All in one

Once again I have fallen behind on updating the blog, so here is my attempt to catch up.....
---long blog post warning

Halloween
My mom was up here the week before Halloween, so we thought it would be fun to take Warren to a pumpkin patch while she was here. Of course it was a cold/windy day and Warren was pretty grumpy. But we managed to catch a few smiles. They have a cute little train that we rode on and a straw maze we fumbled our way through.

While we were riding the train I saw the perfect little pumpkin for Warren. He actually loved it, and played with it until we finally had to throw it out after Thanksgiving. It had a stem that was just the perfect size for his hand to get a good grip on.

On Halloween I debated all day whether or not I was going to take him trick-or-treating. We had the cutest lion costume that my sister-in-law had made that I wanted to show off. Once the time came I finally decided why the heck not. We bundled up and went to a few houses in our neighborhood. Warren actually had a lot of fun. Of course he didn’t say, ‘trick-or-treat’ but he would ‘knock’ on the doors and LOVED the candy! It was good we only went to a few houses because he didn’t ever want to put the candy in his bag. He would keep a firm grip on it, and wanted to eat it immediately. That’s my Warren!

I didn’t get any really awesome pictures of him in his costume…it was so hard to get him to stay in one place!

The morning my mom was leaving my aunt called with some unexpected news. My grandma had passed away the night previous. She was definitely on the downhill, but we were not expecting her to die this soon. Her funeral was held in Salt Lake on Oct. 29th. It was so nice, because Barry was able to get off work to drive down with me. It was a quick trip…we drove down Friday night and drove back Saturday early evening. But it was worth it to be there with all the family. Most of my cousins were also able to be there, and we enjoyed spending time with them. Here’s a picture my mom took of most of the family that was there. I will miss my grandma greatly.

Thanksgiving
My mom was so kind to come back up to Idaho for Thanksgiving. There was no way that we were going to make it to Las Vegas (which is where we would normally go) with Barry’s work and school schedule. We had a small gathering at our house. Barry’s parents and his grandma also came to dinner. I never knew how much work it was to put on a Thanksgiving dinner. Barry cooked the turkey. He was pretty excited to use this electric cutting knife we got for our wedding that we had never used. Amazingly everything turned out and tasted great! We survived hosting our first Thanksgiving dinner.

That night I participated in my first black Friday shopping experience. Barry had been going crazy looking up black Friday deals all week, and there were some items he had to have that were going to be on sale Thursday night. (Although these items will have to remain anonymous until after Christmas.) I couldn’t believe how crazy it got!!! Seriously wall-to-wall people. I thought we weren’t ever going to get out of that store. But after it was all over I’m actually glad I was able to experience that at least once in my life.

Since my mom was up here anyway we were able to get a few family pictures done. Here’s a few:

I love this one of Warren

I was sad to see my mom leave, since we probably won’t see her again until the baby is born. I always enjoy the time I get to spend with her.

Christmas
We put up our little Christmas tree the beginning of December. We also started the tradition last year of getting new ‘warm, fuzzy’ socks at Christmastime, so we opened those at the same time. It’s so funny how much Barry loves those socks!

Last weekend I decided that I really wanted to put up some Christmas lights. Barry didn’t have the time (was his excuse), so I just put some up around our front porch.  It is far from professional looking, but Warren loves them! I am so glad I put them up, because it’s so fun to have them on at night and have the house lit up when you are driving home.

We’ll be spending Christmas with the Christensen’s this year. It will be nice not to travel! I hope everyone enjoys the season, and takes the time to remember the importance of the Savior in your lives! I know my life has been personally blessed by His teachings and example. Merry Christmas

Love,
The Christensen’s

summer is over

We had our first snowfall of the year, so I guess this means

Goodbye summer!

Fun at the park

Splash park

This was at Rexburg Rapids. He looks so scared, but he loved it!

Menan Days for the 4th of July.

We went camping a couple of times this summer, but I never really remembered to take pictures. This was with some of our friends Labor Day weekend.

Our garden produced about 3 strawberries (we only got to eat 1..the rest were eaten by bugs or our neighbor's cat?), several tomatoes of which were also eaten by bugs, 2 green bell peppers that were scorched in the sun, and 0 cucumbers. But thankfully the squash and zucchini were resilient! We have enjoyed tons of those. We'll just say this year was a good learning experience....Better luck next year I guess.

Hello Fall!

Quick updates:

*About 3 months ago Warren finally started walking. We thought the day would never come! And honestly it's been so much nicer, because he was getting so heavy to carry around everywhere. I can't believe he's 18 months.

*Barry quit his job at Qwest at the beginning of September so he could go to school full-time again. He is back working at O'Reilly Auto Parts now. I never thought in a million years he would go back there, but it has worked out so well with his school schedule.

*We are expecting baby number 2 due on April 29th! I'm about 12 weeks now...still a long ways to go!

the many faces of warren

I love this kid!

Finally Summer

I think summer has actually arrived! It makes me so happy!

It's been so long, so here's what we've been up to in the past few months.

Mother's Day was great! Barry definitely spoiled me. I got new

running shoes which I desperately needed, Dance Central (game for the kinect), and beautiful flowers!

Warren got crazy sick in May. It was awful! It started out as a cold but just progressively got worse and worse. He was put on breathing treatments to clear out his lungs. He absolutely hated them! It was a battle every time to keep him down. We are all glad he is better and we don't have to do those anymore!

We planted our first garden! We decided to just go small this year, since we really had no idea what we we're doing and didn't want to set up all new garden

beds. We just planted a few in front in our flower

beds. I was hesitant about it, but Barry convinced me it would be a good idea. We have 2 tomato plants (from my sister-n-law), 1 strawberry

plant, 1 cucumber, 1 green b

ell pepper, 1 zuchinni, and 1 s

quash.

We already have a red strawberry!!! (this pic is a little outdated) I'm so excited to pick and eat it! I didn't anticipate how much I would love to watch

all the plants grow. It's been so much fun. And it works out so well that Warren

loves to play outside while I weed and water the plants.

Barry has been enjoying dirt-biking season. Sadly he missed a big trip with his dad and brothers in Utah, but he has been able to take a few trips here and there since then. He bought this little bike 'for' Warren a few days after he was born because it was 'such a great deal'. (I've heard that phrase a few times). It still needs fixing up, but we are all hopeful that we'll actually be able to ride this bike one day.

I got my master's degree (well not the kind you might

think)! Our relief society did a fun program this past year called Relief Society University. You could earn a bachelor's, master's, or doctorate degree depending on how many goals you completed in several areas. It was such a great thing for

me, because it kind of forced me to keep working towards certain goals.

One of my personal goals was to run a 5k. I've always wanted to run a marathon, but that goal kind of dwindled away after I had the baby. So I thought I would start out small and maybe one day in the distant future I will get that fire back in me to run one.

I absolutely loved getting back into shape to train for the race. I was pretty nervous the whole week before, but it was a lot of fun! I'm so glad I did it, and I hope to do a couple more before the end of the summer. Hopefully I can stay motivated.

This is an apron that I started back in January, and I just finished it. Sewing is just something I don't think i will ever be good at. This was my first official sewing project. I found this pattern at wal-mart that came with a little package of fabric. I'm not sure how people love to sew. It was definitely not something I would do to relax by any means. But I finished it! You will never see the back nor will I ever let you see it up close.

As I mentioned before Warren loves being outside! He doesn't like the grass, but loves playing on the driveway. He could entertain himself for hours with these rocks around our mailbox.

We took our first trip to the splash park in Rexburg today with my brother's family. I loved it, but Warren was a little unsure. He finally seemed to let his guard down once Maggie showed him the ropes.

Barry is still working at Qwest which has now become CenturyLink. Things are going fairly well. We love to have him home on the weekends now! And the insurance benefits are awesome. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he is pretty good at what he does. He's taking an online class this summer, and we hope to have him back in school full-time in the fall. I'm so glad to have a husband that works so hard to provide for his family!

1st birthday!

Warren's official birthday was on the 30th, but we decided to hold off on any celebrations until that Sunday. We didn't want to overwhelm him with a lot of people, so we only invited family. Then it turned out that half of the family was sick and couldn't make it. Oh well... Barry's parents came and my brother and his family came. It ended up being just the perfect amount.

There is a Korean tradition on first birthdays that we wanted to do. You lay out a bunch of different objects in front of the baby, and let him decided which one to grab. Each of the objects symbolizes a different kind of future (career path) for the baby. I'm sure the actual Korean tradition is a little different than what we did, but it was still fun. We had a block (builder), ball (athlete), cell phone (technological career), a pig (farmer), book (teacher), and a pencil (artist). He grabbed the block on his way to the cell phone...so i guess he will be well rounded.

After we opened presents we let him dig into his cake. I really wanted to make a bear shaped cake, since we always call him "Ware Bear". Then i saw a panda bear cake pattern online. I was super excited to try it out. It took two different cake mixes. I ruined the 2nd cake trying to get it out of the pan...it split in half. But I was so determined to make this cake, so i ran to the store to get another one. Anyways to make a long story short I doubt I will ever make another extravagant cake again. It was around midnight when i realized this panda bear cake was not the best idea.

My mom is up this week, so we were lucky enough to squeeze in a little photo shoot. The pictures turned out so cute!!!


Don't you just love those chunky thighs!!!


I can't believe my baby is already 1. It definitely went by fast!!
Some things about Warren:

• He still loves sucking his thumb! You can tell when he gets nervous or out of his element because that thumb will go straight into his mouth.
  
• He has 4 teeth (2 more on the way)
• He loves the bath
• Hates having his diaper changed...it's almost impossible these days to get him to stay still while you change him!
• He loves being naked
  
• He has the cutest laugh and smile
  
• Loves to eat...he won't let you eat anything without sharing a bite with him (weighs in at 23 lbs). Sometimes it's scary how much he will shove in his mouth at once, so we have to carefully monitor how much we give him at one time.
  
• Loves music and will do a cute little bum dance when he's really feelin' the music!
  
• He will crawl and cruise around, but will NOT walk. He has even learned how to squat down without grabbing onto anything to avoid walking/falling.
  
• He's very stubborn
• He will just sit and jibber jabber, and I love it. Although the only words we can semi-comprehend is mama and dada.
• He loves soft blankets. Whenever he finds a blanket on the floor he will cuddle up to it, and his thumb will go in his mouth.
• He claps, will do high fives, and on a good day he will wave.
• He can use a spoon but would much rather put it on the table and scoop off the food with his fingers.
• He's not a fan of cold milk which is a total bummer. Hopefully he will learn fast to get use to it.
  
• He is now learning to master the cup!
  

I could go on and on, but I'm sure that is plenty!
We have been so blessed to have him in our lives.