Updates! Jumping around!!

We have been a really busy Larsen home as of lately. The family business that has been around 25 + years had to shut its doors. SO, Jon has dove into the Tour business that he started. Edelweiss Tours. Taking small groups back to Switzerland and showing them around. We are trying to get tours booked up to make a living. He has a tour to Italy that he will be doing this summer. Venturing out... (Pictures of the kids posing on the trampoline)
Life has a way of throwing curve balls at you. Jon is also going into travel agents and seeing if he could be like a sub contractor, where they would buy the tour and book it and Jon would just take the groups. We have quite a few interested in that, but next year. Also, One of Jon's Christmas Stories that he wrote. It is a short picture book, has had a publisher interested in publishing it next year also. We just have to make it through this year....
Samantha has been doing great. We have been trying to do Physical therapy with her to help her with some of her tactile sensory problems. It has been interesting to apply these tools at home. She is doing well. Very smart and just a little whippersnapper! :-) She is constantly telling me that she is older than all of her other siblings and thinks that she has always been around. She even tells elaborate stories of things that she has made or done. It is so funny. Samantha says some of the funniest things. She calls her Physical Therapy her Magical therapy. She will also be cleaning up a mess or helping me vacuum and she says, "We or I am cleaning up the crap!" I wonder who says this?
Both girls still love to pose. Lilly is enjoying 1st grade and loves to read. I catch her wanting to not go to bed and read instead. She has many books hiding under her pillow. She is such a sweet girl and Jon and I are proud of her. So far at school she has been choosing the right and trying to befriend most people. I am a little worried because I go in every Thurs. to help out and I watch her at recess and a lot of the boys chase her around. One boy....calls her bacon. And chases her while yelling, "I want my bacon." Too funny! But, it begins early. I will just have to lock her up until she is 30. hahaha

Here are my three gals. Tasha rules the house as of lately. She is such a smarty pants. She goes into the kitchen and gets her bottle. She opens the refrigerator and gets her soy milk. I caught her in the middle of the floor trying to pour it herself into the bottle. Natasha....you are only 15 months old. She understands most of everything we tell her and will go get her diaper and wipes when she is poopy. She is so smart. She says, mama, dada, fishes, I'm hungry, nigh nigh, baba, yes, baby, kitty, and that is all I can think of right now. Oh, she also calls Lilly, Dilly.

As for me, I am back to work right now. I am working at Eye Health NW in Portland. It is a lot of fun. I am working part-time. Two days one week and then three days the next and so on. I am happy that most of my skills came back really quickly. I forgot how much I love working with people and the eyes. I am glad that I kept up my Certification as an Ophthalmic Technician. It will help us out right now with the hard times...financially.

Then there is my boy. My Brigham, my Brig-a-boo. My big little man. I love this bug. I have a lot of nick names for him. He is so ready to go to kindergarten in Sept. He is already starting to read and wants me to spell everything for him. He is almost as tall as Lilly. Lilly is 7 and he is 5. I have to be careful of where he falls asleep because I can not lift him to put him in his bed. He is a big boy. He has a very gentle heart. Brigham loves Star Wars, and loves to draw and color. He loves to play dress-up with his sisters, but wears, batman, superman, ninjas, cowboy anything boy! He also plays barbies.It is fun having only sisters for siblings, but he likes only playing with the boy barbies, which he makes into soldiers or the dads. It is cute!

All in all, I can say that even though it has been a little harder financially for our family...I believe that we have never been happier. We are having so much fun and loving our family time together. Life is really good and when you are doing the right things in life, or trying to at least, our Heavenly Father blesses us. He loves us and takes care of us! I know that we will be fine and as one door closes, more open up!!

So, to all of you this is our update and for now I am going to sleep. Just like my son in this picture with our sweet cat, Olivia, snuggling up with my big little man.