The Boys

When Julie and i returned to my house after our weekly fellowship meal at the Laughlin's, this is what we found!
This is after we swept it into the pile it was all through the house! the contents, 2 full rolls of papertowel, 4 rolls of toilet paper, 1 loaf of bread, and 1 bag of cookies. they look pretty proud of themselves! We still love em but we did have to have a little chat with the boys!

Sleep eating

Poor Bubba Jo, He refuses to give up when he is tired. it is the cutest thing he will continue to eat, with head bobbing and eyes closed until sleep finally over takes him. When we see him do this we are watching so we can pull the plate away so he doesn't land in it. Thats my Boy who never gives in or never gives up! lol

Puppy play date

Jericho Came over for a play date with Chief. Jericho is huge! Chief is about 50 lbs at 4 months old and the big guy dwarfs him... i don't know what Jericho weighs but he is a tank. They had a ton of fun, jumping and playing. We took them both for a walk and man did we get some looks, people even stopped to tell us how beautiful the dogs were. All Julie and i need was matching outfits! hope everyone is well out in Blogger world!

Mic

First tooth is out!

Well Sam looks very different today, she has lost her first tooth. it came out on monday night and today is picture day at school! The tooth fairy was not allowed to take it! so she now has it in a plastic bag that is in a jar so no one can take it! it is to cute!

Mr Chief

So yes we have a new puppy if you can call a 3 month old 45 lbs a puppy! This is chief he is a Great Pyrenees . full grown he should about 150 lbs. I just love this breed they are lovable and cuddly. they are guardian dogs by trade. so they do not require a ton of exercise. they love to lay around and just be a friend! the kids love him he was actually Samantha's 6th birthday present. so if you see a polar bear around our family dont be alarmed it is just our lovable family pet chief!

No tooth fairy's allowed!

Well we are getting into the time of Samantha's life where she is going to lose her first tooth. She is excited about it because that means "im getting old like mommy" and she is excited about that. She will show everyone who will stop and look at her loose tooth. Then we told her about the tooth fairy, that she will leave quarters for every tooth she leaves under her pillow! Now if you know Samantha she is a princess so the thought of a fairy should be a good thing right.... ohh noo not with Sam, with the sternest look i have ever seen on her face she commanded " no tooth fairy"s will be allowed in my room"!! and she wouldn't just let it go at the proclamation! She has posted a "no tooth fairy allowed" sign on her bedroom door, and at each exit and entrance of both houses. Samantha has settled down about it but we can not take the signs down until she loses the first tooth to make sure the fairy knows not to come in. The washer and dryer delivery men delivered a new washer and dryer to the kids mom's house, the first word out of his mouth were " not a fan of they tooth fairy i see, does Santa have a chance" Time will only tell if the Easter bunny, Santa, and any other mythical people will be allowed in our house.

Decision 08! What does it mean to you?

I have to admit i an a political junky, i follow it very closely. i know i haven't posted in a while, but when life is going good i dont have much to say as i skip and smile through life. but i have something on my mind and i would like to here the opinions of the fellow bloggers here. please let me start by saying i am not trying to start a fight. let me show you something
this hit home for me! having developmently delayed children i want someone in washington who knows what that means! here is something from Senator McCain's speech that really spoke to me for many reasons. “I’m not running for president because I think I’m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God,” look at the last word in that statement. GOD for way to long government has been trying to take God out of our country! here is someone who on the biggest night on his political career acknowledges God! Is proud of his faith and does not hide it! If you heard Sara Palin"s speech she also makes references to God! this is something i can get excited about! along with the other qualities they have. Im excited for november! let me know your thought on it im interested to hear them.

update

Jensen Family update.
I will start with Samantha, She has finished up her last year of pre-K and come next year she will be in kindergarten. I can not believe she is that old already, it is funny how sometimes when i look at her she look like she is a teenager and the next she looks like a baby again. Samantha has made great progress with her developmental delays, so much so that she no longer qualifies for services. This may not sound like much but as a 3 year old she was a year and a half behind developmentally now as a 5 year old she has caught up and surpassed the typical age developmental milestones. I am so proud of her and her hard work and am amazed at what she has accomplished at such a young age whith so many cards stacked against her. only throught her will power and Gods will it was accomplished!

Bubba Jo, we are starting to see some good things with Bubba Jo, he is now doing more imitating , more toy appropriate play, has a full range of emotions, (at one time the only emotion he would show was happy) starting to use more letters of the alphabet in his babble, and now will copy the syllables word you ask him to say. Bubba has started the testing phase, what i mean is he wil start to do something he knows he shouldn't but just before he does it he stops and looks then does it and looks at you like what ya gona do about it! it is hilarious and very hard not to laugh. His new thing is licking the TV and he olny does it when he is around me. why i have no idea why. but he will stand at the TV and look at me stick his tongue out and slowly get closer to the TV. i tell him no he goes faster if i stand up he licks the screen from top to bottom and then turns and looks at me literally shrugs his shoulders and walks away. so he should be a blast as a teenager!

As for me, I'm good

bless all of you Mic

Wilbur

This is Wilbur my piggy bank. Julie Hates this thing i mean truly despises this thing. i received it when my grandma passed away. I know he is not the cutest piggy bank in the world. He has sentimental value to me, it was my Grandpa's and he always put his quarters in it. When I was a kid he let me put his change away every time i was their. so every time i look at it it reminds me of my grand dad. So do any of you bloggers out their have anything you keep around the house for the only reason of sentimental value, or anything that your spouse hates but you display it anyway.


Have a Blessed Day, Mic

Meet Miss Chloe

Meet Miss Chloe, She has come to stay at our house until we can find her a good home. My guess is she is a 1 year old beagle, corgi cross. She is a doll, the story on her is she was found as a stray but does not get along with the pug of the people who found her. She has been caught up on all of her shots and checked for a micro chip but none was found. a lost dog add was placed in the paper and adopt a pet was contacted to see if anyone was looking for her. but sadly it looks like no one is missing her. she is house broken but hates a leash (we are working with her on that). She is great with other dogs, even Jericho where his head is bigger than she is they play great together. she is a cuddle bug,loves kids, but is very shy at first, but warms up very quickly. She loves to snuggle up in bed with you at night. If anyone knows of someone who would like to add Chloe to their home please let me know. We are keeping her until we can find her a great home. I cant stand the thought of putting her in a shelter. She needs to be spayed and if we have her long enough we will schedule her to have that done. So if all the bloggers out their can help us find a great hope for her we would be greatful.



Bless You All Mic

Fellowship

Today was a great morning of fellowship. I had the opportunity to represent Wright automotive on a quail, pheasant, chucker hunt this morning. I went to Don Cranfill's hunting preserve with some prominent business people from the area. 8 people, 6 dogs, 2 camera men..... priceless. The meal after the hunt was amazing, the fellowship while in the field was great and i will never pass up the chance to sit with a bunch of people telling stories. We were taped for a public broadcasting hunting show and the sportsman's channel so you may just see my ugly mug on your TV one day while channel surfing. Bless all of you see ya sunday

Mic

Julie the rising star!

Join me in congratulating Julie on her latest award, She has been chosen by BJ salon for the "rising star award". To receive this award you have to go above and beyond in all aspects of being a stylist meaning outstanding customer service, gaining clientel, amount of daily services, and be recognized by your clients in an extraordinary way. Julie's managers have received several emails and letters from clients stating how pleasant their experience was and how she actually listened to their wants and needs. The one that was mentioned at the awards ceremony was about a middle aged divorced single woman who had lost more than 80 lbs, she was only scheduled for a haircut but when Julie was done with her she had a complete makeover. The woman left the salon in tears saying that for the first time in her life she felt beautiful! I could not be more proud of Julie and how she takes every encounter with each client so personal and how she tries to please everyone. Normally with BJ's salon an employee has to be with the company for a min of 1 year to be eligible for an award Julie has been their 8 mo. So again please help us celebrate this accomplishment with Julie. Love you Baby!

Bless you all Mic

Spring is upon us

With the arrival of spring comes may changes, the trees and flowers start to blossom, people start to come out of their homes more often, all of God's creatures are expanding their families. we plan cook outs, fishing trips, start dreaming of days in the pool or out at the lake. Mushroom hunting (never heard of that till i moved to Illinois) the talk of what is popping the yellows or the browns. The warmer it gets the happier people seem. well for us spring has shown itself in a new way. the white stuff is flying around our home. no i don't mean snow it is FUR. Our lovable family pet is blowing his winter coat! many of you have seen Jericho and know he is a big boy, check out the picture, the pile of fur is the same size he is, sadly that was only after about 10 min of brushing. we have been getting piles of fur like that off of him for a few days now, how he is not bald i will never know. so now if you stop by you will notice the lint rollers strategically placed on hooks next to each door so you can defur prior to heading out the door. we have all adjusted our wardrobes to light colors, no black. But Jericho loves the attention, Sam now wants to be a dog groomer when she grows up, and Bubba plays in the pile of hair like it were a pile of leaves (i know thats wrong but thats what they make bath tubs for). Bless you all

Mic

The new old house

well the actual move is done now it is time to settle in. unpacking is the worst part, where to put things how we want things to look all that stuff. I have owned the house we moved into since 1999. we tried to sell it for the last 2 years unsuccessfully, the last 2 were for contract for deed. so I have a rough idea of where things fit and look right but it isnt helping much. I was amazed that Samantha remembered this house even though it looks different than the last time she was in it. she remembered where her bedroom was and the bathroom. She said she like this house better because now she can be a "skating ballerina princess" it has all hardwood floors which are great for sliding around on in your socks. Bubba Jo is in the exploring stage, but he seams to like that all his trucks go much farther in the floor than in the old house. Jericho sounds like about 20 tap dancers now live with us (toenails on hardwood). it is growing on Julie, she brought me about 20 paint swatches and many suggestions on what would look best. It is about 3 blocks away from Kim the kids mom so that makes things nice. the only down fall is that it is farther away from work. but i think that is a small price to pay if everything else fit well. and their are 2 guys i work with here in Gillespie so we have started a car pool. all in all things are going well and the mountain of boxes is shrinking. Bless all of you

Mic

5 jobs 2 people

Yes i know that is a weird title but i will explain. Julie and I were talking about our lives at this moment and where they are going. The 2 people are Julie and myself she has me beat she currently has 3, BJ's Salon in Springfield, Cracker Barrel, and she also does her hair thing for about 10 people per week hear in town. I only have 2 I am an Insurance agent, and starting Thursday of this week I am starting at Wright automotive in Hillsboro. While doing this their are the kid, the rest of life, and remembering what each other look like without having to look at a picture to remember. Now here is why we are doing this, Because we made poor decisions in the past and now have to pay for it. Thankfully we pulled our heads out of our nether regions before things were really bad. So instead of dragging that debt with us for the rest of our lives costing us much much more we have decided to bite the bullet now and get everything paid off and move on smarter people. As our talk continued we put together a set of goals first to free Julie from having to do anything but hair. after that we will make decisions on what the next chapter of our lives has to hold. So if anyone wants or needs a hair cut, waited on, a car, or insurance just let Julie or I know. Thankfully the Lord has blessed us with the ability to do all of this and also be involved in church functions, spend time with friends and family and keep our sanity. It shows me how big God is and what an amazing time manager he is. God works with all his children in all the world and still has time to talk to just me and never complains. WOW that is huge. Thanks for listening. Bless you all

Mic

crazy week

We are in for a crazy week and me being an absolute procrastinator just is not going to work this time. We are moving back to Gillespie, I am starting a second job, Easter, Julie working 2 jobs , the kids wow lot of stuff. By the grace of god and Julie's meticulous planning it will all go of without a hitch. Just pray for us to have patients with each other and follow our plan. have a great night all.


Mic

Giving

Today I got a phone call from Julie. It was the normal call we have everyday, what does your day look like? She says she and Ashley are going to give blood today, Julie has never given before. I said you know what i have not given in a while I should go with you. That was one of those decisions that 30 sec later your like why did i just do that. well no backing out now right, I know giving blood is important and it is something that i have done many times. But I hate it and would rather not but if i were in a situation where i needed blood the i hope someone gave lately. That is the only reason that gets me through it. so we arrived, get checked in, and have a seat. Ashley gets called first (she was the one with the idea to donate in the first place) then Julie. Ashley walks out from the little curtain and says nope not today iron to low. next they call me in I have a great conversation with a very nice volunteer everything checks out and we are off to the chair. I pass Julie as i go to my selected spot sit down and look over and she don't look to good, they get her stuck and start the draw. Then her machine starts beeping, and beeping. meanwhile i get put through the same process. I hate getting stuck even if it is for a good cause. as i sit and listen to Julie's machine beeping and watching people go over and attend to her they finally make the decision to pull it. She gave half a bag. next time i look over they have her laied down flat asking if she is ok. (i kinda giggle after i know she is ok) So now i am thinking the person who brought up the idea didn't get stuck at all the one who conned me into it only filled half a bag and here i am with a needle in my arm. So they pull mine out cover the gaping hole in my arm (i know i am exaggerating) and take my donation to the people by the coolers. now this has never happened to me before but things started getting hot, i start sweating, little stars are flashing in front of my eyes. ohh yeah I was going down, but of course i wasn't going to interrupt the volunteers to say anything i could just wait it out. well needless to say the look on the lady's face when she turned around told me i didn't need to say much she knew what was happening. "do you feel alright" my answer "nope" so next came the whole lying down cold rags you know the drill. all in all it was an eventful experience, everyone is just fine, and i am glad i gave. hopefully next time i wont see stars as a reward.

Bless all of you
Mic

The Flu

The flu has struck the Jensen home in full force. I know it is not funny but it is almost adorable, Sam will not travel anywhere with out her "puke bowl". She is carrying it from room to room and when she walks 5 feet from it she has to announce to everyone "ohh ohh wait i forgot my puke bowl". As for Bubba Jo the only warning we receive from him before the fun starts is he franticly signs all done which for him is the waiving of his hands in front of him which makes it difficult to "catch" what happens next. The only good thing about both of them being sick is they both turn in to daddy snugglers and cuddlers. Sick or not thats one of my favorite parts of being a dad. Just a quick question why ohh why as parents do we insist on catching with our bare hands what ever comes out of our children, knowing what is coming is bad very bad.

Sleep tight all, Bless all of you

Mic

A Frustrating Week with a hopefull ending.

This week was a very frustrating week for the Jensen family. It was filled with a few more doctor appts. for Bubba Jo. First one was on Monday in Springfield and was one of the most frustrating Doctor visits we have ever had. It was with a Developmental ped. It started out as any other, the normal questions we have grown use to. Next a half hour of play evaluation session which is controlled play for him. It is a way to evaluate his abilities to do simple tasks, the tasks get increasingly harder and more tedious. Well for Bub sadly this is old hat for him because of all the times he has been asked to do them. His fine motor skills are very good he his gross motor not so much and his speech has not improved much. So now Kimberly ( the kids mom ) and i are waiting for the worst part of the whole process and that is the results of the evaluation.

The frustration with the doctor started instantly for me, Her first comment was "in my field i like to be wrong" and i thought WHAT? where is this going. then the bomb hit, Bubba has the diagnosis of sever mental retardation. Then she proceeded to tell us how he would never communicate eather with speech or with sign. Then i thought in my head wait he already does sign not much but he does (more frustration) . Next she explained that how he is walking is the not going to get better for the rest of his life. inside my head agin i went WAIT he has only been walking for 3 months, and has progressed very quickly in that area. (even more frustration). At this point I am having a very hard time comprehending anything that is coming out of this doctors mouth due my temper being gone! Kimberly was a wreck trying to wrap her head around all of it. all we want to do is just get out of their. and the kicker is the ending She said "I was so impressed at his ability to do the tasks he was asked to do most kids his age i see cant do them". THEN WHY DID I HAVE TO JUST SIT HERE AND LISTEN TO EVERYTHING YOU JUST SAID AND HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH YOUR DIAGNOSIS???? At this point i was done i couldn't think i couldn't talk i was just plain mad. she ended with "I'm sorry you are having to deal with a child like this" I flat out flipped out and said what? Kim knew this was bad. Kim looked at me and said "think of you son and your god". Man that woman has learned how to stop me in my tracks. I turned and looked at the doctor who looked a little scared at this point and said " i am not sorry I was blessed with this child and i could not be more proud of him and his accomplishments". she tried to say something but Kim stopped her and said I believe this conversation is over we will show ourselves out.

The long car ride home was ended well Kim and i prayed the min. we were settled in the car and then we started talking about the whole diagnosis. The diagnosis is not what bothers us it is the fact that we are expected to just stop trying and just live with what we have. Our family is not capable of doing that we have to keep trying new thing and do what is best. So when we got back to town we decided to just table that doc appt and move on to the next. we had another appt scheduled with another developmental ped in st louis for Wednesday.

On Wednesday we headed to cardinal glenon hospital but someone missed something and the appt was canceled so we rescheduled for Friday. This was not a big deal , we have been through many appts. at Cardinal and never once had a problem they were great about it . so no big deal Kim the kids and i went to lunch instead.

Friday back at Cardinal Glenon pretty much the same process with the tasks and the questions so then again sitting at a table across from 3 doctors starting to discus Bubba Jo. Again the diagnosis of MR but here is where things differed greatly from the expierance on Monday. they explained why. and here is why if Bub was to take an IQ test now he would score below 70 on the test which puts him in the MR range, the reason is that their are language, speech and comprehension questions on the IQ test which he can not do. OK now we are getting some where They told us that he is progressing very quickly in his walking seeing that he only started less than 3 months ago (in my head YEAH BUBBA!) they talked about how good his fine motor skills are (hooray for Bubba). And how great his social skills (YES BUBBA THE MAN) are and if any of you have ever meet my babies you know that they are social butterflies. They explained how they feel that he need more therapy in pt and speech. They gave us resources on who to talk to to get these in place. The more we talked to them the more I realized that the diagnosis of MR is a blessing because prior to a diagnosis he did not qualify for alot of programs and services. now he does Praise God.and they want to see us back in 6 months to evaluate and to give us more info on what direction to go. So to sum it up the week started out really bad and ended with a ton of hope and a direction we can go in. Praise God for that because that was exactly what we have been praying for. And let me just say that God made Bubba the amazing little guy he is for a reason and i will never question that I am very thankful that the Lord has blessed me with the 2 children he has. i am proud of them in every way and am very excited in what God has in store for this family. sorry it is so long but just had to vent.

What is in a name

Jody Laughlin started a conversation on how they came up with their children's names http://thejlaughlins.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-we-came-to-decision.html. So I have decided to add my 2 munchkins to it.

Samantha Rae Jensen Her first name was just something that we liked it was a toss up between Samantha or Sidney. We both liked Samantha better at the time. her middle name comes from her mom which is also her maternal grandfathers middle name but spelled Ray. If Sam was born a boy she would have been named Abraham Michael.

Bubba Jo Jensen well thats what everyone knows him as his real name is Lanny Michael Jensen. When it came time to name our second child the name Abraham just wasn't working for us anymore. we could not agree on a name that we both liked I really like Cole but Kimberly would have nothing to do with that! we kicked around many names Ian, Isaac, Soren (an old family name) but nothing fit. then we thought about having Bub be the 3 generation of Michaels, My Dad's name is Michael Frances, I'm Michael Glenn, and Bubba was almost Michael Lanny, The more i thought of it I really didn't want him to go through the whole big Mike Little Mike thing like I am still going through @ 31 yrs old ( i'm bigger than my pa and still get called little Mike). Dad goes by Mike I go by Mic so that left Mikey (which I hated growing up) or Michael and that sounded just to formal. So we changed it around to Lanny Michael, named after his 2 grandpa's and his pa. Bubba came from Samantha when he was born Sam could not say brother it came out Bubba and it stuck from day one!

My family is big on nick names pretty much if you are around my family long enough you'll end up with one. My younger sister named Candi her's is puggsly why i have no idea. My older sister Named Dawn just got a Y added to it for Dawny, I spent most of my life referred to as Clyde. so it is only fair that my kids ended up with their own nick names. Sam's is Maggoo it started out as Squig because of her hair when she was born she looked like Squiggie off of the Lavern and Sherily's show with her widows peak, then changed to Squigger Maggoo and has ended at just Maggoo. With Bubba you already know the story on that one. hope you enjoyed our ramblings, God bless


Mic

A Proud Dad

Many of you that know us know that The good lord

blessed Samantha with alot of hair. At times it can be a handfull! Their are times when i have had to dig through the hair to find my beautiful little girl. as a DadAs many of you that know us, the good Lord has I am not very good at the art of a little girls hair so it is pretty obvious when I do her hair.

We started talking to Sam about Locks Of Love a couple months ago, just to show her if she ever wanted to cut her hair that something very good could become of the severed locks. well today was the day and i am here to tell ya I think it was harder on me then her when it came time to lop it off. It was a family affair, Sam and I went online to get the details and to look at the pictures (Sam like to look at the pictures) then we sat down and talked about it. Kim (the kids mom) came over to supervise, Bubba brought his trucks to get a front row seat And Jericho stood right next to Sam making sure she was ok. It may sound a little weird to go into this much detail with a 5 yr old about a haircut, but Sam has only had the back of her hair cut 3 times in her 5 yrs of life so it was a pretty big deal for our gang. Julie of course was the selected stylist as Kimberly and I stood by helplessly (ok maybe i am exaggerating ) awaiting the first cut.

To be able to donate to Locks Of Love it has to be a minimum of 10" long so Sam and I went and grabbed the tape measure so she would know how long 10 inches really is, then we had to get a plastic bag for the hair to go in. Samantha wrote her name on it the date and drew a smiley face. then it was in the chair we went. her hair was seperated into 2 ponytails and before we knew it snip snip both were gone. Julie, doing this for a living knew it was best to just cut it off before Kim or I could change or minds, like i said earlier this was Sam's choice. shortly after that she was stepping out of the chair. I'm here to tell ya what a difference a haircut makes. My sweet little 5 yr old now looks like she is 14.

After everything was all said and done and the pictures were taken Samantha proudly placed her 2 ponytails in her hand decorated bag and sealed it shut, handed it to me and said "now other boy's and girl's can have pretty hair like mine" Yeah Talk about a proud moment being a father that was defenatly in the top one or two! I am still amazed at what you can learn from your kids, and to think i thought it was the other way around. When it was all said and done Sam looked great and over 12 inches of hair was donated to Locks Of Love.