Dental Hygiene is SO important

Sophie really seems to understand how important brushing her teeth is. If she doesn't get to do it for a full 10 minutes, she throws a fit. I think I might teach her to floss next. Those eight teeth could get all sorts of food stuck in between them! My uncle was my dentist growing up, he'd be proud to know that we've started Sophie young. She always wants to stand on the tooth brushing stool and put her brush in the water. It's adorable.

That Darn Baby!

Sophie climbed out of her crib 4 TIMES last night! After the first 3 times, I tried rocking her to sleep, then laying her down and she woke up and climbed out. We ended up letting her fall asleep on the bed in the office room where we were at and carrying her up to bed a couple of hours later. I know climbing out of cribs is a milestone many children hit. But Sophie is only 16 months old and I'm not quite ready to deal with it yet.

So, I ordered a crib net to further secure her cage for the time being. I should get it in the next week or two. I'll be sure to post on how that works out later. My dad thought it was hilarious. Sort of a Karma thing, I suppose. I was quite the escape artist in my day, so I guess Sophie has it in her genes.

Anybody reading this - please give me tips on what to do. Did your kids do this too? If so, please don't tell me you just moved them into a bed!

Nothing in Particular to say

So, I don't have anything momentous or even very interesting to say today. I just like funny pictures of the kids, and thought other people might like to see them too. It's rare to get a smile from Sophie in a picture, but I got one the other day. It's sometimes tricky to get Abby to agree to a picture, but I got a good sassy one of her the other day as well. She looks pretty funny, but I think it shows her personality a lot.

Here's a video of the kids dancing. You have to look pretty closely to tell that Sophie is doing much, but she really was trying to dance. The video is pretty short and random, but you'll get the gist of it anyway. Yeah, that is our dog in the cage in the back. I'll bet he's thinking he'd like to show off his moves too. Too bad he was stuck in the cage . . .

And the Winner Is . . .

Me!!! Our Biggest Loser Contest ended last night and I won. Woo hoo! I think I worked pretty hard, so I'm proud of myself. I have lost 37.5 pounds since January 1st - that's 15.7% of my body weight. I feel a lot better now too. Steve won for the men. He lost 53 pounds which is 18.7% of his body weight. On the whole, everyone did really well. I was really nervous going into it, but it turned out that I won by 6% or something.

We reported weekly for the first two months, then didn't report at all for the last month to keep the winner a secret. There was sound reasoning behind the decision, but we all lost some motivation by not checking in. The accountability kept us in line.

Some of us finished up the night by going to our pseudo In-N-Out burger place. I had a gigantic chocolate milk shake, fries, and a delicious cheeseburger to celebrate. It was fabulous! I won't be going back to eating the same as before, but I might let myself have the occasional shake now and then.

Playing Outside

I'm so glad the weather has been cooperating lately. The kids LOVE going outside to play and I enjoy it too. The only problem is Sophie. She cries every time the door opens and she doesn't get to go out.

I think it is a neat new thing for her. I didn't have her walk around outside while it was cold, and she didn't get to wander around while it was warm because she wasn't walking then. So, it's this whole new world to explore. She wants to go out all the time, but I can't let her go out alone because she'll get into all sorts of bad things. She even gets upset when I let the dog go out but not her. So irrational!

Sophie climbs onto Abby's bike (pseudo big wheel) all the time and scoots around on it. It's really fun. I need a swingset or something for the girls to play on. They'd like that. My parents have a swingset and Abby thinks it's the park.

Abby likes to set up camp chairs and everything else and make it into some make-believe place. She made a pirate ship today and the other day she set it up and showed me her new house. It's funny.

Happy Easter

We had a really fun Easter this year with WAY too much candy. We had two easter egg hunts and one visit from the Easter bunny, leaving us with buckets of candy and no will power to resist it. Sophie was a really good hunter and had a lot of fun picking things up out of the grass. She also had fun picking things up out of the other kids baskets . . .

Abby is getting pretty quick and is starting to catch the spirit of taking as much candy as possible. I'm so proud!


Sophie has taken to climbing up on the kitchen table whenever she finds the opportunity. We left the easter baskets on the table on Sunday, so she had some extra motivation for getting up there. I found her drooling pure chocolate while sitting contentedly on her perch. That baby is SO sneaky! I need to somehow get a picture of her up on the table to post without encouraging further ventures. If you have any ideas, let me know.

I'm also posting a picture of the Jensen egg hunters from this year. I took lots of versions of this picture, but this is the only one where they all had their faces pointing in the same general direction.

A Random Post

I thought I should post again, since it has been a while. My friend Sharon thinks I can't possibly be playing computer games all the time--well guess what. Much of my free - non-kid - time is spent playing World of Warcraft. Super Nerd to the rescue!!! Anyway, I'll post now before the draw of the game becomes too great.

I love giving my kids mohawks after bathtime. Both girls have had plenty of hair on top, but not so much on the sides so it works out really well. Here is Sophie's latest mohawk. I think she looks awesome.


Here's Abby after the bath. She loves to get a towel on her hair just like Mommy. It's kind of tricky to do on someone else, but this time worked out okay. She is really into being beautiful lately. She always wants me to dry her hair after a shower or bath because otherwise her hair doesn't look beautiful. It's funny, but sometimes I wonder how quickly she'll grow out of this phase. I don't want her to be stuck on her appearance forever! She has some weird ideas about what looks good, so I'm not too worried. She doesn't mind if her dress has a big spot on it, only that the dress is pink. She doesn't care that her hair looks really weird, just that she has 7 clips in it. I don't think it will last too long since she doesn't pay that much attention to the details.

So, that's what is going on around here. Oh yeah, I only have 12 days left until our Biggest Loser contest is over. I need to really be good about what I eat for this last little while! I'm down about 30 pounds right now and I'm hoping to lose a few more before the final weigh-in. I probably should have taken a before picture, but I didn't want to see how bad I looked!