Christmas picture fun

Preschool Halloween Party

Lots of pictures of our Preschool Halloween Party the Friday before Halloween.  So many kids and so much fun!

COSTUME FUN

BALLOON FUN

FOOD FUN

GAME & CRAFTING FUN

Anna Banana

Anna is our cute, spunky, and fiercely independent 2 year old.  If the girls need something done, they often ask Anna (oranges peeled, hard packages opened).  She is constantly going in the pantry or refrigerator or freezer and getting her own food.  She can prepare it herself too.  The other day Anna got the eggs and cheese out of the fridge and brought them to me, saying that she wanted to make scrambled eggs.  I got out a pan and turned on the stove and she literally did the rest without me coaching her.  She got out the small glass bowl I always use for whisking eggs and picked out her favorite spatula (after refusing the one that I got out for her) and she explained to me exactly how to hold the pan so she didn't touch the hot parts.  She even cracked the eggs without getting pieces of the shell into the bowl.

The other day I got out the ingredients to make myself a salad.  I then got distracted and when I walked back into the kitchen Anna was standing at the counter with a glass bowl full of salad in her hands.  "Mom, I made your salad. Here you go."  She had gotten a bowl for me and put chunks of everything that she saw out on the counter into the salad (not all of which was slated to go into the salad).  Half a lemon, a huge chunk of garlic,  half of a carrot and some cherry tomatoes.  At least she got me started :-)

Love that girl.

Halloween Trunk-or-Treat

Our church's Chili Cook-Off/Trunk-or-Treat was the first of the Halloween festivities.  I didn't have a chance to get pictures, but a friend of mine took some, thank goodness!

 Elizabeth the Flower Princess

 Molly the Pirate Princess

Julia decided to dress up in one of her everyday princess dress-up costumes instead of wearing her new Sleeping Beauty costume.  Elizabeth was pretty upset about that because, as she said to Julia in a disappointed tone, "JULIA, you can't wear that dress, Mom paid money to buy you a costume and you're not even wearing it!"  I pick my battles :-)

Our cute little bee who went around stinging everybody.  She's a character!

We usually have the girls trade their candy for a toy.  For the older girls this is customary and they really look forward to it.  Fast forward this year to two curious little girls and we gave them the chance to have one piece of candy and then turn in their candy for a toy.  They all promptly did that.  And Dad put the candy stash up high somewhere.  The next morning we found Julia and Anna behind a chair in the living room starting to chomp on a couple of pieces of candy.  They had done some good scaling.  We told them that they could have the candy or a toy - they'd have to choose.  Elizabeth and Molly were encouraging them to pick the toy.  They quickly chose the candy.  Molly said to me, surprised at their choice, "I'd MUCH rather have a toy than candy."  We went to Five Below the next day to pick out a toy for Elizabeth and Molly and fully expected the little girls to complain because they weren't getting a toy, or at least beg for one.  Not at all.  They realized the choice they had made and were happy with their candy.

The little girls

Yes, we still exist.  And I may post some of this past year's photos as I go along.  But I am going to start with the here and now.

These are my little girls.  Everyone asks if they are twins and they are certainly about the same size now.  As well as best little buddies.  They play together so well and could seriously be considered "double trouble"!  But the cutest double trouble you've ever seen!  As you can tell, they love to dress up and they love to read.

Belated Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I neglected to remind people of our blogspot address when I wrote our Christmas letter, so I hope you will think to check back in!  (But I don't blame you if you don't remember! :-)  I also neglected to write about some of the fun things we did this year, as I took too much space updating on each member of the family.  So I thought I'd copy our Christmas letter into this post (because we didn't get a card out to everyone we would've liked) and then add some things that I didn't have space to write.

December 2010

Happy Holidays to our dear family and friends,

We hope 2010 was good to you!  Every Christmas we marvel at the blessings of the previous year.  We are always especially grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate.  We hope that in the hustle and bustle of the season, we can take time to ponder on the true meaning of Christmas and feel of the special spirit that brings.

We are so excited to hear from you and read your letters about your lives, your families, and to see how they have grown.    If you will indulge us for a moment, while we gush about our girls J…

Our 6 year old, Elizabeth, is now in 1^st grade.  She is exuberant and fun and loving.   She loves school and loves having her best friend in her class.  She has been taking piano lessons from mom and is really excelling!  Her favorite thing to do is to figure out songs on the piano by ear.  She has really taken mom’s piano talent and gone a step further.  She is also still involved in dance classes and is taking a trio of classes this year – ballet, tap, and jazz.  This is her first jazz class and she loves it. 

Molly is our 4 year old.  She is in a mom’s pre-school class that we do with 3 other little girls, which she absolutely loves.   She is our little peacemaker and shares everything with her sisters.  She loves books, is starting to read, and is also excited to start piano lessons herself soon.  She tried violin and gave it her best shot, but ultimately the “Mom, when is this lesson going to be done?” comments after 5 minutes in class, gave us the clues that she wasn’t quite ready for it.  She did develop a love for the violin and for classical music, though, which she didn’t have before.  And I loved learning how to play the violin, myself!  So I didn’t consider it a total bust.  

Julia just turned 3 at the beginning of this month.  Sometimes we’re hard pressed to know who is boss around here.  But, on the other hand, the things she says couldn’t be cuter and I always forget all the wonderful things about this 3-year-old stage!  She loves everything girl and is often found out and about in her princess dress-up clothes.   She loves puzzles and books and playing pretend and doing crafts with her big sisters.  Just don’t tell her she’s ‘gorgeous’ because she’ll reply ‘No, I’m Julia!’

Anna will be 2 in February.  She is getting to be as big as Julia.  Everyone thinks they are twins.  In fact, it is pretty commonplace for me to be asked if we have 2 sets of twins.  We’ve even fooled moms of twins.  Anna is the life of the party.  She will start tickle fights with her sisters and is a ringleader even though she is the youngest.  She is a true blue 2 year old and is more curious at this age than any of her sisters were.  I can’t take away one thing from her before she is getting into something else.  She is independent and is starting to put on her own coat, shoes, and clothes.  I find her trying to do things the big girls do all the time.   (Like cutting paper!  I should be grateful it’s only been paper so far.)  I guess that’s what you do when you are the youngest of 4 in row! 

I am grateful to say that I have experienced a tremendous amount of healing this year.  It has been hard work, but truly rewarding work.  I am so appreciative of all of your prayers and thoughts last year at this time when things were at their most difficult point.   Thankfully, this trial has led to some doors opening up that wouldn’t have opened otherwise.  I am now enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition to become a holistic health counselor.  I am truly enjoying it and, while it is helping me personally to continue to increase my level of health, I am so excited to be able to help others along the same path of increased health.   I have started a blog  – wholefoodswholelife.blogspot.com - that chronicles some of the things I am learning, if you’re interested in following!  I will be taking mostly phone clients at student rates for 6 months starting in February.  So let me know if you or someone you know may be interested in health coaching!

Greg is still enjoying his work with Vitamix.  He is a Regional Sales Manager and this year he was asked to take over a 2nd region.  For a while he was traveling a little bit more, but now things have evened out (thank goodness!).   He is training for an obstacle course type race called the Warrior Dash in June and is loving the preparation.   We have finally taken back up exercise in the past couple of months.  It has been a wonderful experience to get exercise into our lives after being on hiatus while having children! (I don’t recommend that anyone take that hiatus if you can help it, by the way. J)   Greg has also started taking classes at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition as a way to enhance his career, and at the same time help him figure out some of his own health issues.  It is so fun for us to be doing this together!  On the very day that I write this we are celebrating our 9^th wedding anniversary.  We’ve made it 9 years and are doing better than ever !

We sure hope that this letter finds you all well and enjoying your holiday season!

With Love,

Greg, Amy, Elizabeth, Molly, Julia & Anna

Our fun highlight of the year was taking a trip out to Utah and Wyoming this summer.  We have been wanting to get out there for years (ever since we visited when Elizabeth was a baby).  Unfortunately, we didn't have the time to see everyone who we know and love out there, but we were so happy to spend a lot of time with my sister and her family in WY, as well as spend some time with our dear friends the Finlaysons in UT.  We were able to stop in and visit my brother Andrew's family in UT as well.  They were planning on visiting Ohio soon after, so our time was short with them. But it was great to see them too!

We also traveled to North Carolina to see Greg's mom on her mission.  It was so wonderful to see her and see where she had been serving (she came back at Christmas and it was great to have her stay with us for a week before she went on to Greg's sister's house).

At the end of the summer we traveled to D.C.  We had an exciting reunion with my mom's whole side of the family to celebrate my grandmother's 95th birthday.  EVERYONE was there!   Even Trudy, from Austria, who was an exchange student with my mother's family when my aunt was in High School (and who has stayed a close family friend through the years), was able to come with her daughter!   We stayed at a wonderful hotel/resort and enjoyed many fun memories with the whole family.

Greg and I are looking forward to a trip to Miami Beach, Florida in February for our Institute of Integrative Nutrition conference.  We will be flying back home the evening of his 40th birthday.  Shhhhhh! Don't tell him I told you!

Pictures to come!!!!

Halloween

The girls enjoyed Halloween - on Friday at our house for our preschool party and at school (for Elizabeth), at a church party on Saturday, and on Sunday (although we made a decision to not go trick or treating in the neighborhood because it was a Sunday).  Elizabeth & Molly had an absolute blast passing out candy on the porch in their costumes for about an hour.  I think they enjoyed it as much or more as actually going out trick or treating!   And since we don't do the candy, except for to trade it in for a toy, and they already had their stash to trade in from the night before (tricking or treating in the parking lot at church), they were as pleased as pie!

 
Trying on Strawberry Shortcake and Fairy costumes that Grandma made for Elizabeth and Molly (Thanks, Grandma!)

Preschool Halloween party

School parade

 

Halloween party at church where the kids went trick or treating in the parking lot (Trunk Or Treat)

The Lassen Family 10 months older

That's a long time when the kids are little! I know we've been MIA this year and I've been wanting to find time to start posting again. I figured with these cute pictures a friend took of us the other day and some Halloween pictures to come, now would be as good a time as any to start posting again. And we should be getting our official family pix back soon, so lots of pictures coming!

In the meantime, here is the best picture we have managed to get with all 4 girls. Anna is usually not cooperative for pictures with the sisters.

Thank you, thank you

I want to thank all of you who have been so helpful to our family over the past 10-11months that I haven't felt well. And, in particular, the past few weeks when I have felt especially unwell. I can't begin to express our gratitude for your service and love. From dear friends who check on me and let me borrow clothes until I can figure out what size I REALLY need! To people who have taken such good care of the children and the mess in the home :-) To friends and family far away who have called and offered strength and support. And countless other thoughtful acts of service.

To those of you who are not here and who don't really know what has gone on...well, someday I'll write a book ;-) But for now, suffice it to say that after having Anna my body decided it wasn't too hip on digesting food. It eventually caused me to be bedridden at times and not be able to get up or talk. It would get better after a time of resting and then get bad again, and the cycle continued. Dr. after Dr. and blood test after blood test left little to understand. After some time of collecting data we did find out that I had Candida (a yeast overgrowth that can cause lots of unwanted effects in the body including digestive "stuff") and also many food allergies. My body basically was not tolerating much food at all and after thinking that things were getting better in Sept/Oct, I got worse. As helpful as my Dr.'s and other practitioners have tried to be, we came to the end of the road with most of them. People were stumped. The good news is this...I had one more hope of a Dr. to try who had been recommended to me by more than one person on more than one occasion. I was able to see her yesterday and I really believe she is the answer to our prayers. That the Lord sent her to me at the critical moment. She is the only person that has said, "I see what is happening, I have treated other chronic cases similar to this, this is what we are going to do..just trust me." It is super hard to explain everything in this post - especially because I am about typed out :-) But there is hope and we are finally getting things into my body that it truly needs to heal. It has only been a day and I can feel that my body is responding positively. One step at a time, I know. Things won't be better overnight. My body has been suffering for so long that it will be a process. But I must thank all of you for your faith and prayers thus far, as I know that they have been critical in me even getting to this point. I feel blessed to have such good friends, family and ward family who have supported me and Greg and our girls. Thank you, thank you. I can't wait to get my health and energy back so I can go forth and serve as you have so kindly served me.

The girls are growing up!