I can't believe it's over

Happy New Year!
Wow so much to catch up on.... We went to St. George to be with my mom for Christmas. We left about a week before hoping for beautiful sunny weather down south. Much to our dismay it was snow and rain the whole way down. It rained and rained the first part of the week. Luckily it cleared up around Wednesday or Thursday.

We traveled to Las Vegas to visit my grandma and aunt and uncle that live there. It was good to see them. My cousin also has a little boy about 3 weeks younger than Warren, so it was fun to see them interact with each other. Before we left Vegas we went to the Bellagio which is always decorated beautifully for Christmas.



When we got back to St. George my mom treated us all to dinner at a steakhouse called, Anasazi. Oh it was so delicious!!! They bring out your steaks on a heated volcanic rock, and you continue to cook it to your liking in front of you. They also serve several different kinds of cheese fondue. We had two types that were very delicious as well.

My nephew, Ben, just loves Warren. He played with him all week! It was so nice to have someone else around to entertain him! And of course Grandma enjoyed her time with the grand kids!


It was so nice once the weather cleared up. Barry and I played tennis for a little bit, and then we all went swimming! A Christmas Eve tradition in my family is that we get to open one gift which is always PJ's. Then we read the nativity story, Twas the Night Before Christmas, hang our stockings, and put out cookies for Santa. This year all the little kids got to open their Christmas Eve pajamas including Warren.

On Christmas we opened presents around 7...which poor Warren missed out on. He was not feeling very well the night before, so we let him sleep in. He had his own personal Christmas about 2 hours later! He doesn't quite have the hang of opening gifts yet...maybe next year! Although he did have fun playing with the bows. We bought a little santa suit for him last January that Barry had found on clearance: We have been dying to put it on him since he was born. We were crossing our fingers that it would fit, and luckily it fit perfectly!

The rest of the day was far from relaxing! We decided to host a Christmas dinner for people in my mom's ward who didn't have anyone to spend the holiday with. After breakfast everyone got to work getting ready for the dinner! We cooked a ham and turkey, a couple of different salads, stuffing, yams, potatoes...etc. We also made some cute little stockings that we filled with candy and hung for the guests. There were about 10 people that showed. Even though it was a lot of work it was so nice to be able to add a little glitter to their Christmas.

I loved the time with my family. It was so fun to be able to visit and play games.
We headed back on Monday. We made a stop in Utah to see Barry's brother's baby, who was born right before Christmas. It was also nice because we were able to see almost everyone in his family as well while we were there.
Even though we had definitely enjoyed our vacation time we were getting pretty antsy to be home. Our car was packed super tight. Every time we opened the back door stuff would fall out. For a few days after we got home Warren would throw a fit every time he had to get back in his car seat. Poor guy!
New Year's Eve we spent with some friends just playing games. Our electricity went out around 8:30 and didn't come back on for about an hour and a half. It was sooo cold!! Way to ring in the new year right?! Barry was trying to get our generator going and got it all set up seriously right as the power came back on. Like always Warren slept through the whole thing.

Barry's new website

My husband just made his first web site. You should check it out. generatorchampion.com

Catch-up

I have found that not updating the blog is the same reason I never write in my journal. I go for long periods of time without writing, and then I feel overwhelmed thinking about all the stuff I need to write about to catch up and don't end up doing it at all!

We had a great Thanksgiving with the Christensen's. It's always fun to get together with the family. All the food was delicious! I went a little crazy with the pies though. Originally I was only planning on making a peanut butter/chocolate pie and a pecan pie, but my family always has tons of pies on Thanksgiving. So I was worried there wasn't going to be enough pie: I volunteered for 2 more pumpkin, and I also decided to make cherry pie. I don't know what I was thinking! I didn't have a pie crust recipe, so I found a couple of different ones online to try out. The first 2 were pretty disgusting! I still can't figure out how they got such high ratings. Luckily the one I used for the pecan and cherry tasted pretty good. I was pretty panicked after the first two failures.

Barry's brother brought up his Kinect for everyone to play. It was so fun. I never thought playing video games would make your whole body sore the day after. Here is a pic of his parents boxing each other. I'm sure they will be thrilled that I am posting this:

A couple of weeks ago I helped throw a baby shower for one of my sister-in-laws. I was so excited to make the invitations! I also found a site online that listed step-by-step directions on how to make a fruit bouquet. It was so simple...actually the hardest part was hunting down the strawberries. Luckily Barry was able to find me some, although they were definitely on the pricey side.I have really been getting into crafty projects lately. It's nice because they keep me busy! I just finished some cute crochet projects that I will have to post pictures of later. A while back at enrichment a lady had buckets that she had decorated to put treats in to pass out at Christmas. From that moment on I was obsessed with the idea. The buckets she used were from Porter's and super expensive which bummed me out until I realized I could use the empty baby formula cans we have. Here's what I ended up with. I wish the lids weren't orange but sometimes you just have to deal with it I guess.

Barry and I finally finished the Hunger Games Trilogy. We both agree that the first book was definitely the best! It was fun to be able to enjoy reading together though. I will have to admit near the end Barry was way more into the book than I was. It's sad how fast I die out at nights now. Once it gets past 10:30 I am done for.

Warren now has two of his bottom front teeth in. It's so super cute to see him smile now. He's also started to learn how to stand without any support. He kind of teeter totters balancing from his heals to his toes. It's so fun to see him learn new things! He is still army crawling. I wonder if he will ever really get the hang of crawling?

We actually found something that he won't eat. I never thought that would happen. He usually eats anything you put in his mouth. But we bought some canned baby food beef for him. He made the funniest face and started spitting it out. But I really don't blame him. It smelled and looked disgusting. He's also started falling to the side of his high chair while he's eating. It's so weird!

I still can't believe that Christmas is right around the corner! We are going to St. George this year to be with my side of the family. I'm not necessarily looking forward to the 8 hour drive, but I am excited to be in warmer weather and, of course, I am so excited to spend time with my family! As there is a 100% chance that none of you will receive a Christmas letter in the mail from us I decided that I would take the time to wish you Merry Christmas here. I hope the weather stays nice for all of you who are traveling. Enjoy the time with your families or friends or maybe it's just your dog or cat. And don't forget to remember the real reason for the season.

Love,
The Christensen's

"..Oh the weather outside is frightful....!"

I've been inside all day listening to the crazy wind blowing!
A good amount of snow has been falling all weekend. On Saturday our power went out for a few hours. I was going to leave with the baby, but after looking out the window and seeing all the snow I decided to wait it out for awhile. The power came back on about 3 hours later. I was so relieved: It definitely got a little chilly.

Every morning we wake up and look out the window to check the damage of the night snowfall. This morning there was just wicked wind...and a huge snow drift on our front lawn. Oh how much I love Idaho winters.

On a little brighter note... Our niece, Lily Ann Stephenson was born on Friday. She is so tiny and precious. We were able to go up to the hospital on Saturday and visit with Mom, Dad (my brother) and baby Lily. She surprised everyone with a club foot. But thankfully for modern medicine
it won't be too much of a problem to get that all fixed up. We are so glad that she is part of the family!

Since I last posted Warren has started to 'crawl'. He does his own thing. We call it the inch worm, but it's started to turn more into the army crawl. It's so fun to see him more mobile these days. I'm sure I won't be saying that here in a few months. He also has had the appearance of his first tooth! And really, for the most part, he hasn't been too fussy about it. Woo hoo! We'll see how the rest of them go.
Barry's last day at Checker/O'Reilly Auto Parts is this week. It's crazy to think that he won't be working there anymore. Ever since I've known him he has been there. But I can't say I'm really going to miss it all that much (well maybe the steady paychecks). After weighing all the pros and cons we decided that quitting that job will be the best. This way he can have a little more time for school, he can invest way more time into his own business, more time with his family, and no more working Sundays! I know it will be a little harder financially, but thankfully we have money saved up and the Lord has blessed us so much! It's exciting and scary all at the same time. But Barry is fairly confident he can be successful with his business. I am just grateful to know I have a husband that will do whatever it takes to provide for his family.

Halloween and such...

Awhile back we decided that the perfect Halloween costume for Warren would be a SUMO wrestler.. I mean he does have the perfect combination of Asian and chubby!
Although I'm not sure how many sumo wrestlers still suck their thumbs, but he still looks pretty cute to me! He had a cold that night but, of course, Barry insisted that we still had to take him out and show him off. I don't think we thought that one through very much. Once the sun went down it got cold. He stayed wrapped up in a blanket pretty much the whole night, and actually ended up falling asleep while Barry carried him around. I guess he's not much of a party animal yet.

Barry had the day off the Monday before Halloween, and I really wanted to go to a pumpkin patch and get some pumpkins. There is one in Idaho Falls that his brother and sister-in-law had found, so we decided to go check it out. It was really cute, and there was a little train for the kids, but the bad news was it was only fully open during the weekends. Even though no one was there operating the place you could still go and pick out pumpkins and leave your money in a drop box...which I still think is crazy. But the good news was one of Barry's friends works for the person that actually owns the pumpkin patch. He happened to be there unloading some more pumpkins, so we got all our pumpkins for free along with a watermelon, cantelope, and some squash. It was so nice of him!


Later we went home and carved pumpkins...Neither one of us are very artistic but it was fun just to be together!
Then we had all that squash leftover that I didn't know what to do with. I had found on the internet that you could make pumpkin pie filling out of squash. I'm really not much of a pumpkin pie fan, but Barry really loves it, so I decided it would be fun a fun way to kick off the fall season by trying this pumpkin pie recipe out. Amazingly it wasn't that hard, and it tasted pretty good.

On another note...I have loved watching the leaves change colors this fall!! It has made me really miss Portland where I served my mission. There have been a few times when I have actually stopped my car and pulled over to take pictures of the trees. But unfortunately my cell phone camera just doesn't do it justice. These are some leaves that have been collecting on our front lawn. (we've been meaning to go out and buy a rake...but it just never seems to make it to the top of my list, because that would mean we would actually have to go out and rake them up.)


Well there isn't much else exciting going on at the moment. Although Barry and I have become totally engrossed in this book trilogy called the Hunger Games. Our sister-in-law let me borrow the first book. I had never heard of them, but was excited to get into a book again. I started reading it on Sunday, and Barry thought I should instead do something with him because reading is 'boring'. So I decided to read out loud, and then he didn't want me to stop! We finished it together in about 3 days. It was so fun to read together!! On to book 2...Catching Fire!

A little update on Warren... He has learned to click his tongue. It is sooo cute! We'll just catch him playing on his own and clicking away with his tongue. He is getting up on his hands and knees and rocking a lot more now, but I don't think he quite knows what to do after that.
He loves standing up while holding onto the couch and scratching the cushions. He's so funny about textures. He loves his bath times. Last night while I was giving him a bath I brought in the nose bulb suction thingy to clean out his nose. Well after I finished I was cleaning it out with the bath water, and shot some water out at him. He loved it!! I had never heard him laugh so hard.I love this picture because it shows all those wet spots from his slobber. And he totally looks like he's been incarcerated with that gray jumpsuit and beanie.

6 Month Mark!

I didn't want to let this day pass by without wishing Warren a Happy Half Birthday! Don't worry I won't do this every year, but I feel like everything that happens the first year is something to celebrate!! So today Warren is 6 months old!

He can sit up on his own pretty well now. Which makes it so much easier to go to the grocery store, because he can sit in the shopping cart. Hallelujah!!!

He drools so much and soaks through all of his clothes that we have to keep a bib on him at all times. But the bib always manages to get all turned around, so he looks like 'super' baby!








He's been helping Barry out lately with his homework.


So he started doing this a few weeks ago. If we leave the room while he is in his bouncer he manages to turn himself around on his belly and push himself down. It's funny, because he seems to get stuck half way and doesn't know quite how to get himself out . And we can always tell when he's up to this mischief, because he gets really quiet...which is totally out of character for him these days.

He had an ear infection a week or so ago, and we've had to give him some antibiotics with a little dropper every 8 hours for 10 days. This wouldn't have been such a big deal except he sleeps for about 12 hours now, so I've been getting up at 3 am and sneaking into his room to give him his medicine. For the first little bit I was so nervous about waking him up I put a cloth over my head and snuck around his crib to make sure if he woke up he wouldn't see me. I knew if he saw me there was no way he would go back to sleep. I'm sure I was quite the sight, but it was totally worth it because he never woke up.
Last night was the last night and when my alarm went off I was so out of it! I woke up so delirious, and then I kept losing my balance. It was so weird...I couldn't get my legs to work quite right: I almost died laughing. Oh man am I glad that's over with!!!!

Anyways the past 6 months have definitely been life-changing. I'll be the first to admit that it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. It's been hard adjusting to being a 'mom'. I can't just hop in the car anymore and go wherever and whenever. Eating a meal seems impossible at times. And let's not forget the spit-up and poopy diapers (nuff said).
But before you think I hate being a mom let me redeem myself: I love when he cuddles with me. I love when he laughs. I love when he smiles. I love when he smiles because he sees my face. I love seeing him learn new things. I love reading to him. I love singing to him. I love looking at him while he's asleep. I love when he sticks his tongue out. I love when he sucks his thumb. I love taking walks with him. I love that the first sounds he's put together are mmm-umm-mma.

I Love you Warren!!!!

Life is beautiful

Well I guess summer is officially over. We had so much fun at the Christensen Family reunion Labor Day weekend in Island Park. On Friday we stopped in Mesa Falls before checking into the cabin.

While we were there we also had a surprise 60th birthday celebration for Tim (Barry's dad). The family all submitted pictures and personalized letters that Jeanie made into a book for him. It was fun to look at all the pictures from his childhood and teen years. It turned out really well (Thanks Jeanie!). His mom and brother were also able to come up for the celebration. He had a hunch that something was going on, but I don't think he quite knew what to expect. I think we can say he was pleasantly surprised!

The guys (of course) went on a dirt-biking trip and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The women took a trip to West Yellowstone and checked out the Museum and shops there. We had a pie and cupcake (for the kids) eating contest one afternoon. I think there was more pie on the table and floor than was eaten, but it was still fun. I'm sad that I didn't get any pictures of that. But thankfully there is some good live footage! Here is a picture I was able to snap of the kids eating their cupcakes. Madelyn was the big winner!We also played some other fun games while we were there....Although I think "spoons" got the craziest. I cannot believe that the kids slept through all the noise we were making.

The cabin ended up being pretty perfect. There was plenty of room for the kids to run around and not be completely in way. There was a pool table and hot tub (I know Tim enjoyed that!). We really enjoyed ourselves, but it was definitely good to come home. We are so blessed to be a part of 2 great families!

We've got the house pretty much all put together. It's been so amazing to have a home!!! I love it...even if it is more work. We realized right before we moved in that there wasn't a mailbox: We had to figure out how to put one up, so we could start getting mail! Barry bought a big planter pot and mixed some cement to stick the pole in. It was quite a bit taller than all of our neighbors, so I was a little worried that the mailman wouldn't approve it. But we watched intently the next day as he reached way up out his window to deliver our mail. It looks like we're good to go!

We have started Warren on solids. He has had rice and oatmeal cereal, and squash and carrots. He really likes the squash and carrots, but the downside is he has completely lost interest in the cereal now. The other day we had some friends over who brought pizza for dinner. We were visiting and eating, while I had Warren on my lap up at the table. After we finished we went in the living room, and I look down and Warren has a piece of pizza crust stuffed in his mouth! That little sneak!! It was pretty funny, although I'm glad he didn't try to swallow and choke on it. We also got him a highchair, and I think he really likes it.

I can't believe he is almost 6 months old. Time really seems to be flying by. He is giving crawling a good effort, but hasn't quite mastered it yet. He rolls around like no tomorrow though. He still loves squishing himself up in the corners of his crib. Barry and I always fight for who gets to go get him when he wakes up. He gives the best smiles right when he wakes up!! It's pretty amusing to see both of us race into his room...no wonder he smiles so big!

Some of his favorite things to do:

-Play with his toes! He will be on his back and pull his feet up in the air. It's so cute...I need to get a picture of this.
-He loves to put anything in his mouth. He has started to "chew" on things. We think it's teething time?
-He loves scooting himself around with his back legs. He'll push himself from behind while his head is down. We had to start putting a blanket down on top of his sheet, because he was really rubbing his cheeks raw from doing this.
-He loves being outside and going on rides in his stroller. I am going to be so sad when the weather gets to cold for this.
-He loves to be sung to!!! Especially opera style. (for his ears only) We sing lots of primary songs, 'baby bumble bee', and 'the wheels on the bus'
-He also love to watch mom dance around. Barry says Warren must be thinking 'all i have to do is laugh, and I can make people act like complete fools'. Oh well...I'm a sucker for that cute laugh and smile.

Things are so great. I couldn't ask for a better life!
And I just want to give a little shout out to my wonderful husband. He works so hard to provide for his little family. I think sometimes I might be harder on him than is needful. I hope he knows how much I love him! I don't know how he stays sane with all he is juggling, especially when I throw more into the mix instead of trying to ease his load. Thanks Barry for all you do!!! I love you!

P.S.

We have a new nephew Brayden Porter!! Born September 15, 2010. We went to visit him this afternoon, and it was so wonderful holding a newborn again. They are just so tiny and perfect!!
Welcome to the world Brayden! And congrats Celeste and Bo!