School pictures

I just wanted to make a quick post to show we are alive and doing well.  I am sure most of you know Barry has found work (the position he was temping for hired him).  He has been working permanently since August so that is wonderful.  These pictures are all the way from the first day of school.  I found two of these chairs on Craigslist for cheap!  So bought them up in a heart beat.  I have been buying a few things off of Craigslist lately.  Barry isn't as excited about my Craigslist shopping as I am but I have found some great things and have been able to put furniture into empty rooms.

Anyhow, I always take a picture of the kids on the first day of a new school year.  Not that I am a great photographer but I know I will at least have one picture of them every year:)  I know I am terrible to not capture every childhood moment.  So here is the school pictures for 2012. 

Vallie 6 years old and in first grade.  Vallie lost her two front teeth just days before school started.  So she is sooo cute sporting her toothless grin.  (Are you as in love with these chairs as I am?)

 Barry Bretton 9 years old and in fourth grade.  What a smarty pants!

 Brahm 4 years old and preschool. I managed to get him to sit down in the chair long enough to take about three pictures and one of them is completely blurry because he is running away:)  What a busy body!

I hope all of your school years are going well.  We are loving our!

Summer

Our summer has been great so far.  The kids and I have spent lots of time swimming and reading (what could be better:).  BR has been working at a temporary position for the last 4 weeks.  It has been really nice to have income coming in.  I keep wondering when it is going to end but they keep asking  him to come back so keep your fingers crossed.  He seems to like it and they seem to like him too.

The Barry and Vallie have participated in 2 triathlons this summer.  Brahm did his first one too but BR helped him out with the swimming part and stayed with him on the course.  It is fun! and good exercise for the whole family (I wish I could say I have lost some weight but not a chance).  Barry took 3rd and 7th for his age group in the races.  Vallie took 2nd in both races for her age group.  They are doing great and really love it.  Brahm tolerates it:)  He really wants to play baseball (maybe next year).

 Before the race

 After the race

 Vallie with her second place trophy.  Yes she is wearing a tu-tu in the race.  I swear she breaths tu-tus and dancing.

Our garden is doing okay this year.  We have been really blessed.  We have been able to have lots of fresh veggies and I have been able to put some tomatoes, chili, salsa, and pickles up for the future. Our biggest tomato for the season weighed in at 1 lb 6 ozs.  We had quite a few over the 1 lb mark but we still have lots of improvement.  

 This was our first successful year growing garlic (about 35 bulbs), storage onions (over 60 easily), and shallots (a ton).  I should have pictured they drying but forgot.  We had them hanging all around.  It looked and smelled great!

 For the 4th of July, we just spent the day together playing games and what not.  It was great fun.  We always go to St. George but opted not to this year because of circumstance.  I made some treats so it seemed festive and tied blue ribbons around Vallie's birthday cups so they were red, white, and blue.  The place Barry is working at gave him a huge box of fireworks (totally unexpected)  that the kids had a blast setting off that night.  Simple, huge success that will be a fond memory for years to come.  At first I was totally grumbling because we weren't around our extended family but the day was perfect!

I love the laid back days of summer.

Be Not Afraid of Greatness

We are almost to the one month mark of Barry being out of work.  We being a homeschool family, anyway you look at it, that is a lot of family time.  Just think about everyone in your entire family home together for one month straight.  With finances being tight, we can't do a lot.  We do school, read, go to the library a ton, go on walks, work in the yard, serve others how we can, attend the temple, be super quite when daddy has a phone interview, and look for jobs. Sound like a dream right!  A few of my friends say that I am so lucky to have this time because their husbands are never home.  I have to say that if I knew when this little "trial" would end, I would probably be a little more joyous about it all.  But there is this worry in my mind that says what if employment is still months away.  How long can we stretch things...really?  Isn't that the truth with all trials though?  What if we had an ending date to every trial that came our way.  We could pace ourselves and have the finish line in sight or at least know when it would be peeking above the horizon.  That would be way too easy.  So a lot of the whole trial is enduring to the end and praying to get through it.  In the mean time growing and becoming better instrument in the hands of the Lord to help those around you.

I think this is so true with motherhood too.  Through homeschooling I get to be my children's mother, mentor, nurturer, teacher.....really there are a lot of hats I wear and some I never take off.  I have to say some days I am a better mother than others, some days I am a better teacher than others, and some days I wish I can just start the whole day over.  But I work hard to do my best in raising these precious spirits and pray daily Heavenly Father will make up my short comings.  Sometimes when digging in the trenches of motherhood it is hard to see the horizon.  Am I as a mother creating fantastic men and women to stand strong 20 years from now?  Somehow, trials help us to measure things up and really intensify the refiners fire.  So I have to share these two signs that were made this week.

 First up, Brahm came to me asking if I could spell "allowed" on his sheet.  Now Brahm is a funny little man.  He doesn't start kindergarten for another year and a half.  He is capable of greatness but wants to put very little effort into anything (unless there is a reward).  He sounded out "NO GIRLS" and wrote it on his sheet.  Well apparently Vallie and Brahm had a little falling out (you have to expect it with all the time we have been cooped up in the house together) and he thought the best way to handle the situation was to place a sign on his bedroom door forbidding her entrance.  You have to know that Vallie and Brahm are like peanut butter and jelly lamb and tuna fish (for any of you who love Rob Schneider) who spend almost every waking moment together.   I wrote the word allowed for him but asked him to think about how it would make Vallie feel.  He decided not to post the sign and work things out with Vallie.  Which I was really proud of but I had to take a quick picture of his sign because I was so surprised that my little lazy boy who fights me everyday on writing, sounded out the words and got pretty close to spelling them right for how little he is.

Next up, when Barry and I were climbing in to bed the other night, we found this note Vallie had placed there for us.  Now I think is absolutely funny that she capitalized Dad but not mom, spelled "want" with a wo even though that word was in her spelling list last week, mixed up her b and d in the word job, but totally rocked the apostrophe in the right place to show possession.  I have to remind myself that really she is just in kindergarten and is doing great even with all the mistakes.  But way beyond writing it shows me something much bigger.  She has a charitable heart and is willing to give everything she has, even if it is only a dime, if she thinks it will help others in need. 

So to finish all this out, one evening this week I was totally worried and upset about our whole situation only to open up the D&C reader with my kids and get totally rebuked.  We happened to be on Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail.  I will quote it (replace the name Joseph with Tara or even your name if needed:), "Jesus said Joseph should not be afraid when he had to suffer.  Joseph should not worry when he had troubles.  Jesus said troubles are for our own good.  Troubles help us learn.  Jesus had suffered more than anyone."  Can you see the big slap across the face I just got?  So if troubles are for our own good, certainly if we stay strong greatness will come out of this.  So my new motto for this trial is from the words of Shakespeare:

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Salt Lake

Back in February my brother, Brett, blessed his new baby, Cache, up in Salt Lake.  So we picked up my mom and dad along the way and had a road trip with them.  We had a great time.  I tell you I am terrible at remembering to take pictures but I did take pictures when we visited Temple Square.  I even forgot to take pictures of baby Cache!  He was the whole reason for the trip but I can assure you he is a cutie.  My kids and I swooned over him the whole time we were up there.

 Rakel and Todd didn't travel with us but they met us all up there (we would have needed a small bus for that but I am sure it would have added to the fun:).  I just had to take this picture of Barry with all five kids in tow.  Barry marched all five of them all around temple square having fun and holding hands just like this.  Sooo Sweet!  That's why I love him.

Mother's Day

We are flashing back to Mother's Day.  Most of us would do anything for our mothers.  I am no exception to this.  I love my mom and think the world of her.  She had one simple request for Mother's Day: to spend the day with her girls...all her girls.  In our family we all love to cook.  So we spent the Saturday before Mother's Day cooking in my kitchen and just sitting catching up with each other.  It was so nice to cook, eat, sit and chat.  Rakel and I came up with a Strawberry and Lemon theme to keep things inexpensive and simple (colors of yellow and pink, of course). 

Menu

 The table

Decorations

 Lemon Curd Cookies and Strawberry Poppy Seed Cake

 It would not make a proper Christensen function without cake

 The spread

 Appetizers

 Mom and Marcee

 Pretty self explanatory that it was simply delicious!

 The Babes!

 

Can you believe all these blond babies?

 The only regret I have about the whole day is that I didn't get a picture of all of the girls together (what was I thinking).  We are not sure when we will all be together again since Marcee is moving to Washington/Idaho area.  Also, we definitely missed Genae (Brett's wife) who was busy with a family wedding.  I am so lucky to have such a great mother and sisters who I simply adore in my life. 



Jobless in Las Vegas

The title might lead you to think it is a new hit song for the latest Elvis movie out or even the latest horror film since unemployment is hoovering around 13% in Las Vegas but really it has been our life for the past week. Barry lost his job this past week because his company closed. Truly it is the story of Las Vegas right now. I know my blog doesn't get a lot of traffic but I think people who actually care about us enough check it here and there. So I just wanted to ask if you happen to know of someone looking for a great employee or someone who has a lot of connections, we would love it if you pass his name along or give it to Barry to search out. So you might be asking what exactly can he do? I would like to change the question to what exactly can he not do:) Alas, I am his wife and know he is capable of greatness. But for the real world here is a little run down.

He was the Controller/IT Manager of his last company who dealt with heavy civil construction. In the past he was also a finance manager for a mortgage company which at the time was the largest privately held mortgage bank in Nevada. He does have a bachelor degree is finance and all but a thesis done for a masters in economics. So basically he can run all the finances, forecasting, and modeling for just about any company. He can also build computers and built all the computers and servers for his last company plus he can figure out almost any computer program thanks to his job of writing computer software he had through college. He is a farm boy at heart and jokes, “John Henry may have been born with a hammer in is hand but I was born with a shovel.” He says it jokingly but it is pretty much the truth.  He has been shoveling from a young age on his family farm.  About two months ago, we participated in a service project at Cold Creek where we planted “Native Plants” (which I pretty much think were weeds) in the desert. In our time out there 120 “weeds” were planted among our group of 12 people. Ninety-five of them were planted by Barry himself. Everyone was in awe how quick he could dig through the desert dirt which is not easy digging. So he is not afraid to get his hands dirty and shovel his guts out if needs be. He is a hard worker, extremely attentive to detail, and loyal beyond measure.

Although we love Las Vegas and our home, we are in great position to leave if an opportunity presents itself somewhere else. We are not underwater on our house and could sell it quickly.  So if it is something out of city or state we are definitely open to it.

If you are wondering about us, we will be just fine for a while. We have a little money in savings and our garden is promising fresh food. Along with our food storage we are sitting okay for now. Actually, I made some boysenberry jam last night.  We just need some good leads or opportunites.

 

Here are some other promising sites in our garden.

Lettuce and Spinach

 Tomatos

 Potatoes

 Green Beans

 Garlic and Onions

 Corn

Peppers

 Artichokes and Herbs I forgot to take a picture of. 

Shades of Blue

For a long time I have wanted a piece of furniture behind my couch so it wasn't "floating" in the middle of the room but I am cheap so I couldn't ever justify buying anything.  While I was up in St. George, my sister and I scoured craigslist in search for good hutches we could use.  On a trip to DI, I ran into one I thought looked promising but it was $200.  Astounded at the price, I said to Rakel, "Can you believe they want $200 for this thing?" and not knowing the man over the department was standing right behind me.  He simply asked me how much I would pay for it.  I had no idea what to say and while I was thinking he asked if I would buy if for $45.  Well a deal was made and then the only task left was to convince Barry that cramming this 6 ft hutch in the back of the Excursion for the ride back to Las Vegas was a great idea.  NOT only a great idea but the deal of a lifetime.  He humored me.  I though about taking before and after photos but this is my first rodeo with refinishing furniture.  I have really no idea what I am doing so I was just praying it would look presentable in the end.  With this piece being a guinea pig, I was not sure I wanted documentation of a big screw up.

 I did learn a lot and read a lot along the way and with some sandpaper, primer, paint, wax and new hardware, I do love it.  This is a picture of it in the living room

 and some close up detailing of it.  I am glad I learned and finished it all for well under $100.  I don't think I could make a hobby of refinishing stuff but I would definitely do it again for my home.