BUSY SATURDAY!!!

We can't believe that we made it through this last weekend! Wow! It was so busy and so fun and so stressful all at the same time. To start off, Christina had to have one of her wisdom teeth pulled on Thursday morning because it got a hole in it and had exposed a nerve so it was causing LOTS of pain. The annoying thing was that the regular numbing stuff from the dentist office doesn't work on her, BUT she is pregnant so everyone was saying that she shouldn't/couldn't get put out to have an oral surgeon do it. After a few days of talking with all the doctors and getting checked out and having a nurse say "Well, I wouldn't do it if I was pregnant", Christina finally got in the oral surgeon's chair at 8:30 am. Only to have to be sent back to the waiting room right before an IV was put in because the wording the baby doc sent over only said "oral surgery" not "general anesthesia" After 45 minutes of tracking the baby doc down to have him reword his approval, Christina finally got the painful tooth yanked out. Luckily she had a wonderful dad who flew in just the night before to take care of her and Carter. It was so fun to see them bond.
Anyway, Christina's dad flew in on Wednesday and her sister Ginger flew in on Thursday to be apart of this weekend. The main events were Christina's sisters, Jana and Julie, were running in the SLC 1/2 marathon race. It was their first one and they both have been training so hard, only to each have a leg muscle injury just days before the marathon. That didn't stop them though, although it might have slowed them down more than they would have hoped, but they did AMAZING!!! All of the rest of us Habel girls are super proud of what they accomplished.
Ginger had the great idea of making them slug bug head bands to wear so they were easy to point out. She also made some awesome signs to help cheer them on. It was a blast! We showed up just as they were running towards the finish line in Gateway. What excitement!
Julie had two of her five kids with her, Landon and Brook, and Landon was a super trooper because just the day before he had to have all 4 wisdom teeth taken out! He looks pretty good though, huh?
After the excitement we had to run up an already started surprise retirement party for our Uncle Colin who is married to our Dad's sister, Cindy. She and her friends did an BEAUTIFUL job pulling everything off and it was really a great party. Colin was so surprised by all the effort and the people there, especially because his only brother flew in as additional surprise, and Cindy even had some very sweet sentiments written to Colin from friends and co-workers here and back in England. It all was so beautiful and fun to see a lot of our extended family.

They had a beautiful display of the different chapters in Colin's life and all of his accomplishments in the navy as well as one of his favorite hobbies, growing orchids. He earned quite a few rewards and medals so it was a great contribute to his life.
Unfortunately Mike had to miss all of the fun because he was stuck taking an extremely hard engineering test for 8 hours! We met him downtown to get some yummy food once he was done, and with Christina's family all gone to Nevada for her nephew Dillon's farewell, we had a pretty quiet evening. It was nice to get some relaxing in, even though we were sad we weren't able to make it out to see her nephew off. We're so proud of him and we know that he'll be a great missionary!

What funny and cute boys I have! While I was making dinner the boys were making faces and videos downstairs.

CARTER'S FORT

He is all boy...silly boy that is! :-)

So Mike and his team's baja are going to be on tv soon! They did the filming this morning for a segment on the show At Your Leisure. With the show the team is hoping to get some donations as well as just letting people know all the work they've been doing. Here are some vids that Mike took of the baja bounding through everything.

This is actually the baja that last year's team built, but Mike's team modified it and got it running again so they could do this filming. Hopefully the 2010 baja will be done soon and running. We can't wait to see it! Remember that Design Day is April 20th from 9-3 at the Union at the U.

HAPPY EASTER

We had a EGG-TASTIC Easter Sunday. We started the morning off early, and we were excited to show Carter what the Easter Bunny had brought. So he helped each "Easter Bunny" hide a basket so that he could get in the spirit and understand the morning tradition. As Christina and Mike asked for his help with finding their baskets that he helped hide, he kept taking them to all the places that the basket had started out, but not where it ended up. Funny!

Finally we just had to give each other hints to where the baskets were hidden because Carter kept leading us astray. The funny thing is that we both hid the baskets in the same place...the coat closet!! Mike had no idea that his was in there as well since Christina was sneaky and put his "basket" in plastic grocery sacks and hung them on the hanger with the coat as a concealer. Mike took rags out of the box to cover Christina's basket, so when she finally got to the closet she knew something was amiss. :-) Carter of course had fun clapping for us and tasting all the different types of chocolate. Mike gave Christina lots of candy (with Christina's help) and insisted that on Saturday night that she get a new shirt. At first she didn't want to stop since this whole growing belly thing is at the not so fun stage, but Mike found her a cute shirt, which of course we didn't get any pictures of. :-)

For Carter's basket we took him to his room and helped him look under the crib, in the laundry basket, behind the chair, and eventually in the closet under his chair. He was excited to get his basket, but mostly just for only one thing...the chocolate bunny of course! We couldn't get it open fast enough for him so he decided to start working on it himself, then as soon as he got it he just sat down and started munching...so cute!



Eventually we got him to look at the other items in the basket like the dollar store ball shooting gun. He then cracked us up as he asked for Mike to keep shooting him with the gun.

But the best was when Carter got the gun and turned it to his face to try and shoot the ball at himself...his look is so so funny! The first time he misses and shakes his head and then the second video he gets it right on.

While enjoying a wonderful morning session of Conference we got the house and food ready for Mike's family to join us for lunch and the second session. It was so good to see everyone and enjoy way too much good food. Of course our favorite was the deviled eggs, which seem to taste so much better on Easter.


We also had Carter dye eggs and he LOVED it! He had already done them at Grandma Jenson's house so he was a pro and knew exactly what to do. His hands are totally a yellowish green and probably will be for a few days. :-)

The only sad thing about today was that Carter was a bit fussy and he wouldn't even think about taking a nap since he would miss everything. Finally due to utter exhaustion, after yet another tantrum he fell asleep on Mike's shoulder around 4pm. Unfortunately that was the time that we wanted to go do the Jenson tradition of rolling hard boiled eggs down a hill.


So we just played games until he woke up (prematurely, of course), and headed to the park anyway with a still grumpy Carter, and sadly without Angela & Steve. Once we were at the hill though and showed Carter what all the fun was about he was in the best mood! He didn't want to leave even though it was absolutely freezing cold! He also loved running up and down the hill, and it was a STEEP hill!

We're so grateful for all the wonderful things that happened this weekend, with Conference, celebrating Christ's resurrection and the knowledge of his Gospel, and to do all of that with family. Who could ask for anything more?

Since Christina is pregnant again, it must mean it's time to make strawberry jam! ;-) At least this time she isn't 7 months along with swollen feet. Of course we've been out of good stuff that we made about two years for awhile now, but we just haven't been able to find a delicious jam from the stores. They all seem to be off in either the taste or texture. So, at Reams on Monday they had an in-store special of a lb of strawberries for 99 cents so we took the plunge and bought 8 pkgs to make 2 batches of jam.

Making the jam actually took us 4 days to finish! The reason is because we didn't start cutting the fruit up until 8:30 on Wednesday night and then between pregnancy exhaustion and busy nights we didn't have enough time until Sunday night. It was actually kind of nice to spread the work out. That and having a great husband that cut the heads off of all the strawberries and then helped pour the hot mixture into the jars. Mike made the whole process much easier, which is a good thing since it's his fault that we got into this mess anyway. He loves toast with jam anytime of the day so this stretch of not having good jam has been hard on him. ;-)
The jam turned out perfect! All the jars sealed and the jam has good solidity to it. We might actually be making some more soon since we want to give a lot out and keep plenty for ourselves as well, but hopefully it won't take so long next time. :-)

So for those of you who were wondering what a Baja was, well here you go...sort of. The picture above is a 3D model of how the finished car will look, and this is how far they were last week with this mountain climbing machine. The frame, engine, and steering are mostly ready to go, but a few more things have to be finished before they can put the tires on and the sides of the vehicle.
Mike has been in charge of the chassis group, (the frame and structure of the vehicle) but really he has done a little of everything. Especially when it comes to water-jetting the parts. Here are some parts for the engine that he helped design and then actually made. He's pretty amazing at this stuff.

Mike has been working practically non-stop on it for months now, and they quite a bit more to do before Design Day at the U. That is when his group, and all the other senior design project groups display their work for the past two semesters for the whole school to see. The Baja is one of the most anticipated since it's an actual moving vehicle. If you'd like to see it complete come to the U's Student Center on Tuesday, April 20th from 9-3pm.
Mike and his team will also be competing their Baja with others built around the nation on May 19-22 up in Washington State. Once that is done then we'll be able to finally breathe school free!

Are your kids obsessed with Clifford like Carter is?

Carter's new favorite thing for March is to watch Clifford. He also loves Sesame Street and other fun kid shows, but we checked out a Clifford DVD from the library and he is hooked! He could watch the same DVD 10 times a day, or all day for that matter. He almost always has to be seating on his chair ON TOP of the couch to watch his shows. The best is when something funny happens on Clifford and gets off his throne to come get us in the other room while he's still laughing about it.
Maybe he watches too much tv, but we're not worried about that now since it's always good shows. It's fun to see something capture his attention span for longer than five minutes, and to realize that he really gets what is going on in the shows. He's just so smart!

Hopefully you don't mind all the videos as of late, but Carter has been doing some fun stuff that we want to capture and remember forever. He loves to do whatever Mike teaches him, and their new thing is gurgling with water. It's become part of the nighttime ritual where Mike gurgles and Carter laughs. Good times!


In this video Carter tries to gurgle at the end, but you probably have to turn up your volume to hear.

The other super cute thing that he does is feel his throat as he swallows...he even makes the gulping/swallowing noise! It's fun that Mike teaches him all these random things.

Tonight we had spaghetti and Carter loves noodles. He was actually eating pretty well so we had to capture his ever increasing skill of using a fork. Granted, with his face you can tell that fingers are still his preferred method. :-)

Carter also loves to eat apples, and we caught him trying to get some on his own since we were apparently taking too long. At the end we try to get him to say "apple" but he didn't quite do it...he watches Sesame Street, and Cookie Monster taught him to say apple like "a a a apple". In the video you at least get the first couple "a".

Carter is always finding new ways to make us laugh, and these videos are no exception. He found a couple new ways to walk...

This video was from a couple of weeks ago, but it still makes us laugh. While Mike was getting ready after Carter had a bath he came back to the room to find the following...what a mischievous and proud little boy we have!

Finally, the sun came out this weekend! While Mike was working hard helping his brother with his brakes and then going to school to work on the Baja, Carter and Christina enjoyed the sunshine outside. Carter LOVES the outdoors, and just had a blast exploring the yard, throwing dirt, and watering the flowers. This first video is of him throwing a frisbee for the first time, and he's actually pretty good at it.

Then of course we had to run through the leaves. It was such a wonderful day to have some one-on-one time with our growing boy.

While Christina went off to the Ward Council Meeting this morning, the boys stayed home and cooked breakfast. Carter loves to help in the kitchen, and it's even more fun for us when he actually is a help instead of just a mess. :-) Man, do they grow up fast!

Hawaii, here we come!!!

It's official! We bought tickets yesterday to Maui! We are going as a graduation trip for Mike and our good friends James & Kelly are going as well since James is also graduating. We are so proud of our guys and we can't wait for the next 6 weeks to fly by so we can sit on the beach and finally relax after 5+ years of schooling! J&K can stay longer that we can since we have to be back for Mike to compete his senior design project of a mini Baja in WA. So we are flying out on Sunday, May 9th and coming back by Sunday, May 16th. We ARE going to leave Carter which will be hard, but we pray that he'll do well with his grandmas.

Because of J&K we actually have really nice FREE lodging so we just have to pay for flight, car, and food. Since tickets are expensive anyway, we wouldn't be able to make this trip without J&K, plus, they also went to Maui on their honeymoon so they already know all the great places. This is a pretty big trip for us, especially leaving Carter so we'll see how it goes. We are thinking of getting a web cam so we can see him and talk to him, but maybe that will make it worse? Does anyone have any experience or advice about leaving your kid(s) for a trip?

Happy Birthday Cheri!!!

Today is Cheri's birthday, but with everyone's work and school schedule we decided to celebrate it yesterday at our house. We actually started off the morning extra special because Andy received the Melchizedek Priesthood!! We are SO proud of him! He's planning on going on a mission by August so this was an exciting step. Unfortunately we forgot to snatch a picture of him, but we did get one of the boys with their matching ties...we bought the ties a long time ago, but Carter finally grew into it. :-)

After the setting apart, everyone came to our house for dinner, presents, and dessert. Everything tasted wonderful, and it was so fun to be together as a family. Cheri is such a wonderful mom, grandma, and friend and we loved celebrating this day with her. Carter enjoyed helping Grandma open her presents, especially when he found the candy bars.

Cheri loves custard pie so Christina kept up the tradition from last year and made a custard pie from scratch. Steve also LOVES custard so they were both super happy. The rest of the group enjoyed a fantastic strawberry angel food cake that Angela "made". It was divine! Besides Carter being super cranky since he didn't want to take a nap in fear that he would miss something, the day was perfect. The sun even came out after a previous day of lots of rain and snow. We are so blessed and it's times like this that help remind us of our loving Heavenly Father.

Guess what??!!

Baby 2 is on their way!

We found out for sure a month ago on Thursday morning, February 11th. We basically knew since Christina was late, but it's nice to know for sure. The funny thing is that she was pretty sure around the 4th because she's always at the very beginning of the month so she thought she could just take a $1 store test to confirm her suspicions. Well that test came out negative. Then by Monday the 8th we were even more sure so we tried another $1 test and it came out negative again! So on Wednesday when we picked up Carter from Dan & Analise we told them that we probably were, but that we needed to get a good test to give us an official answer and put us at ease. They just happened to have an extra one from when they found out they were months ago. Finally, a positive answer! We're both super excited and scared to have another kid. We feel like our hands and hearts are full with Carter, but we're ready for the next step and feel that it is the right time for our family. We also think Carter will be a great big brother. If all goes well, Baby 2 will be here around October 9th!

**We wanted to shout it form the roof tops when we found out, but things were extra crazy at the time. We don't believe in waiting to tell everyone because we're too excited to keep it quiet. With Carter we made an extra effort to call and tell everyone since it was our first, but this month has been a bit busy so sorry if this is the first you're hearing about it. We love you all and we'll you keep you updated on the progress. :-)