Animals & Music...

These are two of my favorite things are quickly becoming Lydia's favorites as well...like mother, like daughter I guess. Last Thursday, Lynette and I took the girls' to Thanksgiving Point to see all the animals there. We decided to get year passes to TP to give the girls' stuff to do this summer. Lydia loved petting the animals and feeding the horse.

Lydia got to go on her very first pony ride. A lot of times, she isn't very expressive so you can't tell if she's having a good time or not. When the ride was over she wanted to get back on, so I guess that's a sign that she enjoyed herself :)
So we look forward to many more days to spend at TP this year.

Ahhh, music; one of the reasons I love life so much. I can't get enough of it and Lydia has definitely followed in my footsteps. I'm practicing a classical piece to play at my sister-in-law's wedding next week so I always have my flute out ready to practice whenever I can. I came downstairs one day to find my precious little girl trying to be like mommy. She sees me and says, "I play the flute." Yes you are sweetie. I love that girl.

And today, thanks to the prompting of my friend Janell, I got to sing in the stake choir for Stake Conference this afternoon. They prefered us to stay on the stand the whole two hours instead of bouncing back and forth and can I just say how different it is sitting without having to entertain children and not being able to talk to your neighbor for that long. It was amazing the spirit that I felt. Our first song was a beautiful arrangement of "I Stand All Amazed" and toward the end, the conductor started crying and of course I had to lip sync the last few bars because I always cry when others do. I felt the spirit so strong and for the rest of the meeting that spirit stayed with me and I was uplifted. Our last number was "This is the Christ" and of course I had to keep it together and not cry so I would stay in tune. But reading the words as I was singing them just reaffirmed the testimony that I have of Christ. He is my Savior and I know that He died for me. What a great example of love He is and I can only hope that I will be able to raise my children to know of the importance of this gospel and of their elder brother, Jesus Christ.

"I read His words, the words He prayed

While bearing sorrow in Gethsemane;

I feel His love, the price He paid

How many drops of blood were spilled for me?

With saints of old in jouyful cry, I too can testify:

This is the Christ;

This is the Christ, the holy Son of God,

Our Savior, Lord, Redeemer of mankind

This is the Christ, the healer of our souls

Who ransomed us with love divine."

A Bit of News...

Well, we've decided to add another member to our family. I am prego with baby #2. Jake and I are very excited. We've announced it to the families, sent out lots of emails, made some calls, posted it on facebook, so all that was left was writing a post about it on the blog (thanks for the reminder Ducka! Please make a comment for the 4th time :).

Anyway, at this point I am about 9 1/2 weeks along, due date November 23rd and I'm feeling great. It's funny because I imagined this pregnancy being horrible. I was so sick with Lydia so I was NOT looking forward to being pregnant again with good reason. But so far I feel wonderful (knock on wood). With Lyd's I was sick every day (throwing up 4-6 times a day) from 6 weeks all the way to 20 weeks; it was the worst. Well, I'm about 10 weeks and I've only been a tiny bit nauseated and that's only when I'm driving in the car. So I feel really lucky because I'm sure if I was going to get sick, it would've happened by now. I'm just really tired so I'm taking full advantage of only having one kid by going to bed at 10pm and getting up when Lydia does between 8:30-9:30am. That's some good sleep right there.

Lydia is going to be a great big sister. She adores babies and can't get enough of Izabel and Timothy when she's around them so I'm excited to see how she acts towards her own little brother or sister.

She doesn't quite understand what's going on yet, but she will by the time the baby gets here; she turns three mid October. When I told her there was a baby in my belly, Lydia's response was (she lifts up her shirt and points to her belly), "There's a baby in my belly too, huh?"

Uh, not quite.

Anyway, I will of course update my blog with all the happenings of the babe in my belly.

So until then...

Oh wait, one more thing (Debbie reminded me)...I can't believe I'm having another baby during football season. Jake has already told me I absolutely cannot have the baby on November 28th because that's the beloved Utah-byU game. Oh boy...here we go again :/ When will I learn my lesson?

Easter 2009

We had a fun Easter this year. Lydia got to participate in 3 Easter egg hunts so I think we're good on candy til Halloween. On Saturday, we went with some friends' to the Dinosaur Park up north for our first Easter egg hunt. They had some pretty cool things to look at while we waited for the hunt to start.

Here's Lyd's, Madelyn and Lincoln checking something out.

Daddy touched the dino so of course Lydia had to touch it too but she yanked on it and the whole thing started shaking. Can you imagine if...I don't even want to think about it. But I'm sure those things are made VERY sturdy, right?!
Let the hunt begin...

Later that night, we colored eggs with the Watts. I was surprised how much the girls got into it.

Sunday morning Lydia woke up to a full basket and another egg hunt to begin. And thank you so much for the Bunny pj's. Lydia loves wearing them.

It was so cute to see how much Lydia loved searching for the eggs and looking through her basket to see what the Easter Bunny had brought her. She smiled and laughed all morning and didn't stop all day. I loved it.

Here's Lyd's in her 2009 Easter dress. I bought it a tad too big (not on purpose, they just didn't have her size and I couldn't part with it) so hopefully she can wear this dress next summer and the summer after that too :)

On Sunday evening we went to Jake's parents house for our last Easter egg hunt and a yummy dinner. The crowd was small this year.

We had a great weekend. Jake and I couldn't get enough of Lydia. We were constantly laughing at all the funny things she said. She's really starting to become her own little person with her own personality. She's speaking some very long sentences now and we love the cute things she is saying. She was so good all weekend and so happy (it could have been all the sugar but who cares)!!! We loved it. I forgot our annual Easter family picture though, darn it. Oh well, at least I got Lydia in her to die for dress!!!

And the Winner of the NCAA tourney is...

ME!!!

After 8 years of disappointment, I finally won the pool that Jake does every year and came in 1st place. In our family this is a huge event. We always have over 100 people enter and Jake has come up with a clever points system and at the end of every round he writes notes and emails them to everyone in the pool to keep them updated and let them know what place they are in. Well, this year was finally my year. I started off bad but redeemed myself and came up with the win. As Jake was looking back at my past placements in the other tourney's of years past, he noticed that I've always done pretty well. In the past 8 tournaments I've done, 4 of the 8 of those I finished in the top 12 and I also finished in the top 25 in three other years. So it was definitely my year to win...I got about 400 buckaroos! I donated $50 to the charity of my choice, but the rest is ALL for me (and Lydia of course, we like to shop)!

I owe my win to good ol' Roy Williams and the tarheels for pulling through for me and killing it in the tournament!

Below are Jake's final notes of the competition. He always writes the funniest stuff. It's worth entering just to get his weekly emails. Love you Hun!!!

Notes
Congrats to Erin Johnsen for winning her first NCAA Tournament Pool Challenge.... Next years Final Four should be Kansas, Syracuse , UCLA and Utah… The horses rear end award goes to Larisa Edwards, congrats on getting the most wrong, please play every year.….. 4 of our last 5 winners have been girls, not that there is anything wrong with that. …. Congrats to byU for once again going another year without a tournament win. We’re going on 17 years now. In fact byU has the most tournament appearances in the NCAA without EVER making the Final Four…….Thanks once again to everyone who paid and played, see you next year.

Winners Bio
Erin Elizabeth Johnsen. Not only is she smokin' hot but shes got a brain on her too. Growing up in the rolling plains of Kansas, Erin developed a love for college hoops. Living in the shadows of Phog Allen Field House and the legendary Kansas Jayhawks EJ has always known good hoops. After years of competing and coming close in this very tournament pool Erin finally channeled her inner Wilt Chamberlain and got her hoops mojo on. When asked what she planned to do wth her winnings EJ quipped “whatever I do, you aint gettin any” That’s why I love her! Congrats EJ

Our Visit to Kansas

Last week, Lydia and I flew out to KS to visit the family again. We usually don't go too long between visits. Lydia just grows so fast that I try and get her out there a couple times a year. Our first day there my mom had to work so Lyd's and I just hung out at home. Because we were in Kansas, Lydia missed her Joy school class so we had a little class of our own and learned about the letter F. Here is one of Lydia's pieces of artwork! While in KC, we did A LOT of shopping. We went to the Legends and Lydia just fell in love with the Old Navy dog. She didn't want to leave the store. She kept hugging him and telling him good bye when we had to leave. So cute. Lydia taking a rest with Grandma Frandsen. They had a really cool dinosaur cafe. We didn't eat there, we just took pics.
See, lots of shopping!
On Sunday the 29th we celebrated my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. We went to dinner at the Corner Cafe...my grandpa's favorite.
My cousin Scott, Stephanie and Rylan.
My brother David, Nora, Levi and Cabot.
My amazing grandparents RG and Betty Seymour cutting the cake.
My family is pretty small. This is almost everyone (and I mean everyone...aunts, cousins, etc...)
On Monday we went to the KC zoo. I'm not a huge zoo fan due to the tiny cages these poor animals are forced to live in. But I have to say, this zoo was AMAZING. I was blown away. I haven't been since I was a kid. If you've ever been to the Wildlife Animal Park in San Diego, it reminded me of that. They have a new section, Africa, and it's just a big open area where the animals run wild. Well, there are fences separating the cheetahs from the zebras, but they have huge areas to run around in. I LOVED it!!!!

The proud G-ma with all of her grand kids.
Cute little Cabot, my nephew.
Nora and Levi on the Carousel.
We also went to Auntie Becky and Uncle Bob's house. Lydia loved feeding Mattie and Mac doggie treats
and feeding the birdie crackers! I tried to get her on Great Uncle Bob's Harley but I think she was too scared to be that close to a motorcycle after the months of me telling her that cars (and other vehicles) can really hurt you if you get too close. Whoops! I guess I hammered that info a little too hard. If you didn't know, Lyd's is obsessed with motorcycles so I was excited for her to sit on one, but she just couldn't handle it :)
On Wednesday Great Aunt Becky took us to Oak Park Mall (my old stomping grounds in high school) to meet the Easter Bunny. As soon as she saw him, she went nuts and wanted to go up to him immediately. I thought she'd be a little leery (like with Santa) but she wasn't. When it was her turn to meet him, she walked up to his lap and sat right on it and started touching his face and giving him a high 5. I loved seeing that. She didn't want to leave him. When she got off his lap she waved good-bye until he was no longer in her line of sight. Some of you may know, her favorite toy is her bunny, so I think that helped her instant connection with the Easter Bunny.

Once again we had to ride yet another carousel and once again, she loved it.

When she got off, she found another one of her favorite things, cars to play on.
Here is our 4 generation picture. We take one every time we're together.
Here's Lyd's with her Great Auntie Becky. Thanks Auntie for all you did for us. We had a great time. Thanks for lunch and for making a lot of time for us this trip. You truly are the best and we love you.
The night before we left KS, we spent the evening with my brother and his fam. Lydia just loves babies and really enjoyed holding her little baby cousin Cabot.
And here's how Lydia looked most of the long car rides we went on. She loved to sleep, snuggling with her little Bunny! Thanks mom for all you did for us on this trip. You're the best and we love you so much. I couldn't ask for a better mama!!!

There was only one bad thing about this trip...here's the story:

My mom took us to the airport on April 2nd and we check in and the flight was 15 minutes behind schedule. Ok, that's fine. We said our good-bye's and we loaded on the plane after our short wait. The flight attendants did their whole safety talk and as we we're getting ready to pull away from the gate, the captain came on and said that he was sorry but Air Traffic Control stopped our flight and we're going to have a 3 1/2 hour wait.

WHAT???!!!!!

So they approve us to get back off the plane and they explain that ATC lets 150 planes land per hour at Dallas but they're only allowing 30 per hour due to VERY strong winds. I couldn't believe it. 3 1/2 hours? Are you kidding me? They, of course cancelled my connecting flight and the only flight that was left that day was a 9:30pm flight that flew into SLC at 11:30pm (at this point, it's about 11am...uh, that's a 12 hour flight day. No thanks). They had a 6pm flight out of Dallas but it was WAY overbooked. I just started crying because I was so stressed with Lydia. Most of you don't believe me, but she can really be a terror. At two points in our wait at the KC airport, she screamed bloody murder due to me not letting her do something she wanted; in front of everyone.

How embarrassing.

So after 2 1/2 hours and almost pulling my hair out because Lydia was being such a B.R.A.T. we loaded back on the plane. We landed in Dallas and just waited. I was put on the wait list for the 6pm flight but knew it was pretty much the longest shot ever! We got to Dallas at 3pm so we knew we had another 3 hour wait. UGGHHH! Fortunately, Lydia was pretty well behaved. At 5pm I went to the 6pm flight counter and looked at the standby list. There were literally 61 people on that list due to flights that were cancelled all over the country that were flying into Dallas. My hopes of getting on that flight were dashed.

At 530pm I noticed that my name wasn't on the standby list. Oh Crap!!! I went to the counter once again and asked why my name wasn't there. She looked Lyd's and I up and she said, "Well, I'm not sure how, but someone is looking out for you. You're confirmed on this flight." Oh my gosh!!! Thank Goodness. It's a miracle! I was put on the wait list in Kansas City but hadn't heard anything since, but I wasn't asking questions. I was just grateful I didn't have to wait 3 1/2 more hours for the 9:30 flight. So instead of landing in SLC at 4pm on my original flight, we flew into SLC at 9pm. That's a 5 hour wait in total. That made for a VERY long day. But I can't complain much. At least we made it home in one piece and Lydia was an angel on every flight she was one to and from KC. I just hope that never happens again.

When we got home from our trip Daddy surprised us by getting Lydia a trampoline. One of Lydia's most favorite things to do is jump on trampolines. We tried not to let her see it outside because she couldn't jump on it due to the horrible weather (rain and snow). But she was looking out the window the day after we got home and she got all excited, turned and looked at me and said, "That's MY trampoline!!!" She was so happy. So what do you do? Let her jump in the rain I guess. She loved every second of it. Thanks daddy for the great gift!