Almost a 1yr old.

I am so excited for my little one's 1st birthday-- I am so excited to throw her a party with lots of our favorite people and people that are important to Zoey.

Thats the thing about my baby-- she truly has the biggest heart.  She loves people.  She is sad, when they are sad, and happy when they are.  She is my favorite little human.

As of right now, my two big ideas for her party would be either a book party, or a themed party around her favorite book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  She loves loves loves that book.  If she is ever upset or sad she finds her book and will flip the pages over and over. I want to have a good time and keep it simple, but also something that when she looks back at the pictures when she is older, she will appreciate it. Either way I am so very excited, and I can't believe I will be the mom of a 1 year old.

As of now Zoey can drink out of anything by herself, read books, play, go to sleep, and crawl, sign more, bye and all done all by herself.

She has taken her first steps and is slowly gaining more strength in her legs to stabilize herself when she gets a little wobbly. She has started to feed herself with a spoon as well and that has been fun to watch her learn to do that.

Future things:  She is still learning more signs and signing was so nice to teach her so that we can understand what she wants. We will be buying a little toilet to set in the bathroom floor to get her used to seeing one and to see if it sparks any interest.  I'm not super pushy about things, but I feel that by introducing it earlier it may help spike interest about it sooner.  And, of course I imagine her fully walking at least by 14 months.  If not, then it's okay but I think with all the warm weather it will get us outside and walking more to get those muscles in her cute tiny but chubby legs moving.

She is truly heaven set and has already blessed more peoples lives then I think she knows. She is so special- and she calls me mama.

Have a great day everyone!

P.S.-- if any of you parents or soon to be parents have other tricks and things you did to help with potty training, walking let me know.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Well Hello our Friends

I was having such a good streak! Well, I'll just continue where I left off-

First- I didn't eat sugar for almost 2 weeks and I went to crazy town and back.  I decided I needed a new strategy, filled with less crazies.  I can't really say it's a set out and planned through plan, but it is working.

Justin now is in his (hopefully) last spring semester at SUU and he is so close to being done.  He works so hard and I truly feel like a lucky girl. He is taking all of his upper division classes and things may not turn out exactly how he and we had planned when we first were married back in 2011, but he is rocking' it and it is all working out just fine :)

I starting working again.  In December I got a job working for the Iron County extension of Utah State University. (The title may make it sound like I am a high roller now, but don't be fooled ;)) I work at a program funded by USU in Logan call 4H.  It is an after school program where kids come for 2 hours after school to do homework and we teach them life/social skills.  It's really fun and I love working with  my 7th and 8th graders.  They are slowly starting to see me and FUN and not just their academic counselor that tells them to do this assignment go talk to that teacher.  I truly have been blessed to find this loving gift of teaching.
Speaking of teaching-- I actually now know what I want to graduate in!! HHHHHAAAAAA! (angels are singing- we all almost lost hope.)  I found a wonderful online program and I am getting my teaching degree in Secondary Education with an emphasis in math.  Yes you read right, MATH. I start so soon and I am counting down the days.

Zoey- my little baby isn't such a baby now.  I feel bad calling her that sometimes because she is so tall for her age that she looks almost like she would be a toddler. Plus- she's almost there.  She has mastered crawling and is very good at it and now all she wants to do is slid around everything and would love if anyone would hold her hands to let her walk around places.  She is so cute but boy is she a TIGGER. Bouncy, trouncy, pounce, fun fun fun fun FUN! She is a ball of energy.  So far I am not too exhausted by it but I'm also not looking to jinks myself at the same time.  WE LOVE HER.

We love our life and where we are at. We truly feel blessed each and everyday and cliche as it sounds but I only say it because it rings so much TRUTH!!! This family is forever.

-love the Jensen's XOXO

Return Back, Home Will Always Be Waiting For You

After church, Zoey and I were heading home.  I felt like I had just gave the worst lesson possible because I didn't plan enough to cover the whole time, my Young Women were so distracted with Zoey and she was teething and didn't want anyone... it was pretty tough.  I think it was an over load day for me because I started feeling very down on myself and so I decided I wanted to go up the canyon for a scenic drive.  Zoey and I drove up the canyon and my mind just wandered.  I thought about the beautiful changing leaves, I thought about Zoey and her teething, I thought about how I need to do better at preparing my lessons, and I thought a lot about forgiveness, and forgiving my self and I thought about my life thus far. My mind wandered and I just cried.

When I just passed the sign for Cedar Breaks my gas light came on.  I don't know why but I freaked out.  It normally wouldn't be a problem because our gas light comes on quite early so I had a good couple miles to go and getting out of the canyon is down hill so little gas was required to leave.  With my thoughts turing to a panic, I decided I really needed to turn around.  I was very stern about it too. It was a single lane road and there was a double line so I couldn't turn around, I legally had to keep going. The feeling continued to push and persist in my mind that I needed to turn around.  I looked forward and back multiple times to make sure no one was there and that no one would soon be coming.  I then made the choice to break the law.  I flipped around and crossed that double yellow line and just as I started headed back south, a car was coming up.  I was glad no one had seen me.  

I then had some of the most beautiful thoughts come over me as I drove back.  As I'm sitting here now writing this, I feel the spirit, again, fill my soul with peace, love and comfort. It was crazy how these thoughts came rushing into my mind and they all seemed to connect dots and match up and I felt so inspired and uplifted. I thought about how the experience I had relates to our life here on earth. Back in the valley of Cedar City was the world, and my beautiful destination of Cedar Breaks to view the beautiful changing leaves was my Celestial Kingdom where I would get to see Heavenly Father.

I was having a really bad, overwhelming day.  I wanted to run away.  I wanted to run away to be with my Father and be with him in Heaven.  I thought about how beautiful it would been and how wonderful I would be to be able to be at His feet when I got there.  However, the feeling inside of me, telling me to turn was because I wasn't ready.  I wasn't ready to be there yet to experience His glory.  I had to finish my time here on earth and go back and fight and live each and every day until my time was up.  My Heavenly Father knew that If I were to make it to the top, I wouldn't want to come back.  I don't think anyone would want to come back after being embraced by our Heavenly Parents.  But because it is so important for me to be here, on earth to finish out my journey I didn't get to go.

What I then began to realize is that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ won't ever let me not experience the joy of being in their presence and that is why we get amazing, beautiful glimpses here on earth. It's to remind me of where I have been and where I want to end up.  I listed off some of these things that I have experienced in my life, but the one that struck me the most was that Heavenly Father gave me my Zoey.  I get to look at her each and every day and know that she is a precious gift from God and that she still has the ability to see through the veil and to see and know that Heavenly Father is still there.  She is my precious gift.  She is why I can't leave.  I have to stay because of her.  Because she needs me each and every day of her life, just like I need her and I especially need her to be that gateway to receive those glimpses of my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I believe so much that she is and always will be my "portal" to Them to encourage me when times get tough and to bless me when I feel I've had enough.

As I reached the bottom of the canyon road and hit the light the tears immediately stopped.  I had experienced a wonderful gift and blessing and I am now able to share this with those who read it.  I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for allowing me to experience such joy and helping me realize that the joy that I experienced can always be felt with my family. My wonderful Husband and my beautiful baby girl.

Families truly are the center of my faith and God's church.  How blessed and grateful I feel because I have them.  Now and forever.  This Family is Forever!

Love, us

Eczema and Oils

So, this is very random but I woke up late last night with a itching burn on my neck. I didn't know what  it was or what was happening to my neck but it was quite painful.

When I got up this morning it was still there and I realized after doing some research it was eczema. I had red itchy patches just behind my ears and down my neck and just around the base of my hairline a red patch was starting to blister.  Man, talk about itchy, burning pain. I am obviously having an allergic retain to something I ate. -Raspberries and gluten, mixed, that my stomach is trying to digest and it's causing it to go on over load. So it's secreting through my skin.

These are my pictures. As you can see that I have it on both ears and the bottom part of the left picture is where it is blistering. - this sucks 

So in reference to "oils" in my title I wanted to share with you what I've been using to maintain and reduce my sores.

Lavender has a very calming nature and can be used with every allergic reaction to something.
Melaleuca is a very calm but strong fighter.  So gentle, it's gentle enough for children. But it is a great fighter.

So I'm combining these two oils with a little fractionated coconut oil and put it on almost every 2 hours and so far, it's neutralized the pain and I have kept it from getting worse so now, hopefully I'm on the down hill. I will update this post with my results and hopefully this inspires someone to use these amazing oils. Worth a try- and I have samples. :)

So an update:
It is 10:51p.m. and my blister is not crusted. It sounds gross, but it's golden when your looking for progression.  My results are still looking up. I can't wait for it to be gone but I am so happy for my progress.

Another update:
morning of the 15th of October and like I said last night, my blister is all crusted.  The good thing is that it stayed that way throughout the night which means I AM ON THE UP HILL! yeah, I'm fighting this bad boy off and it's working. :) Here is my pictures this morning.

As you can see my redness is really slowed down and improved in most parts. You can also see what my blister is all crusty and if feels and looks gross but, hey! it's healing :) that's the point.


*In addition to using the oils directly on my skin, I thought that because I had ingested something that I probably shouldn't have and they weren't combining well I thought it would be a good idea to do a detox.  So my version of a detox was 2-4 drops of lemon essential oil in a 16oz water bottle and I drank it.  That helped a ton as well because I used the bathroom so much, which I understand is probably more information then you probably wanted, but I'm just trying to give you all the facts here. Winner winner chicken dinner.

Sorry this update took me a while, but after about a week and a half, my eczema is gone.  It's GONE GONE GONE! These oils are fabulous!

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If you are battling eczema on a constant basis here is a website of great essential oils to use to help. Lots of different stories and doctors post of here for you to see what they have used that work.

Everything Essential - Eczema and Psoriasis

If you are interested in using doTERRA essential oils as well as any of the other products they have click HERE for my website.

Pumpkin Bars

Everything yummy about the seasons in a bar. Super tasty and easy.

1 cup oil

2 cup white flour

2 cup white sugar

2 cup pumpkin, canned
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoon baking powder

4 eggs

2 Tablespoons cinnamon

In a standing mixer, combined all listed ingredients in that order. Once well mixed pour batter into a well greased cookie sheet pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F for about 25-40 mins (check with tooth pick)

Frosting

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened

2- 8oz packages of cream cheese

powdered sugar (the more the thicker the frosting will be)

no more then 2 teaspoons of vanilla (to taste)

Frost when pumpkin bar is completely cooled :) ENJOY!