About Us

About Us
Glenn and I have been married for ten spectacular years. We recently moved to Saudi Arabia, which is obviously very far away from both of our families. We keep this blog updated so we can stay close to our friends and fam and to keep a record of our family adventures. Glenn is enjoying his new job and I am loving being a stay-at-home mom. We have two sweet little boys, Tate and Finn and two darling twin baby girls, Taryn and Kenna. We love them to pieces. We also love date nights, good movies, good food, and being with each other.
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Picture Tuesday, six weeks!

Six weeks old today. Man, the time sure flies. Tate has started to smile a little bit and it is just the cutest thing in the whole world. Little chubba.Today we put him in his first 3-6 month outfit. He's growing way too fast. I must admit that while I'm sad to see him start to grow out of his newborn clothes, being able to dress him up in a whole new wardrobe for the next size is pretty fun. I wish I could have an entirely new wardrobe every 3 months.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

STORM

So, I was driving toward downtown to buy some boots for my field work, and the radio started talking about a big storm headed our way.  I thought "yeah, right..."  The weather people never get anything right, and I usually get my hopes up for nothing.  So, I went about my business.  After trying the local outdoor store, and finding them deficient in the hiking shoe department, I decided to bite the bullet and head over to REI.  As I was waiting in line to buy my pair of Asolos, I heard what I thought was a jet plane flying over the REI, which is weird because the approach to Austin Bergstrom is nowhere near this part of town, so I looked out the window to see sheets of rain falling from the sky!  Nice.  Rain.  We need it.  Thinking that was the extent of the storm, I decided to go to the grocery store to get some bread and then headed home.  When I got home I turned on the TV to see what was going on with the weather. Tornado warnings for our area.  Heavy hail and thunderstorms imminent. 

About 15 minutes later, this happened.
At the bottom of the above picture, you can see a quarter on the tile... for scale.

Most of these ones in my hand are split in half from landing on our driveway, or from being driven horizontally by 50 mph winds into the brick of our house.

I think the windows were all spared by the sun screens we have on them.  Thankfully, our car was in the garage.  My friend, who lives over by REI, was driving to the airport just after this cell passed over to pick up his mother.  He said that several cars were pulled off the road just to the south of his house with shattered windshields from baseball size hail.  In Marble Falls, a town in the hill country about an hour to the west of us, one highway was closed because it was covered in a foot and a half of hail.  Yep.  A foot and a half of HAIL.

Welcome to the heart of Texas, yall.

Whew!

We've had a big couple of weeks and LOTS of pictures to prove it so hold on!
Adam and Camarie are MARRIED!
Adam and Camarie were married on March 14th in St. George. Everything went really well. The reception was the night before at Camarie's church building. It was really nice. Aren't they cute?

The siblings, minus Mallory of course.

Our handsome Hansen boys.My handsome Makechnie boys. Aubry and Princess Mya both looking adorable as usual.
Tatie dancing with Nanna and Grampa.Their wedding day was beautiful. Everything was just perfect. The weather was gorgeous, the sealing was really sweet, everyone was on time...almost. It's the first sealing I've been to since my own. I loved being able to experience it again with them and remember my own special day. I remember very very little about my ceremony. I remember trying not to cry and trying to just look at Glenn and think about how much I loved him so that I didn't run for the hills. I was a little nervous and stressed out. What's new?
Our cute family-minus Mallory. We sure missed her! It felt like there was a bit hole in all of the pictures as I was looking through them. Something's missing...oh yeah. It's Mallory! Love from the sistas

Love from the brotha.
My little family in front of the St. George Temple. Glenn had school off last week for spring break so he met his professor in New Mexico to look around his field area for his Master's Thesis and figure out exactly how his project was going to work and where all of the outcrops were he was going to be looking at. Tate and I spent the week at my mom and dad's house where the Crosland kids were staying too. Jane and Mike went to Hawaii so my mom was watching their three little kids last week. It was a big, noisy party all week long. Little Maggie is...not so little any more. She's a chunka. I loved when she would be playing with toys and just stick one in her mouth and keep playing and talking to herself with the toy hanging out.

My little Niece Mya came to visit a couple of times too. Isn't she so cute in her St. Patty's day outfit complete with green bow and green binky? Man, we make cute kids in our family!
Adam and Camarie got back from their honeymoon on Saturday the 21st and we had an open house for them in AF that same night. It was so much fun. We decided to make it more of a fun party and less of a formal reception so we went with a Chinese theme since Ad served a Mandarin speaking mission and spent some time studying in China. His grooms cake was the great wall of China with little figures doing a triathalon, another love of his. It was a great party and SO much fun to see family. So many family members were able to make it. Many of whom I hadn't seen for years. We sure are a fun bunch.
Tate had a big week. He took his first two plane rides.
He met a lot of family members for the first time. I think he spent the most time with his grandpa.

He especially loved to cuddle on grandpa's chest.

We have our suspicions that Grandpa may have made little Tate cry once or twice so he could pick him up and "rescue" him from his nap so they could snuggle together on the couch.
Tate also met his Auntie Kenzie,
Auntie Aubry,
and his only Hansen cousin, Mya.
We had a good time taking pictures of these two. Little Mya is so petite and Little Tate is less petite. Little Mya is 9 months old and their feet are the same size. Tate's hands are much bigger. It was fun to see these two together and to get to snuggle my little Mya again. Auntie Aubry does Thursday pictures of Mya on her blog so she has an extra reason to update every Thursday. I decided (at the prompting of Tate's Nanna) to do Tuesday pictures. That way I get to see my little guy change in pictures and have a reason to blog every week...and Nanna has her Tatie fix every week.
So here it is: Tate at 4 weeks.
Tate at 5 weeks
We went to his one month doctor's appointment yesterday and he now weighs 11 lbs. 4 ounces and is 22 inches long. He is in the 75th percentile in both. Big boy. He's growing too fast. I keep asking him nicely to stop...but he won't. Sometimes he can be such a little stinker, just like his daddy.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Where did my newborn go?

Happy birthday to Tate. He's three weeks old today. That went fast. Here's a quick update of our last week. I took him to his two week doctor's appointment and he had gained another 10 ounces from week one putting him at 9 pounds 11 ounces. The pediatrician told me that since he was gaining weight so nicely I could stop waking him up every three hours to eat and could now let him sleep longer stretches if he would. Yea, I've never been waking him up. Who would do that? He knows when he's hungry and he wakes up ready to eat almost exactly three hours from the time he ate before. Seriously you could set your watch by it.
So he's probably over 10 pounds this week. Crazy eh? Where did my newborn go? He was never a tiny baby but he looked like a little newborn to me and now he's this little chubby baby. It's so insane how fast he's changing and growing. I'm so excited for him to start smiling at us because the kid has some adorable dimples.Rosie has had a bit of a rough time adjusting. She's really sweet to Tate, but you can tell that she's sad and feels left out. It was really evident when the neighbor girls brought over a new toy for her. We left the room to do the dinner dishes and after no more than 5 minutes came back to this scene. It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but she ripped the toy to pieces. The stuffing was all over the floor. I guess she had a bit of agression to get out.
The only other adventure Tate and I have had this week is trying to find something to wear to Adam's wedding. I'm not a fan of shopping right now. I am not very patient with my body and I just want it to look and be shaped the same as it was...right now. I know in my head that it has only been three weeks and I that I need to give myself a break...but shopping has been hard this week and I'm frustrated.
Well, that's pretty much us for now. We're heading to Utah for Adam's wedding this weekend. Yep, my little brother is getting hitched. It still hasn't really hit me because I've missed the whole courtship but it's happening! It's wierd that we're all grown up now. So many changes. I'll have a lot to post and tons of fun pictures when we get back!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Sick.

Today, Kim and Glenn are throwing up or sleeping.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Thanks Mom!

My mom went home last Thursday morning. It was a sad day. Mom was such a big help and so much fun to hang out with. It felt like a week long sleep over. I love this stage of life, being a grown up and being able to be friends with my mom. It's a lot of fun.
My mom is a woman of many talents and we wore her out last week! Here's a rundown of some of the roles my mom filled while she was staying with us.
Maid. She washed and folded countless loads of laundry. That's been one of the biggest surprises thus far. He's so tiny and yet he dirties more laundry than I could have ever imagined. Oh, and my mom decided to clean our entire house before she left. How am I going to keep up with that?
Gormet cook. We had delicious dinners every night. It was so great to have yummy dinners planned out and ready to eat when I woke up and Glenn got home. And it was even nicer that I didn't have to worry about it at all. She really spoiled us. I wouldn't be surprised if Glenn calls her up and asks her to just move in with us so he can eat like that all the time!
Night shift worker. My mom and Glenn took turns "working" the night shift. They would get up if Tate was fussing and it wasn't time for him to eat yet so I could stay asleep. It was SO nice!Counselor. Mom here to answer questions, listen while I cried then firmly tell me to take a nap, calm my worries, give advice, and help us figure out own way of doing things. There are so many things we don't know how to do and she was very sweet to give us advice and what worked for her and then to emphasize that every baby is different and that we will figure him out with time. She was here to help us with a lot of firsts: first car ride, first day at home,

first bath

first poop explosion and pee shooting, first projectile spit up and many more.
Professional Snuggler. Nanna loves to snuggle. Tate loves to be snuggled. It's a perfect match.
I love my mom and Tate loves his Nanna. Thanks so much for all of the help, company, and support mom. We love and miss you and we can't wait to see you next week!