Parker's Christmas Gift

I wanted to blog about Parker's gift to the Kentucky Hansens, #1 because it was so stinkin awesome and #2 I don't think everyone got a good look at it through skype.

1. One of my favorites "Parker's and JD's 2012 calendar". Finally I will be able to satisfy my veinness everyday.

2. I still don't know how Parker did this, but this is a wooden block (about the size of a notebook, and 2-3 inches thick. Also has a bronze ribbon tied around it. I love the olden look to this, will be perfect for one of our many bare walls in our house.

3. Lydia's shirt, a little big for her right now but she'll grow into it. It says, "Perfect just like mommy." McCall really likes this one for some reason.
4. Again, Parker's amazing woodworking skills showing off here. This is a tractor made out of wood, with three little people in the trucks bed, awesomely painted too. Lydia has already loved playing with this.

5. A beautiful necklace and earrings for McCall

6. I think this is tied for my favorite. This is a bird house/key holder. I'll I can say about this one is 'Wow'! Everything you see here is made out of wood once again, if you look at this thing its detail is absolutely amazing... the stairs, the surfboards, the fence, the roof, and the dirt. And of course my personalize surfboard with my name on it.

7. This one is for McCall, since she loves her organic foods. She can grow these from her windowsill and cure upset stomachs and get a ridiculously good looking body (helps with weight loss too) better than the amazing one she already has of course.

8. A xylophone for Lydia and eventually Emree that I believe was made by Parker himself.

9. Bells for Emree!
10. Another one that was tied for my favorite. Mom let me know that Parker suffered many injuries trying to handcarve these. As you can see it's our family Mom and Emree, with Dad and Lydia. Very impressive!
11. Another one for my veinness, Lydia's sweat pants that say, "I get my good looks from daddy"
McCall and I were simply amazed at the amount of time and hard work that Parker put into this present. This is definitely one of my favorite traditions at Christmas time, giving away our handmade gifts to siblings. We love you Parks! Thank you!

Funny Sunday

So we've decided to stay home this year for Christmas and sometimes we regret that decision a lot, because #1 we'll miss our family but the #2 I wasn't expecting is this. Person: "When you going home for Christmas?" Me: "Oh we're staying here this year..." Person: "Really, you want to take me to the airport?" Other responses have been.... "Oh really, you want to take care of our chickens for us" You want to watch our fish while we're gone? So far I've been able to take 4 people/families to the airport, watch 4 chickens/get their eggs and feed them, and take care of one goldfish. I don't really mind it actually, it's just funny.

But one reason that we're happy we're staying is because of this...
We get to buy and decorate our own tree. I refused to buy a stand cuz it cost almost as much as the tree did, so I got 2 boxes from the postoffice, stuck them together and filled them with rocks.







We had our ward Christmas party last night and we had a special visit from Santa. Lydia actually sat on his lap for the first time, it probably helped to see the 40 kids in front do it first. But as you can see she is still a little nervous.





Lydia got her first doll, and it was from her best friend Lauren, your LaLa as Lydia calls her. We determined we are terrible parents, cuz she got her first baby doll from someone besides her parents. She already loves this baby and takes her everywhere with her.


And here is a cute picture of the 2 girl cousins. These 2 had so much fun sliding down on a mattress over and over again, until Mckay ruined the fun by giving Jaedyn a big rug burn on her eye.


And here is a funny story to end: So I went on a couple interviews a couple weeks back and I decided to take my traveling companion Lydia, more for the grandparents sake. Well she decided to get diarrhea for our travels. Now I don't know if you've ever tried to change a toddler in one of those airplane bathrooms, but it's pretty hard. I went to the back bathroom and much to my horror there was no changing table, so I did what any Dad would do and changed her right there on the toilet, (poor girl, half her body was dangling off). Later I found out that the changing tables were at the front... of course.

The funny part comes at the end. Done with my final interview in Houston, we headed to our final terminal. While going through security I stopped and smelled... french fries?! I knew that Lydia had eaten some for lunch so I wasn't too concerned. It wasn't until I stopped by the bathroom that I noticed that Lydia's diarrhea had spilled out wetting her entire backside. Horrible smell btw! I was thinking fast, do I wash her pants in the bathroom? No then she'll be wet forever. I had it, I asked the terminal guy if there was a way he could sneak in my suitcase and grab an extra pair of pants. He obliged and returned 5 minutes later. Saved! But not for long. An hour into our flight I again felt something moist, I lifted her up and yes it had happened again. As I motioned to my neighbors where I was headed, the guy next to me lifted up his tray table and in the process squeezed the life out of Lydia's fingers. Bloody murder scream for the next 10 minutes. Well no more pants so she spent the rest of our layover and next flight sporting just a diaper. More bad news when we arrived in Chicago, an hour delayed flight. We got home around 1 AM, needless to say Lydia was not a happy camper.

Thanks

This morning we took our normal 25 minute drive to church with the family and Lauren. During part of this trip we pass many churches and they always have their 'advertisements' on their signs out front. Most of the time they're pretty funny but once in awhile they have a good quote that makes you think. The quote of today was "What if you woke up with just the things that you thanked God for?" This was a jolt for me and it made me quickly realize that there are many, many things that I have been blessed with that I don't thank the Lord for.

My thankful list:

My attractive, thoughtful, loving, and devoted wife McCall. She is my best friend that I can experience my whole eternal life with. She is constantly serving our family and others and makes everyone's day a little more spiritual.

My sweet daughter Lydia. There are times like this last week where we were traveling home from San Diego on the airplane and she cried bloody murder for 2o minutes straight (that seemed like eternity) that I ask myself, "Self, why did you have kids again?" But then I'm reminded of how much love I have for her the very next moment. Yesterday as I was watching a movie with McCall she comes up to me and gives me the biggest longest hug for no reason. Yes I do love her very much.

My angelic baby girl Emree. I don't know much about her just yet, but she gives us a gift of heaven every time we hold her.

My amazing family to whom I owe everything I am: Dad, Mom, Shae, Mckay, Shelby, Cassidy, Kelsi, Tanner, Lexi, Parker. (and of course the in laws Makana, Brandon, and Daniel)

Although I do not always appreciate it, I'm thankful for my education and that I'll finally be a graduated man in May!

Thankful for the beautiful mountains that I miss so much, for the ocean, for sunsets and sunrises, and all God's creations

Thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and its restored message.

Thankful for music and for the diligent patience of my mom to teach and instill in me a love for the piano.

I'm thankful for pumpkin pie, roast beef, barbecued pineapple, and icecream sundaes.

Grateful for the internet so that I can communicate with love ones far, thankful for a warm bed and roof over my head.

I'm grateful that I could ride the bus, which led me to the most amazing new convert Lauren. She is the latest edition to our family and I'm thankful for her constant friendship and laughter, and babysitting.

Thankful for sports, my healthy body, my functioning body parts, for my eyesight and hearing.

I'm grateful for the gift of the Atonement and the chance to improve..

There is lots to be thankful for and I hope that each of us were able to ponder our blessings this Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

11-6-11 Funny Sunday

Before I begin with the Funny Sunday stories, here are a few outstanding photos of the past couple weeks.
Emree is officially in the 97th % for both weight and height. Way to take after your dad! She really is pretty big but I love it.

So you're probably wondering, what the heck is JD supposed to be? I'm a pot head! Yeah I definitely thought it would be a lot more funny, this was at a friend Halloween party and I received way too many courtesy laughs. Last minute ideas never work for us. McCall is going as a dental student and Lydia is a U of L cheerleader.

This was at our first U of L football game, I think Lydia feels a bit high from all the "apple juice."

This was trick or treating at Westport Village. Mom and Dad you missed out here. We didn't have to pay $8 to get in (it was free), there were no long lines, and we got lots and lots of candy! McCall and I went as BYU fans, and Lydia was a BYU cheerleader (we got an awesome cheerleader outfit from our friends for only a couple dollars). Oh and Emree went as a fetus.

Lydia riding her pony. She got so thrilled about it.

The two sisters, Lydia still loves to maul Emree and get right in her face and yell, "Hi! Hi!" Then she'll pet her hair and say, "Soft." Yesterday she was jumping on the bed and landed right on Emree's head. But she is getting better with being 'soft'.

Lydia is becoming quite the dancer, whenever she hears that beat, she starts getting funky with it. It's quite entertaining. Lately she has been watching McCall's old clogging videos and she tries to mimic her clogging steps... it makes for some good laughs.

And finally the funny sunday of the day:

We stopped to return a red box at a gas station, when a character looking like an ex convict makes eye contact with me and approaches my car. I wasn't sure if I should lock my door and take off in the other direction, but McCall hadn't gotten back in the car yet so I just waited... I rolled down my window and he starts the conversation in a deep gangsta voice, "Do ya'll like rap?" "No, not really." Awkward silence. "I got here some cd's I'se be'n tr'in a sell." "Oh, you rap huh?" He nods proudly. "You good?" "I'm the best." I thought to myself, "That's why you're out selling your cd's at a gas station." But instead I said, "You on youtube?" "Yessir." "Well we'll have to look you up." Awkward silence. "Well good luck selling those cd's." We take off as he heads over to the next car.

It's not that funny when I told it, but it was for us because we were both so scared and loving it at the same time. I should have traded him a Book of Mormon for his cd, straight up.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Funny Sunday

We were able to go to our first University of Louisville football game! We were pretty excited and got all dressed up in our red Louisville gear. We still haven't figured out that it takes us an hour to get everyone ready and in the car so we showed up about an hour late to the game (which is turns out was the only good part of the game).

The game was actually quite boring, since Louisville is pretty terrible and the team they played (syracuse) was worse. But the funny sunday happened during half time:

So in case you don't know, Kentucky is number one in the U.S. for smoking (awesome thing to brag about). They don't let you go out and come back in the stadium, so people would gather around the fences of the stadium and sneak out their cigarettes. I say sneak because it's not allowed. I was wondering why all these people would hover over the fences like they were planting a bomb or something until I saw several staff members with megaphones yelling at people, "There's no smoking in the stadium! Please put your cigarettes away!" I would watch as people would pretend to put out their cigarettes only to light them quickly when the staff would turn his back. It was a pretty pathetic sight to tell you the truth. So many of them too.

But the game was fun and we would have pictures but the computers not letting me add them today so that's all!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Destin, FL

JD had fall break this last week so we thought it would be fun to spend a week down in Destin, Florida. We THOUGHT it would be fun, is the key phrase here....sigh... who knew that going on a 12 hour car ride and having two babies trying to sleep in a room with two tired adults would be somewhat hard, we just never realized how hard. Lets just say we had our patience tried on multiple multiple occasions, I will leave it at that and focus on all the fun memories we WERE able to create.
We had to include this picture of miss lydia eating her beloved goldfish. All she wanted to do 90% of the time was dig through the bag with her sandy hands and find yummy snacks. She was one hungry girl!




Can you read it? Jd started out with J plus M...and I was like.. "Oh how sweet JD, you should have J + M = L & E... Thus the work of art was created."

Family Photo! Another thing we enjoyed at the beach was getting to know those around us. People are so nice out here. We had multiple people just come up and start talking with us, telling us their life stories and getting to know ours as well. It really made me think about how I need to be a lot better with going out of my way and talking to those around me, even complete strangers.

So whenever you don't hear your child for awhile and they are being really quiet...you just know they are up to no good and probably doing something they shouldn't be.. I thus realized this is true with adults as well (well maybe just with JD)...

I was just sitting there relaxing on the beach, I hadn't heard Jd for awhile and as I turned around...JD pops his head up from the sand, with a look like, " I wasn't doing anything..." How many times do you need to tell them to stop eating the sand. Jd just couldn't get enough of it I guess. Mmmm....yummy, yummy.

Oh just the famous "Dancer Pose"...and for those folk dancers out there, you know what I'm talking about. :)

So funny sunday story: We visited a little community/touristy place near the beach called Seaside. I wish we would have taken more pictures of how pretty this place was. Each house was absolutely gorgeous and I kept on wishing that Brandon was there to capture it all. So below is a picture of a beautiful door we saw on one of these incredible houses (JD actually took it because he knew Brandon would like it) and the funny thing is that one second after JD snapped this picture, a guy opened it and came out. He gave us the most awkward crusty look EVER! We were kind of like "Ope" trying to act like we weren't doing anything wierd... like taking a picture of someone's side door. (I mean who does that... sheesh).

Ok so I realized that it doesn't sound so funny written down, but I guess you just had to have been there. :)

Little miss Emree just being sweet. LoVe those chunky cheeks!

Look! JD found this sweet little Lizard!

What a wonderful view! This is what our days consisted of... I loved watching lydia just playing with her dad. Pretty sure he is her BEST friend!

Lydia got in the water only once while we were there...sad story I know, since the water was perfect for little kids. The waves were like an inch high, water was warm, and perfectly clear. She was just a little scared...

We had to capture this zoned out look that emree had.. This is what she looked like a lot of the time. Kind of in her own world.

We went to visit some Alligators at a place called Fudpuckers (I know weird name). It was a restaurant with an "Alligator Beach" attached! I thought it was a good idea to buy some of the alligator food to try and feed them, but we found out it was not a good idea, none of them would eat anything, most likely full from all the other stupid tourists wasting their money.

This represents about 20% of the alligators there. There were seriously tons of them.

It's kind of nice when Lydia cheesy smiles on demand..

Well, there you have it, over all our trip to Destin, Florida was a success! Although we may not attempt another one any time soon. :)

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Funny Sunday 10-02-11

Catching this picture of Emree:


Lasagna on the floor anyone?
So after conference McCall wanted to make a lasagna and I was all for it. When I went to retrieve it out of the oven I realized that she had placed the casserole dish on top of a cookie sheet. Mistake #1 was when I grabbed only one mitten to retrieve the dish. Mistake #2 was the fact that I tried to lift the cookie sheet and the dish all in one instead of one at a time. And Mistake #3 was when I saw the casserole sliding off to the left I thought I could save it rather than putting in back in the oven. My wrist was not strong enough for all that weight and the lasagna continued to slide to the left, I didn't want to sacrifice my left hand burning off to steady it so there was nothing that I could do except watch it fall to the ground and shatter everywhere.
I really wanted to eat it still, but McCall convinced me not to saying I would be eating glass. During priesthood session, I had a hard time paying attention because I kept on envisioning myself eating the lasagna.

On a side note, did I ever tell you two kids 1.5 years apart is hard? We've been trying for the last 2 hours to put Emree to sleep, finally after all that time we get her to sleep. Seriously no longer than a minute of putting her down, Lydia cries bloody murder from her crib waking up Emree. It might take another hour before she goes down.

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