Green origins!

When exactly did it start? How? Why? Good questions! But I'm afraid I don't know the answers. At least, not all of them. I love St. Patrick's Day. I love to wear the green. But as you'll see, it's taken some years to develop.

The oldest picture I have in my possession is from 2005. Freshman year, in the dorms. :)

Then came St. Paddy's day, 2006...

2007 - I love this hat. :)

2008 - A somewhat bigger Jamie :) had to lose the pants under the skirt and the hat, but I did wear green even on the mission.

2009

And finally 2010.

Coming up next, 2011! 3 days and counting!

"You are my brother!"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MICHAEL!!

Well I don't know that Michael is much of a blog-follower/reader, but after I looked through some old pictures this morning, I couldn't help but post!

Not to worry, this isn't the last picture taken of us or anything. I just liked it. I can't believe how much and how fast you've grown, Michael! You're 18 today? That's crazy! And very cool. :)

I'm fairly certain this is the first video I've posted. And in my humble opinion, it's pretty awesome. I just love it. So I've named it Michael's Disneyland Dance (not to underplay your part in it though, Natalie) but for today's purposes, it might as well be his birthday dance! :) I hope he doesn't mind my sharing it!

And now for the more recent stuff. He is after all, 18 years old today (if you didn't catch that before).

And finally, one of my favorite pictures of all time (props to Michael Ciaglo for doing M-hans' Senior pictures, they turned out great):

Actually, it's a hard pick; I loved a lot of Michael's senior pictures...oh indulge me, just a couple more:

What can I say? I love this kid! Michael, happy birthday. Know that we are all so very proud of you and SO grateful to have you in our family and home. You're awesome, talented, fun-loving and the best little brother we four sisters could ask for. Happy 18th! :)

"You are my [sister]."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNIE!!

So I went on a quest to find a picture of myself and Jennie for this special-edition birthday post, and you know what? It was harder than it should have been. I think the last picture that was taken of the both of us was this one (Daddy's 50th birthday celebration/meeting Sarah in Oregon, last JUNE):

And we're not even sitting next to each other! Jennie, we need to rectify this situation. You and me, picture time, May 22, 2011. Be there, or be well, absent. But you'll be there! Yes, I see this working.

Well I thought I'd include a more recent (and absolutely wonderful) picture of Jennie with her family that I sleuth-fully downloaded from Facebook.

Now aren't they a good-looking family? The answer is yes. Decidedly so. Unequivocally so. And no, I'm not biased at all.

Anyway, happy happy birthday to my wonderful oldest sister! There's no one like you in the world (or my life) and I'm so grateful to have your friendship. I hope your day is special and full of smiles and laughs and the fun of birthday magic!

I love you, Jennie!

St. Patrick's day, you make me smile!

So for whatever reason...well I know the reason(s), but they're not relevant to this here post...I've been in a little funk lately. Just a couple of days, really. Or an hour here, a couple hours there. It's hard because usually (gratefully) I'm a pretty happy, hopeful person. But anywhy (if we can say anywho, and anyhow, and anywhere, and anyway, why not anywhy?) there's a certain holiday coming up here in one week that never fails to make me smile and put me in good spirits. It's like magic! Green, St. Patty's day, leprechaun, pot o' gold magic!

You may have thought at some point while you've known me, "Wow, Jamie likes St. Patrick's day." or "She sure has a good time on St. Patrick's day!" But I can assure you, it's so much more! It's not just the day (though the day is great and the greens are grand), I actually start getting excited and prepared for St. Patrick's day well in advance. It's like when we were little and would get so excited for the first day of school that we'd set out our new outfit the night before (or even sleep in our new clothes, yes I think I did that). Well, here it is a week before the big day and I just couldn't wait! So a little preview for your blog-following enjoyment:

Seven days, my friends. :)

Can you take the anticipation?! Don't forget to wear green and make the most of this wonderful, beautiful day! March 17. Mark your calendars. It's coming up and they'll be here soon, (the leprechauns). We best get ready!

A dream come true in Maryland!

It all started with a mental image. Several weeks ago I had this vague glimpse of hanging out with Heather and William over dinner in their apartment, it may even have been a dream. The only problem with this happy hypothetical thought was that Heather and William live over two thousand miles away! Oh and there's that little detail of me being currently enrolled in a PhD program.

All I can say is, yay for airplanes and Presidents' day weekend. :)

I LOVED my first trip to our Nation's Capitol. There is a special spirit out there! I'm excited to tour more sites but equally pleased with what I was able to see in the short time I was there.

Thanks Heather and William for inviting me into your home and family for a fun-filled few days! It was a great weekend; everything I had hoped and well worth the trip. You sure know how to show a girl a good time!

I love vacations.

Why the discomfort when it comes to admitting your age?

So I've observed a fairly common trend on Facebook: people listing their birthday minus the year they were born. Posting it May 22 (for example) rather than May 22, 1986. Why is that, do you think? I guess I find it slightly ironic because usually (maybe it's just me) but often the first thing people want to know when it's your birthday is "How old are you?" You know, what birthday is it that you're celebrating? Your 5th? 15th? 50th? (I'm not sure why the fives, but I'm turning 25 this year, maybe that has something to do with it.)

Anyway, I was noticing that I'm one of only two in my cohort that post the full birthday (including year), and was curious to see if this was representative of a larger population. So I started to look up some of my family and friends. That's right! YOU. You want to know what I found? Well I guess you can look for yourself on Facebook; I found it quite interesting. Maybe I should be more sensitive to people's insecurities about their age. Or maybe they didn't even give it a second thought; just preferred to be a little mysterious. What do you think? Those who post the year, why don't you mind? Those who keep that information private (not to name names, you know who you are--March 11 and November 6, etc.) was it a deliberative choice? Are you trying to keep that information (listing the year would give people all the information they need to figure out your current age, after all) out of public view?

Don't misunderstand. I love you all whether you list your birth year or not (though I admit, I'd silently think to myself "Good for you." and smile when I saw people who listed the full date). Not sure why, I just like birthdays. Always have. It's fun to celebrate life and turn the spotlight on particular people on particular days and say "I'm so glad you were born." Granted, I guess you can do that without knowing specifically what year the person was born (and thus how old they are). Perhaps I'm more the exception than the rule both in feeling fine with sharing my birth year and in wanting to know how old other people are turning on their birthdays. Either way, I'm curious to hear what you think. So comment, people. It would serve dual purposes: clarify the thought-processes driving this intriguing social media phenomenon AND encourage me to keep posting on this blog because there actually are people out there who visit me here:).

A Hansen Family Christmas Story

Now that I've let a few weeks lapse before sharing our Christmas stories, I'll just have to hit some of the highlights. On Christmas Eve morning, we all went and saw Tangled (which I highly recommend; I laughed, I may even have teared up a bit). I love to see that Disney is returning to their winning musical ways. :)

The fun continued with a sibling photo-shoot in the afternoon. We had realized that with no adorable babies and children around, we hadn't even taken out a camera, so we tried to rectify the situation:

Our photo-shoot even included an exotic, outside location! Our lovely backyard and trampoline made a nice backdrop:

It took a few tries but we got some good ones!

Christmas Eve was great as usual with some of the now traditional favorite festivities of watching Meet Me in St. Louis, opening our new pajamas, and having an egg nog toast before bed.

Christmas day was awesome as well. Grandma and Grandpa Larson flew in for the occasion and we had fun opening presents and spending time together. I think this year was probably a record as far as drawing out the Christmas morning anticipation. It was 1 or 1:30pm by the time we started opening presents! It was truly a great day. And Natalie and I were completely floored by a pretty exciting surprise gift. We each got an iPod touch!

The rest of the break flew by all too quickly but we did lots of fun things: played games, watched movies (ate genuine movie popcorn and other wonderful food), rung in the New Year with a Martinelli's toast, and even went bowling. Such a relaxing and rejuvenating time. I enjoyed myself immensely. (To see more pictorial evidence of said enjoyment see http://picasaweb.google.com/hansenj22/Christmas2010).

Now it's back to school and back to work! Happy 2011, everyone! (A little late, I know; but hey, there is much left of 2011 and much to be happy about, so I think it's merited, yeah?)