, but I am sure was focusing his time on helping the kids. He is so great to take them out on little adventures and they love it. They only brought home the biggest 4, so we will have a yummy fish fry one of these nights. YUM. I love trout! Here is Hunter's monster fish-17 inches long.