Her legacy

On Nov 7, 2010 my mom Kenlyn Christenot passed away quietly. In Sept. when she had a major stroke we knew from everything her body had suffered that her time left on earth would not be long but it's amazing what was able to take place in the 7 weeks that remained of her life. She was home with her family and friends and was able to continue to show so many how much they meant to her. My mom was always thinking of others, and now so many were able to serve her. Friends from many eras of her life came to visit and called. She had sisters from the Relief Society sit and visit with her. Each of her children and grandchildren were able to visit, sing to her, make her cards and let her know how much she meant to us. Even in her limited physical capacity her spirit and testimony touched each one of us. The most important things in my mom's life were God, her family and friends. I am so grateful for the example she is in my life and my family's and am thankful to know that our family is forever.


The four girls

All 15 of the grandkids and my dad

Welcome home Jordan

For the past two years Jordan has been serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the California Riverside mission. We have been very blessed as a family by his service and are so proud of the work he did to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. On Nov 2nd he returned home and we are so happy to have him back again. It has been wonderful to see how much he has learned and talk to him about his experiences. I know the blessings of serving a mission will continue with him throughout his life.

There are no pictures of the eagerly anticipated arrival, due to a communication glitch. In Sept we received a letter telling us that Jordan would arrive at Bush airport at 7:36 p.m. on Nov 2nd, This information was given to the bishop and stake president and was what we all anticipated. We talked about, planned and eagerly awaited his arrival. Just before 6:00 p.m. we received a call from Jordan wanting to know where we were. We were at home just getting ready to eat before heading to the airport. He said he was waiting at the airport for us. Apparently the mission office had changed his flight and he had landed at 5:00 p.m. The changes in the itinerary had never been passed along us. We had never completely communicated the exact info we each had and so the change was never discussed. Needless to say we were very disappointed to have our plans dashed and Jordan was peeved to be left at the airport waiting. We were still very excited to have him finally home and being together as a family.

In the Stake president's office after Jordan was released as a full-time missionary


Jordan in front of his sign we made. See we were all ready to go.

Jordan with his "shrine" We had a map and countdown to show us where he was and the amount of time he had been serving.

We had a post Halloween get together to welcome him home. Halloween is Jordan's favorite holiday so we didn't want him to miss entirely.

The girls and Jordan with their signs they had planned on holding up at the airport.

Halloween pt. 2

On Halloween the girls carved their pumpkins with our good friends. They decided not to do the traditional jack o lantern but the "pumpkin master" patterns. The cleaning out of the pumpkin innards is always the most dreaded part but the girls did a great job. Especially without dad or brothers to finish it up.

Lexi with her "Garfield"

Paige did the ghost

All the pumpkins. the kids did a great job!!!

The whole group with their pumpkins.

Halloween

In past years we have always had lots of discussion and planning on what our halloween costumes would be. This year was different for several reasons: With Halloween being on Sunday the girls were not going trick-or-treating, also they are getting too old to trick-or-treat and I have just been worn out emotionally and physically to worry about costumes. I know it's not all about me, so we tries to compromise and find something we were all happy about. Paige is a candy fiend and so she like the candy corn Queen idea. We were at the fabric store and Lexi was playing with the idea of Marilyn Monroe, which I was trying to dissuade her from. And then she came up with Madonna. So this is what we ended up with. I think both girls were happy, and it was doable for me. They had the trunk or treat party at church as well as a school dance they got to dress up for.

Lexi as Madonna, she did a great job of channeling the 80's look. Notice she even has the mole. One big difference is Lexi's undergarments are not on display. We weren't trying to copy everything.


Paige as the Candy corn Queen. I said it should be a new spot in the Candyland game.

The girls together at the trunk or treat party.

Paige and her BFF Quincy-I have pictures of these two at Halloween for the past 12 years. So fun to see them as such great friends.

Lexi with her friends, Olivia and Morgan

school spirit

This fall the girls have been involved in activities on their campus. It was easiest to put them together in the same post. The 1st two pics show Paige in two of her extracurricular activities. I posted earlier about her playing volleyball. The team did okay for the season and she learned a lot. There was a pep rally for the fall sports teams so she was doing double duty with the band and volleyball.

Paige at the xylophone


She also played cymbals. With percussion she gets to move around to the different instruments. I keep encouraging her to try drumline next year in high school. I think the drums are a fun part of marching band.

As a 6th grader Lexi is limited in the extracurricular activities but she and two friends got involved in the dress up days for red ribbon week. They were going as "triplets" on the twinsies day. They got together and decorated their shirts. It's always been very interesting with these three and their height. They even had tall, taller and tallest on their shirt sleeves. Olivia, the tallest is the youngest of the three.

Sorry I forgot to flip the picture before downloading.

The back with their name and year

Heading into school together.