Grandma Jo Veenker

I think I mentioned this earlier but this deserves its own post.  My dad's mom, Josephine Verplank Veenker moved in with Clint, me and my parents on April 25, 2011.  She broke her hip about 6 months ago and has been in a care physicality in California since then.  Mentally she has declined since she broke her hip, so my parents decided that it would be better for her if she was living with family.

I get to help take care of her a couple times a week and I'm so thankful that I have.  She is such an amazing person and even though she can't remember who I am, I still enjoy spending time with her.

In spite of her mind not being all the way there, she still has her personality.  I'm sorry to break this to all of you ladies, but that paranoia of your weight will never change, even when you're 94.  The other day we were trying to get Grandma Jo on the scale and her first concern was that we were going to be weighing her with all of her clothes on (all 104 pounds of her).  Then once we got her on the scale  she yelled at my mom, "Oh Carlene, don't hold onto me, you'll make me weigh more!"  It was so funny and also a little depressing.  I hope that if I make it the the age of 94, weight will be my last concern.  I want to enjoy all that I can at that age.

The next funny story happened on Saturday.  We were at Los Hermanos to celebrate Grandma's 94th birthday.  Earlier that day I had asked her how old she was going to be and she said that she was somewhere in her 70's.  So I was telling my dad this story when we were in the waiting room.  My dad turned to my Grandma and asked, "Mom how old are you going to be?"  And she looked at him and said, "In front of all these people?"  As if that was the rudest question someone could ask.  She has a lot more funny stories and we've been keeping track of them so that we can make lots of money from the funny things she says.

So it's been wonderful having Grandma here.  I didn't get to spend a lot of time with her growing up since she lived in California and I lived in Utah, and even though I don't get to spend time with the "Real" Grandma Jo, I have enjoyed being able to help my parents out and especially Grandma Jo.

Mya's Violin Concert

My niece Mya had a violin concert to show off her mad violin skills.  She had completed book one of the Suzuki Method so she played the entire book cover to cover.

 My mom and Mya doing a duet.

 For Intermission my other niece Afton showed off her skills on the piano.  Both girls are amazing!

Easter 2011

For Easter this year we did the usual.  Had dinner at my parents house and a little Easter egg hunt.  My aunt and uncle and some of there kids from Canada were here so it was fun visiting with them.  Nothing too exciting happened, it was just nice being with family and seeing how excited the kids were hunting for eggs.

Our child looking for eggs.

I had to throw this picture in of Andrea because she is always saying that I pick horrible pictures of her to put on my blog, so here you go! ;)

Waiting to be let out side.

It's so fun seeing Jax and Yogi play together.  Jax is such a giant compared to Yogi, it's crazy!

The nieces and nephews love playing with Jax.  Here is Collin pulling him around.

And Brit.

Clint and Yogi

Brit thought it looked fun and wanted in on the action.

 

Yogi

We have a new addition to our family, Yogi Bear.  No he's not our dog, he' my brother Scott's, although I tried to keep him.  One day we were at Petsmart buying Jax some treats and they had a pet adoption going on.  Well Clint and I have wanted to get another dog so Jax would have a buddy, so we brought Yogi home for the weekend to see if he fit in with us.  Well my mom was not happy about having another dog in the house, so we had to find another home for him (we couldn't take him back to the store, we already were in love with him).  We searched and searched and finally my brother Scott and sister-in-law Andrea took him.

It's really fun to watch Jax and Yogi play.  Jax usually doesn't want anything to do with him (unless Yogi is chewing on his bone).  We have to trick Jax into playing with him by first having a human play tug-a-war, and then have Yogi hold on.  It's really fun.  Yogi tries and tries to get Jax to play with him, Yogi will run around the table at a million miles an hour barking at Jax, but Jax will just ignore him.  Whatever one of them has, the other wants and will stand guard until the other dog gets bored of his bone or toy and leaves it behind.  Then the other dog will chew on it for a while until he leaves it and the vicious cycle continues on and on.

You may have thought that Jax was small, we did too until we met Yogi.  He is almost half of Jax's size!  Yogi is so tiny and hardly weights anything.  The good news is, now that Scott and Andrea have taken him, they have toughened him up quite a bit and he seems to be more muscular.

It's fun having another dog in the family and the nieces and nephew just love having dogs around.  Yogi is so good with kids and doesn't mind if they pick him up or pet him (unlike Jax, he's kind of spoiled that way).  Once Yogi is fully potty trained I'm sure my mom will like him more, he struggles at times with training, but he's getting better!

These pictures are when we puppy sat for Scott and Andrea while they went to Moab.  It was fun, but Jax sure is happy when Yogi leaves and our full attention is back on him.

Teresa & Mai

I was able to help throw a baby shower for one of my best friends, Teresa Jensen.  Robin and Teresa have been our friends since we got married.  They, like us, have struggled having children.  I think that's one reason we have become such great friends because we understand each other.  When we found out Teresa was pregnant we were so EXCITED for them!  I couldn't wait to throw the baby shower for her.  We had yummy sandwiches, salad, fruit and a really yummy cake.  It was a fun day getting to meet some of Teresa's family and enjoy a girls day in and watching Teresa open presents.  Teresa had (she had her this last Saturday May 14, 2011) a baby girl who they named Mai (My) Emi Jensen.  Congratulation Robin and Teresa, we just hope that Mai will still allow you to hang out with us!

Here are a few pictures from the shower.

 I made my first diaper cake and I think it turned out pretty cute.

 The lovely mother-to-be, Teresa

The guests;

 Opening presents

 The yummy cake

This is kind of a funny story.  Hilary's cousin made cake pops.  Hilary asked her to make them look "girly" and she did just that.  If you can't see it, good for you (by the way the cousin didn't make boob pops on purpose, they just turned out that way ;))

 The whole Gang

Jen + School + Shampoo = Hives!

I can't believe that I am posting such ugly pictures of my self, but it's all about documentation and I wouldn't want to forget about this, ok maybe I would.  So in the middle of April I broke out in these really red painful hives on my face.  It was really bad where my bangs laid and then slowly moved down my nose.  After a couple of days of them not going away or getting better I went to the doctor. He thought that I was allergic to this antibiotic that I had been taking, but I didn't think that was it since I've taken it for years and I've never had a problem with it.  My suspicion was stress from school or this new Hair product line that I tried. The doctor gave me a million drugs to get rid of it and with in a few days my face was nice and clear.  

Three weeks later I tried the shampoo again just to see if that's what it could be, and I broke out again.  This time was worse though, It felt like my entire forehead had been burnt and I had bumps and redness all over my face, not very attractive.  So I went to the doctor again after a week of it getting worse.  It's been 6 days since I started the steroids and I'm still red and peeling, but I'm getting much better.  Thank goodness for medicine!  Now my leprosy is not as bad and I can be let back into the social world!

 You can't really see it very well with these pictures, but just imagine it ten times worse than it looks here.

I'm not sure if school had anything to do with it or not, I kind of think that the stress of school didn't help, but the main culprit was the new shampoo and products.

 The meds that the doctor had me take.  Wow, it was stress enough just to remember to take everything!

New Computer

In our family the rule has always seem to be that I get the hand-me-down's as far as electronics go.  I've gotten all 3 of Clint's ipods after he has gotten new ones.  Not a big deal but just for once it would be nice to have a new electronic where I am the first one that gets to use it.   Clint was given a computer to use at work which left me with his old laptop (hand-me-down again).  This left us with 3 computers, the work computer, his laptop and our iMac. Come on, who really needs 3 computers. Well my lucky day finally arrived.  One day Clint went into Simple Mac and they were having a trade-in sale.  So we took our desktop and Clint's old computer and got me my very own laptop that no one has ever used before.  The anticipation of a new electronic was well worth it!  I LOVE IT!

I LOVE MY NEW MacBook Pro!

Pinewood Derby 2011

Did I ever mention that Clint and I are the Webelos Leaders for cub scouts in our ward?  Well we are and it is actually a pretty fun calling.  On March 23 we had our Pinewood Derby.  It was such a fun time and the boys all did such a great job.  We have this AMAZING family in our ward that has this really nice professional track that makes things so easy (for the spectators and boys at least).  The same family also likes to make hot dogs, popcorn and nachos', just as if you were at a real Indy race (minus the beer of course).  It was fun to see all of the cars and all the people that showed up.  Here are a few pictures of the event.

 The Winners!