Jack-O-Lantern

There are two reasons that there is such a large time gap between the last few posts.
#1 - All the pics I took the last month got erased from my camera. No pics, no posts. You don't want to hear about Jack's toothy grin, you want to see it. And the chance of capturing it twice is unlikely. I'm no photographer. It requires yanking that binky out of his mouth and trying to get him to smile, instead of screaming for it back. No easy task.

#2 - We have been crazy busy. Between teaching preschool, Real Estate classes, and livin' it up this October, there has been little time left for blogging. But I will do my best to catch you up with the pics I attempted to take yesterday.

Since his surgery this summer, David has morphed into an active, reasonably daring boy. He announced one day, after seeing a clip of it on Playhouse Disney, that he wanted to "do gymnastics." This is perhaps the last thing on earth we ever thought he would want to do seeing as until recently he was still crawling up playground equipment steps and deathly afraid of the "playcenter" at McDonald's. He begged us daily for two weeks until we consented to sign him up. We were elated to discover his best friend Silas in the same class. It's been a month and he is LOVING it! He refuses to participate in half of it but has mastered the somersault, which he proudly demonstrates every opportunity he gets.

Jack clutching his beloved blankey that my brilliant friend Jaime gave him and reaching for his binky that I popped out of his mouth momentarily in attempts to catch a photo of his toothy pumpkin grin. This is as close as I got. Wait... I found one taken a while ago, I will post it at the top!

Jack often imitates his brother's gymnastic skills, already being an equally fast runner and nearly as physically agile as David. He spends the time during Dave's gymnastic lessons yelling "DAVID!" and attempting to break his way into the class. Jack is nearly always dancing, swaying back and forth as he walks and giggling. He is a silly one. Unless it's nighttime, then he is screaming. The kid has never been much of a sleeper. He now has 4 teeth, which he is quite proud of, touching them often and attempting to bite you with. All he wants to eat is cheese and his favorite phrase is "All done!"Yesterday he started saying "Hot dog!" He is always mumbling something seemingly serious and important with great hand gestures, though we are yet to decipher any one these messages. If he wants something he gets it himself. He has the strength of Bam-Bam from the Flinstones (which happens to be one of his nicknames), opening the fridge and hoisting out 2 gallon cartons of milk. The other day, he brought me an entire unopened box of Capri-Suns. His little arms were shaking! I was shocked. Those things are heavy.

Rich is awesome. He continues estimating with accuracy with Sorenson Moving & Storage and has become quite efficient at eliminating the enemy on his XBox games. He supportively cares for the kids and home while I am out on my "Bucket List" adventures and inventively solves every mechanical problem we face as well as cleaning up the messes of my frequent Amelia Bedelia moments, like last week when we ran out of dishwashing tablets, so I poured in a hefty amount of dishwashing soap and watched as piles and piles of bubbles oozed out of the dishwasher onto our lovely rented kitchen carpet.

Jodi completed another item on her "Bucket List" a couple Saturdays ago when she got certified as a Zumba aerobics/dance instructor. If you haven't heard of it, it is the latest craze in fitness, combining latin-based and international dance with aerobic moves to create the ultimate body shaping work-out. I discussed it in greater detail in an earlier post. I'm addicted to it and have gone to so many classes this past year, my gym instructors have encouraged me to start teaching my own. Maybe they were being sarcastic (I've never been good at catching that) or it was a collaborated joke, but I took them seriously and traveled to Redding for the day to get certified. It was intimating, since most of my classmates were fitness instructors, dancers or both. I am neither. But I passed! Now I can start putting together choreography for my first class... I plan to integrate my high school group's signature moves: the Russian, the Skankin' Step, the Floppy Arms and The Lumber. If LuAnne Preston could see me now!

(I had some pretty funny pictures of this endeavor as I never miss an opportunity to dress up silly, but unfortunately, they got erased with the rest. You'll have to use your imagination).

Thrillin' the World

For 23,000+ people around the world, it started with a love of Michael Jackson's craft and a desire to honor his work this Halloween by re-creating his famous dance of the un-dead that became an 80's phenomenon, when his album stopped selling as a leisure item and started selling like a household staple. It consequently became the best -selling album of all time. Groups of participants around the globe joined "Thrill the World" last Saturday to dance their way into the Guinness Book of World Records with the largest simultaneous dance.



My journey to the Underworld began with a 30 year bucket list. Not that turning 30 is death, but I thought I might make a list of things I wanted to accomplish in order to ease my transition from the beloved 20's. One of these list items was learn and dance the "Thriller." A week ago, I was still unsure as to how to complete this lofty goal until I heard about "Thrill the World" and discovered that Chico was participating. Not knowing anyone else in this MJ fan club, I sought them out via internet, apprehensively crashed their next practice and was pleased to discover ANYONE, including inflexible, uncoordinated, non-dancers like myself could join the fun. On Saturday, the boys and I visited the Salvation Army in search of some attire that we could dirty, destroy and bloody-up. Rich expertly painted my face, turning me into the fearsome zombie that had to relentlessly reassure David that she was not dead, nor evil and had absolutely no interest in consuming his brains. Jack was skeptical.

My face turned out to be the darkest green-grey of the zombie bunch. The next day, I ended up in nearly half the pictures on Chico's online news site proving that the longer you look like you've been decomposing, the more attention you get. I won't be modest and pretend like I didn't love all the attention. Having perfect strangers ask to take my picture was exhilarating, to say the least. I may just continue to wear my make-up like this. If you would like to see the pictures, visit: Chico ER. Here's the video of Chico's Thriller. You will find me in the first official row, directly behind the mentally challenged guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

End of Summer

The air is crisp and cool, the yard is strewn with autumn leaves and the Sorensons all have runny noses (except for me.. I am in bed with the full-blown seasonal flu).  Sweatshirts and pants have been dug out of the winter clothes bins and the neighbor's kittens are clawing at the back door begging to be let into our heated home, which they usually are. (More on that to come). Bidwell Park is vacant except for the occasional sweatsuit-clad jogger and from one day to the next, the forced air system is switched from "cool" to "heat." Summer in Chico ended as abruptly as it began, and I find myself feeling extreme relief and gratitude that the debilitating illness I've felt this October weekend is not from pregnancy (though it feels so much like it... so much so that I had to take a pregnancy test just to be sure). Two Octobers in the past HAVE commenced that way. I'm so relieved this feeling won't last more than days. Life feels bright and hopeful again, and I can't wait to watch the metamorphosis of nature this fall nausea-free, chase my boys through piles of leaves at the park and enjoy David's favorite time of year with him (Halloween). We're really going to live it up and enjoy each healthy moment we have. While reflecting on Summer's end, I realized I still haven't blogged about the Sorenson's final summer event, the Moulton Family Reunion. 

Our extended Moulton family has always been close. I've always seen my cousins more as siblings. With the frequent moves growing up, extended family members were our consistent friends and confidants and Logan, UT our place of refuge, where our relatives gathered and became one loving family. Even though our family has grown to over 70 members, all were present at the reunion except one cousin-in-law. We all had an incredible time, renewing those bonds and watching our children form new ones. There was a potluck dinner at the park, a pancake breakfast, and a day of swimming and games at the Campbells. The highlight for the kids was a four-wheeler driven train the Campbells had put together. It was so fun that the adults including Grandma and Grandpa had to take a ride too. 

Thanks to our talented cousin Gina, we got some great family pictures taken too.

Momma K's grandboys

Here is the Kathi Petersen family. We're happy to announce that my little (though not so little any more) bro Daren is getting married Oct. 30th to his girlfriend Noel! Woohoo! She has two kids (in the pic above) Jessica and Joshua. Our little family is growing!