The Dukes of Hansen

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Friday, March 8, 2013

Little Lydie, how are you already one?! We celebrated small (if you can believe that) since we're in between houses right now. I promise I will make a huge cake for her second birthday, and Natalie has opted to wait a couple weeks for her party in the new house instead of having cupcakes like her sister. Anyway, Lydie K is such a little doll with lots of personality coming out more and more every day. She likes mom and dad best, of course, but really likes all her grandmas and grandpas! She likes cars or anything else with wheels that she can roll around the house with her. She's become attached to her little receiving blankets and takes one with her to her naps and to bed at night. She's talking like crazy, clapping, crawling, and being all around completely adorable!

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Natalie Playing Guitar!

This girl has talent!

We are so proud!

Little Pieces

Little bits and pieces of what's been going on around here...

this is not a Halloween costume. This is what Drake wanted to wear to school one day.

A convincing letter from Natalie's homework.

Beautiful flowers to cheer us up from Kelt while he was at Recruiter School.

Natalie's chosen wedding ring at a jewelry store. And no, she's never seen the royal ring. She just has good taste, I guess!

Drake and I went on a hot air balloon chasing adventure after we dropped Natalie off at school one day. We got so close, we even chatted with the people in the basket for a minute!

Lydie's first pigtails, which lasted a shocking hour before she ripped them out.

Kelt and I went up to SLC to see the mummies exhibit at The Leonardo (ah-ma-zing. You have to go!) and I took a few snapshots of our escapades up there.

Simply incredible artwork hanging in the lobby at The Leonardo. It reminded me of a quiet snowfall at night.

Photograph of a flower blown up like 800 times or something like that. In any case...stunning. It reminded me of a uterus and ovaries, which tied in beautifull of the organic nature of the flower.

Photographs of the actual mummies was not allowed, darn it, but we took one of the entrance banner.

Chopsticks, if you can believe that! How amazing a simple object can transform into such a rad piece of artwork!

This one was called "Energy". Pretty self-explanatory.

Some kind of simulated coral with silver sea creatures. I want these in my new bathroom!

More amazing hanging artwork.

The city and county building across from The Leonardo. I imagine it looks like The Vatican inside or something haha!

Saturday night we met up with the most awesome people on the planet and went to a place called The Tavernacle, where two guys play piano and you get to request the songs! SO much fun!

my pick was "Bennie and the Jets"!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

2012 Condensed

Mmm Mmm, interesting!

We had a great year, here's a little recap:

Kelt got promoted to a recruiting position, which is really exciting and has a lot of perks. He'll be travelling more, but I think I've just about got this Army wife lifestyle down...thanks, Zoloft. It's hectic while he's away, but Natalie and Drake are getting bigger and more independent everyday and more and more capable of doing things for themselves. Kelt is still cycling and recently went on a ride all over town racking up more than thirty miles in one go!

Natalie is doing great in school, reading at a fifth grade level, and was recently tested to see if she's gifted...results anxiously pending! She's losing teeth left and right and lost her two front ones just in time for Christmas! She's growing up quickly and enjoys most foods, penguins, and watching what most would consider odd viewing for an almost eight year old: Mythbusters, and Deadly Dozen on NatGeo. She loves reading and does so every night before bed. She also LOVES art and creating masterpieces. We've nicknamed her our little mouse because she's constantly finding seemingly useless objects and taking them down to her room and creating something with them. She is so talented!

Drake is doing well in school, too. He's become obsessed with Ninjago, which is a Lego division including building sets, tv show, trading cards, you name it. He often asks us to pick which ninja we want to be that day, and loves showing off his awesome ninja moves. We're enrolling him in karate when Kelt gets home from school. Drake is very social and really likes the neighbor kids (who are equally hooked on Ninjago).

Lydia is too cute! She's been talking already, saying da-da, poo-poo, doggie, and mmmm! when she's hungry. She's a big snacker and loves Kix. She's doing really well and sticking to a very predictable nap schedule, which is great! Lydie K has been crawling for a few weeks now, and she takes off like greased lightning if she's after something! She is such a light and joy to us, just like Natalie and Drakie! I'm so very happy I was able to cure my fertility woes and have her, and so happy that we've completed our family.

Shadow (I'm sure everyone wants to know) is doing super! We had to find Tank another home because he and Shadow decided they didn't like each other one day and repeatedly got into some seriously scary fights. He's happy where he is with his new family (and new dog bed and sweater!).

As for myself, I spent my year making a lot of cake and enjoying my wonderful family. My mom and my little sister moved in with us from Oklahoma in October. She's in the middle of selling her house, and then she can get her own place, but I wish she could stay. It's so nice to have company and help with the kids, especially when Kelt is out of town. At least when she does move out, hopefully she'll find a home close to me! We still love our house, and we accomplished a lot this year. We still have a ways to go, but so far, we've stained the cabinets, put grass down, started a fence between us and the neighbors, put rock on the side yard, painted the basement, and re-carpeted the upstairs.

Here's to 2013!