Happy New Year from Sophie

Happy New Year!!

(Sorry it's side ways...I'm not to good with posting videos on here, so I don't know how to fix it)

Our Christmas Week

We had such a great week celebrating Christmas and remembering the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. What a wonderful spirit Christmas brings, and we pray that we will be able to carry that same spirit with us for the whole year.

On Sunday we decided to decorate our gingerbread house. Going with the store bought one....so much easier, not as creative but SOOOO much easier. Sophie had a blast and had one heck of a sugar rush by the end.

Monday, for family home evening, we made approximately 10 dozen cookies and drove around to distribute them to friends and neighbors. (That's when Sophie played Santa--see below)

On Christmas eve, we did something I don't EVER recommend. We went to the mall!! And we didn't go to our tiny little mall in town, oh no, we drove to Mobile to go to a bigger mall. I know we are mentally insane, but we were determined to get Sophie's picture taken with Santa. Of course she absolutely refused to smile. But I guess that's part of the charm. We did have some fun while we were there though. Jon and Sophie rode the carousel, and than Sophie and I rode on this little train ride they had set up.

Christmas like always was a blur. We started our Christmas like always, with us reading the birth of Christ. But after that it's just one big haze. Later in the afternoon we went to our friend's Kari and Andrews to go play games with a couple of other families. We had so much fun and ate WAY to much food. Thank goodness the Larsen New Year's resolution is to get healthy.

I pray you all had a wonderful and safe Christmas and we wish you all the best in the New Year!

Luckily, she only ate about half the candy. Somehow she still managed to go to bed at her normal bed time.

How beautiful is she?!?!?!?! Thank goodness she gets her looks from her daddy.

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful little girl!

Santa in training.

Check out that face. Sophie you are supposed to be happy when you see Santa. (This was the best out of about 6 or 7 pics taken)

Twas the night before Christmas

Looks like Sophie was a good girl, and Santa was able to find our new house. Ho, Ho, Ho...Merry Christmas!!!!

Sophie checking out her stocking. As soon as she saw it she just yelled "Elmo" and took off running to get it.

Like Father like Daughter. Jon is absolutely determined to get her playing the guitar as soon as possible. Like yesterday would be perfect.

Sophie is showing off her new Wisconsin Badger sweatshirt and her rocking horse. My dad got us all Wisconsin sweatshirts.

What this season is really about

A family friend emailed me this today, and it was just to good not to share. I hope it touches you as much as it touched me.

http://www.simpletruths.com/simpletruths/a.aspx?af=219&mo=stsr

Happy Anniversary to US!!

I can't believe that 5 years ago I had the priviledge of marrying such a wonderful man. We have definitely had our fair share of ups and downs but one thing has always remained a constant and that is our unwavering love and respect for each other. I am so thankful that we found our way to each other and through that love we found our way to the Lord. Now, we have been blessed to become an eternal family and know that we will have the opportunity to live as husband and wife for all eternity.

So, here's the funny part of our anniversary. We thought we'd spend it in TRUE Larsen style..... with the cops. No, we didn't do anything, but someone decided to break into our truck and steal our GPS and some cash. Apparently, someone broke into at least 5 different vehicles in our neighborhood. I guess we will always remember this one.

To cute to handle

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

We continued one of our Christmas traditions this year and decorated our tree and home the day after Thanksgiving. We both love the holiday season and couldn't wait to get it all out. Hopefully, we won't continue our other tradition we have followed the last two years of going to the E.R.

Ahhhh...Mommy in training

Love of Wood

They say that women look to marry a man like their own father, but I had no idea that Jon would have this similarity to my dad. Now, that we have a shed to work in Jon has found a new love for restoring furniture. Which happened to be what my dad did for a business for 20+ years.

Before

During

After

We love cheap

For a Family Home Evening a few weeks ago, we decided to make some cheap Christmas decorations. We had gone to our local park earlier that day, and there were pine cones everywhere. So, we picked up a bunch and decided we were going to decorate them to make a center piece for our dining room table.

Momma says "No Touch!"

Sorry, I haven't posted anything in awhile. I learned some really good information a few weeks ago. 20 month olds should never, and I do mean NEVER touch your laptop. I was in the kitchen making dinner and Sophie got onto the computer and in a matter of seconds managed to remove the part that works your wireless router from the harddrive. She did such a good job uninstalling it that the we weren't able to reinstall the driver. Which leads to why I haven't posted lately. We had to send the computer to HP to have them fix it. So Sophie, Momma says "No Touch!!!"

This is where my heart is...

BEE-autiful day

Happy Halloween!!!!!

Trunk or Treat.....or NOT!

To make my husband proud/happy I decided to decorate our truck for the ward Trunk or Treat. I'm not usually the Halloween decorator in the family but I actually really got into and had a blast. I finished the truck, got everything ready for Sophie's costume and headed to Wal-mart for some last minute items. (candy, etc.) I got back out to the truck running right on schedule when to my surprise the Durango wouldn't start. I take a deep breath and try it again...still nothing. And than I think, ok this is not a big deal I'll find someone with jumper cables and we'll get this started and I can still make it to church on time. Well, after trying to jump it with 3 different vehicles, I started to panic. Luckily, I was able to get a ride to church so that I could still go to the party, but all my hard work on the truck to decorate it was all for nothing. I did however take some pictures before I went to Wal-mart so I thought at least I would share them with all of you, since no one else had the pleasure of seeing it.

Oh, just in case you were wondering. Jon was finally able to fix the truck. Luckily, it was only a bad battery. Also, another quick note just in case you ever own a vehicle that is a V8 to get it jumped properly, the vehicle helping you has to be a V8 also. It makes total sense now, but I never realized that before. I guess my blond is coming out again.

Fun fact

Did you know????!!!.................................. That after you carve a pumpkin, you can keep it from wilting. Or if it starts to wilt, you can put it in a tub full of water for a couple of hours and POOF it comes back to life. I know, I know I didn't believe it either. I thought it was a crazy idea of my husband's, but we tried it and it really works. In fact the pumpkins look better than they did before they were carved.

Spooky

Final product. (I did the cat and Jon did the witch--allthough he carved the spider out on mine)

For our Family Home Evening we carved pumpkins and decorated cookies (see below). We had so much fun!! Although I did realize that I am much better at carving pumpkins than I am at decorating cookies. I'll leave that to my husband in the future.

Yummy Yummy in Sophie's tummy

Isn't my husband amazing!! He did all the rolling out and cutting of the cookies. Sorry, to all of you ladies out there, I have the best!!

This is what happens when Sophie has to wait for you to cut a whole in the frosting. How dare I make my child wait? What was I thinking? LOL!!

You wanna Rock

Mom... I can do it myself

I guess I am no longer needed by my daughter, she can do it all herself. I think it's finally time to remove the changing table from her room.

Check this out

For anyone out there that is in the Primary, you have to check out this blog. http://sofiasprimaryideas.blogspot.com/ I just found it and it's FANTASTIC!!! I really wish that I had the kind of dedication that this woman has, but I am very greatful to her for doing all of this work!!

Family update

Unfortunately, I don't have any new pics to share. But, I thought I would give you a little family update and let you know what we've been up to.

First.... Sophie. She is doing fantastic!! She recently had her 18 month check up and is perfectly healthy. She is still in the 95% for height and has moved up to the 75% for weight. (I guess she likes food as much as her mom and dad) The amazing thing is that she is in these brackets against normal 18 month old. Pretty impressive for an 8 week early preemie. She has been working with a therapist once a week to help her with her speech and fortunately (or maybe unfortunately depending on how you look at it) it's really helping her. She now says "Mama", "dada" and "hi". She barks, signs "please" and "more" and tries to say "open" and "up". And anything that start with a "b" she will say the "buh" sound. She is making progress....slowly but surely.

Now, for Jon and I. We've embarked on something really exciting. We have decided to be foster parents. So, today we completed the 2 day training that we needed to receive our license to foster/adopt. This is however just the beginning of the process. We still have to have a background check done (cross your fingers guys so I can pass this....J/k), and we also have to have a ridiculously long, intense home study. But, if all goes perfectly we should have a child in our home in about 3 months. So, please keep us in your prayers so that everything goes smoothly.

I hope all is well with everyone out there and we miss you and love you all.

Neigh...

Sophie had her first pony ride this weekend. She wasn't so sure about it at first, but by the end she was holding on and laughing her head off. She still only knows the sound a dog makes, so she walked away from the horses barking at them.