A Sunday Drive

One of the awesome parts about going to temple dedication today, other than the dedication itself, is that we were all done with church by 10:30am.  We decided that we would take a family field trip to the Nebo Loop with the extra time today.  The Nebo Loop is absolutely beautiful in the Fall!  I love it. :)  Also, I've wanted to get a new picture of our family for our blog and the view from the loop provides a beautiful backdrop.

We packed a lunch, the kids, and the camera, had a family prayer, and headed out.  We were not disappointed, the views were breathtaking.  Soon we found ourselves at an amazing overlook and we decided to make that the backdrop for our picture.  It took a few tries, but we soon got a picture that Dan and I both liked, despite the fact that both James and Alice decided to close their eyes.   We hung out there for a little while longer, then we continued our journey.

We continued to drive down the windy, hilly roads, thoroughly enjoying the beautiful colors.  It was a beautiful trip and I was loving every minute.  We turned a corner and my heart stopped.  Right in front of us was an SUV, driving way too fast, trying to pass a little black truck on a curve with a double yellow line.  We had no where to go.  There was a mountain to the right and the truck to the left.  Dan hit the brakes as I held my breath.  Luckily the car got out of our lane just in time.  I let out my breath as I promptly started to chew out the driver of the SUV. (Not a great example for my kids, I know...)  Dan and I couldn't believe how close we had come to what could have been a bad car accident.

As I began to calm down, I began to feel very grateful that the car didn't hit us and for my sweet husband who kept his calm and helped to keep us safe.  I thought about how we had just taken our family photo and how close we came to possibly not ever being able to share it.  I am very grateful that we were blessed at that moment and that we were kept safe.

Anyway, since we are safe and sound, we have lots of pretty pictures!  Check them out here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4772698879301.2193037.1350390237&type=1&l=2d2e98511c

Baby Alice

Well, I've been trying to get Dan to write a post about Alice for a while now...but he's pretty busy these days so I guess I'll do it. :)

Alice Alofa Christiansen joined our family a little over 3 weeks ago.  She weighed 6 pounds 13 ounces and, like her older brother, was 19 and a half inches long. :)  She is beautiful and we all love her.  James particularly likes to play with his little sister.  We were doing some yard work on Saturday and James decided that he wanted to share his bulldozer with Alice, so he threw it in the pack n play and nailed her on the forehead.  She is ok, though she let us know very loudly that she did not like that at all. :)  One of James' favorite things to do is to hold his little sister.  He'll lay down on the couch and I'll lay her on his chest.  He grins and giggles and gets mad when I take her away.  Time for pictures!!!

I canned jam!!!

Last year I made peach raspberry freezer jam for the first time ever and it was fantastic!  This year I decided to try my hand at canning some apricot jam.  One of the sisters that I visit teach in the ward has 4 apricot trees that are very much laden down with apricots.  She invited us to pick some so we did. :)  I have never canned anything so I must admit, I was a little nervous, but 2 of my 3 batches worked out well. :)  The first batch gave me some learning experience and I'm sure we'll find a way to use the first batch....I can't quite call it jam....but at least the jars sealed properly.

Take a look, don't they look great? :)

This is the 3rd and final batch. :)

I can already hear the lids pop as they seal!

This is one of the jars from the ill-fated 1st batch....I'm thinking we'll either try putting it in the blender or using it in a pie or cobbler, or ... something ... :)

A wonderful fun day

Yesterday Dan took the day off work and we had an awesome family day. :) We started the day by going up to Hogle Zoo.  After a near miss with a stopped semi on the freeway, we arrived at the zoo as the rain continued to fall.  I was actually kind of happy with the rain because it kept the temperatures nice and cool. :)  This was the first trip to the Hogle Zoo for both James and Dan.  James didn't seem to interested at first, but when he could actually see the animals we were looking at, he watched intently. :)  Below are a few pictures:

Momma elephant and her baby...at least I think that one's her mom...

Who doesn't want to see (and smell) an elephant poop?

I love this baby boy!

We got to watch an elephant show. :)  This is the baby elephant's Mom.

James had a lot of fun watching the Sea Lion. I think this particular Sea Lion is blind.

:) James decided that he'd been in enough pictures for the day.

After the zoo, we went to Costco to buy our first new car battery for the Rav because it was as dead as a doornail.  Dan got to help my Dad install it in the Rav later that night.  That was a first for him, he'd never installed a car battery before.  Now the Rav works again!  This is wonderful, anyone who has been in or driven Dan's Honda will understand how wonderful this is. :)

After Costco, we took James to see the movie Brave at the SCERA theater.  For those of you in Utah County, matinee's at the SCERA are awesome, they are cheaper than any of the big theaters and they didn't say anything about my diaper bag full of snacks for James. :)  Also, James was free because he is under age 2 and it wasn't crowded at all so we didn't worry too much about him disturbing other people.  James had never been to a movie theater before, I don't think he's ever watched an entire movie before.  He was antsy and pretty restless before the movie started.  However, once they turned on the movie, he was completely fascinated.  He watched most of the movie before the novelty began to wear off, and even then he did pretty good.  The only time he got a little loud was when he was trying to feed his half eaten fruit snack to Dan.  James thought it was hilarious and giggled as he tried to feed his Dad. :)

By the end of the day, James was exhausted.  We made a late night run to Smith's and James fell asleep in the car, slept in Dan's arms in the grocery store, stayed asleep while Dan put him back in his car seat, slept while I changed his diaper and put pajama's on, and then didn't wake up until around 8am this morning. :)

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas

As we're a little behind in our blogging, I'm going to share our Sunday of 2 weeks past. We had some good times this Memorial Day weekend, but that will have to wait.

As you may have heard, there was quite the natural phenomenon in the sky Sunday May 20th. A coworker of mine bought a whole bunch of those eclipse viewing glasses and gave them out to us. I had kind of forgotten about the eclipse, but was very happy to get the glasses. I instantly messaged Lisa, asking her if she wanted to to go down to southern Utah on Sunday the view the eclipse. I wasn't 100% serious, but I wasn't 100% joking either. She told me it was up to me, and after going back and forth some, I decided we should just go for it.

So, Sunday afternoon, right after church, we packed up, and headed down to Kanarraville. It was a fun little (I guess 3 hours isn't little) drive down there. When we got off the freeway, there were some cars parked by the exit. I smiled at the few cars all set up and ready for the eclipse. We then made a turn and there were cars lining both sides of the street. At that point, we decided we better just take the first open spot we could.

We parked facing the west, so we actually had a pretty good view sitting in the car. We let James roam free in the back of the car (with some food of course)

 He did pretty well back there while Lisa and I could enjoy sky-gazing. Of course, giving him that thing of cheese was not without consequence.

Well, Lisa and I wanted to photo-document what we were seeing, but we didn't have any kind of special camera for taking pictures of the sun. Lisa tried taking some pictures holding the glasses up to the lens of the camera. After some messy first attempts, she got the hang of it really well. Here is what we go to see over the course of an hour or so.

It was so awesome seeing that perfect ring of the Sun. Everyone started cheering and honking their horn as soon as the circle was made. It was a lot fun. It was also crazy how the light changed. It was a bright sunny day without a cloud in the sky, and then as the moon covered the sun more and more, it got very dusk-like.

As the moon started to head out the other side, we decided to follow suit and head out of Kanarraville. Part of me want to stay and watch the whole end of it, but we had a long drive home ahead of us.

All in all, it was well worth the drive down. We had a great time. More pictures of the trip can be found on facebook. The chance to see something like this doesn't come around too often. It's time for us to start planning our trip to Idaho for the 2017 total eclipse.

We have a Garden!!!

Our big project for the year was building grow boxes in our backyard and we finally finished! We have even finished planting. :)  My family helped out A LOT with building the grow boxes and setting up the drip system to water them.  My little brother, Daniel, helped out the most, and he finished off the drip system himself.  He's been my handyman since he's waiting around until he leaves on his mission in August.  Dan (my husband) filled them with dirt, almost all by himself...I helped fill about half of a small one. :)  Today, Dan and I finished them off by putting the rock between them....Dan did most of that too. :) Because we had extra dirt, we cleaned out a garden bed by the house and planted some strawberries there too....but apparently they need full sun and they are in the shade...so we'll see if they grow or not.

Also, my parents brought my brothers and sisters over to our house a couple weeks ago on a Monday night to weed our front garden for their FHE service project! :)  That was VERY kind of them, it looked like a field of grass before they weeded it, now we can actually see all the pretty flowers. :)

Word #2

While "basketball" is still James' favorite word, he now has another word he likes to use a lot - Thank you, or as he says it, "tankoo!" We are very pleased to have this word already in his vocabulary.

He's very good about saying thank you. Almost anytime you give him something he very enthusiastically responds, "tankoo!" Last week at church he dropped something in the row behind us, and the lady sitting there picked it up for him. The whole time I was hoping he would properly thank her, and sure enough, he did not disappoint. Whenever I put him to bed, he always thanks me when I give him his sippy-cup. It makes me smile every time. Last week he woke up in the middle of the night, and he was not happy. Despite his screams and cries, he stopped for a moment to thank me for a drink.

The fun part about this word, is that he also says it when he give us something. He'll hand us something when he's done with it, and with the same enthusiasm shout, "tankoo!" Even if we don't want it, he'll keep saying it over and over expecting us to take it. So, we've started saying thank you to him when we want something he has, and a lot of the time it works.

Time will tell what word he picks up next. Maybe if I try hard enough, he can learn to understand the word "yard-work".

Bask'ball!

With the few words James can actually say, he definitely has a favorite: basketball. On James' 1st birthday, Lisa's parents got him a little basketball and basketball hoop. You've probably seen the weekly videos on facebook of him shooting with it. He loves that thing, and he knows exactly what it is.

This last Sunday at church, he was being fussy during Sacrament Meeting. Lisa stood him up on her knees, and he saw back into the overflow in the cultural hall. He immediately shouted "bask'ball!" He was then being rowdy during Sunday School, so I took him out to roam the halls a bit. He kept wanting to go in the gym and would yell "bask'ball! Bask'ball!" Every time he see's our neighbor's hoop out our front window it's the same thing, "bask'ball!"

As time goes on, I'm sure his vocabulary will increase and he'll be able to string more words together. However, it's good to know he's already figured out the most important one.

Piano fun

James loves piano's. :)  Every time we go to either Grandma's house, James wants to play the piano.  I took this video of James playing the piano with his cousin Ryan.  I love how James is so intense and Ryan is so calm and playing so peacefully. :)  Some day we will get a piano, hopefully James will still have as much fun playing it. :)

The Ultrasound

Today was the big day when we got to meet Baby #2. As most of you probably already know, we found out that we are having a baby girl! It was great getting to see the baby and to know everything is going well. I'm not sure what else to write, but I think a post should be longer than two sentences. So this is what I'm going to do - here is a list of things that makes us happy about this news:

1. We are now 2 for 2 in predicting our children's gender.
2. We don't have to figure out a boy's name (We've had her name picked out for some time already).
3. About 2/3 of you actually guessed right this time.
4. Lisa's side of the family gets their first niece and granddaughter.
5. Baby #2 has a girl cousin due to be born any day now.
6. James has a little sister to beat up on watch over and protect.
7. Lisa gets to buy new little girl clothes.
8. And finally, BABY GIRL!!!!

Turning the tables

James has had a crazy sleep schedule lately.  He hasn't been wanting to nap during the day.  Why nap when you can play?  Anyway, his napless days have led to late night naps that turn into a super late bed time for James.  For example, last night James fell asleep at about 6:30pm, woke up, and then would not go to bed until 11pm.

So today I thought I'd try taking James to his room to try and get him to sleep by rocking him in Dan's chair and reading stories.  At first it seemed to be working, but then James got curious and decided that it was time to explore.  He climbed off my lap and crawled behind the chair.  James started pushing the chair and ended up rocking ME to sleep!

Luckily I only dozed off for a couple minutes before I woke up with a start and realized that James was gone.  I jumped out of the chair and found him in the laundry room, about to pull the iron off the ironing board.  The next time I try to put James to sleep in the chair, I will shut his bedroom door.

Haircut time!

With James' first birthday almost here, we decided that it was time for his first haircut.  We had a coupon for Fantastic Sams, so James and I headed out there this morning.  From the moment we walked in, James seemed a bit unsure of his new surroundings but he was ok...at least until the stylist turned on the hair clippers.  James did not like the clippers at all.  He squirmed and fussed until she finished up and pulled out her scissors.  She gave James a comb to hold while she cut the hair on the top of his head with scissors.  He liked that and even seemed to have fun, until it was time for her to pull out the clippers one last time for the final touch ups.  That was by far the worst part of the haircut for James.  I had to hold his head still while she finished up.  I think he looks very handsome.  Tell me what you think. :)

Child 1, Lotion 0

The title pretty much sums up all that needs to be said about our latest family adventure. Lisa and I were getting some things done, while James played happily on the floor. He had a bottle of lotion, and was throwing it to the ground over and over, but I thought nothing of it.

While Lisa and I were talking, I looked up, and saw what I thought was some kind of powder in a big mound on the floor. In mid-sentence I abruptly said, "What is that?!" Lisa responded with, "He threw up!"


I went over to investigate and found that it was the best smelling throw up ever. Of course, I found very quickly that he had not thrown up, but had managed to get the cap to the lotion unscrewed. It was quite the mess as seen below:

 

As you can see, he was quite proud of his achievement. I suppose we should know by now to keep a close eye on him. I guess it's all part of the fun. I mean, look how cute this guy is.

A Terrible Awful No Good Very Bad Day....that ended up not being so bad after all

Have you ever had one of those days that should be a lot of fun, but then something happens that seems like it could end up ruining the whole day? Well that's what today looked like. All week I've been so excited because Dan and I are going on our Valentines Day date tonight. :) We haven't been out on a date with just the 2 of us for a very long time and I've been looking forward to this since we planned it a couple weeks ago. I spent the morning getting things ready here at home, and making sure that everything would be ready to go for tonight. I had some errands to run so I loaded James up in the car with a stocked diaper bag, just in case. As I was walking out the garage door, I checked my pockets to make sure that my keys, wallet, and phone were all accounted for. I've been known to lock myself out of the house, so I was pretty pleased to find that I had remembered everything. I closed the door, buckled James in, and left.

I went to Smith's Marketplace first with the intention of picking up a few of the things that I needed there, but after pulling in the parking lot and getting out of the car, I decided that I didn't really want to take the time to go in that store after all. I got back in the car and drove away. I went to Kohl's to look for jeans for James for his birthday. I got out and to my horror I discovered that my wallet was no longer in my pocket. I looked all over the car and under every seat. I grabbed the diaper bag and looked in both front pockets, I pulled out tissues, chapstick, and a ponytail holder...but no wallet. I checked the back pocket then I emptied the entire main compartment because things have been known to disappear in there in the past. I couldn't find it anywhere.

Frantically but carefully (baby on board) I drove back to Smiths and looked all over the parking lot...nothing. I called Dan in desperation and asked him what he thought I should do. I took James into Smith's to check to see if anyone had turned in my wallet to no avail. I drove home and looked in the garage to see if somehow it had fallen out of my pocket when I got in the car, still no luck. Being the overly paranoid person that I am, I called and had a hold put on my credit and debit card. Then I drove to the police station to see if anyone had turned it in there. The lady said they didn't have it, but she said that I could file a report saying that I lost it and if anyone turned it in, they would call me. Still, she said that most times people just take what they want and toss the wallet in the trash. Not too much hope there.

Slightly dejected, I drove to my parents house and hung out there for a while, and talked to my mom. As I was leaving, my Dad pulled up so I stopped and talked to him outside for a minute. After he went inside, I reached in my diaper bag to pull out my cell phone, and my fingers closed around a larger object. I pulled my hand out and to my astonishment, I saw my wallet. Feeling rather silly, very grateful, and slightly perplexed as to how I could have possibly missed that when I had initially looked in the diaper bag, I drove home feeling very relieved. It was in the pocket that I had pulled the tissues, chapstick, and ponytail holder out of earlier. I know I looked in that pocket, but somehow I missed it.

The only downside is that I have to go and request a new debit card because my bank closed that card rather than putting a hold on it. And that is really not a big deal at all, I can handle that. :)

Guess What?!!

In case you hadn't heard yet, we have big news! We are expecting our 2nd child!!! YAY!!! The due date is August 13th. Lisa is in for a fun prego summer. :) Anyway, this means you all get to play the fun guessing game of whether the baby is a boy or a girl. We've created a poll over on the right for this very purpose. Last time the vote was split 50/50, so pretty much half of you were WRONG. Let's see if more people get it right this time. Thanks for voting!

And so it begins...

Babies learn new things at an amazing rate, it's so fun to watch James learn all about his world and explore his limits. He is experimenting with standing on his own and learning how to wrestle with Dan and how to throw things around. However there is one thing that he's learning far too quickly, my baby is learning to climb...

It started small, James would pull himself onto the metal chairs at church, then he climbed into the dryer one day. A few days ago he figured out how to climb onto the ledge by our fireplace. I found him standing up there once. But today he climbed something that I didn't know he could climb. James climbed into his high chair. He didn't even want food, he just wanted to play with the buckles, he loves those.

Part of me is thrilled to see my baby learning a new skill, but then again that also means that soon he will be climbing to higher and more perilous heights. This is going to be very interesting. :)

He got up there all on his own. :)