Fun in Logan

We had a great time visiting Michael and JaNae in Logan these last two days. Aris and Lincoln were so cute. We had the chance to go to a really fun little park. I wash pushing Katie on a swing in the little kid area and turned around and my 4 others were all swinging together in the big kid area. I love that they love each other so much. It made my heart very happy. (I just realized that these were the only two pics I took the entire two days. Take my word for it, our nephews are stinking cute :)

Here comes the tooth fairy!

At 9:45pm today March 26 our baby girl Katie lost her first tooth. She was a trooper and let dad pull it out after mom noticed it was incredibly loose. She is eagerly awaiting the tooth fairy. It has been a very exciting night here in the Christensen household :)!

Waterfall Fun

Yesterday we enjoyed the day hiking with friends by one of our favorite waterfalls (La Torelle Falls). It was a beautiful day with wonderful people! Katie did a great job hiking. It is so weird how big she is getting. She was so funny and kept asking me to take her piccheed (picture in Katie tongue :). I love kids and the joy they bring to life!

Ben 10

Our little man is now ten! Crazy!! We had a ton of fun today. Ben spent the morning shopping for Legos. Then he got his favorite foot long (oven roasted chicken breast on Italian bread with olives, tomato, salt & pepper, and vinegar and oil) from Subway. He paired that with cool ranch Doritos and soda and he was a very happy camper. He came home, built some Legos and then it was off to the movie theater to see OZ with the whole family. Then he requested to go out with just mom and dad to Panda Express. He was super excited to get his own three item entre. This kid can pack it in :). He is such a sweet guy and we love him so much. I am so grateful to have him in our family! Happy Birthday Ben!!

Emmalee is 12

I can't believe my sweet girl is 12. I remember when she was two and she would pretend she was in Harry Potter casting spells at Joelle (not much has changed there :). Then she was three and she was Frodo and Joelle was Sam. They were so cute together. I am glad they have always been such good friends.
We had a fun day today. She and I and Joelle did a bunch of fun shopping. We all enjoyed lunch at Arby's (minus Dave). I realized after lunch that all Jacob had was a vanilla milk shake. Not quite sure how that happened (sneaky kid :).
In the afternoon, Joelle and I and Emma got all dressed up for our New Beginnings which was all centered around Emma since it was her birthday and she is our only Beehive. David and I took her to dinner at PF Changs while she was all dressed up. While we were at dinner we asked her what she was most excited about turning 12 and/or growing up. She said "I am so excited to go to the temple, I have been waiting for that for so long." I couldn't believe my ears. That might have been one of the best moments of my life as a mother.
New Beginnings was a big hit with Emma and Joelle. They did a little play which was super cute. Emma was in the spotlight the whole time and loved it. She said it was her best birthday ever. I am glad she had fun turning 12.

The Vista House

When David's parents were in town we went to Multnomah Falls and then drove along the old scenic hwy (hwy 30?) up to the Vista House. It is an awesome structure that gives you a view of the gorge. I love going there, and of course I took no pictures of the actual building :). I saw these fun informational plaques and took pictures of my faves. I love History! Hope you find them as funny as I did! The last picture is the full portion of the first picture. You should read the whole thing to really get the feel of what she was saying. I just thought the last part was so great! Go Oregonians!

1st attempt

This was Katie's first attempt at writing her whole last name by herself. She did great!

I'm going to Heaven

Yesterday during family home evening we had just finished the scripture and were getting ready to start the lesson. All the kids were talking and Jacob was heading into the kitchen and I said "Jake, where are you going?" He turned around and really matter of fact said "I'm going to heaven." We all kind of laughed and I said "that's awesome! But I meant why are you leaving this room?" He smiled and said "Oh! I am going to get a drink of water." We all smiled at each other. I love family home evening!

Jacob wants a zippered jumpsuit

Our little Jake got baptized today :)! He was so sweet and so happy. We are so grateful to all of our wonderful family who joined us for this happy occasion. Thank you John and Mike for being a part of the program. While we sat and waited for jakes turn to be baptized I asked him if he had liked the talks. He said "yeah, I liked Mike's and John's the best!" Which was super cute because Mike didn't speak, he gave the opening prayer. But it was a great prayer :)! John gave a fantastic talk on the Holy Ghost. He told the kids how it is the greatest gift we can be given but if we don't "receive" the gift and open it and use it, it doesn't really do us any good. He also compared the Holy Ghost to a stoplight. Red- telling us to stop doing bad things. Yellow, warning us of danger and slow down before we get into trouble. Green, this is good for you, do these things. (That's the gist anyway :). It really was a fantastic talk. Jacob is quite happy to be baptized and we are so proud he made that decision. I am so grateful to have such a sweet little boy.
To explain my title: After David and Jake got ready in their jumpsuits Jacob turned to David and told him he really liked his jumpsuit,he thought it was really cool, and he would like to own one to wear. He can be the funniest little thing :)!

Fun at seaside

We had a blast today on the coast. We decided to take the kids and Nana and Papa to Seaside for some beach fun. There are a lot of really fun shops there and things to do with the kids. There are swing sets on the beach that the kids loved. We got caramel corn from a candy shop, and played a ton of games at the arcade and bought some super cool souvenirs from a very fun little shop called Del Sol. They have tons of shirts and jewelry and swim wear that changes colors in the sun. Jake and Ben got these awesome pirate necklaces that turn from silver to gold in the sun. Joelle and Emma got these beautiful white flower necklaces. Emma's turns pink in the sun and Joelle's turns blue. Actually it's all about uv rays, so they all still turned even though it was cloudy :). It was a very fun day!

Fun in the snow.

So this picture was taken a while ago but I love it and wanted to make sure I got it on here. This was back in December when we got a very small amount of snow but my children found the joy in playing in it anyway. I thought this would be a good way to try out my new blogger app. If I can really blog from my phone then I will be back to blogging and life will be good again :) so let's hope this works. Kind of a boring post , sorry . It's just one of those "testing, one, two, three, testing," kind of things :)

Is it Christmas yet?

Jacob and Sacrament meeting

Unfortunately our family didn't make it to sacrament meeting today, so David and I decided to go to a later sacrament meeting after our ward. We came home and asked which kids wanted to come with us. All we got were a bunch of blank stares. I said I didn't mind if they stayed home but if someone wanted to come they could. They all chose to stay home and then out of nowhere Jacob says "But... can you save me a piece of the bread?" It was classic.

Summer Fun!

We had an incredible fun filled summer! This whole post are pictures I took with my phone while we were out and about. So they won't tell much, but I wanted to blog them for the memory's sake.

We were so lucky to have Mindy and BJ and thier kids come and visit for a week earlier in the summer. It was so much fun! These few picturs we took at Kells Pub downtown. It is always fun to try new things with people who are as adventurous as we are ;-). We miss you guys so much!!!

The first week of August we got to travel back east for a Christensen Family Reunion. This was definitaly one of the highlights of our summer. The kids had a blast with the Christensen cousins that they haven't seen in so long. Virginia was AMAZING. So beautiful, and SO much wonderful history to enjoy. And agian, so few pictures :-). I know we have more on a different camera, but at this point this is all I have, so it will have to do.

One day during the reunion Nana and Laurel planned a kids carnival in Laurel's backyard. It was a hit! The kids had a blast. I really enjoyed getting to know all these wonderful little people. I love kids!!

Another fun day was a day of bowling. Always a big hit!

You have to see this to believe this :-).

While in Virginia our baby celebrated her 5th birthday. Not such a baby anymore is she? We spent the day shopping and playing with cousins. Doesn't get better than that right?

Her aunt Tanya was awesome and offered to make her a purple cake (since that is what she wanted and I wasn't sure we could pull that off - Thank you Tanya!) Katie has somehow come up with the idea that her smile is even better if she cups her cheeks in her hands. I don't know where she comes up with this stuff :).

Inbetween her Birthday and Williamsburg we went to Bush Gardens amusement park and I got absolutey NO pictures. Weird. That was the kids favorite day of the whole trip. Katie is an adrenniline junkie :). She loved the rides. The bigger the better. Same with Joelle. I could not belive the bravery of those two girls (and a lot of the neices and nephwes to boot :-).
Though that day was a favorite of the kids and no matter how much I loved the "Escape from Pompei" ride, I think my favorite thing we did was visit Williamsburg (although Jamestown and the Battleship Wisconsin are right up in the running for second place). The history in Virginia can not be beat. It brought tears to my eyes (I know some of you are probably thinking that is not hard to do). It was absoultuly amazing to see all of these wonderful sights. I am truly grateful for this great Country! And Grateful for wonderful family members who planned a truly amazing reunion. Thank you all SO much! We miss you and love you!!

Hanging out at the airport and relaxing was actually quite nice. We all enjoyed flying this time. What a difference it makes to travel without a baby. We really had a great time and are SO looking forward to 2014.

Fun at the Coast

We decided to go spend our first week of school at Grandma and Grandpa Glemser's house this week. Every day after we finnished our lessons we spent wonderful afternoons either on the beach or at a river. We saw tons of little frogs and craw dads. It was a crazy, fun, relaxing beginning to a new school year.

Joelle found these awesome shells but since they had little creatures living in them she decided she just wanted to get some pictures and let the little guys live instead of keeping them and "killing" them. She is so thoughtful :-).