Christensen Family

For Christmas, the Christensen family will hold a family reunion.  We are so excited to see each other!  Not everyone will be able to be there.  I think nine of the eleven children and their families will be there.  Sometime all of us will be able to be together.  I'm so exited!  

The Snow Angel

This is a great book!  Yes I am a Glenn Beck fan, but I didn't realize what a great author he is as well.  It really makes you think.  Oh, I want to write so much about it, but I do not want to give anything away.  You'll just have to read it!

Beatitudes for Friends of the Handicapped

I. Blessed are those who stop and listen to my chatter. You may not understand me; but I love when people talk to me, for I long for companionship, too.

II. Blessed are those who take my hand and walk with me when the path is rough, for I easily stumble and grow weary. But thank you, too, for letting me walk alone when the path is smooth, for I must learn independence.

III. Blessed are those who take the time to tell me about special happenings, for unless you make special effort to inform me, I remain ignorant.

IV. Blessed are those who wait for me. I may be slow, but I appreciate your patience.

V. Blessed are those who are not ashamed to be seen in public with me, for I did not choose to be born thus. It could have been you as well.

VI. Blessed are those who do not pity me, for I don't want pity. All I want is understanding and respect for what I have learned as well.

 VII. Blessed are those who notice my accomplishments, small as they may seem to you. I must work long and hard to learn many of the things you take for granted.

VIII. Blessed are those who include me in their games, even though I may not  understand the rules, I still like to be included in your activities.

IX. Blessed are those who think of me as a person who loves, and hurts, and feels joy and pain just like you do, for in that respect I am normal.

This month is such a special one, it's birthday time for Alex!!!!

Welcome to the world!

1 year old

2 years old

3 years old (he was almost a 100% shooter!)

4 years old

5 years old

6 years old (almost, I have very little pics from 2003, don't know why)

7 years old

 8 years old

 9 years old

 10 years old

 11 years old

 12 years old

 13 years old

14 years old

I hope you had a happy day Alex!  We had pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, Subway for lunch, and pizza for dinner, per his request.  All he wanted was some police cars he saw at Sears for a gift.  He is very easy to please.  

Just Alex

I love this pic.  Sometimes Alex walks around with his pants pulled up to his arm pits on purpose.  Well, I do tell him to keep his bum covered, so he's only listening.  We are at a turning point right now.  We've got to do something about Alex's weight.  He is just about 200 lbs. now.  He has high blood pressure and is border line every thing else.  I've got to put a lot more attention and time into helping him.  It seems so overwhelming, but  I just need to make a plan and go for it.  Ok, so how did he get so heavy?  No, we don't let him eat whatever, it's really been a matter of him getting more sneaky, and the other children really understanding that Alex will eat anything you set down!  He goes through backpacks when the kids get home just to make sure the kids ate everything at lunchtime.  So...................... here we go!  

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

I like my sister Sarah's attitude:  if I can figure it out, I can probably do it my self for cheap.  Well, my piano has had problems since we moved out East.  One of the keys likes to stick, the center E, and it is very annoying because it is a very popular key when it comes to playing.  I am pretty sure it is the humidity as this only happened  before when the swamp cooler was running all during the summer.  Anyways, so I did a little research on the computer and decided I could fix the problem myself.  So, I started taking the piano apart.

 And boy is the inside of a piano dirty!  This piano is at least thirty years old, if not more, and after I took all the keys out, there was a lot of dust, bits of odds and ends, and money.  I think I am about 38 cents richer.  Below you can tell how dirty it was.  On the left is a side I cleaned, on the right is what it looked like after removing the piano keys.

 Here are all the piano keys, all 88 of them.  I layed them out in the order that I took them out so I wouldn't have a problem putting them back in, but as you can see in the following pictures, the keys are already numbered.  It was a very simple task.

After cleaning everything out, I began replacing the keys and the key that was sticky, I identified where it was rubbing against the front of the piano.  I then got a piece of sandpaper out, did a very little bit of sanding, and whala!  No more sticking piano key!  Since this was so much fun, I started investigating how hard it would be to tune my own piano.  Well, I will be buying myself a piano wrench, electrical tuner, and some mutes here in the near future and I am going to tune the piano!  You can do anything you put your mind to!

Fun Times With the Children

Last Thursday the children had the day off from school.  And amazingly Todd had it off too, so we decided to do something with the kids.  We got a great discount off of Facebook for a Cox's Farm.

My Applesauce Canning Helper(s)

 Todd bought A LOT of apples, so I decided to can about half of them.  We made applesauce out of the apples.  Alex was a great helper (and who knows how many times he stole a lick.)  The sister missionaries came over to help as well.  They were a big help.  By myself this task would have taken all day, but with everyone's help, we got all the cutting, steaming, and running through the food mill done in about four hours.  The processing took a little longer, but that's the easy part once you get all the prep done.

This is Sister Gordon and Sister Humbert. This was the last day for them in our ward as they were being transferred and for now we have no more sister missionaries for our ward until the number of sisters for the mission rises.  They were lots of fun to work with! They will be missed!  

The Wiz

Kate auditioned for the school play this year.  The play is called "The Wiz" which is a spin off of the Wizard of Oz in the context of the African America Culture.

So Kate got the understudy part of Dorothy and will play a munchkin, unless the lead Dorothy really does "break a leg".  She is happy with her parts and we are excited to see how everything goes.

Dane and Cub Scouts

Last night at Pack Meeting Dane earned his Marbles Belt Loop. He is really close to getting his Wolf Badge as well.  He has a great Wolf leader and he loves going to Cub Scouts.  A couple of months ago I got called to be the Bear Den Leader.  It is a lot of fun.  Dane will join our Bear Den in January.  

Can You Guess What Instrument He's Playing?

Here is a clip of Seth pretending to play an instrument.  Can you guess which one?  His older sister plays this instrument, but on Sunday evening a young man played this instrument for the youth Standards Night.  Seth found a broken ruler and turned it into this instrument.  Now I know what you're thinking, first the post on the holes in the door and now my youngest playing with a very sharp broken ruler.  I assure you that we promote non-violence in our home.  (It's got to be all those Harry Potter films, or maybe was it Lord of the Rings? Oh man, they were good movies.)

Helping with dinner.

Kate and Emily helped make dinner last night.  Here they are making Tacos, a common staple found at our house.  Although two of my children have decided they aren't related to me anymore, Dane and Kate, as they will not eat Tacos anymore.  Bummer. All that New Mexican blood no longer runs through their veins I guess.  Kate and Emily are great!  They have their usual sibling fights, but they are generally nice to each other and are willing to help mom out.  Love you girls!