News

Jorgen and Shelley are pleased to announce
that at the end of March they will have a new
SISTER
to welcome into this world!

We are all so excited and cannot wait for her arrival!!

The ultrasound went really well and our little girl was such a poser! Literally! She was showing us all of her little poses: the thinking pose (hand under chin, like she was contemplating something), rubbing her eyes, arching her back (my favorite one - it was so dramatic and none of my other children did that in the womb while on 'tv'), tumbling and turning (we have got another mover on our hands!), and showing us her cute face over and over again!

Words cannot express how excited we are for this new little girl! Jorgen is so excited that he will have two little sisters! He is the best big brother and Shelley will love having a little sister!

Because I cannot figure out how to use our hp scanner on my mac I just took pictures of the ultrasound print outs. They will have to suffice for now.

It's Been TOO long!

I do not know what the deal is, but I cannot seem to keep caught up on our blog. I used to update weekly and now it is more like monthly. So I apologize for the mass posts every time. Life is just amazing and extremely busy lately!

To start off the post, what do you expect to find after walking into the kitchen to this...

A chocolate-filled face on our funny three year-old!Jorgen and I have been doing mommy school during Shelley's naps and for our craft one day we made these:

Aren't they fun!!

We went to the temple for the first time since Malaysia and had a wonderful time switching off with the children and doing temple work.

Jorgen and Shelley loved walking around the visitor's center and the temple grounds.

Oh, I absolutely love this picture. They are little buddies these two.

Take a close look at her tongue - funny girl! Lately she has been chewing on her tongue and fingers. I thought Shelley was finished teething awhile ago since she has had all of her teeth for a long time but I just noticed her TWO YEAR OLD MOLARS are coming in! This girl sprouts teeth so early! She is not even a year and a half yet! Brush, brush! Thankfully, Shelley now really likes brushing her teeth, it was not always that way though!

Shell's hat slipped down over her eyes and she thought it was hilarious walking around and not being able to see.

Our most stylish dude!
(This is my favorite jacket of his and it is WAY too short on him - look at the sleeves...teehee, I think this is the last time he will wear it. sniff, sniff!)

I just want to squeeze the two of them in this picture!

Those of you who have been to our apartment know that it is small. Really small! So when it rains and we are forced to play indoors all day, we get creative. Fortunately, an order of diapers came in the mail the day before and we had a huge box to turn into a .... you guessed it, a train (not too creative for this family...trains rule our world).
I love this picture because Jorgen is playing his harmonica for Shelley.

Look at those cheeks!

We have a picture of Jorgen eating corn at the same age and I think Shells loves it just as much as her big brother did at the same age.

We had a brief jaunt of cold weather sweep in and it was fun getting all bundled up and feeling like fall was here. Today felt like it was 80 degrees outside so listening to Christmas music just is not the same in warm weather.

We were so lucky to inherit a wonderful bike trailer from a friend. It has been so much fun going on family bike rides with Daddy and when Justin is at school, the three of us go on bike rides together. It is so fun! Shells loves riding in it!

Shelley has been so in to trains and boy things that we have never bought her a baby (and poor girl, does not even know what dress up is!). Lately, whenever someone else has a baby Shelley has been drawn to them and loves holding and cuddling them. I remembered that I saved two of my dolls from when I was a child and was so excited to give them to Shelley. Both of them are cabbage patch dolls. She loves the smaller cabbage patch doll and it is so fun remembering loving the same doll.

The last pictures are from today. Shelley finally grew into a dress Justin's sister, Natalie, gave her and it is just too cute on her not to take a picture!

This is a start to a monkey-face that Justin makes. This boy takes after his daddy in so many ways! Oh I just cannot get enough of him!

More hugs!

Bye for now!

We made the Stanford website! Before the summer, we were invited to do a photoshoot with a great photographer, Anne Hamersky, for a possible picture/quote on the GSB's website. It was a fun photoshoot and we were happy to do it. The GSB updated their website this quarter and we were surprised to see ourselves on it! How fun! The funny thing is that since families are less numerous at business school, we do not frequently pop up on the page. After several clicks (sometimes twenty or more!) you will be sure to see us!
Go to http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/mba/ if you want to see how many times it takes for our little family to pop up:).

Catching Up.

We have been busy, busy, busy around here but things are finally starting to get back to normal. Following are some of the things we have been up to.

The last week in September we went on a business school family 'outdoor adventure' trip. We drove an hour and a half south and stayed at a Best Western on the coast. It was delightful!

We ate fried artichokes!

The kids played in the lobby, in the sand pit area (they had a big wooden train there as well, Jorgen was in heaven!), and all over the place.

Saturday was our beach day.
We flew kites...or attempted to...

We played in the sand.

We watched the surfers.

(Yes, that is my white son! Jorgen is going to look like an albino when he sees his tan Hawaiian cousins next time!)

We smiled and smiled and smiled!

Daddy chased Jorgen and his friend with a fake snake made out of kelp.

We did not bring Jorgen's swimsuit down to the beach so for the first hour he played in his Thomas underwear and shirt until I ran back to get his suit.

We ate lunch. Shelley was loving having her own bag of chips!

We jumped kelp.

We soaked our feet in the hot tub.

Jorgen swam in the hot tub.
(The tub was not that hot)

It was a fabulous trip and it was fun reconnecting with everyone after being away for the summer. We are loving this time in our lives! Being in school and living where we do has been such a blessing! I cannot believe we only have eight months left!

Jorgen just playing around and being sweet.

Hugs all around!

Justin loves taking pictures of Shelley while she makes cute faces when she eats.

My favorite one!

She loves her veggies!

Justin is the best dad! One night last week I had to go to a meeting so Justin put the kids to bed. I came home to find this...

Justin and Jorgen asleep on the tramp!

"Just teasin' Mom!"
After putting Shelley down, Justin and Jorgen played with trains and then took some blankets outside to go star gazing on the trampoline. What fun! It made me so happy to see them there when I came home, even though Jorgen was up an hour past his bedtime! It reminded me of warm summer nights sleeping on my parent's trampoline when I was younger. I cannot wait to do that with my kids!

Jorgen was thrilled to show me the most amazing track that his Daddy made him!This weekend was conference weekend. I LOVE conference weekend!
Unfortunately, Jorgen woke up abnormally early Saturday morning and fell asleep for most of the first session. Justin loved getting lots of cuddles though.

Shelley was her perky self all morning long!

One of the games that worked so well for Jorgen for the rest of the three sessions was having a candy bowl and every time he heard certain church words, he would get to pick a piece of candy. I did not realize how motivating this would be for him! He was the best listener for most of conference! He started picking out so many words and it was cute to see him tuning in and recognizing the First Presidency each time one of them would get up.
Another activity that worked well for Jorgen was making collages. I cut out pictures from an old Ensign and he got to glue them on pieces of paper. He loved it and it kept him busy for awhile.

Shelley was not as easily entertained, but was all smiles when she was awake!

What a fabulous weekend!!!