Suddenly Suffereing from Soccer Mom Syndrome

Tiger has been so busy lately, it seems like all I am doing is running around and helping him with projects. Not exacty a soccer mom, but it is all a little overwhelming.

February was our Blue and Gold Banquet for scouts. The boys did skits and participated in a cake contest (which doubled for pot luck dessert. Clever!). There were a lot of good cakes all made by the boys--with very little parent help. It's no secret that I don't bake, well cook at all for that matter, so Tiger came up with the idea to make pinewood derby cars out of Twinkies. By the time he was finished, we had to rename it the pinewood demolition derby. Notice the candy corn flames on the one big pile up. In March we had the actual pinewood derby. He didn't do very well and was pretty bummed. Oh well, there's always next year!

Scouting Slideshow:


Not only has he been busy in scouts, he has had one project after another at school. The first was a county fair project about Box Elder. (Thanks Carol and Kelsey for all the good info.) Second he had a science fair project that we worked on for three weeks. Tiger's favorite thing in the world is running. He decided to do his project on whether or not music effects your pace when you run.

School Slideshow:


And with spring comes, you guessed it--baseball. Currently, we are having to go to practices twice a week and his games start next week. That means baseball 4 nights a week. He loves it though, so what can I say?

Baseball Slideshow:


Last but not least, we have been in and out of the dentist office for both of the boys. Tiger had a cavity filled a while back that turned into an abscess. The same day Derek had his front teeth taken out, Tiger had one of his molars removed. The dentist gave us two options: a permanent spacer for the molar until the permanent one comes in or a retainer. We've known for about 4 years that he was eventually going to have to have the retainer to straighten his teeth, so we went for that option. He chose the tiger stripes and is trying really hard to pretend that he doesn't love having it! I also posted some pictures of my toothless two-year-old. Were getting used to his first grade smile and kind of think it's cute now.

Unsupervised Kids+Phones=Mischief

Remember way back when . . . you're parents were busy or they left you alone with a couple of your friends and the first thing you thought of doing was crank calling. Whether it was a random number chosen from the white pages or someone familiar you thought wouldn't recognize your voice, it was always a thrill to actually go through with it.

Here's the scenario you remember:

You're friend (or cousin) baited you by saying "I bet you don't dare call this number and say. . ." and you would reply "Yes I do. Dial it and I'll show you!" As you listened to the phone ring once, twice, three, four times, your heart would start to beat a little faster and your skin would start to feel a little warm. Then suddenly the ringing stopped, and on the other line . . . "Hello."

The moment of truth.

Would you be brave enough to crack the joke or chicken out and hang up?

Last night we were paying our weekly visit to my mother-in-law's to pick up the boys. As we walked in the door, her phone started ringing and Mickey asked Griffie to pick it up. Nothing out of the ordinary there. As Mickey got further into the conversation, she started saying things like "No, everything is alright here. . . It must have been one of the kids. We'll talk to them. . . It would probably be better if he talked to him when he gets here."

My ears perked up because obviously this was no ordinary phone call. Apparently someone had called 911 and dispatch was returning the call. I assumed it was either Derek or my nephew that is in kindergarten. Derek had been upstairs with no phones low enough to get his hands on. Gauge is not a very good liar, so all we had to do was ask him once. However, none of the kids are good liars when it comes right down to it, but they were all four bound and determined not to rat each other out. Mickey asked them who called and they denied doing it. Big Griff asked them who called and, still, they denied it. I asked and they started blaming each other. Tiger blamed it on Cadance and she blamed it on him. They both told Mickey "Grandma, I don't want to go to juvie!"

Finally, about twenty or thirty minutes after the phone call, there came a knock at the door. It was the sheriff they had to dispatch to come and make sure nothing was wrong. Gauge went pale white and looked like he was going to cry when Mickey told him he had to get upstairs to talk to the officer. The other three marched with their heads down in a nervous, funeral like procession. They all sat down on the couch, with their arms folded and their heads bowed in penance when the officer asked "So, which one of you called 911?"

Tiger was the first to pipe up. "It was me" he said in his tiniest, most guilt ridden voice. As I said, I seriously thought it was Gauge. Tiger KNOWS that 911 is for emergencies only--we've talked about it at home, at school, at scouts. My jaw dropped and I felt my skin get hot with anger as I listened to his confession. I was furious! I could not believe what I was hearing.

I'm sure the twenty minute ride home from Wellington later that evening was the longest he has had in his nine short years. I interrogated him all the way home and finally got it out that Cadance had tried to call someone and it lead to some kind of dare for him to call 911. I'm not sure on all the details because they are still pretty tight lipped about the actual events, but he got scared as soon as someone picked up on the other end and hung up. He didn't know they would call right back.

He learned a valuable lesson about lying, blaming others for your actions, tying up dispatch lines, and wasting a police officers valuable time. I think he's sorry and I'm pretty sure he won't do it again. I'm positive he won't try to crank call the police again. As for the crank calling part of things, I'm sure this is just the beginning.

So, what are your crank calling stories? I'm sure you have some good tales to tell. I'm going to think about mine and post in my comments some of my better jokes--when I remember what they are. :)

What Keeps You Busy?

Well, life has been really busy these past few weeks. Tiger has started baseball, both of the boys have been in and out of the dentist office quite a bit, and I haven't had a day off of school in nearly 5 weeks (can you believe it). I have a lot of events and cute pictures to post as soon as I have a minute, so don't give up on me. I haven't been updating my blog, but have been keeping track of all of you. Sounds like I'm not the only busy one!

So I'll ask:

What do you do in the spring to keep you busy?

Let us know!

Do You Want the Good News or the Bad First?

Well--actually--there is no good news.

As you probably read on my mom's blog (click HERE if you didn't for the original report), Derek fell in the bathtub two weeks ago and knocked his front teeth out. Well, not completely---yet! (One addition to mom's report is that not only did it tear his lip away from the gums, but it actually tore the gums between the two front teeth and detached them from the tooth in the back as well. I'm sure that is where most of the blood came from.)

I took him to the dentist for a follow up appointment today and, as I anticipated, there was no good news. His right front tooth has been gradually turning a rather greenish shade of gray since the initial impact. This, the fact that it is still really loose, he won't use it to eat, and the gums above it are still swollen and bulging forward all lead to the the prognosis that his two front teeth have to come OUT. Hmmm. . . how much Money is your first tooth worth when you're only two?

(At least his nose was clean when I took that picture!) :)

Anyway, the extraction of his front two teeth is scheduled for two weeks from today. They have to come out before the dead roots start to decay and cause infection. Just a side note to add to the bad news from before, he has to have false teeth put in ($Cha$Ching$), but they have to mount them with a retainer cemented to his molars in the back. Unfortunately, the molars haven't grown in yet, but they are starting!!! So it looks like he will just be toothless for a month or two until they come in.

The tooth fairy better start saving up!!!

Breathing Treatments

Derek has to have breathing treatments again and I thought this would be a good place to store the information since I don't really have to keep track of it here. I can just look it up when I need it. I wanted to track how frequently his asthma was flaring up. Seems like that last time was when he had to stay in the hospital in December.

Bad Day

Well, Highway 6 has struck again.

Annie and I took off this morning (late as usual) for a music conference in Salt Lake about 7:00 a.m. Just as we were leaving town, my mom called to warn us that the roads were icy and slick and it was pretty foggy. We were thankful for the warning, but decided to go ahead anyway--we were more than an hour behind them and the sun was coming up.

The roads were fine--until . . . we came around the first corner just past the Summit Station. The pictures say it all:

The damage from the wrecker window

Loading the car on the Wrecker

The first picture is a topside view of how we slid down the embankment (trunk first) and the second is a side view of the ruts where we were luckily stopped by about two feet of snow. Yes, the embankment drops again just behind our back tire marks. The deep snow stopped us just in time.

The detached bumper and the ride up on the tow cable.

The view from the backseat of the Highway Patrol car, which was a first for both of us. The officer offered to let us try it out complete with handcuffs if we wanted. We didn't! :)

The pictures uploaded to my blog post in reverse order and I took these two while we were patiently awaiting the arrival of emergency vehicles inside a chilly car that we didn't dare start.

Can you believe she is smiling!?!

Thanks Annie for the experience of my first real car accident and for making sure we both lived to tell about it. I'm glad everyone was okay--well your bumper didn't come out so well, but I think we both agree that things really could have been a lot worse!

It was kind of like a really, really expensive tabogan ride!

Kids Say the Darndest Things!

The last Monday they had the lights up at Temple Square, the Jensen clan decided to pack up and drive in to Salt Lake for a chilly night out in the big city. Personally, I don't think that I have been to Temple Square to see the lights since . . . hmmm, I don't even know when--but I bet that it has been 10 years or more.

Anyway, to the funny part of the story:

This was Tiger and Derek's first trip to Temple Square. We, of course, stopped in the visitors center to see the Christus statue. When we got to the top of the ramp, Derek just froze, leaned on the ropes, and stared up with the most intent and ponderous stare I have ever seen on his face. After a long drawn-out moment he turned to me and said "Mommy, that is a BIG white Jesus!"

After we left the visitor's center, we were heading through the busy sidewalks back to the Lion House for dinner. We turned a corner a little ways past the tabernacle where they have the statue of the restoration of the priesthood and Derek stopped again. He stared up at this statue with wonder, althought not quite as much as he did before, then turned to me again and said "Mommy, that is a big BLACK Jesus!"

Well, at least he knows his colors.