Friday, April 27, 2012

Little Princess's Haircut





I've been pounding it into Little Princess's head for a while now that YOU DO NOT CUT YOUR OWN HAIR.  She's been great about it, but the other day while I was doing her hair she told me that her brother cut her hair.  I didn't believe her at first, but as I got looking, there were some perfectly cut spots hidden in her hair.  He did it in the kitchen with kid scissors and threw it away.  I never even knew it happened.  Luckily it wasn't very short.   I decided to even it up, so today we cut off a few inches.  I think it turned out pretty cute.   So now I am pounding it into my boys head-DO NOT CUT YOUR SISTER'S HAIR.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Speaking of rainbows...

That's funny I mentioned a rainbow in my last post and here we go this afternoon.  Beautiful.




Boys will be Boys!


I'm sure this is one of many shiners he will have in his lifetime.  The picture doesn't do it justice.  I know we'll have a rainbow of colors all week!

It wasn't even from anything cool either. He slipped and hit his eye on my headboard.  Poor little guy.  Just in time for his class pictures at school-awesome!

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Babies on the Grass...


I love putting babies on the grass. They freak out! So fun. She was doing much better yoga poses before I grabbed the camera.

I have also decided that Baby M is no more. Since she's over a year, she will now be known as 'The Mover'. I think big and little princess would get too confusing.

You can also see how patchy our yard is in this picture. It is coming though. Stay tuned to before and in progress pics on the yard.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Trial and Error at Church

I know what you're thinking. How could that cute little thing be naughty at church. Well, she is. Sacrament meeting has been an event ever since we added kids to the mix over 7 years ago.



We've been trying to find what works for our family. Up until today we would take a big bag of 'stuff' to keep the kiddos quiet.

I read an interesting blog this week and wanted to try a different tactic. Here is the link if you want to check it out. So today we gave it a shot. The only bag I took was my diaper bag. All it had in was our quiet books. We have about 5-6. Click on the pic for the link. They look like this:



It also took some preparation in the last few days leading up to sacrament meeting today. We've been talking to the kids about reverence and how they should act at church.

Overall it went better than I thought. We only had one that needed to get a drink (even though he could've waited). Little Princess goofed around with me in the hall while I put Baby M to sleep, and one little fight between Little Man and Little Princess. I was pleasantly surprised. The blog I read said to 'expect more' of your kids and I think that helped. Great job Hansen clan.

My Moments of Genius...

It doesn't happen often, but it does happen sometimes!

My kids are skinny little bums. I wish I had that problem! The pants that work best on them are the adjustable waist ones. Big Man has one pair of jeans that are not adjustable waist. He also refuses to wear a belt. I can always tell when he's wearing this one pair of pants because he's always trying to hold them up. You might be thinking-well don't buy him pants without the adjustable waist-good point. However we have inherited some pants and I can never pass up a deal on boys jeans at a yard sale. Thus the dilemma.

So I came up with a solution. I'd make my own adjustable waist pants for him. Here's what I did. I cut two holes in the waist band of his jeans. One towards the middle and the other closer to the front. The cuts didn't go all the way through, just on the inside layer.



At the cut in the back I threaded through a piece of elastic with a safety pin. I got the elastic for a buck at Walmart. I then sewed the back part of the elastic in place.



At the front hole I sewed a button on and then cut a little hole in the middle of the elastic where I wanted it set. Voila DIY adjustable waist pants.

Easter Weekend

I have been slacking. I just realized I've had these pictures on my computer for over a week and didn't put them on here. For Easter this year, we went up to Salt Lake. We went to the Easter Egg Hunt that Riverton City puts on. It was FREEZING, but the kids had a blast.






My parents got a new puppy. His name is Turbo 2. We didn't tell the kids about him before we went up, so they were surprised. Poor little thing didn't get any rest for two days with my kids hounding him. He's a teacup poodle and shouldn't get very big. He's cute.



The biggest event of the weekend was my little niece getting baptized. It was a special day for her. She was adorable and we had a good time being there. The next grandchild on both sides of our family to get baptized is Big Man. Holy cow time flies!



It was fun at the baptism to see my brother conduct. He was there as her dad first of all but also a member of the bishopric. I had not seen him in action before. I'm proud of him. He's grown into a wonderful man and priesthood holder. Even though I'll always see him as my big brother.

We ended the weekend with a birthday party for another little cousin. The Hall's (who just moved back from Hawaii) had us over for cake and ice cream on our way back home. It was a fun filled weekend.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

72 Hour Kits

I grew up with 72-hour kits in our garage. We had backpacks and a garbage can of supplies. I remember going through them and updating the food and clothing. When Jeff and I first got married, I made an attempt at putting one together. I don't know where I got the list from that I used, but I threw everything in a BIG tote with wheels. It wasn't really what I wanted and I just left it for years with the supplies I had assembled.

I've seen some websites lately on Pinterest that had some really good ideas and checklists of things to include. I've wanted to put some together for my family for a while and this weekend, I FINALLY DID!!!! The best part was that I had fun doing it. I used some supplies that we had around the house and I purchased other items.

The first thing I did was gather up backpacks. Eventually I would like to buy nice big ones, but for now these will do. These are old ones that we've accumulated over the years.


This is what went in every bag. Water, food, clothing, and personal items. I put everything in ziploc bags.


Each person has a pair of pants, a short sleeve and long sleeve shirt, two pair of underwear and two pair of socks.


The personal items include a rain poncho, a warming blanket, utensils, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, Off, an activity book, reading book, crayons, (and a few other items I'm forgetting). I've still got to add a flashlight and batteries. The one I bought didn't work right.


The food pack includes 3 chocolate drinks, 3 juice drinks, crackers, jolly ranchers, cookies, beef jerky, and kool-aid drop in packs.


Each of the backpacks contain all of those things. I found that I couldn't fit everything into the 6 individual backpacks, so I also filled up a duffel bag of general supplies.

In the duffel bag are things like toilet paper, rope, a small stove with fuel, water purification tablets, and a ton of other stuff I'm forgetting. If we had to survive on the food in the individual backpacks, we'd be okay, but I felt better about getting some freeze dried food packs for additional food. Walmart had a great variety of meals so I got a bunch of these. I got the scrambled eggs, spagetti with meat, lasagna, and neopolitan ice cream. Jeff's tried a lot of these when he went hunting last year and he said they were pretty good.

I've still got a few little things to add to each pack, but I'm about 95% done. I am SO EXCITED. When they are 100% I am going to put them on hooks in the garage so they are easily accessible if they are needed. I'll also add a list of things that we would have to grab last minute like sleeping bags and the tent.

This task was always daunting to me for some reason, but once I got started it was easier than I thought, and as I said before it was FUN. Some of the items I already had around the house, so it was a matter of gathering stuff up and organizing it. For the supplies I had to buy, I bought a bunch at Dollar Tree (of all places), and the rest at WalMart. The best part is I feel prepared if something were to happen. My little family would be okay-at least for 72 hours :)

General Conference

I remember on my mission thinking that General Conference was like a little holiday. I love listening to all the talks and being inspired to do better. With four loud, rambunctious kids it's kind of hard to really listen and focus like I would like to. Thank goodness for the DVR and being able to watch it later (when it's more quiet).

For the past few years, I've caught up on my scrapbooking while listening to the speakers. Since the October conference, I had not done any of my pictures, so there was a lot to catch up on.

I also thought it would be fun to bake something on this cold stormy day. A friend of mine posted this great Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe on her blog. If you want to check it out here is the link. The kids couldn't wait for them to cool. The chocolate chips were extra gooey as a result. Little Man made me laugh with his extra chocolate-y mug.



I also took on another project this weekend. One that I've been wanting to do for a LONG time and one that took a lot more time than I anticipated. I will put that in a different post. It's been a great weekend.