Santa Clause is coming to town!

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why.... Santa Clause is coming... to town!

Here is Lily practicing her smile in her jammies for Christmas morning!

Every year Santa comes and visits all of the kids on the Christensen side. This year he came to Gigi's house! (or Diamond as the other kids call her) They were all so good and sang as loud as they could when he came in. Can you see Aunt Abbie holding her?
Here are all the kids singing, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Santa Clause!

Lily got her turn to sit on Santa's lap! We know that Santa has a lot of helpers that dress like him to be with all the children, but we are convinced that this guy is the real deal! Ash and I made a bet to see if Lily would scream when she sat on Santa's lap or not... I won. She didn't. She did great.... we will see about next year!

Jing a ling... Jing Jing a ling...

Attention: For those of you that have your volume on silent, I suggest turning up your volume now. It will give this post a little bit more ambience and get you in the mood for some incredible holiday pictures... Also, if you would like to look at a more detailed version of the picture simply click on the photo of your choosing and the photo will instantly enlarge. Now sit back and enjoy.

With Lowell and Judy on their mission in Singapore we figured this was our year to go "all out". We had a "festive sweater" Thanksgiving this year with prizes for the best get ups. We were impressed with everyones outfits. It made it a ton of fun, and now we have some pretty awesome pictures for our posterity.





None of the pictures fully captures our attire however... Ash won the grand prize with her denim christmas jumper, polygamist poof hair, wreath earings and french braid. I actually won 3rd place.You really should have seen me in my polyester blue pants, snowflake turtle neck and Mr. Rogers sweater... my nick name for the evening was Chester...

Here are all the guys. I was a particular fan of Rileys dangling bells from his Red Cowboy Christmas sweater (he won 2nd place) and Andrews last minute sweater with the beautiful Noel hanging from it. Good times had by all... It really is beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

Happy Birthday Lily Girls!

It is hard to believe sometimes that our little Lily is one! She is walking around everywhere, getting in to every cupbooard and drawer... We are starting to get the screaming thing a little bit more under control. But in the end, we think she is the cutest little thing. We love her sweet kisses and that she is starting to snuggies mommy and daddy. She brings us more joy than we ever could have imagined, and are so grateful for the purpose and meaning that she has brought to our life. We love you Lily! Happy First birthday. 

As many of you also know... we didn't waste any time getting started on our family. In October we also celebrated our 2 year anniversary! 2 years of pure bliss! (right hon!) It is amazing how fast time flies, and how much you can accomplish and your life can change in 2 years. It is so fun doing it all with your very best friend. And now we have our little shadow (Lily) to join in our journey. Happy Anniversary hon. Loves. xoxo.

Date Change!!!

Hi Everyone:

Just wanted to let you know we had to change the date of the Lily Bella Boutique for the following weekend due to UEA! So mark your calendars and tell all of your friends.

Friday October 24th
2:00-8:00

Saturday October 25th
10:00-3:00

Because the facility is so large, if you are someone you know would like to participate in the Boutique let me know! We would be more than happy to have you come and join us.

I will be sending out a flyer too for everyone to send via email to their friends and family tha includes some of our vendors.

See you all there!

Mark your calendars!

When: October 17th 2:00-8:00

               October 18th 10:00-2:00

Where: Ivory Ridge Clubhouse 

(3 miles East off the Thanksgiving Point Exit)

Featuring: Precious Baby Items, Candles, Aprons, Designer Jeans and Sweats, Clarisonic Skin Care, Books, Crafts and more! You won't want to miss this!

See you there! 

Homeward Bound

H a r o l d W i l l i a m L e f r a n d t

June 4, 1962- September 14, 2008

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing and the sky is clear and red.
When the summer’s ceased its gleaming,
When the corn is past its prime,
When adventure’s lost its meaning,
I’ll be homeward bound in time.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

If you find it’s me you're missing, if you’re hoping I’ll return.
To your thoughts I’ll soon be list’ning, and in the road I’ll stop and turn.
Then the wind will set me racing as my journey nears its end.
And the path I’ll be retracing when I’m homeward bound again.

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.
Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

In the quiet misty morning when the moon has gone to bed,
When the sparrows stop their singing,
I’ll be homeward bound again.

-Music and Lyrics by Marta Keen

Funeral Times

Wednesday, September 17th 2008

9:30-10:30 Viewing

11:00 Funeral

Alpine North Stake Center

1125 East Alpine Boulevard

Alpine, UT

Lately....

Thought I would let you in on our lives:

* Lily took 3 steps on Sunday during church. I swear she learns everything in church... this is where she learned how to wave bye bye, and clap her hands and my favorite... scream!!!

* Lily actually crawled all the way up the stairs all by herself (literally) yesterday. Ash was in the bathroom getting ready, and I was down stairs working on dinner and low and behold, Lily crawled all the way up the stairs. She was SOOO proud of her self. This morning we tried working on getting her to go down the stairs... but she thinks the only way to to do it is face first. I think we need to keep a better eye on her...

* Lily has figured out how to strengthen her vocal cords. She screams when she is happy, screams when she is sad, screams when she is hungry, screams when she is tired, screams when she is excited, screams when she wants something, screams when she lacks attention, screams when she has attention... she screams ALL THE TIME. Yes, our sweet little Lily has entered the screaming stage. Too much fun...

* Her favorite toy of all time is the cell phone. It is shocking to me that the baby toy makers can not make a toy that compares to Mom and Dads cell phone. She has a huge basket of toys downstairs and they could not bore her more. The remote and the cell phone are her toys of choice. And she always says Da Da into the phone... her only word she knows.

* The other morning she got up a little early, and we were too tired to take her downstairs so we decided to let her roll around in our bed. It was during those hours that she FINALLY learned how to give kisses... she took turns giving them to each of us. During these moments, we forget how much she loves to scream.

* It has been so cute to see Lily light up when she is around my Dad. Many of you know that he is in hospice and has a hospital bed at my parents home. Whenever she sees him she wants to crawl right in bed with him and cuddle up to his face. It is so cute. She is going to miss her papa when he is gone.

Goodbye Mom and Dad!

My parents recently left for a mission to Singapore. They will be serving as public affairs missionaries and will cover Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. As public affairs missionaries their primary responsibility will be to create relationships between these countries and the church so that more doors might be opened to spread the gospel over there. We miss them soooo much but are so proud of the work they are doing. It was an incredible sacrifice for them to leave all their Grandbabies and us kids at home, but they are firm in their faith that there is no better way they could bless our lives as their children than going and serving the Lord. Love you mom and dad!!!

My Dads blog

Hello friends and family:

I thought I would post a link to my Dads blog. Many of you have heard the news that the cancer came back and many of you have asked about his current condition. So here is the link. We will try and update it each week, and any time anything happens.

Thank you so much for all of your love and support. It means more than you know.

http://www.thelefrandtfamily.blogspot.com/

Love,

Jon

Our Sweet Sweet Lily Girls...

Lily is growing up way to fast... honestly, where has the time gone? She turns 9 months old on Sunday. She is on the verge of crawling, we catch her sitting up in her crib, she wants to eat everything and her little personality just keeps blossoming! We are loving being parents... she has brought us so much joy. Michele Reyes did such a great job capturing all of her fun expressions. Thank you Michele! Hope you all enjoy these pictures as much as we do! We can't stop looking at them! 

A Sneak Peek!

We just received this proof from our photographer and had to share! She is the most beautifulous baby girls in da whole wide world!

We are so excited to see the rest and will be sure to post them as soon as they get here! We can hardly wait! 

A Time For Change...Again

So I'm a little late on posting some of these but now I have a fully functioning computer and my camera back!

Me and my sweet Lily on Mothers Day...she really is an angel and fills my life with so much Joy

Happy Birthday Bryce! Partying in true Bryce fashion.
Go Bees! We went to the Bees game with some of my family and took Jon's little sister and her friend with us. We made it out with no spilled beer on us and no foul balls hitting us so overall it was a really fun night. 
Mommy, big girl and daddy on tracks up to the game (this was right before Lily threw up everywhere. I think she gets a little motion sick like both her parents).
Playing at my friend Jenn Fossums house. Thanks for the lunch Jenn, it was so much fun!
Jon thinks this is Lily's most unflattering angle, but I love this picture and had to show the teeth!

Time for change

Well... Life in the Lefrandt household has been some what chaotic and full of change. I am posting just three pictures, simply because I haven't had time to upload the others. You would think that things like that would be so simple, and things like posting on blogs would be simple as well... I guess we are just going to have to try a little harder.

Jon finally graduated from BYU with a degree in Advertising and Marketing. He opted to not start his new job with Ivory Homes until May 20th and we spent some time together as a family without the stresses of school and work. While the bank account is much lower, and it was a struggle for Jon to overcome the stresses of not seeing money come in the bank like it used to... it was exactly what the Lefrandt family needed... some time together.

We also took some to go back to where Jon is from, Seattle! Jon grew up there and always said, "You will never fully know me until you have been to Seattle." We are going to save our Seattle stories/memories for the next post... stay tuned!

Lily is growing like a weed and we can tell that her crawling days are just around the corner. She has now entered the world of eating solids!! she loves banana's, sweet potatoes and rice cereal... She also loves to squeel during Daddy's lessons at church. Needless to say, we have never appreciated church in peace and quiet more ;) But we get a kick out of her and love watching her through all of her little stages.

We would also like to apologize for the lack of posting. Please forgive us. We will try to be better as we enter the new, fun filled stage of full time work, and full time parenthood... wish us luck!

It's a SMALL WORLD!!!

A little over three years ago I got back from my mission. I served in Sendai Japan and loved my time there! I had a lot of companions that were from the States and I had two companions from Australia. My little brother Matt got his mission call to Brisbane Australia and has loved his experience thus far. It was shocking to me to recieve a letter from my brother informing me that my former companion (that I had TWICE) Elder Ngtai was his ward mission leader!!! Elder Ngtai is the man, we had a blast together, we served as Assistants under President Bird together and it has been fun exchanging emails and catching back up. He is the father of two and seems to be doing really well. As if this wasn't a small enough coincidence...
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The last picture is at a Zone Leader Conference. The Elder right below me (we are both wearing pink ties) is Elder Semaan. He was my last companion in the mission home. He is also from Australia and was visiting his brother who just so happens to be in the same ward that Matt (Elder Lefrandt) is serving in!

It has been extremely fun for me to see Matt interacting and doing missionary work with two of the Elders that I loved most. They were both amazing missionaries and are good friends. Elder Ngtai often saves Matt when they are out of food and will bring a loaf of bread over, and has gone tracting with him on a couple of occasions. They both told Matt that he is just like me, and when we talked to Matt on Mothers day he says it is shocking that I act a lot like them! We all seem to be rubbing off on each-other. It truly is a small world after all...

Happy Mothers Day!!

Dearest Mothers,

I just wanted to take a quick second and write a quick thank you to all of the mothers out there. Whether you are my mother, my mother in-law, the mother of my children or simply someone else's mother... I wanted to say THANK YOU. I often think about where my life would be without my own mother and realize... I would be a much different person without her influence.

I am grateful that I married a woman that is an amazing mother. I never doubted she could do it! This is what she has lived her life for! She always longed for the day when she would have a baby to call her own. Lily has brought us so much joy, but she is a lot of work. Ash does it effortlessly. She loves what she does and she is great at it! I think she is the greatest Mom out there and I am so glad I married her. For time and eternity. Love you Ash! Happy FIRST Mothers day!

Love,

Jon

Farewell to BYU...

I thought I would first just share some insight with each of you readers. To attend Brigham Young University has been my dream since I knew what it was. My parents both attended BYU, and several of my cousins played football for BYU. What can I say? My blood runs blue... cougar blue! What many of you don't know is that I didn't get into BYU at first. I was completely devastated when I received my rejection letter. I attended BYU Idaho my freshman year. It was fun, but still not the goal that I had set. After returning home from my mission I was committed. I actually applied to BYU again while I was on my mission and still did not get in. After my third attempt of applying my hard work, determination and perseverance paid off. I became a full time student at Brigham Young University. I began my journey to fulfilling my life long dream.

There were semesters that I really struggled. Those long nights studying for American Heritage and Accounting in the Library are oddly some of my fondest memories. Staying at the library until 2:00 AM when you hear the music blaring and having them tell you to GET OUT and GO HOME.
There were also those semester where I really thrived. Last semester I got a 3.7 while taking 16 credits and that was the semester that Lily was born. That is certainly something that I never thought possible.

Today, I presented my capstone presentation in the basement of the MOA to our faculty and our client that flew in from Los Angeles. It was a great culmination of everything that I have learned at BYU and gave me an appreciation for the education that I have received. There is an amazing feeling when you are on campus. Today as I made my way across campus and drove home it started to set in... I am done! Am I really done? or is it just the beginning. Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve. May be a cheesy line, but for me it exhilarates me. This is what BYU is all about.

To sum up my thoughts, and not bore you to death I thought I would make a list of some of the things I will miss most:
* Eaves dropping on random couples DTR's in front of the Wilk or Library. These DTR's usually evolved around whether they received a spiritual confirmation to date or not... these are some of my favorite eaves dropping convo's.
* The random singing guys that sing between classes.
* The couples that choose to sit in a very public location, usually on the grass in-between buildings and just stare into each-others eyes... SHOCKING what some people will do.
* I will miss being a BYU student when we beat the U of U at Basketball or Football. Being an Alum and watching it will be fun,but never the same....
* I am obsessed with the vanilla frosting sprinkle donuts that are offered at the bookstore. Nothing is better... the month of December was dedicated to a bi-weekly visit for these donuts.
* The Brimhall. This is the building where all my advertising classes were held. It was my home away from home, and I felt that all the people that were on campus that were most like me took classes here. We had some good times.
* Doug McKinlay's classes. He was the best professor I had. Loved his dedication to helping students learn. He is... THE MAN.
* Favorite food joints included: Fro yo, Pudding on the Rice, Hollywood Juice Cafe (RIP), Smart Cookie, Guru's, California Pizza Kitchen, and Outback.

Now it is time to work for a living! Wish me luck! I just got a job as the Sales and Marketing Coordinator with Ivory Homes and am very excited!!