Is Anyone even interested?

I have decided as of this morning that I will be using this blog as my journal of the events that occur in my family's life, since I don't believe that anyone ever looks at it anymore. Probably due to the fact that I was only writing once a month or less. If I can get my butt to sit at this computer all morning doing work stuff, than I should have no problem taking the extra ten minutes to update here. Maybe I will even add in a few photos occasionally. On to life. The funniest thing came out of Tanners mouth a few weeks ago and I have been trying to write it down since. He has found his love for singing lately and makes up songs as well as combines songs he learned. We were driving to church and he is sitting in the back seat and begins singing, "I belong to the church of Jesus Christ a family is forever." Than he changed it to "I belong to the church of Jesus Christ . . .this is my sleeping beauty!"(instead of "sacred duty" from I love to see the temple. I looked at Gary and just laughed. He started laughing as well. It was so adorable!
Evan is trying to potty train right now-emphasis on the "trying". He enjoys wearing underwear-especially li-maquee or as we know him better, Lightning McQueen. In fact, sometimes it takes me thirty minutes of arguing with him over the fact that he had peed in them already and needs to wear another pair while he throws a fit and yells at me repeating, "I wan li-maquee!" And then I finally get to the point that I want to spank his butt and tell him he is wearing a diaper that he finally relents and wears whatever I have. He is definitely in the terrrrrror-able twos. He is very particular about always wanting mom over dad which is sweet but aggravating at times. Sometimes I just need a break! He loves to cuddle when he is not calling me stupid and yelling at and hitting me. In fact, he just learned a new word on the way to Lake Powell last week. Moly Cwap! Thank you Tanner for your wisdom that you pass on to your little brother. Tanner has been saying "Holy Moly Macaroni Crap!" and all Evan gets out of it is "Moly Cwap". Tanner still has his speech impediment so he sounds adorable saying that as well. I have stopped saying this, so I don't know where he got it from. Evan loves his chocolate milk and asks for it about 10 times a day and will whine and cry until he either goes and gets all the ingredients and brings them to me-at the computer, in bed, in the bathroom-and I make it for him, or I make one of the older kids do it. He will clean up after himself which is a gene my other kids definitely did not get. He did get the Christensen accident prone gene. We took him to the urgent care a few weeks ago after Karly slammed his fingers in the door of her bedroom. She didn't want him in there and didn't see his hand when she proceeded to slam it. I normally wouldn't have done anything but ice and maybe Tylenol, but of course it began to swell and look crooked. Heidi and Barett Christensen were at our house for dinner when it happened so it was only appropriate that it should happen while they were here. Anything we can do to make them feel at home, right?! Just like old times. Well, the xray showed no problems, so we were sent home and told to ice it. It took over a week for the swelling to go down, but looks much better now. Last week he did a number on his face. He was riding his bike down our driveway-which has a pretty nice slope to it; no longer do we require our neighbors walkway!-and ran into my car and then flipped off onto the concrete. Grandpa Reid was out there when it happened and quickly brought him into us. He smacked the right side of his face real good. The bump on the side of his eye was irregular and purple and huge. He had a nice raspberry above the bump as well as on the bump that were both oozing. His hands were scraped on the backs as well. Now he is sporting a nice black/purple/green eye and some pretty nice scabs-although one scab came off in Powell and the other is slowly peeling off. It looked even better when he had a left swollen eye to go with it from smacking his eye on the boat when we were driving through the boat chop and he had fallen asleep in the bow with his head resting on the side.
Karly has her Grandpa Reid's pack rat gene. She loves to find any box, bag or other container and collect, collect, collect. Anything and everything. I am constantly going into her room and de-junking, de-cluttering and throwing things away. I almost always have a grocery bag full of trash to take out-and I mean trash! She keeps paper and cardboard pieces, and wrappers. She is definitely the artistic type. We cannot believe how fast she is growing! She is like a weed. She just turned seven and is already wearing a size 2 shoe, size 8 pants and shirts and she is as tall as Kaleb, which has been the case for a while. Kaleb is barely in his size 8 pants and he is so skinny!!! Karly has such a cute little figure. It terrifies me. Lately we have been telling her she is not allowed to date until she is 25 and she can't kiss a bot until she goes to the temple to get married. In fact, we made up a song to the "Austrian went yodeling" tune that talks about her asking dad if she can kiss a boy-"Can I kiss a boy, can I kiss a boy, a boy? NO!!" repeated a few time. The boys think it is hilarious and I catch Tanner singing it all the time. This morning, in fact!
Kaleb is loving scouts and still loving Indiana Jones. He still wears his costume shirt with the spider on the back on a frequent basis. He wanted to wear it to school yesterday but I told him no. He loves scouts and is just about to earn his wolf badge. I just need to start sewing them on! He continues to be helpful and extremely inquisitive. Its hard to get him to listen to me at times but he does try and it always makes me happy when he just hugs me and tells me he loves me. I think he likes living out here. He is making friends, although not as quickly as I would like him to. It seems all the kids live a ways away from our home so he plays with other kids that are younger than him. I hope he can make some good friends and start playing with them more. He does play with the girls his age that live next to us. He is playing soccer right now and so is Karly. They are getting better. Kaleb still runs around with a goofy smile on his face most of the time and likes the social aspect of the sport more than the sport itself right now. I think that will change as he gets older. He is not very competitive or if he is, it hasn't shown yet.
Lately I have fallen in love with my husband all over again or should I say more so. I just appreciate him more lately. I think it is because I treat our relationship as if he could die any day-morbid I know- and I don't know how much time I have with him so I want to make the most of it. Why argue or fight over petty things? We have been communicating lately instead of just talking. I love crawling into bed at night and just talking to him. I love knowing what he is concerned about and what is on his mind. Part of the reason I feel this way is because we are approaching our 10th anniversary in ten weeks. I have decided to take him on a date each week leading up to our anniversary. Each date will be symbolic of the year it corresponds to-so this week I am taking him to Sundance where it all started! He doesn't read my blog so I can write whatever I want here and he will never know!! Anyway, I need to sit down and really brain storm ideas for each date. So that is what is going on with my family right now. I need to get my kiddies going so that our morning routine will run smoothly. Until next time!

Where did the Summer go?

Today is the 19th of August and I can't belileve school starts next week! Karly had a pizza and ice cream social at our house today to celebrate her birthday with some nighbors. Tomorrow we are going to Lagoon to spend the day with friends and really celebrate. Fall Soccer started today and kaleb and Karly of course are practicing on seperate fields at different times. This will be fun trying to get both kids to both places each week. We are loving life in Saratoga Springs. It is beautiful and I have loved all the crazy storms we've had! We had a freak one blow through and dump a ton of water on us today during the party! Quick update on the kids: Kaleb is playing soccer, just learned how to ride a 100 cc(is that correct?) dirt bike, finally was brave enough to get up on the kneeboard this year and loves scouts! He is getting more and more handsome every day and is a great help to his mom. . . .when he actually listens to me. Karly just lost her second front tooth and looks adorable! She is going to be seven on Sunday-I know, I am getting old! She is gorgeous, loves to do art still, has a lot of fun with her friends and as sassy as can be with me. Thankfully I only have one girl cause she has a lot of attitude to throw around, but we love her all the same. She is also playing soccer and will be starting gymnastics this next month. Tanner is still as cute as ever and such a charmer. He's a little ladies man. He loves to tease and he loves to go tubing behind the boat. He is my water bug and such a californian at heart. I totally claim him as mine. He is a good big brother and I love his little raspy voice and slight lisp. Evan is starting to potty train and man he has a temper like his daddy! He loves to cuddle and love on me as well as hit and yell at me. Not that Gary does those things-he just gets frustrated easily and Evan gets that from him. He is getting so tall and talking so well! I love him to pieces. Little Ryan is 6 months tomorrow! He is so darn cute. Best baby ever! He is crawling already and he loves to laugh and smile. It doesn't take much to get him going and once you do, it's so hard to stop. Well, that's all for now.

Summer is finally here!

After getting snow and lots of hail during the first part of June, I was almost convinced that Summer would never come. NOw that the temperatures is up arounf the 90's, I am happy to welcome it. Although, I did get sunburned yesterday that was not welcome. Still loving it out here. Although we do have frequent power outages because they are working on the power lines out here and the roads. Can't wait until Pioneer Crossing is done! Ashly made fun of me cause I never blog anymore but I decided I am going to blog at least once a montha and maybe if you're lucky, twice! I have already spoken in church out here so now I should have about a year off before I need to do that again. I enjoy writing my talk, I just don't enjoy delivering it. I am a reader! Anyway, our family is all well. Kaleb and Karly just spent the last week in California with my sister Jen and her kids. They had a blast but I know Jen is glad to have them gone. They are a handful and extremely messy! Hopefully we can nip that in the butt eventually. Myabe when they've moved out. Gary and I drove down to Cali last weekend at 5 pm on Saturday and came back at 5pm on Sunday. We drive down to pick up a bunch of furniture that belonged to my grandma before she died. It was a very quick but enjoyable trip. My sister Lauren kept Tanner for us and after we left the two oldest there, it was a nice, quiet drive back. Ryan is the most amazing traveler. He made less noise than the rest of them and was perfect! I am looking forward to boating this weekend and next week. We took Ashly's older kids and our family out last Friday and had fun. Our oldest kids cried and whined about kneeboarding but we still made them try. Evan fell in off the swim deck and I had to jump in after him with all my clothes. That was a lot of fun! He survived! Gary is getting busy with work so I am a somewhat single mom at the moment. We welcome the wrok and the income-hopefully we can really knock out some debt this summer! Ryan is rolling over all the time now and he is always smiling and laughing. I love it and so do the kids. I don't want the summer to go by and miss out on all the fun and memories we could be making so I am going to try to plan at least one fun activity each week with the kids-small or large. Hopefully we can make the most of this school vacation and really make it fun! I gave Gary and Yulia a surprise party this week and had a video challenge that all had a lot of fun with. He is now 32! I know, we are getting so old! Anyway, that is all for now! More to come later! Peace out!

Annual Blog report

Maybe that is what I should do; blog once a year! I don't know how time flies by so fast, but wow! we are already half way through 2010-or almost. So in January, we decided to move again. So I prayed about it, felt it was right, and began the touch up painting, massive decluttering and organizing and put our home on the market on the 26th of January. Four days later we had two people walk through and both wanted to make an offer. We accepted the first offer and quickly started to look for a place for us to move to. The week before I delivered Ryan, we found a house in Saratoga Springs and felt right about it after a few events which included going to the new ward and finding out Gary's cousin lived across the street-random-and she told us all about the area and the ward,etc. Made an offer the following day, went into labor at Valorie's surprise party-sister in law-and brought our new baby into the world just before midnight on the 20th of Febuary. Ryan Carter Christensen is the newest and final installment in the christensen home. WE ARE DONE!!!! I really think so this time. We moved out of our home on the 26th of March and stayed with my sister Vicki until our loan could be processed which happened on the 31st of MArch. I have the most beautiful view. It may be obstructed one day if someone builds on the lot across the street-but due to its odd shape, I hope that never happens. I hope someone buys it to extend their back or side yard. Love it out here. It is quiet and clean and there are a lot of kids. Still in that phase where I really only know a handful of people but you know me-I plan to change that. One neighborhood block party and a couple girls nights and that should do the trick! Currently teaching the 8 year old kids turning nine and love my calling. They are so good and do much fun to teach. That is all for now in our crazy life! By the way, still haven't found our camera since we moved so I can't post pictures.

What was my password. . .

It's pretty bad when you almost forget the password to sign in to your own blog! Anyway, it's the holidays so you know it's crazy. Our Thanksgiving was a bit more empty this year for me because I had to fly back to San Diego to say goodbye to my Grandma. I was fortunate enough to get there in time to say my goodbyes and she passed away the following morning while I was at the temple. It was a good trip overall but still difficult. On a more positive note, my oldest son, Kaleb, was baptized a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on December 5th and it was amazing. For those of you who know Kaleb well enough, you can imagine the type of meeting we had. He cried during mine and Gary's testimonies and he was so happy. The whole week leading up to it he continued to ask how many more days. He was so excited! The rest of the kids are doing well. I am now 28 weeks and then some and he is still kicking around in there. He kicks the kids whenever they sit or lay on him and they think it's pretty funny. Gary is getting excited as well and I think part of that excitement is the prospect of this being our "last" pregnancy. I am all for that! I am posting pictures today-hopefully-from a recent photo shoot we did with the kids. My sis-in-law owns a photography studio called pretty pictures and she is amazing! You can see her stuff at www.prettylittle pictures.com. I am in charge of this years ward Christmas party so you can imagine the fun we are having this week trying to prepare for it. Other than that, I hope all five that read this blog occassionally have a very merry christmas and stay healthy! And if anyone wants to move to provo, I know of a really cute but small victorian that is available or will be post-baby! Yes, we are still trying to move. If anyone knows of any cute homes in utah county that are for sale and are large enough for my family with at least 1/3 of an acre and has some character-i.e. not a stucco box- let me know. I need a basement, at least 4 bedrooms and 2 baths, 2 car garage, large kitchen with gas hookups for a gas stove, lots of storage and closets and a good neighborhood with trees. I found two homes I am in love with but of course they are both in Genola-West of Santaquin for those of you who just said, "where's that?" so I won't be adding pictures at this time but hopefully in the future. Sorry about that!

It continues!

So I thought we were all over the week of sickness, but I had to end it on our trip to St. George. I finally got what the kids had only it wasn't coming up, it was going in another direction. I felt sick all the way down to SG. The next day I felt better but not fantastic. I primarily ate salad, apples, granola bars and green drink because I felt so lousy. As a side note: Ashly did awesome in the marathon. She beat our previous time by over half an hour. She looked great at mile 16 but mile 26 you could tell she was hurting. I felt so bad for her. She finished with only a blister under the same toe nail as last time but no bleeding this time. I decided I don't think I will do another after watching her go through it all. I will stick to triathalons and half marathons and less. Anyway, we packed up saturday after the race and started home. That is when I started cramping up and feeling pretty lousy. We made it to Cedar City and I had to quickly run to the bathroom-almost didn't make it. This continued as we drove home. Many stops! When we got home it wasn't better. I spent the rest of the night lying on my bed or running to the toilet. GAry had the same thing but got it before the trip. AS of now, everyone is okay. Evan has some nasty green snot and Karly has that horrible cough along with Tanner. As another side note, we are having our annual pumpkin party on Oct. 23rd at 5:30. If you don't get an invite it is cause I am lazy. If you read this and would like to come, please let me know.

Doctor week in the Christensen home!

I think that when it rains "it pours" should be changed to "be ready for a hurricane". Sunday morning started early in our home with my baby throwing up and then coming into my bed to finish. About 30 min. later, my oldest woke up and came downstairs complaining of a tummy ache. Within an hour he was visiting and paying tribute to the porcelain god too! That night, Tanner refused to eat dinner and was acting super cranky. Gary and I figured he was next on the list. He went to bed only to wake up a couple hours later with a fever. I coaxed him into taking some ibuprofen and he spent the night in our bed. Monday came and Kaleb and Evan seemed to be fine- I thought we were out of the woods or at least close. I was wrong. Tanners' fever continued that day and night. we called our friend nate to come help with a blessing. Tanner seemed to be better after that and slept fairly well. The next day, Tuesday in case you weren't sure, Karly complained of a tummy ache. I made her go to her dentist appointment anyway-where she threw a hysterical fit because of the fear of getting her teeth cleaned. Anyway, I convinced/bribed her to do it and it went well. About an hour after, she threw up and we skipped her soccer game that night. That night, Tanners fever reached an all time high and he was so hot that his legs were putting off major heat. I convinced him once again to take some ibuprofen. It was then that I realized that he was not doing well at all. His mouth was full of sores-tongue, lips and cheeks. Of course the after hours had just closed and our only option was the ER-no thank you. We called the after hours nurse and she told us to hold out until morning. GAry took him in this morning and we found out he has Herpangina- a virus related to hand foot and mouth disease. He should be over it by the end of the weekend. So Gary comes home and we proceed to the basement to enter some bills and payments for work. I go into the other room to file some documents and kneel down on the floor. I feel a sharp poke on my leg and move my leg to a different position so I can get away from what ever is poking me. This only made it worse. I was kneeling on a large piece of glass that came from a broken mason jar my kids had failed to clean up. The first poke left a nice and small puncture wound and the second filleted my leg about an inch or less. The cut was bad enough that I had to go to urgent care today and get 4 stitches as well as a tetanus shot. My leg is still numb and my arm hurts more from the shot. The Dr. for Tanner said we were over the worst part with the fevering but he is fevering again tonight. Poor kid won't eat and barely drinks so we are trying to make sure he doesn't get dehydrated. This evening, I came home from costco to a horrendous smell coming from my sons diaper. Evan now has diarrhea. So this is our week and it is so much fun living in our home. If you'd like to join in the action and bring this enjoyment to your own home, stop on by. I am sure we have plenty of germs to go around! Hope you are all fairing well!

We are expecting . . .

So this post is more for those who aren't related to me or don't live close to me. We were surprised this July to find out we are pregnant, again. This will be numero cinco for us. As of right now, I am no longer battling with morning sickness but am having a lovely time with back problems. Other than that things are going well. Supposedly it is a boy but I am waiting for my 20 week ultra for confirmation. This has caused me to have to drop out of the SG marathon this year but I am okay with that. I am due the first part of March but maybe the last part of February-the dr. is still debating due to the size of the baby. The kids are excited except Karly cried when they told her it was another boy. She still has her fingers crossed that they were wrong. We don't have any boy names so suggestions are welcome. We are running low in that area cause we've used all the ones we had. The only one we have come up with so far is Austin Carter or Austin Edward (Carter was my mom's dad's last name and Edward is my Dad's Dad's first name). Currently I am homeschooling my little munchkins and although it is a strain and overwhelming at times, I do enjoy the curriculum and having them in a loving environment. Evan has been teething the last month and so far has broken all 4 molars and 2 canines. I think the other 2 are coming soon. He still drools a ton and is super cranky. Gary started school this fall and will be in school for the next 2 years. He is also soccer coach for Kalebs team. kaleb is no longer playing due to his recent collar bone fracture at practice 3 weeks ago. Thank goodness it is all over next week. Family is getting bigger and crazier every day but I love them all so much! I can't wait to figure out how to post pictures again so I can share the cuties with you all. I am hoping to have my sis in law take some professional photos here soon so I should be able to post those when they are done. That's all for now-chicken pot pie is waiting and my baby won't stop saying my name.