City Sidewalks

(Jenn)
Amy and Dave came yesterday from CT for a little Christmas visit. We are so glad they came, because they are the closest "family" we have here! We spent the day mostly exploring the Christmas sights of the city. We had plans to go ice skating, but apparently we didn't want to skate badly enough to wait in the horrific lines we saw. Instead, we just visited the skating rinks at Bryant Park and Rockefeller Center, seeing the other sights and shops along the way. We had lunch at Cosi and then dropped Amy and Dave off at their theater for Les Misérables.

When they got home from the show, we had a nice dinner at home and then spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, singing duets, and playing games. Dave is a trooper for enduring all of our crazy reminiscing about high school, and adding what he could here and there. We really love Dave and are so glad Amy married him! We can't think of a couple we'd rather have living so close to us!

We were up until 1:00 in the morning playing Ticket to Ride, the Europe version, which was an awesome game (a gift from Ben's parents). This morning was pretty leisurely -- just talking in our pajamas for a long time before Amy and Dave left around 10:30. I'm really not ready to get back to real life. It has been so nice just to have Ben off work and home for a couple of days (it doesn't happen very often!). I have laundry waiting to be sorted and started in the bedroom, and I'm just trying to think of more things I can do instead of laundry right now. I always dread seeing the end of the holidays. I guess it's a good thing we still have this weekend at Kara's house and then New Year's Eve next week!

A Full Sleigh

(Jenn)

This was our first year having Christmas completely away from family. We definitely missed the traditions we are used to, but it was still a great Christmas for us. We had a rather calm Christmas Eve, just talking about the birth of Jesus with Henry, then singing songs and getting ready for bed. While we were asleep, Santa arrived with a pretty full sleigh!

Really, we were amazed at the stack of gifts we had this year. We're used to only having a few presents under our tree, and then going to visit family and receiving a few more gifts at each house. This year we had EVERYTHING under our tree -- lots of it was sent in packages in the mail! It took 2 full hours to open everything, party because there was so much (thanks everybody!), and partly because Henry wanted to open, play with, or read every gift before moving on to the next one. We had a great Christmas morning.

Apparently Henry was good enough for Santa this year. He ended up getting what he REALLY REALLY wanted -- train tracks! We love this table with the built-in car and train tracks. Henry has already devoted several hours to playing here. Now we just have to figure out where we're going to keep this thing!

Christmas Carols by Henry

(Jenn)
Come on . . . just watch it! It's only 4 minutes long. You should at least watch the first 30 seconds or so, just to get an idea.

Enjoy!


Carols by Henry from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Pretty Things

(Jenn)

Henry has been watching me put on makeup for a couple of days now -- he's pretty interested. Today, he coached me on what to put on next at each point in the process. He was especially excited about the "little pencil" and wanted me to put the lipliner on without delay. Here he is, a few minutes later, trying his own masterpiece with a purple pencil. I guess he knew we were going to get his pictures taken today, and he wanted to look especially handsome.

6 Things that Make Me Happy

(Jenn)

1. The sound of lots of laughing kids. This week, they were teenagers. We had a really fun Young Men/Young Women Christmas party at the church. We played the candy bar game and "Christmas Cranium." In both games, it was great to hear 15 kids laughing and having a merry time.

2. Seeing Henry's face in the rearview mirror. When we're dropping Ben off at the train station, if we time it just right, we're leaving the station just as the train pulls in. I like to peek in the mirror and catch Henry's face as he nearly shrieks with delight and yells "Train's coming!" Same reaction every time.

3. The rare moments when Henry stops running and will just sit with me. Today he sat with me on the rocking chair and we just reviewed the morning's events together. I love his sweet little voice chiming in what he remembers ("Ate fruit snacks").



4. Our advent calendar. This was a miraculous buy for our home this year (I looked ALL over for it, and one day it suddenly appeared on a shelf of Target where it hadn't been before!). It makes me happy every time I see it. The candy inside every door makes Henry and Ben happy too!



5. Our Christmas card wall. I'm proud of my ribbon-and-clothespin-invention, my own spin on a Martha Stewart idea. I also love seeing how loved we are by looking at the cards and the wonderful people they represent. Thanks for the cards everybody!

6. Our Christmas tree. Of course.

Chocolate Swirls

(Jenn) As you may know, Henry loves library books! He especially loves them when he has read them enough times to recite his favorite words from them. Usually it's just the important words at the end of each sentence ("Left foot, left foot, left foot, right. Feet in the morning, feet at . . . NIGHT!"). Today he shocked me while we were reading Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory (a real winner). The book shows how to identify each kind of chocolate by the swirls on top of them. Today, Henry piped in and recited all 7 different kinds of chocolate (fudge, caramel, marshmallow, truffle, nougat, orange fluff, and "George's favorite: banana cream"). I never realized he was listening so closely, or that he could say the words "nougat" and "truffle." I guess he pays attention when it comes to candy (I'm teaching him well)!


Untitled from Ben and Jenn on Vimeo.

Santa Pics

(Jenn) It's a miracle that we were able to get a non-screaming picture of Henry on Santa's lap this year. At the branch party, we had a Tongan Santa, and Henry was terrified of him! He ran out of the room crying and wouldn't go back into the party for the rest of the night. So this is the picture of Henry and Santa at the Moms' Club party. He hesitated, but then he sat on Santa's lap for a few seconds -- long enough to get a present from Santa and put in his order for this year: train tracks.

Here is Elder Sopu, the Tongan Santa. I don't know if Henry was more scared of Santa himself, or all the cheering and clapping that went on when Santa showed up.

Let it Snow Baby . . . Let it Reindeer

(Jenn)

My Christmas music pick of the year: Relient K's "Let it Snow Baby . . . Let it Reindeer." I must admit that I was skeptical at first when my brother Tanner gave me the CD, but I absolutely love it! It's got a lot of great Christmas favorites performed in their upbeat "pop-punk" style, and then a few amazing originals about Christ (the band is considered by some to be in the Christian rock genre). Anyway, it has been a refreshingly different-yet-not-too-different option for the Christmas music this year. Just trust me on this one. Buy it, ask me (or Tanner) for a copy of it, or at least listen to some samples (for your convenience, I've linked the Amazon page. Just click the link and then scroll down to the samples).

Enjoy!

Potty Time!

(Jenn) Henry has been seriously fascinated with the toilet recently. He loves talking about potty, watching people go potty, and putting toilet paper in the potty and flushing it. So on his birthday, I set up a potty station in his room with the potty we bought from a garage sale and a basket of books. Since then he has LOVED sitting on the potty and reading books (of course, I have to read them to him).

I was pretty sure he was just taking advantage of a chance to talk Mom into reading to him several times a day. And I was pretty sure he was probably NEVER going to actually "go potty," but on Monday he did it! It was a miracle! He actually said, "Needa go potty" instead of just "Go potty," so I was a little hopeful. Then, after a few books, I did a few water-pouring motivational tactics (I'll spare you the details), and it worked! Henry got 5 M&M's as a potty treat! Yesterday he went potty twice and was perfectly happy with only 3 M&M's. I guess I need to go buy some more. We weren't planning on potty training Henry for at least another six months or a year. I still probably won't push it, at least until the holidays are over. But for now it's kind of cool that he knows what's going on and is excited about it. If you have any suggestions or notice any grave mistakes with my method of potty training (I have no idea what I'm doing), please let me know!

Do you think it looks official?

(Jenn) Henry's been helping with Ben's grad school applications. I found him yesterday helping with the "official transcript" that Ben had all ready to mail to Duke. It's supposed to be sealed, stamped, and signed by the registrar. So cast your votes, ladies and gentlemen: do you think they'll go for this one? It looks pretty official to me.

King Henry for a Day

(Jenn) So Wednesday was Henry's birthday. He's 2 years old -- I can't believe it! He is suddenly such a big boy. Henry's already taking after me in his understanding of the importance of birthdays. He seemed to know how important he was from the minute he woke up on Wednesday. I played along and let him be a king for the day -- he got to choose everything! I tried my very hardest not to say no to him. For breakfast, he wanted his oatmeal cereal with sprinkles. Once he tasted it, he realized that it wasn't as yummy as it looked, so he wanted muffins instead. So he got to help me make pumpkin muffins. He helped with the stirring and wanted to taste all of the ingredients and lick the spoon a lot! After breakfast, Henry chose to go to the park, then play with cars and trucks, read books, sit on the potty (!), bring the ride-on truck down from the attic, go to the library, and go to the store. After Ben came home, Pat and Bernie came over for cupcakes and ice cream, and Henry got to open presents.

Of course, Henry's birthday didn't just start on the 28th. The celebrations began last Saturday with a birthday party at my mom's house while we were in Utah. It was a "Car" party, as per Henry's latest obsession. Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how much fun we had:

The racecar birthday cake (we had to hide it from Henry because he REALLY wanted to play those cars! He pulled them off immediately when we brought the cake to him for candle-blowing time!).

All of the kids got to ride in Grandpa Griffin's "yellow fancy blue car."

Grandpa was pretty excited to fire up the engine and give them all a ride. Sophie later reported, "Grandpa had a REALLY hard time driving the car because it is SO old!"

Grandpa let me try driving the car! Let's just say I didn't quite make it all the way into the garage before stalling it.

This is Henry's birthday playdate with his playgroup. We had this party the day before his birthday at our house! Everyone enjoyed licking the frosting off the cupcakes!

Utah Week

(Jenn) So technically we went to Utah for Dan's wedding, but we got to do lots of other fun things while we were there. Here are a few:




A trip to Provo to visit BYU with the kids and eat all the good Provo food we've been missing.










Fun times playing with cousins at Grandma's house (here is Henry wearing Ben's old cowboy hat, playing with Megan and Baby Seth).






A Hayride with the Iversons at the Dibble farm (brrrrrrr!).












Dinner afterward at Café Rio!







The Turkey "Bowl" with the Griffins. Henry and Ivan as a team beat me and Ben in the "couple bowling" round. 115 points!










Here's Henry with his prize money! The plan was if anyone got a turkey, they would get $50. Since that didn't happen, Grandpa Dave just doled out the prize money.






Snacktime with cousins at Grandma Lori's house. Check out her newly remodled kitchen!







We love candy cane cookies! My dad makes these nearly every other day from the day after Thanksgiving until after Christmas. A pretty yummy tradition!

Dan's Wedding

(Jenn) So Dan completed the Iverson family on Saturday, November 17th by marrying Autumn! Now all six kids in their family are married! It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful wedding in the Mt. Timpanogos temple. What an elegant bride, a charming groom, and a neat day altogether.

Our 4th Anniversary

(Jenn) Today is our 4th wedding anniversary! Can you believe it? The past four years have been marvelous and have gone by so fast. Like a good wife, I put together a little video to celebrate our anniversary. It's just a compilation of some of the best pictures from our 4th anniversary photo shoot. You'll be convinced by the pictures just why Ben and I are so attracted to each other, even after all these years.

Really, you should probably only watch this if you are really bored or tired. Just a warning before you push play!

Veterans' Day Weekend

(Jenn) Ben had work off on Monday for Veteran's Day. He has so few days off that we feel like we have to take advantage of all of these little holidays here and there! Anyway, it worked out perfectly that Amy and Dave also both had the day off on Monday, so we took a little trip to New Haven, CT.

We are SO excited to have such good friends living only 1 hour and 40 minutes away! We took the drive on Sunday after church and arrived at the Choules' house just in time for a lovely Sunday dinner. We laughed and talked and played games, and we just enjoyed being in the company of a wonderful couple in their beautiful home. I love being around Amy and Dave for two main reasons: 1) Amy makes me laugh more than any other person on this earth, so it's a blast to be around her, and 2) Amy and Dave are so madly in love with each other, being pretty recent newlyweds, that they remind me how much I love Ben and how lucky I am. They can't seem to find any fault with each other, which is a good reminder to all of us of how we should treat our spouses.

On Monday, Amy and Dave worked on getting us to fall in love with New Haven. I'd say they did a pretty good job! We took the Yale campus tour in the morning. It is a BEAUTIFUL campus, and I'm sure Ben would absolutely love going to school there next year (and I would love it too). After the Yale tour, Amy and Dave took us to see New Haven's downtown, a fun vegetarian restaurant for lunch, the part of campus where Dave goes to class (the Divinity School), and East Rock where we could see a view of the city from above. Everything about the day was beautiful, and we all imagined together how perfect it would be if Ben and I end up in CT next fall (Ben's doing applications now, and Yale is one of the 9 schools on the list). We had dinner and sang hymns together before finishing off the trip with ice cream. It really was such a beautiful time that I almost felt removed from real life and taken to a scene from Stegner's Crossing to Safety. What a blessing to have such good friends so relatively close!

Kara and Dave's Weekend

(Jenn) I'm playing blog catch-up today, so I'm going back a couple of weeks on this post. It seems like since Kara and Dave visited, I haven't even had a chance to come to the surface to catch some air! We're so busy getting ready to take another trip to Utah for Dan's wedding and Thanksgiving.

Anyway, We have been so lucky to have family only 4 hours away (on a good day with minor traffic) in Virginia. We have visited Kara and Dave and their family three times now, and it's been so nice just to have a home to go to and be with family. Last time we were there, we talked them into bringing the whole family up to visit us!

Nate had a few days out of school last weekend, so it was the perfect time for them to come. Our accommodations aren't quite as nice as theirs (our "guest room" is the living room), so for Kara, Dave, and the four kids, it was a tight squeeze! But it was so much better than having them stay in a hotel because we got to spend LOTS of time together, especially playing games and talking after the kids had gone to bed! If any of you have visited us, you know that our bedrooms are TINY, and so they really did use every inch of floor space as Nate, Jessica, and Caleb spread their sleeping bags out using the corners of Henry's bedroom floor.


We had a great time with the Ludlows. Ben and I babysat while they went to a Broadway show; we had church on Sunday and made sugar cookies with frosting; Henry and I went with them to the Statue of "Liverty" on Monday(which is what Jessica calls it); we played games at night; and we ate out at the Grand Luxe Café (yum!). On Tuesday, they toured the Federal Reserve and the Museum of Natural History before they went home.


I didn't get a lot of great pictures of the weekend because it was so hard to get 5 kids to all pose together at the same time! But we had a great time, and Henry especially enjoyed playing with all of his cousins.

Black Out Forever!

(Jenn)
So I've been "tagged" like 5 times this week and probably a few more times in the past month or two, so I'm finally going to do it and then say "Black Out Forever!" It's not that I don't enjoy reading all of your tag posts -- they are fun. It's just that I feel guilty when I never get around to completing my random things about myself or questionnaire or whatever. Okay, so which "tag" should I do? I just tried listing 6 random things about myself, and that's HARD, so I'm answering the questions from my cousin Kristina's tag and then posting a few random things about me. Here goes:

1. Best thing you cooked last week: Apple dumplings. Shug was here and we cooked and ate a lot of good food, and the one recipe she absolutely insisted on having was my Grandma Griffin's apple dumplings (basically little apple pie packets baked in a pink cinnamony syrup). A handful of those Griffin recipes are legends with my college roommates. Yum!

2. If money, time and babysitting were no object, where would you go and with whom? I would definitely go to London with Ben. I would show him EVERYTHING. And yes, we would have a babysitter.

3. When was the last time you cried? About 2 1/2 weeks ago when I finished reading These is My Words by Nancy Turner. I sobbed in bed so hard that I thought I would wake Ben up. You should read by book review here, and you should read this book. Do it.

4. 5 things you were doing this month 10 years ago:
- Studying for Beastie D.C.'s European History class with a bunch of crazy friends
- Trick-or-treating (yes, I trick-or-treated in high school. Did you?)
- Taking driver's ed
- Becoming good friends with Ben and starting to email him regularly
- Practicing "Lace" Christmas songs including "All I Want for Christmas is You" and "Hey Santa"

5. 5 things on your to-do list today:
- Go jogging
- Clean house
- Order wedding gift for Dan-o
- Babysitting 7 kids while parents go to Broadway show
- Prepare for YW class tomorrow (It's Saturday)

6. 5 favorite snacks:
- Candy! (jelly beans, caramel candy corns, sour balls, Hot Tamales, Reese's Pieces, etc.)
- Cookies
- Toast with cinnamon sugar
- Wheatables
- Cereal
(Do some of you really eat healthy snacks? Hmmm)

7. 5 bad habits:
- Eating lots of sugar
- Picking up speech habits and patterns of people around me
- Falling asleep in movies, esp. the temple movie
- Forgetting to move my car on street sweeping day
- Leaving fragile items in precarious places (this drives Ben crazy)

8. 5 places I've been:
- England
- France
- Holland
- Italy
- Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan

Okay, and now 3 random things about me:

1. I correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation in my head every time I read anything. I guess it's the English teacher in me.

2. I adore kids, but I don't love babies. I really want to have another baby soon, but I have a hard time getting used to the idea of taking care of a newborn. They're so hard to take care of, and they're not very interesting! I need to get over this soon.

3. I give Henry a lollipop and a package of fruit snacks EVERY time we go on ANY sort of shopping excursion. I think I'm probably a horrible mom. Oh well!

If you haven't been tagged yet and want something to do, consider yourself tagged!

Happy Halloween!

(Jenn) Here's the post you've all been waiting for! This is the first year Henry really understood what was going on for Halloween. We have been reading Halloween books and talking about trick-or-treating all month, so this morning when I woke him up and said, "It's Halloween!" he knew exactly what was in store. He was very good at saying "Tricka Treat" and "CANDY!" all day long! Henry dressed up as a garbage man. It was the perfect costume for him this year, due to his obsessions with garbage, trucks, and real live garbage men. He worships the garbage men in our neighborhood, and they know him and wave to him every time they pass! I'm pretty proud of Henry's costume too -- my creative project of the month. I can make costumes that don't involve sewing -- hence the duct tape!

Today we had a busy and fun day. In the morning, we went to the MOMS Club activity in Rutherford. The kids visited a senior center and Trick-or-Treated on Park Avenue. After coming home for lunch and a quick nap, we left for the Hoboken Ragamuffins Parade. We went with the Stephensons from our branch and met up with some families in the Jersey City Ward. We went to this parade last year and had to go again this year! I just love seeing the fun costumes and accessories some of the people come up with! We also trick-or-treated a bit in Hoboken before heading home. Henry visited the houses on our street before coming in for dinner. He ended up with quite the loot!

For the die-hards, there's a slide-show below:

An Extra Christmas Gift

If you are interested in donating an extra Christmas gift to a family in need this year, look at this list and let me know what you can donate. Just leave a comment or email me (jenny.iverson@gmail.com), and I will remove your item from the list! Feel free to email me for more information. Here is a list of the items still needed:

Clothing
Women’s pants (size 12-14) [got some]
Women’s shirts (size L) [got some]
Women’s skirts/dressy shirts (12-14, L) [got some shirts, skirts, dresses]
(Women’s clothing – maternity)
Men’s pants : black slacks, khakis (32-34)
Boys clothes, church clothes, pajamas (5t, 5/6 kids) [got black pants, sweater, hoodie, shirt, church outfit]
Boys clothes, church clothes, pajamas (18 months) [got Christmas outfit, some other clothes]
Baby boy clothes (0-3 months, 3-6 months) [got Christmas outfit, some other clothes]

Shoes
Women’s dress shoes (size 8 ½)
Men’s dress shoes (size 11)
Boys sneakers (size 6 – 6 ½)

Furniture
Sheets/bedding for 2 toddler beds
Child’s bedroom furniture
Crib
Changing table

Household Items
CD player/radio
Mirror
Picture frames, large and small
Towels, bath size
Towels, hand size
Kitchen towels
Wash cloths
Vacuum
Toaster

Baby/Child Items
Car seat, 40+ lbs.
Car seat ,20 + lbs.
Car seat, infant size
Toy chest

Toys
Power ranger toy (no guns)
Other toys ages 4 and 18 months

Other gifts
Scrapbook/scrapbooking supplies
4 CTR rings
Christmas ornaments/decorations [got tree, lights]
Money, spare change
Gift cards

A Beautiful Week

(Jenn) This past week was a vacation-at-home for me as I got to spend lots of time with friends. Shug, my roommate and amazing friend of many years, came to visit from Alaska! I talked Brittany into staying with us until Shug came (she's been living with us for the past few weeks), so they both stayed in our place for the week. I got to feel what it's like to live with roommates again! We had a lovely time: mostly lots of sitting and talking, going for walks, cooking, etc. It was just like old times, and amazing that we're still just as close as ever. Henry loved having both Shug and Brittany here, and he just went along with whatever we wanted to do. Ben and I both stayed up later than we have in years -- ah, the single life!

On my favorite day of the week, we took a drive up into New York (a town called High Falls) to see the autumn leaves and go apple picking. This time we went to a smaller, organic orchard run by a crazy guy named "Mr. Apples." It was beautiful, and we were the only ones there. We had such a nice day picking apples, visiting a waterfall, playing in leaves, and eating soup at a little café in High Falls. On Friday night, Amy and Dave came down from Connecticut to visit, and they stayed overnight. It was great to be able to spend time with them and get to know Dave a little better! On Saturday morning, we took a trip to the temple while Shug and Brittany babysat and then met us in the city (they bravely took Henry on the train themselves!). We went to the Museum of Natural History and then out to lunch at Alice's Teacup, a charming little restaurant and bakery.

Shug left early this morning, and then I dropped Brittany off at the train station at noon (she's moving to Brooklyn -- she found a temporary place there). I'm really missing the company already, and I think Henry is too! Henry has been mentioning Brittany and Shug in all of his prayers this week, and when he wakes up in the morning he immediately asks, "Where Brittany? Where Shug?" When we dropped Brittany off today, Henry cried for several minutes (probably because he thought he was going to get to go on the train too, but it was still pretty sweet :). We spent the last few days of the week trying to figure out how we can all live closer to each other. We won't be able to do trips like this for the rest of our lives! Alaska is definitely too far away! I wish I could just buy an old house in a beautiful cul-de-sac with big trees, and all of the neighbors would be my best friends and family. Let me know if you have any ideas on how to make this happen!
If you're interested in seeing pictures of our week, watch the slideshow below:

Bear

(Jenn) So Ben is really particular about what kind of toys Henry is allowed to own because he wants him to be manly in all respects. I'm not allowed to buy him anything related to kitchens or babies. It took a lot of persuasion (and deception) just to get a Little Tikes shopping cart from a garage sale for $2, which Henry absolutely loves. I wanted to get one of those doll strollers, and maybe even a little boy doll, but as far as Ben was concerned, that was out of the question.

Well today, Henry showed Ben that he can express his feminine side without dolls! Who needs dolls anyway? Today after church, "Bear" became Henry's baby, and it was pretty fun for me to watch him take care of it. As I was getting lunch ready, I heard Henry saying, "Diaper change, Bear. Change you. New diaper. All done Bear." Then he wanted to give Bear drinks from his sippy cup, and then he put Bear in the high chair. Once Bear was ready to go in the high chair, Henry did what a good parent ought to: he wheeled the high chair into the living room and said, "Car Show time, Bear" (If you have talked to Henry recently, you will know that pretty much the only thing that he cares about is Pixar's Cars. Naturally, a good little daddy would let his Bear watch Cars as much as possible).

I'm always excited to see that Henry wants to emulate me in every way. Of course he wants to take care of Bear, push his shopping cart, and help empty the dishwasher -- so he can be like Mommy! What toddler would want to sit at a desk all day making calculations? At least for this time in his life, I can be Henry's hero.