Life's Changes

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

I have been so busy lately with life and all the changes that have occurred that I have not have had a lot of time to keep current on our blog.  To be honest it has been nearly over a year since I have last published anything.  Lots have happened. 

Our little William is now 16months old and is growing into such a handsome young man.  And our dear little, not so little, Clayton is now 4yrs old and is attending preschool, which he loves and enjoys.  The two of them are so great with each other, it melts my heart to see them play and love on one another.

Chris has changed his major from engineering to computer science, which is honestly a better fit for him.  He is attending school all year round now and will hopefully be done with everything in 5 years..yes, ANOTHER 5 years.

As for me, everyone wants to know about my new life change with my health and weight.  I am going to make you wait a little longer for that post...okay, maybe just another few days.

October (all in one post)

October was full of excitement for our little family.  As you can tell, we had a blast on Halloween.  Clayton and William were both little cows, and at times mad cows..lol.  Chris was a pirate and I was some what a skull face person, but when I put on Chris's pirate hat, I looked like a dead masked pirate.

I took the boys to go to LaVene's work for trick or treat, and like always, they scored big there.  Plus, it allowed Grandma the opportunity to show off the boys to everyone she works with.  I do have to admit, it was fun for me too to see them have so much fun.  And I got to go home with a few goodies for Chris and I to share...mmm I love treats, a little too much.

I started a Beach Body workout, which is part of a 60 day challenge I am doing with some friends.  I do have to admit that the hardest part for me right now is eating clean.  I have always used food as a comfort and I know I make a lot of unhealthy choices, so being part of this challenge group is helping me.  In two weeks I have already lost about 2" around my mid section mainly.  Go me!

Meemaw and Papa came for a visit and to attend little William's baby blessing.  We did the blessing a little different then what most people are use to, because of scheduling and the size of our group being so big, we decided to hold it on a Monday night, 10/28/13.  Which worked out for everyone except Uncle Tim.  We had at the church and right after we had a yummy dinner with friends and family.  William was so stinking cute in his blessing outfit, his Auntie Bekah got it for him.

During Papa's visit, he took Clayton out to lunch and to get a haircut, which he calls 'shark' hair, that is what he calls a mo-hawk...cute, lol!  Then they walked over to Target and Clayton got further spoiled by Papa and got to pick out a toy, and he LOVES his Hulk toy.

It was so nice to be surrounded by family and to be able to make memories with all of them.  The boys are growing up so fast. Clayton is bossy as ever and wants to do most things by himself, we are still trying to potty train him, he has his good days and bad.  Little William is able to hold his head up by himself and is very active, he has really great motor skills.

William reminds me a lot of his daddy.  He is very much a home body and for the most part fairly happy most of the time.  He loves to play with his toys and look around and things.  He is very responsive as well, he will watch you all the time and loves to smile and laugh...so adorable.  Clayton loves his little brother and is VERY hands on with him, a little too much at times. :-D


 Life is great and I love my family!

Growing Up

 Little William is getting so big, he is now about 10lbs 8oz and 20.63" long, at 6 weeks.  He is an amazing eater, and he is definitely making breastfeeding a lot easier this time around.  Chris asked me last night what I thought the difference was this time, since I had a really hard time breastfeeding with Clayton.  To be honest, I think it is a little of everything: new kid, more aware/educated, better support, and different diet.

Having two kids is definitely a challenge.  A lot of people said that the hardest thing is juggling the time and getting use to having a baby again in the house.  I would have to agree, and on top of that I would have to say I have had to learn a lot of patience with Clayton and him smothering his brother ALL the time.  I know he just wants to help and love on his brother, but some times it is a little excessive.

We started potty training with Clayton, we are on day 5 and he is doing really well.  He went poop on the potty the other day completely on his own, after days of nagging him to go and him holding it till we went somewhere and he had a pullup on.  He is actually just going by himself now without us even saying anything at all, I do have to say, we are doing the naked route to get him to go.  He isn't able to get his undies down in time to go so he likes being nude so he can just run and squat...whatever works.  Chris is going to work with him on getting is underwear on and off.  :)

Clayton just loves his brother so much, whenever he is harassing him so much with hugs and kisses and trying to get him to move, I have to constantly tell him to leave William alone.  Then with his head cocked to to one side and with all seriousness he says, "But mom, he's my best friend." AW!  You go ahead and give him a kiss...but then leave him alone.  Gotta love my boys!

The arrival of Baby Jensen #2

We would like to welcome Baby Jensen #2 into our family, William Barrett Jensen.  He was born on August 8th at 5:30pm weighing 8lbs 10oz and was 20" long...what a big boy!  We ended up having him via cesarean because of the fear of him being to big and having shoulder distortion.  Then there was the problem with my blood pressure getting to high and having been admitted into labor and delivery 2 times and measuring 3+ weeks ahead, the doctor went ahead and gave us the okay to have him at 38.5 wks.  Which to be honest, I was totally okay with that. :D

I do have to say that having a c-section isn't as bad as I originally thought.  The recovery has  been pretty amazing, a lot better than having Clayton.  I would like to say that after almost 2 weeks I am moving around great and able to almost everything on my own again, plus I love the fact that I can go potty without dealing with all the pain and doing all the extra steps.  Chris can agree with you, that this delivery has been a lot better.  Plus we were shocked at how big our little man was, it was a good thing we did do it that way, because he wouldn't have fit and I bet there would have been a lot of complication and it would have just ended up a c-section anyways.  Huge perk was this time I didn't have to labor for 19 hours :D.  We got checked into the hospital at 3pm and then got prepped for surgery and was in the operation room at 5pm.  He was born 30 minutes later and we were back in our room by 6pm...nice!

Clayton loves being a big brother, he is constantly wanting to hold William, kiss him, and wanting him to play with him.  I feel bad telling him to leave him alone all the time and to stop smothering him, but at least we all know that Clayton is going to be such a good big brother and helper.

Having little William home has been an adjustment to use all, mainly in the sleeping area.  Poor Chris and I have been trying to swap out who stays up with him at night, since his schedule is so backwards.  But I try to do most of the night stuff myself since Chris has started back up with work this week.  Needless to say, we are both a little sleep deprived at the moment, but it'll get better, hopefully soon.

We just can't wait to see what the future may hold for our little family.

Oh has July flown by

 I am officially 36.5 weeks along, and sad to say, at my appointment yesterday little William isn't ready to come out.  They said that he is really high up and my cervix is not even open yet.  I do have to admit that I was a little bummed to hear that, but at least he is snug inside his mommy baking some more.  I am still measuring ahead of where I am, so my measurement is at 38 weeks, so that means I get to get an ultrasound this today to get little man measured.  It will be so nice to see him, I haven't had an ultrasound since we found out the gender and at that time we weren't able to get a good shot of his face or profile, so hopefully this time we get to.  Chris is excited to go with me and is hopefully that we get to see his features a little more too.  Clayton is getting anxious for his little brother to get out so he can hold him and play with him.  But I sure he doesn't know what he is in for yet.

My big boy, Clayton, has grown up so much this last month, he has finally hit 30lbs and has hit another growth spurt.  He cracks me up so much with the things he says to me and is very opinionated on how he should dress and have his hair done.  He loves his spiky hair.

Clayton had his first big boy dentist appointment this month.  He was such a brave boy, I think it helped that we told him that he was going to the 'superhero dentist,' meaning Burg Pediatric Dentistry, where there logo is a superhero and they give them a cape for visiting and prizes every time they go back with a good visit to add to their costume.  We are trying to enforce good hygiene habits with him and show him that the dentist is a good/non scarey place to be, so far so good.  :)

We walked the Inter-mountain Heart Association Race again this year as a family.  Clayton definitely did a lot better this year, no tears or complaining this time.  I even got to see a few of my friends their participating this year, Esther and DiVeena came as well.

At the beginning of the month our little family was lucky to have some family over for a sleepover and some fun.  Jenn and the boys flew in to spend the 4th with her in-laws and stayed out our house for a couple of nights.  Clayton had so much fun being able to play with his cousins that he hardly gets to see.   As for me, I loved being able to spend some time with Jenn and we got to chat about our pregnancy and compare how things were going for both of us, after all we are only 4 days apart in due dates. Fun times. It was sad though, after they left to go up to Vernal to visit their family, Clayton completely crashed body wise.  He had spent those couple days running off big boy schedule and their routine of a two hour time difference that his little body ended up with a fever and he was sick for a whole day after.  He wanted to wake up the same time as them, 6am, but didn't want to go to bed when they did at 7pm.  Instead we had to battle with him till almost 10-11pm getting him to settle down and go to bed, he was acting like he was worried that they wouldn't be there when he woke up and kept trying to wake them up...silly boy.  But at least they all had fun.

Trials and Blessings

 This last month has been a very interesting one for the Jensen family, not just our little family but as a whole unit.  It all started with the passing of Aloma, Chris's grandmother on his mother's side.  She passed due to some complications from a car accident in which grandpa was driving and pulled out in front of a car that t-boned them on her side on their way home from church.  Her funeral was held in Idaho, in which we attended and Chris participated in as a pa-bearer.  I got to meet a lot of Chris's family and get to know LaVene a little more.

Here are some pictures of what we have been up to this month too.  Clayton has been growing like a weed, as you can see, and we have started taking him swimming in preparation to hopefully learn how to swim.  Chris doesn't want to put him in classes yet till we get him use to the water and getting his face wet, which isn't a bad idea.  Then hopefully he gets more out of the swim classes and feels a lot more comfortable in the water.


We got to go to Lagoon this month with our dear friend Denise Handrahan and her little boy.  We took along with us Mer, Esther, and her friend Brenda.  Denise brought her friend Marcella and her two boys too.  We had so much fun taking the boys around to ride the rides and just seeing Clayton's face light up on the rides was more than enough for me.  Unfortunately, I couldn't do much there other then watch the stroller, and ride the train and carousal.  But that is okay, I still had fun, plus Chris got me some ice cream from Pioneer Village that made up for it all.

Chris really tried to get Mer to ride some rides with him, but this I didn't know, she is afraid of roller coasters and refused to get on them.  He did get her to ride a few things with him though, which I think deep down she liked it.  She kept telling me that if Amanda was there with her she would have been a little more adventurous in trying some of the rides.  It is okay though, at least she got to stand around with me as we waited for some of our group to get off a ride and I wasn't alone with the kids.

 While we were at Lagoon, I watched both Clayton and Cody so the adults can ride a coaster together.  At the ride Wicked Cody was asleep so I just had a very awake and impatient Clayton to tend to while we waited.  But shortly after they got into the line, which luckily it wasn't to long, Cody woke up and rubbed his nose, then it just started to gush out with blood.  It was the worst bloody nose I had every seen.  I eventually got it to stop and got him wiped down when his mom got off the ride.  Good thing Mer was there to help me, it was a little scarey.  Denise told me that it wasn't unusual for him to get a bloody nose, then she saw all the napkins and wipes I used and was shocked at how much blood there was.  Then it happened to him again, but this time for her.  This was not normal, so she called the clinic and they told her to take him to the ER...turns out he was over heated, scarey.

After all that has happened in June, I have to say that we are so ready for little William to get here.  I love being pregnant, but it is so hard to sleep and my hips are starting to hurt.  He likes to sit lower than Clayton did and kicks/moves around all the time.  Plus I want to see what he looks like. :D  Well, until next time...bye!

A Strong Name

I do have to admit that I am not so good and making sure that I write/update my blog very often.  Last year Chris thought it was a good idea that I do something like this instead of buying journals all the time, which after much pondering I set up my blog for my little family, and I love being able to post pictures and updates on here.  Plus later I can have it all printed out like a yearbook for my kids in the future to read and laugh about.  I hope they find what I write worth reading.

I am officially 27 weeks along with little William Barrett Jensen...yep, we have decided on a name for our little baby boy #2.  I have to share on how we decided on his name though, for later it would be nice for him to look back at this and know how special he really is to us.  Several weeks before we found out that we were having a boy, I was on my way to work and before getting onto the freeway I had the overwhelming feeling that our baby was a boy and that his name would be Barrett...interesting!  I didn't say anything about it to anyone because I didn't want to be one of those parents that was guessing an opposite gender then what we were really having and then the child growing up thinking "mom wanted a girl and got me instead."  Which is what I felt with my mom.  So when we did found out that William was actually a he I shared this information with Chris about me feeling that he was a boy and the name of 'Barrett'.  He was so excited about it, because his first thought was that it was a name of a guy off of Final Fantasy 7, a game Chris enjoyed playing growing up...lol!  Not what I was thinking, but okay.   After about a month a half of mulling over names and trying to get daddy involved in helping find a name he came to me with a name that blew me out of the water.  As a family we went to Applebees for dinner that evening Chris took his last final to celebrate him finishing up the semester.  Mer and I had made a mini list of names that we wanted to bounce off of Chris to see what he thought, we thought about them long and hard as we waited for him to finish up his test.  Before I could get the names out of my mouth, daddy said, "what about William Barrett?"  Uh!?  This shocked me, since Chris never have once came up with a serious name that he wanted to consider, not even with Clayton.  Hmmm...after thinking about the name for a few days it started to grow on me as that was it.  I told Yamishiro, our OB what our name was, and it was in that moment that it clicked and I felt so much peace about it all...that is to be his name.  I came home from my appointment thinking, 'I think we have it.'  Later that night, something was getting to me about the name though.  I asked Chris why was it that he suggested that name over every one that I have tried listing off to him for months.  His response was this:  I had a dream a couple of days of go and in that dream I had a little boy named William.  So I thought about it for like a day and a half and it just felt so right, so that is why I thought I told you.  Plus it just goes well with his big brother's name and it has a strong first name, a unique middle and together it was strong.  And that is how he left it...and with all that how could I not say 'yes, yes, that is his name.'
We can't wait to meet our little man and to see him for the first time, Clayton is even excited and asks when will he come out.