Merry Christmas

Hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas Holiday!  Love, the Hansens

Christmas Time is Here

I love this time of year and we've been having a lot of fun!  Here are a few things we've been up to lately!

We took a little trip to Salt Lake to go to one of our favorite restaurants, Pat's BBQ, and see the lights on temple square.  Chace was so bundled up, he couldn't move much.  It was pretty funny!  Thanks Jared and Suzanne for coming with us!

We went to the Hansen Christmas Party last weekend and Chace made his debut as baby Jesus in the Nativity.  He was the youngest grandson, so we had a walking baby Jesus this year! He couldn't figure out what was going on, but he did pretty well with his role. :)

He also got to sit on Santa's lap! He really just wanted to stand in front of them and figure out what the heck they were wearing!  Hey, at least he's not screaming! (Maybe it has something to do with the piece of bread he's trying to finish eating.)

One of my favorite parts of Christmas this year has been the opportunity to shop for a family in need.  The Smithfield Chamber of Commerce picks a few families each year to help out and since I work for Smithfield I got to help shop for those families!  Trav and I got to go on a little date to Walmart (wahoo! pretty typical date these days) to shop for this family of five.  We were able to buy their kids new shoes, clothes, coats etc. to deliver!  It was so exciting and I really was reminded of what Christmas is all about.  That excitement of selflessly serving someone else is what the season is truly about.  That is what the life and teachings of Christ are all about.  His life was service.  I'm so grateful for this opportunity we had this year!

I'm sure we'll have many more Christmas memories to come, but if I'm slow with the posting, we with all of you a Merry Christmas and we are so grateful to have you all in our lives!

Three Piece Suits and the Tree

Ok, enough with the scowls, I thought I'd show you that Chace is still a happy guy once in a while!  How bout this nice three piece suit Chace sported yesterday at church?  I don't know why but I've never been a big fan of fancy stuff like this on little kids, but when I put it on him, I couldn't help think he looked pretty darn cute! :) (Plus it was a hand-me-down so even better!)  Do you like his static hair?  It's a pretty normal thing around here! 

 Oh, and if you look at the Christmas tree, you can see our ribbon and ornaments have stopped about 3/4 the way down!  Too tempting...

Also, I've always tried to take good pictures of our Christmas tree each year, but they always turn out looking washed out and don't quite capture the magic of the tree!  Well I found a sweet post, which of course I can't find now but will link if I eventually find it, that duh, reminded me that if you change the shutter speed to be slower, it will let in more light, making the lights and everything look much better!  (Wow nice run-on sentence!)  So I'm working on it, still a little dark but here's a half decent picture of our tree this year!  I love Christmas!!

Oh and for those of you have not been to our place, you will notice that yes, that is an empty bookshelf next to the tree.  Bookshelves are pretty much worthless as soon as your kid turns 10 months.  Unless you like your books and DVDs on the floor instead of the shelf.  Oh well!

More scowls and boots

Today's picture of the boots and scowl :)

New Boots

This week Chace got a new pair of boots for the winter and he LOVES them!  The night we got them, he wouldn't let us take them off.  When he decided he did want them off, he'd just bring them back to us to put back on a few minutes later.  Don't they look smashing with the Aggie sweats! ;)

PS Dont mind the major scowl!  That is his new favorite look lately...

It's A Girl!

We had our appointment this morning to find out if we are having a girl or boy!  We were ok with either but sort of hoping for a girl! :)  The ultrasound tech told us there's no doubt it's a girl!  (So there better not be any surprises on delivery day!)  The shy little thing wouldn't let us get a good look at her face, her hands were covering it the whole time, but everything looks healthy and normal so we are feeling so blessed!  We've got some happy grandmas and aunts! :)  First granddaughter on both sides.  I foresee a little spoiling!

All Together...For a Little While!

Wednesday we welcomed home my brother Jason from his mission in Wisconsin.  We had a great, relaxing Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday with all of us together.  We took advantage of this time because my brother Bradley will be leaving on his mission in May so we won't be able to be all together for the Holidays for another 2 years!  I'm so grateful for an awesome family who will take me for who I am, through thick and thin!  They put up with me and my quirks and would drop anything to help us out!  I'm so grateful for the gospel, and the plan of happiness that makes it possible to be with our families for forever!  That means so much to me, and really makes every test and trial in this life worth going through!  Family is Forever!

Look Who's Home!

We just got home from the airport!  Jason's back! :)

Congrats Trav!

This is how excited we are!

Trav found out yesterday that he's been accepted to Grad School here at USU and the Athletic Department is going to help with paying for his schooling if he will be a Grad Assistant for them!!  That means we'll be staying in Logan for awhile longer!  Yay for a few more years of school! :)

Beautiful

Maybe it's the pregnancy hormones, but I couldn't help but tear up a little bit when I saw this new painting from Simon Dewey at Deseret Book last week. (Embarrassing when you're actually in the store!)   I just had to post it because I think I found a new favorite painting!

Shout Out to the Chilly Weather!

Ok, I know when it gets cold it's tough not to complain because we are used to the warm weather, but heck, this month our electric bill went down 50 buck-a-roos and our gas only went up by $10!! If I do my math correctly, that's $40 extra bucks for diapers and wipes!  Definitely worth blogging about! ;)  Hoo-rah for the chilly weather!

Chace's First Haircut!

Trav and I decided this week that Chace's hair was getting a little long and crazy, and the mullet, although cute, just had to go.  So I snapped some pictures before our hair cut today!

Before:

The Mullet

(Don't those teeth just top off the redneck look??)

The Rat's Nest

(His hair in the back is so long that after a while it goes all fuzzy and weird!)

The Bed Head

(Taken right after his nap. Now can you see why Trav and I decided it was time!)

Chace was a champ and did great during his haircut.  (Maybe it was the Elmo movie he got to watch and the race car he got to sit in.  Sounds like a good haircut to me!!)   He's a new man!

(He was in heaven when I actually let him have the butterscotch dum dum they gave him.  First sucker...he was laughing and smiling like a kid on Christmas!  It was hilarious!)

Chace's new friend

Chace found his shadow this morning on the wall in his room!  So funny!  He keeps going back to his room and trying to figure out who that boy on the wall is!  :)

Our Cute Little Dog

The first animal noise that Chace learned was the dog sound and he has always LOVED dogs!  He has to have his stuffed animal dog in bed with him and points out every dog in every book.  So, when I found this cute costume on sale at Kmart I knew we couldn't pass it up!  It was perfect!  We were lame parents and didn't take Chace trick-or-treating but really, we've got plenty of years ahead of us when he'll actually know what is going on!

 See all the dogs in the back ground.  I'm telling ya, this kid loves dogs!

One Year Fall Pictures

I've been wanting to get some cute pics with Chace in the leaves, however I am coming to the conclusion that it might not be possible to get cute, smiling pictures from this kid for a couple of years!  He is constantly moving, walking away from the camera, and heaven for bid he would smile for the camera.  We get a lot of "look mom, here's a rock" pictures, but I guess catching the moment is sometimes better than a posed picture right? :)  Here are a few from our gorgeous walk today.  I love Logan in the fall!!

Pumpkin Walk 2011