Kara's 29th Birthday

I had a great birthday and Valentines. Friday (my birthday) we went to Cocoks with Bill and Lisa Cox (are wonderful friends). Cocoks is a nail salon. The boys joined Lisa and me. For great laughs the boys got their toes done as well. We had a really fun time and enjoyed our excellent pedicures. We went to dinner at CocoIchibanya afterward (because the Cox's hadn't been there before). It was delicious as always. We all ordered pretty much the same thing. Chicken cutlet curry. Jay level 4 spicy, Bill level 2 and Lisa and I got level 1 (we like to be able to have taste buds after we eat. We got the all-famous naan bread and mango lassi (mango milk). We then headed back to the house to open presents and have cake and ice cream. I got to open one present right before we went to Cocoks, my new camera. It's a really nice Nikon D5000 camera and opening it was bittersweet. It was like, "Whoa! This is way too expensive" and "Wow! What a sweet camera." I definitely need to study the manual that came with it to figure out how to take great pictures. The next gift was a really cute birthday kokeshi doll. It is so beautiful and fits in perfectly with my Japanese/Okinawan souvenir collection. Then I opened my Cricut Expressions. I'm excited to use it. It is a cutting machine that does pictures and letters. I'm especially excited to cutout vinyl lettering. I forgot to mention that Jay gave me a gorgeous orchid plant earlier in the day. It is so beautiful. I don't have much of a green thumb and I know that they are sensitive so I'm hoping I can keep it alive. Hopefully my online research helps. This birthday I was way too spoiled. We may need to make next year's a little less extravagant or the next many years to come. Next everyone sang to me and my cake looked like it was on fire. Lisa made a delicious red velvet cake. You can tell Tatum enjoyed it. We then played Settlers of Catan. We love games and this is probably our favorite. We love playing it with Bill and Lisa. It's a great time. Thanks to my sweet honey for the fun birthday and my kiddos for celebrating with me. Thanks to the Cox family for sharing this special day. (The Cox's have 4 kids. Their 2 boys somehow eluded any pictures that were taken.)

Tatum update

I haven't taken many pictures lately so I'm just posting a few recent ones. I need to be better about taking pictures.

Tatum is such a little ham. I love when she gets dressed up and talks about her makeup. She loves pretty much anything that is girly.

Here's our little sweetheart putting away the utensils. She enjoys it and states what item it is she is putting away. Not only is she helping me out, she is learning how to categorize.

Yesterday she vacuumed the living room for me and did a good job. Once they are able, I let them try any job they want and if they can do it pretty well it can be added to their list of jobs.

If Tatum hears me open the dishwasher, she is running in the kitchen to help. She hands me the dishes and does it so fast. I have to be able to keep up with her so something doesn't get thrown to me on accident. She is the same with the laundry. Loves to load the dryer and push the start button. This probably won't last too long but I might as well teach them while their young and find joy in it.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009

Christmas Eve

We had a nice Christmas Eve. We ordered pizza and watched, "A Christmas Story". Then we watched "The King is Born" and read Luke 2 and talked about the birth of Christ. Then each of us wrote on a piece of paper what gift we were giving to Christ this year and put the paper in our special Christmas box. Next we opened our PJs.

Tayson and Tatum look so cute in their little Asian PJs. I couldn't pass these up. You have to have ninja PJs if you live in Japan right?

We ended up just getting regular PJs for us because the fancy Asian ones were like $40 for adults. But we look cute and comfy any ways.

Here's Jay helping the kiddos sprinkle reindeer food (oats with glitter) out. They really enjoyed this.

Here is the Lego table that we built. It's holding only a third of the legos that Tayson possesses. These are the legos that Grandma and Grandpa Barney sent that belonged to Jay and his brother David when they were little. Tayson loves it.

Christmas morning. I don't know about you, but pictures never do Christmas trees justice in my opinion.

This is us after sprinkling reindeer food.

Tatum is surprised by all these presents

The kiddos opening their gifts to each other.

I love this. It even has little tags that hang from it that say where we've been stationed and extra ones for the future.

Tatum was super excited about her makeup sets. One of her very favorite gifts was a plastic lipstick.

I'm so glad Tayson likes to get clothes.

I love this perfume and have worn it for about 5 years. Jay got this for me just in time. My other one only has a few sprays left.

Jay's favorite gift (besides his socks). He has a fetish for accessories like: watches, sunglasses and belt buckles.

Tatum loves her new baby. It came with a highchair, stroller and crib and interacts with each. When in the stroller the baby says, "Let's go to the park Mommy". You get the idea.

Here is Jay and Tayson working on Tayson's new lego set. Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom. They were there for quite a while, so Tatum and I had fun with her new dress-ups.

Here she is doing a little dance.

Several times during our little fashion show she needed to stop and reapply her makeup. Funny girl.

Here is Tatum in her new Dora outfit. She was just shaking trying to get this opened and so of course she wanted to wear it that day. I don't know why we don't have a picture of Tayson's finished lego project but I'll have to take one and post it some other time.

We had such a fun Christmas spending time together and celebrating the birth of Christ.

Some Christmas fun so far.......

We got the kiddos dressed-up for church on Sunday in their new Christmas attire.

Tatum looked so cute in her little Asian dress I had to get a full length picture of it. I tried to make her hair look a little Asian too.

These two are too cute. Tayson looks so grown-up to me.

We decided to make gingerbread (graham cracker) houses (they were out of molasses at the commissary) for family home evening a couple weeks ago. We had a great time. In the end, Jay's is the only one that remained standing. The rest of ours had gone through some sort of natural disaster and about half-way through decorating decided to collapse. Tayson likes to show his off and say that it went through an earthquake.

Each year on Kadena Air Base, they have a fun Tinsel Town celebration with Santa, a parade and some fun activities for the kids.

What a goofball. Gotta love that kid. He's so much like his dad. He had to pose each time he reached the top. We were laughing pretty hard. For some reason he got an extra long turn. He either looked like he was having way too much fun and no one wanted to spoil it or they were just as entertained as we were.

Tatum could see Santa sitting in his little house while we were in line and starting saying, "No, No, No" in a very frantic voice. Needless to say, she is terrified of Santa and about had a heart attack when we tried to sit on his lap again at the Branch Christmas party a week after this. Tayson was funny. In line he kept saying that he couldn't decide between 2 lego sets that he wanted. Mind you, the elves had already started working on one of them. Once he got onto Santa's lap he totally spaced what he wanted to say and it kind of reminded me of "A Christmas Story" moment. Thankfully Mom was there for the rescue and reminded him that he wanted the Indiana Jones Temple of Doom lego set. Whew!!!!

Family pics 2009

In August we went to Utah to visit family. While we were there the family got together for pictures. It was a great time. We missed my brother, Chad and his family. But here are the rest of us!

Mom and Dad Swensen with Grandma Dott and Grandma Swensen

Mindy (sister), Erika (sister), Me, Mom, Kalli (sister), Shannon (Sister-in-law), & Jodi (sister)

Some good lookin' jeans don't you think?

The grandkids

Trever (Brother-in-law), Kendall (Brother-in-law), Kenny (Brother-in-law), Dad, Daymon (Bro.), Jordan (Brother-in-law), Mike (Bro.), Jay

Warm Fuzzies

I asked Tayson to get his room picked up before he got on the computer and he whined and went into his room to do it. He comes out after a little bit and says, "I got warm fuzzies making my room all clean; just like you said". It was so cute. We had, had a Family Home Evening Lesson a long time ago about feeling good inside when we do good things and we made little warm fuzzies to remind us what it feels like. Warm Fuzzies are made by winding yard around your hand a lot of times and then tying the middle. Then you get scissors and cut the loops on each side. It makes a soft little fuzzy ball.