Blessings

We were able to travel to Utah this past weekend to go see my brother Austin bless his baby. It was kind of a big deal so I was really happy that we were able to go. My brother Brandon was able to make it down and it was great to see him, even if he didn't bring his baby. (Yep it's all about the babies now).

We haven't been out of town for quite a while so we decided to tourist it up a little while we were there. We went to the fancy new museum of natural history in Salt Lake with Grandma Romney and Craig. We followed that up with a visit to "The Pie" pizzeria where we got waaay to much pizza that lasted until after we got home. Of course there are no pictures because I didn't have the camera and I never really think to use my phone (lame).

After we said good by to grandma and Craig we decided to go to the zoo. It was pretty cold so most of the animals were asleep or hidden away. We did find a playful monkey that would put it's hand up to the glass when the kids put their hands up. And we also saw a giraffe that kept spitting on the wall then licking it up over and over again. Yes disgusting, and yes we stayed there the longest, I'll spare you the video.

Hatching Ashton

Token monkey measuring

On the way down to Provo Chris asked if I wanted to stop at IKEA. I've never been there and every time we've passed by it was always a Sunday or we don't have time (two points Chris always brings up with mock sympathy) so I was surprised that he even mentioned it. We ended up having dinner there then putting the boys in the child care (the girls were to tall much to their dismay) then wandering around the store. It was kind of fun, and I think it was the highlight for the kids.

The other blessing of the trip is that our car actually made it home. It was struggling on hills and we were worried we might have to replace the transmission while out of town but we made it home safe and sound and it's been working fine since.

Ashton Sings

Ashton was asked to be part of a choir that sang at the teacher development at the high school. I'm all for my kids being involved is school so I had no problem letting her do it. Then I realized she had to be at the school by 7:00 on a day off of school. I'm still glad she did it and I guess it's okay to give up a little sleep:)

It's kind of hard to see her but she's on the second row, third from the right.

In a somewhat related story, after this experience I thought Ashton wanted to do choir in middle school (yeah middle school, I'm trying not to freak out about that). When she came home from the tour of the school she told me she signed up for band. Go figure!

Ashton is ELEVEN!

Ashton isn't the biggest fan of cake so she asked for birthday sugar cookies. Yes I forgot the "h" in birthday, there is always something;)

My little Ashton is 11. I'm not sure I've ever written about the day she was born so I thought this was the perfect occasion to remedy that. Ashton was due on Feb. 25th so I thought I had a little more time to be ready. I started having contractions about 3am on Feb 15th. My first thoughts were, "Thank goodness she won't be born on Valentines day." and "I can't have this baby now, I have a ton of laundry! Even if some kind soul offered to do my laundry I don't have any soap!" The contractions were about 7-10 minutes apart for almost two hours. Chris was working nights so I wanted to be sure it was for real before I called him to come home. I also did not want to go to the hospital only to have them send me home because it wasn't "for realsies". Finally around 5:30 the contractions subsided and I was able to go to sleep. By the time Chris got home at 8:30 I wasn't laboring at all(not that I could feel anyway) . Chris was able to go to bed, and Kaylee and I were able to get the soap and finish the laundry. The contractions started up again about 6pm but they were pretty irregular and bearable. We finally decided to take Kaylee over to my parents at 8:00. Chris was a little nervous and driving kind of fast. The last time we had done this we barely made it to the hospital before Kaylee was born. I told him to slow down because we would get there in plenty of time, but once we dropped off Kaylee the contractions were really strong and close together. Luckily the hospital was less than five minutes away from my parents, because now the pain was PAIN! When we got to the hospital she was definitely ready to be born. There was a flurry of nurses trying to get my IV in and having me fill out paperwork (kind of pointless because I was hurting so much, there was no way anything I wrote was legible). Forty-five minutes later at 9:16pm our beautiful baby girl was born. "Sweetest Thing" by U-2 was playing on the radio as we were driving to the hospital and she has certainly lived up to her song. She is a blessing in our lives and we are so happy she is part of our family.

I guess now is as good a time as any...

It's been a while. More than a while I'd say, but today is the day to bring this blog back. I could blame it on lack of motivation. Or lack of time (although I managed to watch the entire Quantum Leap series on Netflix). Or lack of excitement. Or lack of pictures (*see also lack motivation). No matter. Here's are some installments of what we've been up to over the last few months.

November:

We went to Bonnie Springs and were unimpressed. There was lots of animal droppings and Chris told Aiden it was lucky to step in it. Needless to say "luck" has a whole new meaning in our home. We did meet some friendly donkeys who really liked our mint m&m's. Chris was trying to convince them to drink from a water bottle. It was pretty funny watching him talk to the donkey, "water donkey, whaaater." Kaylee suggested that they were probably burros so he should try speaking to them in Spanish:)

Thanksgiving! In true Hafen style there was an amazing spread, and a lot of it! Ashton was close enough to first in line to get the turkey leg. She was kind enough (or forced) to give it to uncle Aaron.

Chris took the kids to a few Black Friday sales, which were not even on Friday. They left our house about 10pm on Thanksgiving to go to Walmart. Even Chris and his love of crowds wasn't prepared for the chaos. Add four tired kids to the mix and you've got yourself a party! I guess Chris hadn't had his fill because he and the kids still went over to Kohls! I sure love that guy, but it's amazing how different our definition of fun is.

December

The kids had their two week winter break and I had all kinds of plans to keep them busy and we accomplished approximately zero of those plans (that is just a rough estimate, it could be less:)

We did make it to story time with Santa on the beach on Christmas Eve. There was free hot chocolate and s'more kits. Lots o' fun!

Christmas was really nice, but no pictures. Our kids have been known to wake up at an obscene hour on Christmas morning so Chris decided to set a trap. He put a pie tin between the door and the door frame so when someone opened the door the pie tin would drop and noise and panic would abound. I think he was as excited about his trap as the kids were to get presents. Unfortunately the girls had a "No Boys Allowed" sign on their door that caught their pie tin before it fell to the floor and they found and deactivated the boys booby trap:) Never fear, Chris is working on bigger and better for next year. The kids got a pretty good haul of loot, which they played with for all of 5 minutes before asking if they could watch TV. Maybe it's time to implement a Christmas trip instead of gifts. At least that would get used. I loved that Christmas was on a Sunday this year! It was a wonderful way to remember the birth of our Savior and the reason for the season.

January

We had a super fun new year's eve party at my brothers house with great company and fabulous food. Thanks to an idea inspired by my brother Jordon and his wife Kortni we had a rousing game of save your husband. We had to see if we could drag our husbands out of the way of a rock slide if their legs were broken. It was HILARIOUS and a lot harder than I thought. The husbands may have a chance, if the kids help.

Chris's 39th birthday! He's not much of a birthday celebrator so it was pretty low key. We did go to his favorite restaurant, Texas de Brazil, the night before and he had his new favorite cake (thanks Megan!) and a few gifts on his actual birthday. And he totally got out of cleaning up a disgusting kid mess. I'm never that lucky on my birthday.

February

Like I said last year Valentines day isn't really my scene, but I want my kids to have fun memories so I do a few things. I'll have to keep myself in check because it has complete snowball potential.

Because there's more to life than Halloween costumes

While I may have been consumed by costume construction, life went on for the rest of the family. Here are a few activities worth noting.

Aiden earned his Wolf and was promoted to Bear in cub scouts. They have a ceremony where the mom paints different colors representing different attributes. Unfortunately I was at work so Chris stepped in as "Mr. Mom" and sent me pictures.

Kaylee was one of only two students who made it to the Spelling Bee semi-finals for a second year in a row! She didn't make the finals but she did get further than last year. She had a kind of "been there done that" attitude which helped her have more fun than stress. She also reunited with one of her third grade friends, what a small world:)

Ashton went to the sleep over science camp with her school and she lo-oved it! I thought for sure we had taken pictures, but no. Unfortunately not very many of the pictures she took turned out either:( But, here is a self portrait with one of her good friends. Hopefully she can get some more from her friends.