my boys

Just thought I would share a few fun pics....

 We just bought a juicer to try and pump in more fruits and veggies into our diet.  This is Warren enjoying our first cup of apple and carrot juice.  It's surprisingly good.

 It's crazy I got him to actually sit still for a picture.  This is to document him at 10 months.  

The kids at my nephew Ben's baptism.  

Ezra...my curious little monkey.  He saw a shiny quarter he just had to have.

still alive and kickin

Just a quick update:

Ezra is now 9 months old!  I can't believe it's already been 9 months.  He is a busy little bee... into anything he can get his hands on.  It's almost impossible to change his diaper.  He won't stay on his back longer than a mil-a-second.  He loves to pull everything off the shelves, put everything in his mouth (it's like having a dog around cleaning up all the floors), and climbing up the stairs!  I caught him about a month ago starting to go up...and then he made it up like some 15 odd stairs all by himself on his first try.  We never had to worry about stairs with Warren, but if your back is turned for a minute Ezra is headed up them again.  We really need to get a baby gate!

Warren and Ezra have their on and off moments.  One moment they are laughing and playing and the next crying.  Ezra wants to play with everything warren has and Warren will take everything Ezra picks up to play with.  It makes for a very long day.  But in all actuality I have to admit Warren has been pretty helpful with Ezra.  He watches out for things Ezra puts in his mouth, occasionally gets him toys to play with, and plays with him in the car.  It's fun to see their friendship developing!

They love doing this!  Sorry it's blurry, but they just won't stand still..

Warren is now 'potty-trained'.  He does still wear a diaper at night...but does well without one for his nap.  It has been a long journey...that I'm sure is not over.  We have been working on and off since May/June.  He started have UTI's which halted the whole process.  We actually found out that he is going to need surgery.  He has been diagnosed with vesicoureteral reflux.  Basically some fluid is traveling back up from the bladder to kidneys.  not good.  The doctor has prescribed a daily antibiotic until his surgery which is scheduled for April.  We are pretty nervous, but we know this will be the best thing for him in the long run.

Barry and I are in the nursery at church now.  When we first moved here there were 4 nurseries, but I think since the new year we are down to 3.  They bumped us up to the older nursery.  We have on average about 9 kiddos at a time.  I don't know if I can say I feel rejuvenated after church, but it's been good for us.  There are good days and bad.  ;-)

The call center is doing well.  They moved buildings last weekend.  I think he said it was about 6,000 sq ft.  It's really nice, and we are excited to see it grow.
     
Here are some pictures of them playing in the snow last week.

Heber Creeper

If you know Warren you know he LOVES trains!  We use to live by some train tracks in Sugar and we had to walk out to them all the time.  I have been wanting to take him on the Heber Creeper for awhile now.  It's pretty expensive, and the shortest train ride was going to be 2 hours.  I just felt like that long of a ride would be more of a train wreck after the first hour, and the fun experience would be ruined.  

But a few weeks ago I was on their website and discovered they were doing a fall festival special.  A 45 min train ride for half the price...and you get a pumpkin, cookie and face painting.  I was so excited!

                           

 One of the trains was decorated like a haunted house...a very tame one.

Now every time we talk about the train ride he says ya "the train like Thomas".  I think he had fun.  He was so excited when we drove up to the train..but then pretty quiet during the actual train ride.  But if anything I'm just glad we could go and kind of focus the day on him.  We love our Warren!

P.S.  Ezra is now officially 6 months old!  He actually started crawling on his 6 month mark.  He now crawls after all warren's toys.  I feel bad for warren but at the same time it's good for him and he'll just have to get use to it.  We are really working on learning how to share...it's been rough!

kitchen makeover

I never liked the cupboards in our kitchen.  I really wanted to re-paint them, but was hesitant because it was something I had never really done.  And let's be honest...the kitchen is a huge part of the house:  It would be a disaster if I screwed it up. 

Well thanks to pinterest I got up the courage to do it.  A woman had recently painted her kitchen cupboards exactly the way I wanted ours to look and posted step-by-step instructions.  Just what I needed!  

Originally I planned on doing it this summer (glad I didn't wait for that), but after thinking about it I realized with a new baby I really wasn't going to have the time in the summer.  It took about 2 weeks to sand, paint, put the hardware in, and put the kitchen back together.  The hardest part was the sanding... I didn't think we were ever going to finish!  Thanks to Barry and some friends we got it done.   

We weren't going to get the new counter-tops, but after a couple of months we decided it would look tons better with new ones.  I never liked the cupboards, but actually the counter-tops were 10 times worse off!  So about a month after the baby was born we put in the new counter tops.  I absolutely love how it turned out!  What a difference a little paint can do!  Oh i miss you kitchen...

Alaskan Cruise

 So I guess I have to start somewhere with all my catch-up blogging.  A little over a year ago my Grandma Milligan planned this amazing cruise for the whole family.  She offered to pay for all her children, grandchildren, and all spouses to go on a 1 week Alaskan cruise.  Amazing right?!  We just had to pay to get to and from the port.

Then by complete surprise in November my grandma actually passed away.  We decided it was still an amazing opportunity for all of us to get together and  kind of commemorate her. Also along the way we decided to have another little one...and babies under 6 months are not allowed on the boat :(   So for quite awhile it looked like we weren't going to be able to go.   

Well April rolled around, and Ezra was born.  I found out I wasn't going to be able to nurse again, so I reluctantly decided it would be okay to leave him.  We were so so SO grateful that Barry's parents agreed to watch the kids for the week.  And in August we were on our way!

We drove to Boise and flew from there to Seattle to catch the cruise ship.    

  

 Here we are leaving seattle...I guess I'm going for the wind blown look.  I didn't think I would have much of a problem with sea-sickness, but it took me a couple of days to get my sea legs.  For the first little bit I couldn't even look out the window.

 

The fam on one of the formal nights.  And yes it's true...there is just too much food on cruise ships.  Sometimes it feels like all you do is eat eat eat.  But I'm not complaining.  Just plan on gaining a few pounds before you go. 

 

Our first stop was in Juneau.  This was definitely not one of those lay out and sun-bathe kind of cruises.  Alaska was a little brisk but definitely beautiful.  In Juneau we went Kayaking with a few of my other cousins.  It had been raining earlier, but luckily it was nice the whole time we were out in the kayaks.  I think the sun even came out for a little bit.  It felt good to get off the boat and do a little exercise.  

 

 

This is the Mendenhall glacier.  This is as close as we got to this glacier, but we were able to get right up to some other ones later in the week at Glacier Bay. 

 There were crazy amounts of eagles.  There were also some little sea otters, but I didn't get any good pics of them.

 

At chocolate seduction enjoying hot chocolate.

                                                                 Tea and cupcakes
Like I said before easy to eat 24/7.


We also stopped in Sitka, Ketchikan, and Victoria.
I don't have any pictures from Sitka or Ketchikan...but we did go snorkeling in Ketchikan.  I mean c'mon how many people can say they've gone snorkeling in Alaska?!  With the wetsuits we stayed pretty warm.  My mom snapped a few pics but I have yet to see them.  We got to see and hold several different starfish and saw lot of little jellyfish. The highlight of our explorations was a wolf-eel.  They even fed it for us to see.
The wetsuits were crazy to get on and off!  For a little while I thought I would be wearing mine home with me.  

 

These are pictures in Glacier Bay, but as you can tell I am not the best photographer....  One is taken inside and the other was a snap shot trying to avoid the crowd people in front of me.  But it's proof we got super close right?! :)

 

 This is the Craigdorroch Castle in Victoria.  

 In Canada we had to get some poutine (basically cheese fries but canadian style).  This is a picture of a restaurant called The Pink Bicycle.  Good story there...but I'll save that for another day. 

While on the boat we had a Milligan Family Olympics.  Barry was super proud of his 3 medals.  Good thing we didn't have to pay taxes on those.  There were 2 basketball events, ping-pong, Uno and Rook.

Pictures taken courtesy of my cousin Marc!  

It was so awesome to see all of my cousins.  I don't know if we'll ever have another opportunity like this again.  We're so grateful for Grandma providing this experience for all of us!  I love her and wished she could have been there too!

Other highlights from the cruise ship
*spa (the 'exclusive' spa passes we bought before we even got on the ship--I am rolling my eyes as I type this--good story here as well)
*dessert extravaganza
*mocktails
*games with the family
*the marriage game
*the pinnacle grill (had amazing food)
*sacrament mtg/testimony mtg with extended family
*awesome tourist shirts we brought home
*magic show
*late-night room service/breakfast in bed ...totally free!  Not the best food but hey it's food brought to your room for free!

We had so much fun, but it's always good to come home!  I think a week of being totally pampered and catered to is plenty.  I was starting to feel just a little too lazy and my pants were getting a little too tight.  And we were super excited to see the kiddos.  Although we did decide we definitely want to go on another cruise in our lifetime...maybe some place a little warmer next though! 

The missing chapter

In case some of you have thought..."hmm...i think i missed something."  Here is that missing chapter to the Christensen's life. 

The end of July Barry decided to quit his job at O'Reilly.  He was really hating his job there.  Then my brother actually notified us of a job opportunity with a company that he's been working with:  an opening in Provo to manage a call center.  Barry was thrilled at the chance to move to Utah to be closer to all of his brothers. 
Everything happened so fast...he accepted the job the day we left on our week long Alaskan cruise and actually started his new job in Provo that next Monday.  Meanwhile I was back in Idaho still a little dumbstruck about what just happened.  You've heard of culture shock well I came back home from a relaxing, kid-free cruise to minor chaos...i called it 'reality shock'. 
Nevertheless I got the house up for rent and packed up.  And me being me...was getting more stressed by the day.  I really wanted to get out of our house fast, so we could get it rented before the school semester started.  I figured this would be the best time for us to be able to find renters:  I did not want it to sit vacant for months...and I did not want to live in Idaho by myself for months either.  But then the other problem was finding a place in Utah.  It was a little tricky with Barry unable to contact people during the day...but on my end I wasn't able to go look at any of the places.  On pure faith we had rented a moving van for a Saturday (2 weeks after barry started) and just hoped we had a place by then.  And it all turned out!  We found a cute little townhouse to rent in Springville.
It's definitely not the same as having a home with a garage and a yard...but I can't complain too much.  We have more space inside and air conditioning (always a plus).  And in case you were wondering we did find renters (thank goodness).  We have been very blessed!! 

things I haven't blogged about but hope to soon...

cruise highlights
summer pics
small kitchen remodel
wow is it too late to blog about warren's birthday?  lol

And then there was 4

It's been so long I don't even know where to pick up at...

Ezra Robert Christensen was born on April 22, 2012.  We had been joking all week that the baby was going to be born on my birthday, but I really never thought it would actually happen.  I guess he proved me wrong!  

I had been having contractions all day on Saturday.  We went out to dinner with Barry's brother and his family.  It was actually perfect, because they so graciously offered to take Warren home with them just in case we needed to go to the hospital that night.  After they left I anxiously decided we should get to the hospital.  After about 30 minutes they told us to go home.  I was so bummed.  But it seemed like as soon as we got home my contractions started to get really strong and painful.  We didn't want to go back too soon, so we waited until I was just dying and couldn't stand it anymore.

This time I was dilated enough and my contractions were close enough together that they let me stay.  My water hadn't broken, so the nurse had us walk around the hospital to help move that along.  It was excrutiatingly painful!  Poor Barry was a trooper through all my emotional breakdowns.  I was so relieved when I was able to get my epidural!!!
About 6 in the morning the doctor came to break my water.  By the time I was ready to start pushing I was so drowsy.  I kept telling Barry that I didn't think I could wake up enough to push this baby out.  The nurse came in told me to do a little practice push.  It seemed like immediately after that I started throwing up all over.  (This also happened with Warren)  I had vomit all over!  I remember while they were cleaning me up I said I think I feel the baby pushing.  The nurse looked down and there was the baby's head!  The nurse ended up delivering the baby right as the doctor walked in the door.  It was so crazy:  I never even pushed.  He was born about 10:30 am and weighed 7 lbs 11 oz and 18 in long.  And just perfect!

 It's crazy how fast you forget how tired you get with a newborn around.  The past could of weeks have been an adjustment for everyone.  I feel like a zombie most days, and I know Barry is just as exhausted.  He has to be out of the house by 6 am to get to work everyday.  I don't know how he manages to do it.  And Warren is adjusting to not having mom and dad's full attention.
He mostly ignores the baby until the baby peeps, moves a little in his sleep, or starts crying.  Then he will yell, "Baby!  Noise!"  It's a good thing Ezra is a pretty sound sleeper otherwise I don't know if he would ever get any sleep with Warren around. Here's some pics my mom took while she was here. 

Here's a pic of my boys!

But all in all we love having Ezra here! He is opposite of Warren in looks in almost every way.  He has tons of spikey hair, skinny little legs, a small head, a more pronounced nose, and thin face.  Ezra definitely looks more like his dad.  It will be fun to see how this little one develops!  

More to post... just need more time.