The Hanson Crew

Proud of their gingerbread creations

and furry friends are starting to hibernate to warmer places...

My friends Alicia and Ginny are having an open house this Tuesday, Dec 1st from 6:30 to 9:30 to promote their items at Sisterluvcrafts. They are also having a sale at their website right now at http://www.etsy.com/shop/sistersluvcrafts and will have those items available to purchase at the party along with free gift wrapping! If you are interested in attending, please comment and I'll send you the address...it sounds like a great place to finish up your Holiday shopping and they have extra cute stuff! If you can't make the party, but still want to buy something, just check out their website above.

So about a month ago I wrote about our first real pet loss. Our second brown gerbil Mystery had died of starvation I think. Well since his death, we have lost 2 other family pets....can you believe it! First our snail didn't survive a tank change and then today, Princess Leia, our 1 year Beta fish died too. We only have 2 pets now, Clue the gerbil and our non-named African Water Frog (He is 2 1/2 years old - straight from being a tadpole experiment in 1st grade). We aren't sure if we will be replacing any pets next year so we're hoping these two last a little while longer. we'll keep you posted....

Caleb loves to watch for the mailman and then goes out to grab the mail from him. Today he stood outside our house for awhile with another truck moving mail back and forth between the trucks. Caleb was very intrigued and would love to be them someday (if the firefighter thing doesn't work out). It was so exciting to watch, that we took a picture and had to share it with you....now if only I can get that mailman to stop bring depressing bills so often and more exciting sale ads or Christmas cards!!

and we have them both this year! Tall and Skinny and short and fat! (We have skipped our traditional real tree field trip this year $$ - can you tell that we are cheap now? Well maybe that hasn't changed...)

The kids are singing this song all the time these days...I'm not sure where they first heard it, but they LOVE it! And now they add their own lyrics as they sing...it is a little catchy. In fact, we dare ya to listen to this 1 minute song 3 times and see if you can go one full day WITHOUT singing it! Good luck and have a great thanksgiving!

So yesterday was a fun day of Thanksgiving day parties (3 of them) and a time of running around preparing. Preparing for what...VACATION! Today was the first day of a very relaxing vacation. I am trying very hard to sit around and just enjoy my children this week - no work that isn't necessary. Today we started off the day with breakfast and bible study. Then we baked some homemade Coffee Cake together. Then Hy-vee provided us some free entertainment and we watched Santa Buddies together (we tried to post the preview video on here, but it never showed up for some reason?) They have been counting down the days for this one to come to DVD today...Jonathan and I kinda catnapped a little during this one, but at least we did it together all cuddled up during our family movie time. We then baked some cookies to bring our friend who had her baby and then we took her a meal. We are planning on making some fun pancakes for dinner that they love to make with Grandma Sue - these pan

...an updated family website at http://www.thehansoncrew.com/ ! The new site will include updated pictures of our crew, 2009 & 2008 videos (including a new one of our move), and our 2009 Christmas letter. The postcards will be mailed out on Friday and the site will be up that day for family & friends to see. Hope you enjoy it too!

Ashlyn has a loose tooth on the bottom after a whole year of no activity in her mouth! Needless to say she is excited to be joining her friends again talk about their teeth loss. Unfortunately, this one is stuck! It is barely hanging on. We have tried wiggling, dental floss, eating an apple, nothing! She finally has given up on her own tactics and is waiting for it to fall out on it's own. All this teeth talk has us all wondering when Joshua will lose his first tooth...many of his 6 year old friends have lost a couple already. I am wondering if Caleb might lose his first before Josh - any bets? We'll keep ya posted as we find out...

My best friend Lisa took this amazing picture of the kids this week for my photo purse and I was so excited about how it came out! All four kids are actually all smiling and looking forward. And it only took about 5 minutes to get! I am printing the b&w one on my purse and the color one (16x20) in my entry way...and since we were working on my digital Christmas card that day, it will even appear there too....way to go Lisa! I'm finally ready to mail my postcards too...I must say that making an early Dec deadline for everything to be done really did work for me this year. We'll see if it continues next year...

Hi. This is Joshua. For Kindergarten I had to make a list of 100 things I am thankful for...and it was REALLY hard! Here is my finished list for you to read: I am thankful for... 1. my heart 2. my mouth 3. to go to school 4. Jesus 5. food 6. knowing my numbers 7. my brothers and sister 8. knowing my letters really good 9. ice and water 10. seasons 11. holidays 12. my mom and dad 13. movies 14. my house 15. enough room in my house 16. Earth 17. having pets 18. toys 19. books 20. paper 21. baby brothers 22. other people 23. buildings 24. God 25. stuffed animals 26. my desk 27. knowing my grandparents 28. deers in my neighborhood 29. games 30. my cousins 31. my Aunts 32. pumpkins 33. my muscles 34. my bones 35. my blood 36. my legs 37. church friends 38. Sunday school 39. Miss Bainbridge 40. my bed 41. sleeping bags 42. my voice 43. pianos 44. Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary 45. Grandma Peggy 46. Grandma Velma and Papa Phil 47. Pastor Tim 48. attics 49. leaves 50. neighbors 51. my mom'

We are a family that uses middle names to really get attentions around here. If I say, "Ashlyn Diane," Ashlyn is pretty certain to finish whatever follows her full name. I am not sure if obedience necessarily comes with age and consistency or just consistency, but I have sure seen age play a part. Both Ashlyn and Joshua were about 4 when obedience became something I could actually see regularly. So, that brings me to Caleb. He is 4 1/2 and not quite into obeying still. Well, I had to crack up the other day when Jonathan was yelling at Joshua, "Wa Wa Ryan!" Stop!" And then Caleb was shouting "Ashlyn Ryan now." Do you see the theme of our house lately? Caleb's middle name is Ryan and because it is being said so much more again, everyone believes Ryan means serious stuff even though that is not their name! At least Jonathan and Caleb....

Nothing like an entire preschool class bowling together! Caleb did great and had a blast - we'll have to try a family bowling night out soon!

Thanks for reading The Hanson Crew !

My passenger door lock has been broken for about a year now. That means when I start to drive and the car automatically locks all the doors, a really loud buzz comes from that door (usually scares any visitor we have in our car). And whenever I push the lock button on my little key chain thing, a loud buzz scares the lady parking her car next to me. And that means when I need to get in the car at church or anywhere else my husband drives us too, I have to stand outside the door waiting for him to unlock it from the inside. Well, no more! The door was fixed yesterday and man I am telling ya, it is awesome!!!! Had to share some small, but well worth, car repair that literally made my day.

It's so neat to see this generation of students use all that online information for education. Ashlyn's 3rd grade teacher has had them watching some pretty interesting videos online on our home school days. We thought we would share this awesome resource (website) that she uses alot . Enjoy! http://www.howstuffworks.com/

Sorry for the blog lag again. I have been keeping up on Christmas projects, yard work, and school time. My in-laws are going to be leaving at the beginning of December this year to visit Carol and Rylee in the Philippines so I have decided to be completely done by then with Christmas stuff (Dec 4th) - minus the baking! So this week and next is devoted to shopping, shipping, and digital gift time. So far, I am making some real progress. I am most excited about spending Christmas in our new home....sitting by the fire, reading the Christmas story and spending all day in our pjs playing with new toys. This will be a change for us, and hopefully a new tradition (staying at home all day). I will try to post some new pictures tomorrow. For now, I am back to some more Christmas stuff :)

Which one do you like better? (we are working on some digital Christmas gifts)

Here sits Penny. She is part of the family and usually gets pulled around Kansas City with another favorite little green blanket. Well, yesterday was a big day for Penny. She took Caleb to preschool, went to the bank, then Target and then Wal-mart. After a busy day, she decided to rest a bit in the car while we did the school run and picked up Joshua and Caleb. So that is why we were all amazed at her energy level on her way home from preschool. Jonathan had her resting her head on his window to get some fresh air (the window was down today for some strange reason) and in a calm and subtle voice, Jonathan yelled out, "oh, no Penny out window!" As soon as he said it, I looked out my rear view mirror and sure enough I saw a flash of white and brown fly high in the sky behind me and then watched as the car behind me ran over it. I pulled over on what it one of the busiest streets near my house (Barry Road) and managed to start driving the way I was originally driving whe

An important questioned posed to the smart person (and non-parent) who invented this creative method of time swapping.... How is it possible that young children still want to stay up an hour later, but all of a sudden want to get up an hour earlier? We at the Hanson household are looking forward to next week when we are back to some normalcy!

In keeping with our new Halloween dinner tradition, we ventured to Chipotle dressed in our foil attire and got 5 free burrito bowls and an order of tacos before our neighborhood hayride...it was yummy and hit the spot before 4 big bowls of candy! Thanks Chipotle again!