Fun-filled weekend

This weekend we had muchos family dates, which made for quite a fun weekend. Friday, the boys and I met Yosh after he got off work and went over to The Grove. We actually had a decent dinner with the boys at the Cheesecake Factory (of course, this meant sitting down and immediately ordering the food, hoping to be in and out of there before they realized what we were doing to them!) We took a ride on the little trolley that runs along there and then took advantage of the outdoor music. They had a band that started playing right around 7. The boys absolutely loved it. We could all just dance and be kids again. It was so fun.
Sat morning I got up and ran a 10k at Manhattan Beach. I had never been there before. Now that I have, I feel like maybe we should move there! (That happens quite often down here when I go to a new city!) It had a smaller town feeling and was obviously right on the ocean! A lot of fun. Later that afternoon, the fam went up to the galleria where the boys could run around and enjoy some fresh air.

They have a little water show at The Grove and the boys were fascinated by it.

Porter enjoying the flowers!

Yosh and Dallin on the trolley (Dallin called it a train, of course!)

The boys and I at the Galleria. Take note of the excellent long sleeve T I'm sporting. That was the t-shirt for the 10k. It is the best long sleeve ever. I think I'll be running in the race every year just for the t-shirt.


Other top moments:
1) I walked in the house after coming home from my run and Porter was just as happy as could be to see me. He kept putting his arms around my neck and giving me open-mouthed kisses and then just laughing.
2) Dallin thinking he was taking pictures of birds and telling them to scoot back and chasing them around trying to get them to pose for him.
3) Dallin feeding Porter these huge grapes with a fork.
4) Porter trying to have at least 4 grapes at a time in his mouth.

A Tag

ABC TAG

Gay

A- Attached or single: Attached

B- Best Friend: nunya

C-Cake or Pie: probably chocolate cake and then any other pie

D- Day of choice: Saturday

E- Essential Item: my keys

F- Favorite Color: blue

G- Gummi Bears or Worms: Gummi bears

H- Hometown: Fenton, MO

I- Indulgence(s): going out to lunch

J- January or July: July

K- Kids: absolutely

L-Life is Incomplete Without: my 3 boys

M- Marriage Date: December 19, 2003

N- Number of Siblings: 3 brother, 3 sisters

O- Oranges or Apples: apples

P- Phobias or Fears: that something will happen to my kids

Q- Quotes: "Save the drama for yo mamma cuz we don't want none"

R- Reason To Smile: life

S- Season: Fall (I used to say summer, but I think I'm converting.......)

T- Tag Three +: Laura/Matt (good luck on getting Matt to contribute, Laura!), Kelie/Matt, Rachel/Spencer

U- Unknown Fact About Me: I grind my teeth

V- Vegetarian or Meat Eater: Meat

W- Worst Habit: chewing my tongue

X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: ultrasound

Y- Your Favorite Food: freshly grilled meat and vegetables and pineapple

Z- Zodiac: Cancer

Yosh
(As becomes quickly obvious, Yosh actually filled this out himself.! I only had to trick him a little bit.............)

A- Attached or single: Attached

B- Best Friend: I think I am my own best friend, I talk to myself more than anyone else
C-Cake or Pie: Pie
D- Day of choice: Friday
E- Essential Item: California King Mattress
F- Favorite Color: Blue
G- Gummi Bears or Worms: Worms
H- Hometown: SLC
I- Indulgence(s): Dried Mango package from Costco, Double Stuf Oreos, Papa John’s Pizza, Weinhard Root Beer
J- January or July: July
K- Kids: Yes, 2 sons
L- Life is Incomplete Without: A good wife to take care of me
M- Marriage Date: 12/19/03
N- Number of Siblings: 3
O- Oranges or Apples: Oranges
P- Phobias or Fears: Cockroach infestations, rock climbing
Q- Quote(s): Socialism is the ideology of envy - unknown
R- Reason To Smile: DB and Porter P
S- Season: Fall
T- Tag Three +:
U- Unknown fact About Me: My dream job is to work for the perpetual education fund as whatever, secretary, janitor, mailboy, doesn’t matter
V- Vegetarian or Meat Eater: Meat
W- Worst Habit: Nosepicker
X- X-Rays or Ultrasounds: X-Ray, not sure what this implies
Y- Your Favorite Food: Steak
Z- Zodiac: Sagittarius

The Cutest Boys ever... set to music!!

The little ones had their pictures taken the other day. Here is a few of the favorites at:

imagesbyaida.com/hansenboys

I couldn't be happier with these two little guys and am especially pleased with how their personalities came through in the pics!

Please excuse my leave of absence....

So I probably should post something considering it has been forever. I am still way into the blogging thing, and no, life has not gotten so busy that I haven't had time to sit down for a few minutes. The truth of it is I'm in deep denial. I guess I lost my battery charger for my camera even though I'm only convinced it is misplaced instead of lost. Because I am in denial, I subconsciously am avoiding anything that reminds me of this. Of course, all is not lost. I could always just buy another one. But first I need to convince myself that it is truly lost. I actually did cave the other day and set out to buy another one ($60 I might add for a simple charger) but they weren't at Best Buy, Target, or Wal Mart so now I have to order it online. Of course I wanted it right then and absolutely did not want to wait and not being able to get it right away has somehow weakened my incentive to get on the ball and buy it on line.
Anyway, big happy news is that Porter turned one today. It is absolutely crazy. How did a year pass already? He is such a funny little guy. I love how he always greets his dad with the biggest smile when he gets home from work. It doesn't matter how long it takes Josh to pay attention to him; he keeps the smile on until he gets it! I love the way he laughs and plays with Dallin. No one cracks Porter up like Dallin does. He is Dallin's number one fan and supporter. I also love when he steals Dallin's binky and stuffed puppy and walks around with them as if he owns them! I love the sound he always makes. He loves to move his fingers across his lips and make that one sound (you all know what I'm talking about!) His little temper cracks me up... he is such a firecracker (making his nickname "Pistol" very fitting!) He gets fired up when I'm changing his diaper, taking his clothes off, putting his clothes on, putting him in the car seat, etc etc! He gets mad so quickly and just screams. Thank goodness, he recovers almost as quickly! Anyway, he is such a joy to have around. Kids to me are the epitome of great joy for hard work. They require so much but there is nothing that compares to those precious moments they give us when we remember that is all worth it!! Happy Birthday, Porter P!!!

San Diego

My sisters and I took all of our kids and headed down to Mission Beach for a week's vacation. None of us had been before, so we didn't really know what to expect. We somewhat randomly picked a beach house off of vacationrentals.com and hoped for the best. We were pleasantly surprised as the house was situated right between the bay and the beach. All of us have little kids, so the bay was perfect for the smaller ones. The beach house was pretty cool and kept up so that it didn't look like a rental. They had so many amenities- bikes, boogie boards, tents, sand toys, DVDs, games... it was great. We really didn't have to bring anything! This was also my first occasion to go to Sea World and it was great! No lines, you get splashed to keep you cool, neat animals... it was great. Dallin loved the dolphin show (we went twice) and stills talks about the fish jumping high out of the water! Overall, it was a real fun week!

The Sea World group... Chloe, Colin, Kobe, Ava, and DB

We loved taking the kids on bike rides. I honestly hadn't ridden a bike in forever and was nervous to get on, let alone take the kids on it behind me (don't worry, the trailer only came off once while I was riding leaving the kids stranded in the middle of the road! It was quite the sight!! You should have seen the look on Pistol and the Goose's face... priceless!)

Of course, we made many visits to the beach

Lots of eating...

Lots of baths!!
(The Goose, Dallin, and Chance. All born within two months of each other.)

Save the drama.......

As I mentioned before, Josh really wanted to see Barry Bonds hit the next homer. Wednesday, him and DB went to the game and sure enough, Thursday he called saying we just REALLY needed to go to that night's game. Now, he wasn't necessarily saying that Bonds was going to hit a home run, but we should be there just in case. In my head I'm thinking, "Gosh, both boys aren't really going to sit through the game. It is a lot of work..." blah, blah blah. The conversation went on in my head for a long time but I'll spare the details. In the end, I agree without much complaint that, yes, the whole family should be at Dodger Stadium. So we load up, fight the traffic to get to the game, and play the waiting game to get to the parking lot. Since things were taking a little longer than expected, I gave Porter a bottle while he was in his car seat. Well, somehow the nipple goes inside of the bottle and all the milk spills all over him leaving him a soppy mess and, not to mention, still hungry. When we get to the game, I peel his wet clothes off. Luckily his swim trunks (of all things) were in the car. So I put those on and leave him shirtless with the intent of buying him a new t-shirt inside. So here we finally go trudging into the stadium, half-naked baby and all. Yosh goes to pick up our tickets (including the two friends' we were there with) at will call.... only to find that they are not there. Pretty embarrassing especially when other people thought we had everything under control. Determined to make it inside the stadium, Yosh and Jon start scouring for tickets. It's funny the things you start seeing and hearing when you need tickets. Until this day, I was completely oblivious to the under ground world of ticket selling that takes place INSIDE the stadium. People are walking, looking straight ahead, yet still asking, "Tickets? Tickets?" I was amazed. Unfortunately, nothing was offered that suited our needs... until exactly 30 seconds after the boys bought tickets and the girls decided we were going home. It was insane, the timing. After all the effort, Anneli and I turned around and walked out of Dodger stadium with my still half-naked baby without seeing a single pitch while the boys watched Barry Bonds have another hitless night. Just one of those nights...

Here we are right before we went our separate ways... outside of the Stadium! So sad!

Witnesses to History... almost!

Yosh and Dallin were determined to be at the ball park when Barry Bonds hit the record-breaking homerun. They got suited up in their Dodger gear and went to the stadium to wait and witness. Barry Bonds got up to bat several times (I think three times). Each time the stadium roared to life- even though a lot of the noise was the crowd booing Barry Bonds- hoping that, despite the overall dislike they felt towards Bonds, they would be there when history was made. Unfortunately, last night was not the night. I know Yosh is still dying to get tickets to tonight's game- we'll see if it happens. The attitude out hear seems to be that he has no interest in breaking the record here in LA due to the rivalry. Who knows. You just have to ready. You never know when history is going to be made...