Filling In The Gap

So.... (nothing like a classic start...feels good!) The Dr. says, "sorry, there's not much you can do." I leave his office thinking, "it must not be that bad, then." But here I am almost exactly one week from that diagnoses, feeling like things couldn't be worse. Don't you love sinus infections? Well, I don't. Believe it or not, we still managed to have some fun this week, but I was too sick to tell you all about it. But don't fret, I'm back and will trudge through, because afterall... you're worth it!
Tuesday was Camp P.A.T. (Parents as Teachers) Judah loved all the outdoor activities..indoors... well they do what they can.
Wednesday, was the end of the year party for Judah's school. They rented a moonwalk! Judah says to me, "Mommy, I'm SpongeBob," and then did this.

Your guess is as good as mine. He's recently become obsessed with Mr. Squarepants, or "Spungbob Scarepants." It was a nice last day for us all!

Thursday, I was desperate to kill time before nap time, and being sick I couldn't stand cleaning up yet another block or weeble mess. So, we went on one of our infamous speed trips to the zoo. We were there just long enough to make the clock spin around about once, and be back on our merry way to find the power of sleepiness overcoming Judah and favoring me.

Friday, Great Aunt Nancy and Uncle Reido stop by for some home cooking from their favorite nephew. Judah loves the opportunity to show off his culinary skills, so be prepared if you ever get here, because he doesn't take no for an answer.

Saturday we got the great pleasure of lovin' on our nephew, Landon, while his mommy and daddy took a much needed night off. My sister, Kari, entrusted her baby for his first overnighter with my parents, and we got to do the fun part. They got the 3am feedings and we just got to play with him.

Sunday mornings are always busy, especially on worship weeks. Judah has a small group of early risers that share in the "joy" of tagging along with mommy and daddy and eating their nutritious breakfasts out of ziplock bags!

Okay..... I think I've done it! I have mostly brought you up to speed. I owe you all much better and I know it. But today marks the first official day of our summer and I vow to bring you all sorts of great things. Just stay tuned!

Love to you ALL!

I saw the light

One good thing about all the rain we got yesterday was that the light was perfect for taking pictures.

Don't you agree?

Popsicles can evoke many emotions. Judah experienced the whole gamut during our annual Fireworks BBQ on Saturday.

Here you have Wonder

Here you witness satisfaction

This one shows the outward reaction to cold

And finally, mind-blowing joy!

We had fun. The weather was perfect and the show was great. Judah enjoyed wrapping everyone up like a burrito, and Stephanie was very kind to continue to let him.

Once the sun was down, we enjoyed a great show.

"There's fires in the sky," said Judah

Thanksgiving, Fountains, Window Washing, Surgery, and Creation

Crazy title? What do they all have in common? Let me tell you. We pride ourselves on providing a plethora of experiences. The last two days have done just that.
(Here we go, a listy blog again, hold on, I'll try and make it fun.)
Friday morning is playgroup like always, but how many of you have your Great Great Aunt come to join in the fun? Judah does. "Aunt Face" or Faye delighted us with her presence and gave Judah a chance to show off his sweet playing skills. Rice tables are always better when an Aunt is there anyway! The best part of this day was when Judah cooked an enormous meal to share with Faye and would not let them progress until they prayed. "Hold my hands," said Judah before he continued with, "Tank cu Desus for bood." Most rewarding moment of the week, he really made me think that we might have done something right. And all the credit goes to Desus, or Jesus.
Friday night, Kenton and I decided to take Judah to the River Festival and let him have a fun night out with Mommy and Daddy. Every year we give it a chance, and think that maybe it'll be different this time. Did you know that makes us literally insane? Yes, if you continue to do the same thing and expect a different result, you are by definition crazy. We'll this college grad knows that but can't recognize it in her own life. So, we trudged through the masses and found a few little pearls of fun. Judah's 2 so he's a lot easier to please. Walking in the fountains with Daddy is probably one of the best things he could imagine, so he was pleased with his Riverfest experience. We sucked up the stinky crowds and over priced heart attack food, and let ourselves go crazy again.
Besides, hotair balloons are cool enough that it makes all bad things just drift away.

Today we had two students from church come over and work for camp tuition. Sara and Perry were our rented students and they got the glamorous job of cleaning our windows. This was a job I've wanted done since we moved in two and a half years ago. And in that time it has only gotten worse!
As you can see it was a nasty mess!
They really had to force these smiles, I'm sure. But as you can see, they did a great job! Thanks girls. Poor Perry, spent her 14th Birthday cleaning our house!

As the girls were cleaning out our windows Kenton and I discovered another mess that needed attention STAT! Our darling Judah always likes to keep us on our toes, and today was no different. I thought he just had a giant boogie bothering him and causing him to dig extra hard this morning. But it was actually the bitten off end to his sippy cup straw. With much forced calmness and forced restraint, we were successful in extracting the plastic addition, but it was not pretty. Here's the scalpel and the remains....... geesh! What next?

After the house was beautiful and all our noses were dry and straw free, we took took our creative little monkey to the Art Museum for Family Artventure. Today was printmaking day and we had a blast. Kenton and I took printmaking together in college and this "kiddy" version got us all excited to be elbow deep in ink all over again. Judah's masterpieces were showstoppers and we quickly realized, we've lost a little touch with our creative sides, but he is thriving.

I think we missed the trick to being a successful printmaker, it's all in the tongue!

Love you all!

We've got this day licked!

Andy's Ice Cream Truck visited Judah's school today. He is learning quite quickly that manners will get you far. Today he held the gate for all his friends and by doing so was allowed to "go first" to chose his frozen treat. He doesn't mess around when it comes to ice cream and quickly pointed to the "monkey one." How could it get any better? Two of his most favorite things, monkeys and ice cream. He had just become the proud owner of an awesome King Kong ice cream bar. It was so fun to watch him try and handle this drippy mess. His face was stained purple for the remainder of the afternoon.

Wednesday's are always busy and I feel like all there is to do is give a list of what we did. Now, I realize that there is no need to blog every day and I'm the only one in this "family" who tends to, but when you've got great images like the one above, you can't blame me, can you?
So, with that in mind I will give you a little glimsp into the rest of our day.

We were at church early today, because Kenton filled in on the Arise band worship team. He rocked out on the drums. I was so proud of him. I always wanted to marry a rock star, I tend to forget how talented he is.

I hooked up Logan with the bag you see here. This bag was a diamond in the rough that Kenton found at one of our beloved thrift store sales. I wasn't feelin' the bag, but knew just the girl who would.... Ms. Logan. She threw her bible in it right away and toted it all night. Looks good with her eyes don't you think?

Much to our surprise and enjoyment, Reid came and stuck his nose into our night. We haven't enjoyed Reid at Arise in quite some time and everyone was so glad to see him. (I asked Kenton to hold the camera and not take dumb pics... this is what I found later, thanks to Reid too.)

Check out Maria's new do. It's not a great pic, 'cause Jamie was messin' around (Thanks a lot!) :) But isn't her hair cute?

Today, I write that and realize it's actually tomorrow by now, but either way, May 17th is Robert Eriksons birthday and he was surprised that a startled plea for help from Kenton would lead to his silly string demise. There's nothing better than waiting in a urinal stall to take pictures of this event, let me tell you, I'm so dedicated to this ministry!

Like always, the night isn't complete without some good conversation with great friends. Duane and I got to play a little dress up. I got to say it really burns me when he looks better in my things than I do!
Okay, when you find yourself dozing off during picture uploads, you know you really need to go to bed. Sorry for the funky blog. I'll do better tomorrow.
Here's a teaser, we're getting IPod Nano's tomorrow........................ until then, HANSEN OUT!

My Inspiration

Every Tuesday, The Wichita Art Museum provides a class for preschoolers called Art Start. There's only one theme per month, so you only go once during the month and today was our day! I love this activity, it's the sort of thing I would have eaten up as a child and I can only hope that Judah appreciates it.
Our walk into the museum isn't complete without a friendly stop at the buffalo sculpture.

Once we're in, Ms. Courtney, gives Judah a name tag and has us wait to go into the gallery until all the kids have arrived.

The children are lead to a particular artwork and they discuss what they see. Today's piece was Faith Ringgold's, Sunflower Quilting Bee. When Ms. Courtney asked about what we knew about sunflowers, Judah chimed in, "eat them." Not what she was going for, but he was completely right! We followed the discussion with the normal protocol, a book. Today was, S is for Sunflower, A Kansas Alphabet. It's always humbling when I learn a lot from these stories. I was amazed about all the little facts this kid's book included that I didn't know. Did you know Langston Hughes lived in Kansas?..... Well, Judah does and his "grown up" mom didn't.

When we got to "Y" for the yellow brick road, Judah knew quickly that the answer to, "Who is this?," was "Dorty." It was great being able to have this time with him,but my favorite part of the lesson is when we get to go down in to the studio and let the kids create their own masterpieces.

Appropriately, today they made sunflowers. After the gluing and placement was complete, the instructions were to make fingerprints out of black and brown paint. This was to create the effect of sunflowers. Judah is such an individual, and a budding impressionist. He took his own interpretation of seeds and had a messy blast!

I wish I was more like him at times! He's not afraid to do his own thing!

Love to all!

Our Jam Packed Weekend

While it may not be exciting, the Hansen lifestyle is always busy! Here's a quick run down of our past 48 hours. So, Kenton couldn't contain his excitement about my mother's day gift and handed me the beautiful package you see above on Saturday afternoon. I opened it up and was shocked to find a new camera!
Kenton knew I didn't like carrying around my big and bulky camera, when holding Judah's hand is typically more than I can manage. So he found me this sweet pocket size FUJI, that I love! FUJI is my favorite! (FUJI is to Lacy as Apple is to Ty) Kenton knew that I would enjoy using my gift throughout our busy weekend and he was right on for giving it to me prematurely.
As soon as the all
the proper memory cards and accessories were purchased, we were off to Judah's school carnival. It was just enough fun for Judah and just boring enough for us that one loop around the games and an amazing feet of courage on the inflatable (courage on mine and Judah's part) was sufficient.

We checked in at our Chipotle for lunch. I say ours because it is just that. We frequent this place so often, that they won't let us pay for Judah. They say he's too cute for them to charge. If one of us goes without Judah, the first question we hear when walking in is, "where's the baby?" (I realize what we ate for lunch is just extra info, but come on I got a new camera, I had to snap every shot possible!)
Quickly, we retreated home to get fast to work on the mother's day gifts. Seeing as, between us we have three mothers, six grandmothers, and one amazing Great Aunt Faye, we had some serious work to do. Judah was on the job of coloring cups and placing stickers on them to give a more personal feel to the flowers we gave to everyone.
While he was working and I was taking way too many pictures, I snapped this one and my heart stopped. Look at how amazingly beautiful our son is. I'll just let you all pause and marvel in the cuteness that is Judah..................... go ahead take your time......... really let it soak in............................ one more minute......................................
OKAY! It's time to move on. Well, maybe just one more look, alright!
Judah was pooped and probably poopy for that matter and he crashed very early on Saturday night. I got a chance to hang out with adults. Not just adults, but girl adults. I think that makes them women.
Maria Marshall, Jamie Berryman, and I went and spent our husbands money and had a blast! Kenton got a great night too, he had a sleeping kid and no wife to say, "will you please turn Halo off and come talk about your feelings with me?" So, all in all it was an enjoyable time for everyone.

THEN COMES TODAY! Ever have a day that makes you feel like this?............

Well, when your entire family lives in this city, you find that these holidays can keep you on the run. So, here we go!

We headed to church where I met up with my mom and we exchanged love and flowers. Then we were off to the east side to wish Carla or "Nana" and Grandma Thelma a happy mother's day. Joining us later was the matriarch of the Hansen family, Great Aunt Faye, or as Judah says, "Aunt Face." With many goodbyes to all of our family, we were back off to the south side to greet Grandma Pearl with some flowers. We came at he wrong time and she was napping in her nursing home room. So, Kenton insisted we snap a pic of snoozing Pearl. She would hate this, but it was our day, so we'll include it.

Then off again to the far west side to meet up with Kenton's mother or "MeMe." We managed another quick stop out west to pick up a gift from my parents. (Thanks for the tomato plant and herb garden, I love it!) and let Judah eat his favorite treat that his Mr. Randy picked up, a fruit and yogurt parfait, or "barfay" as he calls it.

We continued back east with home in mind, stopped at Grandma Carlile's house, she was gone so we left some flowers and kept pressing on. Our last stop was in sight. My best friend Lindsay just gained the keys to her very first apartment and tomorrow is her 24th birthday. So we double dutied it and wished her a happy birthday and peeked at her sweet new pad. Judah was stoked to see the pool from her balcony!

We said our goodbyes and got into the car and knew that this day was done. We had survived this joyus, and busy, Mother's Day 2006.

OKAY, if you went through all that, you are truly our friends. I promise, I'll slow down on the pictures, but my camera is so cool, you couldn't have stopped either!

Happy Mother's Day to All and to All a Goodnight!