Christmas Time

Those there are some changes happening at the Torgersen house. First off, we got our Christmas tree on the 1st so we'd have ample time to enjoy it.

I love our fireplace. Now I just want to find some free firewood before the 24th.

We had great helpers with the decorating this year.

The finished tree, beautiful!

The next change is the girls decided they liked some bows I bought for them, so we started looking for some more and found a blog about how to do cute hair. We all love it! In the mornings, the girls get online and choose what style they want, then I try and copy it. Here's Bex with the braid flower:

And Emily with our own take on the criss-cross braids. They look so cute, and it's worth the extra time it takes to get ready in the mornings.

Kaleb made a reindeer head and painted a Christmas tree at Kindergarten. I think everyone should have a picture like this from Kindergarten.

Bex finished her first round of meetings with her new troop. Here are some of the 17 girls that are in her troop. It's huge, but luckily she has 3 great leaders!

She was able to earn a few awards, and a necklace by setting goals and reaching them. Way to go Bex!

She also had a part in the skit and did a great job. Everyone could hear her, and she had fun.

Last week, we all stayed in a hotel in San Diego since Blake and I had a dinner there for the Land Surveying Association. Blake had to go to work the next day, but the kids and I spent the afternoon at Balboa Park. We had so much fun, including a picnic lunch, and the natural history museum.

There were different scenes from Jesus' life set up outside. We loved this one with the children.

This is inside the museum. We spent hours here checking out the exhibits, and watching a 3-D movie about mummies.

Check out the video to see how exciting it was to watch the pendulum.



After we were done at the museum, we took a ride on the free trolley around the park.

I bought each of the kids 2 animals from the gift shop, since they were 50 cents a piece. I regretted that decision shortly after leaving the museum when both Emily and Kaleb thought they lost theirs. Luckily they were found buried deep in their pockets.

I had fun taking pictures of the kids by the pillars. I kept trying, but Becky is the one that finally got Emily to have a real smile. She doesn't like showing her braces, although she had Christmas colors right now.

She is a natural at pictures, and kept coming up with great poses.

Beautiful Becky enjoying nature. She is such a great person.

Kaleb is full of energy and fun. I'm glad he stopped long enough for me to take this great picture.

The day after Balboa I helped in both Emily and Kaleb's classes while they made gingerbread houses. They should be called graham cracker houses, and the teachers used milk cartons for the frames of the house, which gives them so much more stability. It was lots of fun, and made the classroom smell like a candy store.

I love Kindergarten, where you don't think twice about who you're sitting by, and if they are the same gender as you.

And, amazingly the houses made it home. I'm glad I took this picture of Kaleb's since his was pretty much eaten by the time Blake got home from work.

Emily's still looks exactly like this. I don't know where she gets her patience from, cause mine would be like Kaleb's: gone. I think she's saving it for Christmas.

So the changes we've had so far this month have all been for the better. I hope it continues that way as we head into a new year. I'm excited for the future. That's a good place to be.

More pictures

My mom just emailed me these pictures that I wanted to share.

We love you Mom!

I was freezing, and my chin was cold, while Blake was hiking around without a jacket. Pretty funny.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had such a fun trip to Utah for Thanksgiving. We stayed at Tom and Dianna's which was a ton of fun. Emily was super excited that they still had a little snow in their yard. Here she is playing with her polar bear in the snow. The snow was very hard and frozen, but she still had fun.

Tuesday morning we went on a walk up the canyon with my mom, Kirsten, and Shaunalei and her kids. As you can see it was very cold. Emily was doing the double hood thing for a while until it warmed up.

I love this picture of Kaleb and Peter racing up the trail. They had a blast together.

As Kaleb warmed up, his hat got higher and higher on his head. Too funny. He found this stick that looked like a snake.

Here is most of the group heading up the trail. Emily had a good visit with Grandma Becky as they hiked. Emily also learned an important lesson later in the day when she and her hiking buddy (Ashleigh) decided to come down the mountain on different trails. Ashleigh got lost for a few minutes, until Blake went and found her. Emily was worried, and had a good lesson about sticking with your buddy. I was really glad Blake was with us on the hike. Ashleigh was smart though, and once she realized she was lost, she stayed in one place and yelled for help.

This is the after Thanksgiving meal nap. You know your comfortable with everyone when you don't mind falling asleep on the floor. Cami didn't like me sleeping and not reading to her, so Dianna got her a pillow and I read her to sleep. It was sweet.

We hardly saw Kaleb all week since he was having a blast playing with Sam. They are such good friends, and had fun no matter what they were doing.

All the yummy pies! Luckily we had a soup and pie night the night before Thanksgiving, so we could actually enjoy the pies before we were too full to eat them. There was cherry, lemon meringue, cherry-lemon meringue that actually was really good, pecan and berry tarts, key lime and apple. Yum!

I didn't get any pictures of what we did the most, which was stay up late playing games. I don't think we went to bed before midnight any night, except maybe our last night there. We also had a book club with my family where Julie's family came down, and we had fun playing then too. Bex had a great time with her nieces and nephews. They loved having her spin them around, and just play with them. This is a picture of her holding Cami.

Instead of spending Friday shopping, we took the kids out on the 4-wheelers. It had warmed up by then, and we had a great time. Bex and Emily love driving them. It makes me nervous, but since one of us is always riding with them, it wasn't too bad. They really did a good job. Such a fun week. I can't wait until next year when everyone will be coming here. Since it would be pretty crowded with 20 people here, we're all going to be staying at some condos at the Lawrence Welk resort. That means we'll have access to 4 kitchens and we'll probably be doing a progressive Thanksgiving dinner. I think it sounds awesome!

Pet Foster Family

We have been having quite the adventure at the Torgersen house these last 2 months. We became foster parents for the humane society. First we had 2 kittens. They were already close to adoption age, so I didn't think we'd have them that long, but after they both got sick, we ended up having them for a month and a half. I told the kids we weren't going to get any more animals until after the New Year, since we will be going to Utah for Thanksgiving and then again for New Year's. Well, we got a call from the humane society last Wednesday and they needed a home for 3 puppies just for a week. The timing worked out great since we don't leave for Utah until Saturday. Plus we thought it would be a good introduction to puppies without the long time committment. I think I prefer puppies over kittens. You at least get more of a reward for all your work with puppies. Through this experience I think we all agree that we are definitely not ready for a full-time pet, so fostering is the way to go for us. I'm looking forward to that long break though. It's a ton of work. At least they're cute, and the kids love them!