Hal and Kari Hanson Family

Here we go again!!

2010-04-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

Yes! I'm finally going to post again! I have had some serious computer issues, but I'm back. I'm still hoping to recover 10-15 years of pictures off my old computer, but at least I can now start downloading the pics I've been taking since Christmas day. Oh yeah...I had to get a new camera, also, because Elijah broke mine last one last summer.

So...your are probably wondering why I've got a picture from Wizard of Oz posted. Well, that is, unless you know me really well. Of course, I am embarking on a new costuming journey! I'm the costume director for Wizard of Oz, that will be running the last weekend in June at the Queen Creek Performing Arts Center. I'm both excited and overwhelmed. 60 munchkins, for heavens sake! The rest of the cast is reasonably sized, so well will have to see how it goes! As I take pictures, I'll post them. And btw, anyone local who knows how to sew, and likes to do volunteer service would be welcome to contact me to help. I will need quite a bit of help on this one.

Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat!

2009-04-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

When I first heard that Queen Creek Performing Arts was doing 'Joseph', I went to the powers that be and practically begged them to let me make the coat. thanks goodness I have made a reputation (a good one) for myself, and so they said yes. I started be looking at every Joseph coat image on the internet, and even watching youtube to see how the coat flowed. I decided, and the director agreed that we wanted it as close to the Broadway coat as we could. Or at least catch the essence of that image.

I watched the DVD with Donny Osmond and sketched what I wanted to do. The next challenge was to find just the right striped fabric. I was very excited when I found this stripe. I even had a coupon for 50% off. Yay! Then I looked for a pattern that would have the right style of jacket front and sleeves.

To make the squares, I cut triangles of striped fabric, and sewed them into squares. Ugh! Definitely NOT my favorite part, but essential nonetheless.

This is the coat before adding the color wheel underneath. I took it to rehearsal, and 'Joseph' (Brent Slade) try it on. To my great relief, it fit him. Yay! I had only gotten his measurements through email, so I was nervous, but I had sewn for him last year in Seven Brides, so I was pretty sure I was on the right track. I had made six panels with the squares on them, and I safety pinned them on to make sure I had the exact length I wanted them. Then I went home and sewed them on.

Adding the color wheel skirt was not as easy as I though it would be. I ended up with about seven yards of fabric at the bottom. It needs to almost make a full circle, so that was a challenge. I ended up with 14 sections; basically the rainbow, twice. I sewed a gold ribbon down between each section. There are no exposed raw edges.

Then, as throughout the coat, and trimmed it in black bias tape, to make it POP!

Brent was good enough to model it for me at rehearsal last Saturday, so that I could get some pictures of it. It always looks better on a live model as opposed to a hanger!

Front chest

Back (Like the tassle?)

Sleeve detail. Fabric paint and stencil.

Square detail

The finished product!

Some people have referred to my talent. I see it more as an obsession! My family would probably agree.

Spring Break

2009-03-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

For me, Spring Break is the preview of what summer is going to be like. It sends me into a panic for the rest of the school year! But maybe that's good. At least I'm prepared, kind of when summer comes. Spring Break seemed to be an open kitchen all week and yes, whining and bickering. I love that word. It immediately invokes a picture. Just like murmuring. Love those words! Anyway, that being said, there were a few highlights that I though I'd share.

Devin has a great group of friends. I never hear them fight...at all! They hang around here a lot, and come up with some pretty inventive ideas. Like setting up the garage in one of those, pull a string and set off a whole series of other actions, eventually leading to turning on a fan. Great inventiveness!

Carly really wanted to get wet, so she asked if she could play on the trampoline with a hose. Elijah kind of acted like he didn't like it, but he really loved it. Once he got all wet, he started taking off all his clothes! So we got his swimming suit out, and before they were done playing, they were in the pool. I know think Elijah cared very much about the cold pool. He warmed up to it! Crazy boy!

"Wouldn't you like to know what I'm thinking?"

Riding My Bike and My "I'll be happy when..." Analogy

2009-03-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

To all of the "I'll be happy when..." folks I know. This morning I was riding my bike. It was about 6:30, and the sun was right in my eyes. I thought, "I can't wait until I'm on the second half of my ride, when the sun will be at my back." Then on my way back, without the sun in my eyes I got to thinking. What if when I turned around, I had discovered a headwind? For me, headwinds are much worse than a little sun in my eyes.

I was reminded of a conversation I recently had with my son. He was telling me that he will be happy when he goes back to the high school where all his friends are. I cautioned him about looking forward to find happiness. We get caught up in patterns of thinking that when we get these things we wish for, then we will allow ourselves to be happy. Then we get to that place, and guess what! There are other things we are dreaming of and hoping for. And there are other things that irritate us, that keep us from happiness, until they are fixed, or disappear, or whatever.

While it's very important to set goals, and work towards more or more better stuff, the key is happiness. How do we find happiness? Where is it? Happiness starts inside of us. In our heart. Sometimes you just have to behave your way to happiness (as Dr. Phil would say). It is so much easier to just be miserable. But after a while, it gets really hard to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Just like a headwind, sometimes, the things we are looking forward to might actually be harder, and less good, and maybe even a nightmare compared to what we are currently dealing with. Sure, it might be better, but we shouldn't assume that the future is always better and easier than the present. The other thing that happens is that we wish our lives away. Our children grow, and pretty soon, we realize that we spent so much time looking forward that we forgot to enjoy the present.

It's all about finding joy in the journey. There are so many sweet moments that lie amidst the chaos. Those are the gems.

So this is the biggest reason I ride my bike. I think. Sometimes I just need to think. You know? Hopefully I will also get in better shape. But I refuse to think "I'll be happy when I lose weight from exercising, or I'll be happy when I get my endurance back up so I can take a nice long ride." As these are certainly my goals, I do not require these things to be happy. Each day I ride brings me the opportunity to think of all my wonderful world and brings me joy! Bear with me if I find a need to impart more thoughts from my bike rides.

2008-10-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

2008-10-11T23:26:00.000-07:00

2008-10-11T23:09:00.001-07:00

2008-10-11T22:31:00.000-07:00

Well for me, this blog is a lot about past, and some present. Janna just scanned in a bunch of pictures from when she went through her cancer. I've talked a lot about that time, but I don't think very many people have ever seen pictures, so I decided to dedicate this post to showing you, if your interested...or even if you're not!

Janna had just turned 5. She came home from preschool with a tummy ache. She had a fun day because they went on a field trip to the zoo that day. I thought that maybe she ate too many goodies.

The next night she was feeling even worse, so we took her to our Pediatrician. They did a few things and said that if she wasn't feeling better the next morning, to bring her back in and they would run some tests. Not only was she not feeling better, but she had gotten much worse. Hal and I hadn't slept now for 2 nights. Hal and our good friend Steve Ball gave her a blessing that morning, and blessed the doctors through her, that they would be able to quickly find the problem with her. I took her to the Dr. and they did a urine sample and then an ultrasound. Her right kidney was twice the size it should have been, so her Dr. thought that it must be an abscess
on her kidney. Best case they would have to give her strong antibiotics, worst case they would have to surgically remove the abscess. I could live with this. It would be scary, but survivable. By the time I got back to the Dr. office down the hall, everything had changed. They asked me into there office, (my Dr. and some other Dr.) He said that they had gotten the results of the urine analysis back and it showed no sign of infection...okay...well? What does that mean? That means it can't be an abscess. We think it's a tumor...In one word, our world had turned upside down and inside out! They had me call Hal at work to meet us and figure out what to do next. When Hal got there, it was decided that we should go directly tp the hospital, in fact, they were waiting for us. We stopped by the house to get a couple of Janna's favorite things to help make the hospital stay better, and to make arrangements for 5 month old Devin to be cared for. They put her on a morphine pump. 5 year olds should not have a morphine pump. She couldn't figure out that pushing a button would help decrease her pain. So we had to press it every 15 minutes or so. All night. All day. Crazy. The next day, she had a CT Scan and it was determined that she had Wilm's Tumor, childhood kidney cancer. In both of her kidneys, but more advance in her left kidney. That was Friday, St. Patrick's Day, 1994. Monday she had surgery. They removed her left kidney and a portion of her right kidney. Followed by 26 radiation treatments and 15 months of chemo. She was given an 68% chance of survival. A couple years later, when we got internet for the first time (yes, we are THAT OLD!) we googled Wilm's Tumor, and found out, given her specifics, that her chance of survival was more like 17%. We are very glad that we didn't know that at the time. I think it was wise for the Drs. to not share that with us.

Believe it or not, that was the short version. So I'll just follow with pictures.

2008-09-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

Elijah and our family are very blessed by having amazing respite and habilitation help on an almost daily basis. I'm pretty sure I would have gone crazy by now without their help. Jason Kishpaugh and Kari Smith have been our main help. Jason even went on vacation summer 2007 to Yellowstone for a family reunion. It was probably our best vacation since Elijah was born! You know, sometimes it's okay to ask for help. That's I've learned anyway.

2008-09-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

When you apply for adoption, you are at the mercy of others. You have to jump through hoops, and supply whatever is asked of you. You also have to market yourselves as the best family there is, so that a birthmother will want to choose you. It sounds kind of cold, but it isn't, really. It is, however, a lot of work! Of course, once you have that beautiful little baby in your arms..., well nothing else really matters! I thought these pictures from our last adoption plee would be kind of fun to share. Some of the pics are kind of small. These are 8 X 10 sheets that we scanned in after I slaved over these to send off. Of course, if you click on the pic, it'll enlarge, and you can see better. Again, I have to say....I have some pretty cute kiddos!! Check out Hal, too!

2008-09-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

2008-09-28T22:13:00.000-07:00

2008-09-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

2008-09-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

This is Elijah's room. There are Cars stickers on the road that he can and does move around. I was going to paint the ceiling with sky and clouds but then thought "why?". So I didn't. the pictures don't really do justice to the colors, but oh well. He sure seems to enjoy it. Now I just need to figure out how to add railroad tracks and find Thomas stickers!! Then he'd be in heaven!

2008-09-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, so some of you know I do this kind of stuff, but I wanted to share the mural and custom painting I like to do. This is hugely fun for me. A little off the wall, but who cares? It's my house!!

Our dogs, Sadie and Cloey.

2008-09-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

This little puff ball is Janna's little Yorkie pup. She's cute, but very untrained, if you know what I mean!! But I can report that she is an amazing little summer! That's right. She fell into the pool, and proceeded to just swim across it. She swim's like a little wind up toy. She is looking pretty scruffy now. Not quite so cute and fluffy. She loves to get into dried up weeds, which really tangle up in her fur. She really is sweet, though.

This is our Beagle, Sadie. She is a pretty good dog, and really puts up with Cloey very well, even though Cloey likes to jump on Sadie and bite at her ears. Cloey's favorite place is in Sadie's kennel. But Sadie just puts up with her. She probably even kind of likes her! I can report that Sadie can also swim. No, she didn't fall in, she got pushed in! And she doesn't paddle like a wind up toy. Instead, more like a fat beagle swimming for you life!! Poor Sadie!

2008-09-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

I love this picture! Look how sweet my little babies are! This was taken Summer 2001, before Elijah joined the party! We were living in Albuquerque then, but here we were at a Hanson family reunion in Provo, Utah.

2008-09-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Hal and I from about 1987. Still no children, but getting closer!

2008-09-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

It is especially fun to do costumes when your daughter is one of the leads. This is our oldest daughter, Janna (in turquoise). She played Sarah, spunky and feisty!

2008-09-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

"Bless your beautiful hide!" I couldn't find a picture with Adam's coon skin cap on. The kids in the play would randomly run off with it and wear it. They all loved it. I eventually had to hide it!

2008-09-24T11:48:00.000-07:00

2008-09-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

The girls seemed particularly grateful for my effort. A lot of them wanted to buy the costumes afterward.

2008-09-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

This was from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. This was by far my biggest, single undertaking. Dress clothes for 7 brothers, Adam trapper outfit, dresses, petticoats, pantaloons, pinafores, and dress jackets for 7 brides. Plus Millies nightgown, and then preparing and helping the chorus for the costumes. Wow!

2008-09-24T11:29:00.000-07:00

I love to make costumes. Yes, I enjoy sewing, but that's not why. I love the idea of performing, but am not really talented in that way. My kids love to perform, but for me . . . I don't know, I'm just not a good as I would like. So instead, I make costumes. Then, when I see people perform in them, It's as if I'm on stage. My talent can then be properly displayed! Here are some of the costumes I've made.

2008-09-24T09:14:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog!! I decided to do this so we can share with family and friends pictures and experiences. My hope is to go back and cover the past and the present experiences we are having. This is our family! this was taken June '07 in Yellowstone. We had a Garth Hanson family reunion, and just had an amazing time together. And Yellowstone as gorgeous. Hal and I had been there years ago before we had children, but it's even better when you can share it with your kids!