Please note...

that there wedding picture on the side is the only wedding picture i have so far and i lifted it from another blog :) when we get more, i will happily post them!

3rd Grade Math

I recently married a wonderful man who has never been married and never had the joy of having children. He has jumped in with both feet to marriage and children. I love that he loves doing the things that I sometimes find mundane: dishes, asking the kids to brush their teeth (25 times) and homework.

A couple of nights ago Matt and Luke were doing math homework. Let me just complain for a minute. Luke gets an average of 90 minutes of homework a night. It is a good that Matt likes to help out with it!! I digress. Matt and Luke worked diligently on a particular math sheet. The next day, Luke brought it home and he had missed one. While Matt called BYU and asked if they wanted his double engineering degree back, I found Luke a new tutor. Luckily, the position was filled in-house:

When Olive found a mistake, he would bite Luke's pencil. He should have bit the pencil two more times as Luke missed two problems on the sheet Oliver and I helped him with!

It is hard to be Kat...

"I am feeling really sad right now," says Kat.

"Why do you feel sad, Kat?" asks mom.

"My life is going by in the blink of an eye and any minute now I am going to be hit by a bus."

It was the beeest daaaay eeeever...

Think Spongebob people!! Beeeest daaaaay eeeever....anyways....

Tonight my family and I went to BYU's Carillonneur Bell Concert. It was held @ the BYU bell tower. It was, hands down, the best concert we ever went to, and here is why: (yes, Sorensens like to make lists)

1. It was outside in a beautiful setting.

2. Most of my loved ones were there. It would have been perfect if 5 more people were there.

3. We could eat while listening. (don't get me started on ordering the food.)

4. We could run around while listening.

5. We were encouraged to clap "thunderously." Seriously, how cool is that??

6. We could wade in water and chase ducks while listening.

7. We were surrounded by, mostly, happy loving people. There was some pushing, which I chalk up to attempted murder, and some bad language, mostly not spoken by me. Well....more on that later.

During the concert, they played a live feed through a very small computer screen. Here is a couple of very poor recordings.

Bells #1

Bells #2

Luke playing in the water #1

Luke playing in the water #2

Kids playing in water #1

When we were finished playing in the water, Kat, Luke and I wanted to do two more things: look at the chimes, if we could, and walk over the over-pass bridge. We found an open room with the below chimes. As it turns out, these are the practice chimes and Luke got to play them!!
Luke playing the Chimes

So, the other thing we wanted to do was walk on the bridge. Well, sadly, I have never done it before, and not sure if I can say that I have done it yet. We thought we could get onto the bridge on the North side. Well, yeah, laugh all you want. I guess the North side of the bridge is hidden from people who never actually went to BYU. So, we walked around, for a very, very long time looking for it. Finally, after giving up, we crossed the road, on the ground, in the crosswalk. The kids begged to go on the bridge from the South side. As they started running up it (how can they be so happy all the time?) one of them hollered over their shoulder, "Mom, do you know where this bridge leads to?" Me, in my tiredness responded, "Yeah, Outer Darkness." Just like always, I often think no one is around to hear my semi-ly crazy comments, but they are. I turned around and ran into a man and his little boy. So, sorry Mr. Stranger about the Outer Darkness humor on the BYU bridge.

But, I ask you...where does that bridge actually go and do I need a BYU diploma to get there? Or is my BYU-Idaho diploma good enough??

As the sun began to set on the Wasatch Mountains, we started heading to our car. Although I am excited for my new life in Nashville, I will have a difficult time telling the mountains good-bye, again. The mountains always seem to ground me and give me direction. I know, crazy, but they do.

I love them.

Backyard Beauty

Next month I am marrying an amazing man in my Uncle Denny and Aunt Mani's backyard in Springville, Utah. Below are the pictures of the location for my groom and wedding stage manager :) Would Sunni Sorensen have anything less than a stage manager for her wedding? I am so excited for Lisa Elzey to be helping us get ready for this special day.

Front of the house. We believe the house faces north.

Off to the side of the house. Aunt Mani has lights to mark the way to the garden gate. We need to buy ribbon for the lights.

This is the view off the back patio. My dad and I will walk down this cobble stone path down to Matt, Ali, Kat and Luke.

This is the opposite view of the flower arch, looking at the patio area.

An "aerial" of the cobble stone path.

We will stand in front of that island of flowers and plants to be married.

View looking at the gate the guests will enter through.

The guests will just be seated in groups in different areas of the back yard. Not straight rows. It will be perfect for the eating afterwards!
After I took all those beautiful pictures, it started hailing and pooring!!! We will hope for clear, dry weather on July 21st!!

Adding to our Family

We are adding a person to our little family. His name is Matthew Timothy Paine.

He has been a friend of the Sorensen family for about 20 years, give or take 5. I have seen Matt a handful of times over the years at family dinners. When Grandma Sorensen pass away in March, I emailed Matt to let him know. He was always very kind to my grandmas. He emailed me back. I found he had never married and we developed a wonderful friendship. After visiting him in Nashville two months later, we knew we had friendship, but also something more.

Last week Matt came to Utah. The kids and I put him through the wringer this past week. All in all, we decided we love each other and want to build a life together. May 31, 2009, he asked me to be his wife. On June 6, 2009, I made him an author on Thrice Blessed. I am not sure which one of those actions took more courage :)

I love Matt. We know we have challenges ahead. But, we both love each other and the children. Most importantly, we both love the Savior. We are excited for the years ahead of us.

The kids and I will be moving to Nashville, TN to be with Matt. He is an electrical and mechanical engineer for a small company there. He does research testing for the governement. Tonight Ali asked if Matt knows government secrets. I said, "No, just things he can't tell us."

We will be married on July 21, 2009 in my aunt and uncle's flower garden.

Draper Temple