First day of School Pics

 Bailey's First day of kindergarten! She loves it so far. She is in the Chinese immersion program, and is taught in English half of the day and in Chinese the other half.

Brigham's first day of 4th grade! Showing off his awesome "Jurassic World" shirt. He is way into that movie and all the legos right now.  Brigham is excited to learn about Idaho history this year!

Peyton's first day of 2nd grade! He was sooo excited to wear his new shoes.  He is also in the Chinese language immersion class (this is his 3rd year learning Chinese).

Fun at the Park

 It has been an adjustment having both Brigham and Peyton in school all day. I've been a little worried about what I will do all day with Bailey each day so that she's not bored. Today we decided to go to the park and have a picnic, and then we went to the library to get books. I had fun with it just being Bailey and me! I actually got to swing with her at the park and play with her. It doesn't seem like that happens when I take everyone with me. Bailey and I are also doing a preschool group with 3 other kids in the ward- us moms rotate teaching each week. This is the first week we have done preschool, and I got to go first! Of all my kids that I have taught preschool with, I think I will thoroughly enjoy teaching Bailey preschool the most. With Brigham, teaching was new and it took me a lot of time to prepare (so naturally I was stressed). With Peyton, I taught him 2 years in a row and got burnt out (poor kid). But with Bailey, I feel like I want to put more time into the lessons because she is my last to teach, and this is her only year of preschool.
     Well, Brigham and Peyton are enjoying school! Brigham has the same teacher for 3rd grade (Mrs. Capson) as he did for 2nd grade. And he really likes her. He is reading really well, and just finished the first Fablehaven book. Math isn't his favorite though, so sometimes we use M&M's to make it fun. Peyton is in 1st grade and spends half the day in English and half the day in Chinese. He really likes math. And reading isn't his favorite. So we make a "magic reading potion" which involves goldfish crackers and chocolate chips, and suddenly reading isn't so bad anymore:)

2013 Happenings

June 2013 Peyton loving soccer

Brigham's Baptism day: July 6, 2013 

Brigham's soccer game: July 2013

Halloween: Bailey as a kitty (she was often found putting on whiskers with mommy's makeup after Halloween:)

Peyton as a ninja! 

Taken at Rick's brother(Mark's) wedding 

At Hill Aerospace Museum

This is the SR-71 (Brigham's favorite jet!) 

Bailey dressed up as Tinkerbell 

She got a dressup trunk for Christmas from Grandma & Grandpa Ward

Well it's been 2 years since I've posted anything! I guess I should do a quick update. This post won't have any pictures because my camera is broken right now.
    We lived the last 3 years in Chubbuck, ID while Rick went back to school at ISU to get another bachelor degree in health physics. We enjoyed our time there, but couldn't wait for him to be done with school so we could move on to the next stage in life. This last February Rick got hired for a full time job as a Health physicist at International Isotopes (it started part time and would move to full time when he graduated in May). We felt so blessed  to get this job- it was the 1st job he even applied to and it was in Idaho Falls! After graduation, we moved to I.F. and lived with Rick's family, hoping his job would move to full time and we could start looking for a house. However, the company told Rick they couldn't hire him full time until they got their funding. So we had a very stressful summer of working part time and wondering when he would get hired, wondering if he would get hired, praying to know if we should look for another job. We finally started applying to jobs all over the country and feeling very frustrated. Then the next week he was told he had the full-time job! What a huge blessing. All the waiting and the prayers and the patience paid off. And we feel so grateful to have found this job so quickly, especially during this poor economic time.
     Well, I had started looking for houses back in February and had continued through the summer. So by the time we were eligible to buy a house, we really knew what we wanted. We found a house in Rigby, ID  two weeks later and put an offer in for the house on our anniversary-August 13th :)  Our house closed Sept 21 and we finally have a home!!  Yea!! We waited a long time for this and so we are really appreciating it. So needless to say, we tried to do several projects at once. The back yard was lacking grass- so we prepared the ground and raked it the week before we moved in. On moving day, we also planted grass. Were we crazy? Just a little bit! The house we bought is on 1 acre, so we planted a pretty big back yard- without a sprinkler system. I didn't realize how much work we got ourselves into. Let's just say that watering the yard took a lot of my time during the 1st couple of weeks. But now that the grass is coming up, it is so rewarding to see the little blades of grass growing!
    Project #2 with our home: The house we bought just had gray siding on the outside- no brick or color to it. My dad is a bricklayer and got us a pretty awesome deal on some brick and rock. So the Saturday after we moved in, plus 3 more Saturdays, my dad put some brick and rock on our house (Rick mixed the mortar and helped with the hod-carrying job). They did such a good job on the house- it looks like a whole new place! I'll have to post pictures when I can.
   Well, as for our kids: Brigham is in 1st grade now and is now reading. I have to work at helping him enjoy reading.He is a smart little guy! Peyton is doing a preschool group with me and some other moms and seems to like that. I think he is enjoying being with some other kids again! Bailey is now 2 1/2 and growing up quickly! I just started officially potty training her today! She has been using the potty for a while and has been very interested. She just had to wait for mommy to jump on the ball and potty train her (I think I had a good excuse with moving and all!)
     Anyway, that kind of sums up the last 2 years very briefly!

Oregon Family Reunion

We went to LaGrande, Oregon for a family reunion on Rick's side in August. Rick's dad grew up there and his grandpa still lives there. The camp we went to had old train boxcars for us to sleep in (with bunkbeds inside). Here is a picture on Peyton climbing up the side of a train box car.

The camp had a giant slip 'n slide. As you can see, it is really fun! Rick and the boys went down it and went pretty fast!

Here is Peyton and Aunt Jen. The guys (Rick and his brothers) caught crawdads in the creek next to Peyton.

Adorable Bailey- here she is with her tongue out again!

Family picture at the family reunion in Oregon! Keep reading next 2 posts (I am catching up!)

Here are some more updates: Rick is going to school to get a 2nd bachelor's degree in health physics, so he is pretty busy. I am busy at home with 3 kids and having fun, but still adjusting to 3. The boys are growing up so fast and learning so much! Bailey is already 5 1/2 months old, almost sitting up and already eating baby foods!

Fun pictures

Bailey is now 5 1/2 mo. old. In these pictures she is about 3 months old. Brigham loves Bailey! He is always hugging her and playing with her! What a lucky girl!

Looking cute- but where's the smile:)

Bailey loves sticking her tongue out, ever since she was born!

Here is a neat picture of the boys, Rick, Rick's dad and Rick's grandpa!

Here we are in Oregon at a familiy reunion on Rick's side. (middle of August)We got to sleep in old train boxcars that were fixed up with bunkbeds in them. Brigham and Peyton loved it!

Random pictures!

Bailey's Baby blessing (June)- Rick's aunt Karen made a beautiful dress for Bailey! It was perfect!

Brigham's 5th birthday (June 16th). He wanted another volcano cake (he had one for his 4th also)- but this one he wanted to be an exploding volcano. So we put a cup inside the volcano, filled it with red jello water and added dry ice. The boys loved it!

Peyton's 3rd birthday (June 27th). He loves Star Wars so we made an R2D2 cake.

We went to Colorado in July for a family reunion on my side(Ashley's side). My sister Jeni lives in Colorado Springs. This is a picture of all the grandkids after her son Nathan's baptism.

1 Month Old!

Wow! Bailey is already 1 month old. She is a very good baby, only cries when she's hungry or tired. And she sleeps good. The boys really like her and it's fun to watch her grow!

What Cute Kids!

New baby girl!

Bailey Mae Jensen was born April 13th (4 days over). She weighed 6 lbs. 13 oz. and was 19 1/2 in. She has lots of dark brown hair- I love it! We are so excited to have her here!

I was induced with both Brigham and Peyton a few days early by choice, so I thought I could be patient and go into labor on my own with Bailey. I was wrong. By the third day overdue, I asked to be induced. We went in at 9:30 pm on the 12th and had a cytotec induction. We had her at 10:52 the next morning. All went pretty well except she was having decelerations the whole labor, so I was being monitored pretty closely. Her heartrate continued decelerating into the 50's as I was pushing, so they vacuumed her out after 10 min of pushing. But it was worth it once she was here! We are so excited to have a girl and that she is healthy!

We're having a girl!!

We had our ultrasound on November 17th and found out we are having a girl! She is due on April 9th. We are so excited and very shocked. I wanted a girl so bad but thought it would be another boy. So when the tech told us it was a girl, I was so excited. Rick is also excited to have a girl, but he's a little nervous. Brigham is also excited and loved looking at the pictures and the movie.

Halloween and Thanksgiving

I know, it's been a long time since I posted. So I decided to just post the most recent pictures instead of playing catch up. Our family is now in Chubbuck, ID and we are renting an apartment. It's nice to be living by ourselves again! Rick is working full time at an optical shop and getting his teacher's certificate online. He already has a bachelor's degree in biology, so he can become a biology teacher in 8-10 months with this program. Everything else is going great!

Egg Hunt

Well, Easter was 2 months ago and I'm finally posting the pictures! We went to the Ucon Easter egg hunt. Peyton went with the younger kids and Brigham with the older kids. Brigham was more excited about the toys at the playground than the egg hunt. He didn't want to do it. Oh well, maybe next year he'll like it. They both enjoyed the candy after. Also, they got coupons for Blastoff (a fun game place). Afterward, he talked about it and asked us about it over and over until we took the boys. And they had a blast.