Thursday, September 13, 2012

Little Update

Life has been galloping along here at the Jensen house! School is in full swing, Lars is 10 months and growing fast. Right now I am watching him fling toys around the room and make movements that might turn into crawling someday. He is active, funny and adorable. He is a total snuggler and a full blown mamas boy except when daddy is holding him. Then he's a daddy's boy. =0) He just started picking up small pieces of food and chewing without gagging. Yay! He loves Anders and really laughs at whatever Anders does. Sometimes that bugs him especially when he's not trying to make Lars laugh. Mostly Anders LOVES his little bro and they already have a sweet relationship building. I love seeing them interact.
School is going really well for Anders and he is on top of the academics of Kindergarten. He is starting to read and has been having fun reading all of the Mo Willems books with me. He took his favorite one to class earlier this week and read it out loud. Apparently he did so well and made everyone laugh so much that they sent him next door to the Pre-K class to read it to them! Yesterday he read it to the first grade class. He seems to thrive on performance and loves to make people laugh.

This past July we went on a family trip to Yosemite where we met my parents, my Sister and Brother-in-law and their kids, a couple of my Aunts and Uncles as well as a cousin and her family. It really was a special trip and we want to try and make it up there again in the future. 

We have been settling in to our new rental house and there have been some great things about it and some not so great things. We have more room to spread out. A new couch that comfortably seats the whole family and a front porch to enjoy the cooler evenings. Anders has had some fun playing in the hose and we have enjoyed the fantastic walking path right near our house. We have central air (lovely) and doors that shut. A washer and dryer plus a dishwasher make me feel down right wealthy. 
On the downish side the back yard is filthy dirty with all of the owners stuff stored back there. There have been ongoing fix it projects since we moved in and things are still unfinished. Our main bathroom which is beautifully tiled has wires and open vents coming out of the ceiling and the outlets don't work. 
One other tricky thing is that there is not much storage except in the kitchen. There is one closet in our bedroom plus some office cupboards that Chris is using for his various wires, cables and such. The house also came with a large armoire that I am getting good use out of. We are trying to pair down our things but it has been a challenge.

Mostly we are just THANKFUL for the good things in our lives! Chris has a good job, we have more comforts than we've had in a while and we have two great boys. I am so thankful for my family and friends, the good weather in California, all of the fun things to do in our area, a great local library with a really great selection of books.... Life is good.

The bunk beds in our tent/cabin in Yosemite

My Dad and his brother Tom enjoying the campground

Anders and his buddy/cousin Tommy loving the dirt and playtime

My mom and I had a lovely couple of hours hanging out while in Yosemite.  Lars loves his Grandma...

Half dome!

Anders enjoying some water play in our front yard.

Me and the cuddle bug.







6 comments:

Unknown said...

I really love the story about Anders reading his book to three different classes! It sounds like they know how to capitalize on kids' strengths at his school. I can see the idea of reading to other people being a big motivator for him to keep learning. That's great.

I also totally feel your pain on the storage issues!!

Erin said...

Nice update! Fun to see recent pictures of everyone. :)

Grandma Seelye said...

I loved the part about Anders reading to three classes! Agree with Ariana about his teacher finding how to motivate him! Great!

Great Aunt Gretchen said...

Many kids do not know much about reading with inflection or enthusiasm. Anders did a good job with his book. Fun to hear that others enjoyed it. :)

Robin said...

Such a nice post! I'm so impressed with Anders reading to three classes. He'll never forget it! Love the update... it's nice to reflect on all the good things in your life. :-)

Anonymous said...

Gigi. Thank you for the pictures and your thoughts. Love, Dad