Washington 2012 Day 1

This picture was taken while we were gathering our warmer clothes and getting ready for the Christensen family reunion that was going to be hosted by Russ' sister Kirsten and her husband Ted and their 2 boys Grayson and Hal in Tacoma. The kids were so excited to go on an airplane and go see their cousins.

We were able to talk William out of bringing his (very) bulky raincoat/hat.

On Tuesday the 19th Connie drove us to the airport and we were able to leave on time except we had to turn around for my phone (grrr), but we got up to the security counter at the airport they reminded me that we needed a security boarding pass for Joseph even though he was going to be a lap child (how did I forget something this important? I have no idea) and in order to get that boarding pass I needed his birth certificate so I call Connie and she's almost back to my house. She goes inside looks for birth certificate and guess what, I don't have one. She was able to bring his Social Security card and his certificate that said he was born at home with his name and the date on it so we were hoping that would work and she brought it to the airport. As she's coming I'm standing in line for the ticket counter with Joseph who is doing things like laying flat on the floor, refusing to stay with me, and not wanting to be held. Luckily the people in line around us were very patient with him. I am not so sure I was. Connie came walking into the airport when there was just a handful of people in front of me and I was able to get the boarding pass and get up through security in just enough time to sit and visit for a minute before we had to board the plane. Two things that I already knew where confirmed in this experience. I don't know what I would do without Connie and I don't have a brain.

My sister-in-law Mindy and her three little girls were (unintentionally!) on the flight with us and the kids were really excited about that. Here's Mia, Roxy, and William enjoying some sky mall magazine's.

 Here are some pictures from when we were taking off. When you are flying with kids it takes forever to finally get in the air (actually I would have said the same thing even if there were no kids there).

trying to get a peek.

Gracie it was beside herself with excitement about the flight you would've thought that they were going on a roller coaster.

  You can see how we kept our toddler entertained on this almost 3 hour flight. Here he decides to lay down on the floor we actually hoped he would go to sleep but that wasn't going to happen. 

Having a couple new things they have never seen before is nice too. In this case it was his sisters new sunglasses. 

We would drip water on the tray and let him wipe it up because this kid loved to clean.

Tickles are always a good idea.

And then he cleaned his belly. Also a good idea.

I love how nice and comfy Gracie looks in this picture 

 advertising that we love to fly Southwest (he actually kept this on for awhile)

I loved looking back and see Mindy and Carmen all snuggled up and sleeping on the plane. 

 After I got there we went to rent a car which took a little bit too long for my liking but it worked out we got our car and we were headed off to Tacoma. Also I should note that I may have been sore the next day from lugging around all our luggage. 

We had been to Kirsten and Ted's house once before when William was about two, I think. But this was pretty exciting because they just did a major remodel of their house and added a whole two bedrooms and two bathrooms to the upstairs. They also relocated their stairs and extended their dining room. Just so much work was done and it was made bigger so now it was able to accommodate the big load of people that came to see them. 

 I love Gracie posing for this picture. That porch is where the cats lived and Joseph remembered when he saw me uploading this pictures the first thing he said was "nuggles" (because their cats name is Snuggles). It was what he said and  wanted to see first thing in the morning every morning.

Then we had some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches with my favorite cheddar, Cougar Gold from Washington State University and I forgot to come home with some so now I'm going to have to order online here.

Ted came home later and all the sandwiches were gone but there was still some soup and plenty of gold fish:)

  Anyway, we were just so happy to finally be there out of the heat and in the nice beautiful green state of Washington. And to be with my loved ones. Stay tuned for many many more pictures and posts.

it resonates

I have so much to blog about. I have been slacking for sure for quite awhile and then on top of the everyday stuff I have been neglecting we went on a wonderfully awesome trip to Washington. While there I was talking with my sister in law, Kirsten about blogs we read and I told her I only read blogs that leave me thinking "amen" or "what they said is true and I need/want to do better about that". If I leave feeling "I wish" or wanting then I stop reading them, cause I don't need that in my life.
Well I just finished reading some posts from the lovely Megan and she wrote a post  about body image that left me saying, "AMEN!" especially this quote:

i realized that the desire to change my body was the least interesting thing about me.

(that desire is in fact the least interesting thing about every woman i know). 


Oh man that is so true. Whenever I start to talk (or even think for that matter) about the fact that I want to lose a little weight or how I don't like my nose there is something nagging inside me and I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I read that quote. It is not interesting. To anyone. Or rather it is the least interesting this about me. See when talk with others and get to know others, talking about their body interests me very little as it is something that (for the most part) we have no control over. I want to know about them. What they feel, like, and do.

I am going to try and be better to not think and talk about my body in a negative way cause I have much more interesting thing to be thinking and talking about.

wake up call

Many times Joseph is the first one up in the morning and since the kids all share a room it usually wakes them up. This morning I go him up before he woke up the other kids and took him in the other room. Not too long after I found him here on her bed saying "Geecie seeping". Well not anymore.

(it took me awhile to get the lighting right on these pictures because it was dark in there)

Looks like they are both still tired. Also notice the bruise on his head. That is from falling off her bed the day before. It doesn't stop him.

Little monkey! 

I guess now is a good time for me to record what he is up to now. He has most his teeth and his k-9s are coming in now. He is so tall and talking more and more all the time. One of my favorite things he says is "my daddy" when talking about Russ. He calls William "um" and Gracie "Geecie" and he calls me "mommy". He calls his pacifier "fie" and has been "fie" free for a couple weeks now. Yesss! It was surprisingly easy to take away. When he would ask for it I would tell him they were gone and sometimes he would whine a little but mostly he just accepted it. His bottle on the other hand, we are trying to switch to sippy cups and he is not happy about it. He cried most of the way to my parents and most of the way home (they live 40 minutes away) yesterday. Then he woke up at two in the morning wanting a bottle and he was so upset it took me awhile to get him back to sleep. By that time I was too awake and could not fall back asleep. So I just got up and wrote out our summer schedule. I had a tentative one for last week, but knew it would need tweaking. Now that we have been through a (very successful) week of summer I am ready to put it in writing. William thrives off of a schedule to it will be good for him, but it is not a minute by minute type of thing so it will be flexible for all of us.

Okay more about Joseph. He says "b-owie" for belly, can point to and name most body parts and loves singing baby songs. He is a friendly guy and loves to say "hi" to strangers. He loves babies, oh my goodness does he love babies. He loves playing with his brother and sister and will boss them around by pointing to the distance and saying "go!". He will hold hands with Gracie and dance with her and it is just about the cutest thing. I can't believe how grown up he seems already.

online friend become real life friends

Way back about 3 years ago I got the chance to be part of a fund raiser called Project Book Babe. While we were there we got to meet some awesome authors and a budding author (who was in the process of writing her first novel, I believe) Stephanie Perkins. I have since read her 2 books (Anna and the French Kiss and Lola and the Boy Next Door) and loved them. I also read her blog. But Connie has stayed in good contact with Stephanie and we both just adore her, so we were so excited when she was coming to Phoenix. We went to the Changing Hand event and had a really good time. Connie has more pictures of that here.

Then on Monday we got to see her again. We were going to go to a movie, but that didn't work out which was fine with me cause it gave us more time to talk, shop, look at books, eat yummy food, look at more books, and talk some more.

And this afternoon made me realize a couple things:

1. Mrs Stephanie Perkins is an amazingly nice/genuine/creative person

2. I want to be creative more often. I don't want to write (it's not my thing) but I realized that being creative makes me happy and I am going to try and do it more.

3. I think it is crazy that authors have NO say in the design of their book cover. It is just crazy to me.

4. I really want to meet her good friend Laini Taylor in real life. And if Shannon Hale could be there too, that would be marvelous. And Rachel I would want you there too because I know you love all these ladies too, and I know we would make good real life friends as well as online friends, and by the time this all happens you will be one of my favorite authors too.  

Highlights from a lazy Saturday

1. Let the kids have friends over to play while I stayed in my pajamas and looked up inspiration for my parents 50th. December will be here before we know it.
2. Showered while Joseph napped
3. Did a super quick clean up of my house when I thought someone was going to come over and then they didn't end up coming, but I am glad I thought they were going to because nothing makes me clean my house faster.
4. I did puzzles with Gracie and discovered that she can "sing and move like Mariah Carey". Don't worry I took a video. It mostly looks like this:





A lot of head tilting and hand motions.

5. I drew pictures for her to paint and painted a little myself. My recipe cards!




5. We had the Penrod's over for swimming and pizza on the grill. And Jason shaved his chest hair into a heart and had I not been in the pool I would have taken a picture.
6. Went to bed at a decent hour.

the end and the beginning

I just dropped William off for his last day of 1st grade. This is exciting because I have been wanting school to be over for awhile now. I got this idea from a friend on instgram, there are chocolate covered strawberries in those bags.

The colanders were $1.99 at Cost Plus World Market! And, yes, William has 4 teachers.

William is pretty excited, William is also sunburned. He had a swimming field trip yesterday and swears they put sunscreen on him, but this is what happens when he is out there all day.  So today is my last day to prep for summer vacation. It requires prep because as the school year goes on I think of things I want to work on with the kids but with school there just isn't time. Summer vacation is the perfect time for this, but last summer I wasn't ready for it when it came. We didn't have a good routine and it was over before I knew it. We need a plan.

I wrote this up one day while I was looking at pinterest and making plans. I showed it to William and he was pumped (this was my attempt to make cleaning the house and eating healthier seem like fun). I don't want them to spend the whole summer watching movies. What I need to add there at the bottom all fat and huge is, "good attitude". We do all these things pretty well, but not without a heaping dose of attitude to go a long with it.

William made this chart...and then later scribbled on it and crumpled it up when he was mad at me (see what I mean? Attitude). Anyway it is his chart for earning the "Best Summer Ever!!!" When he and Gracie would do something he thought was good he would give them more points. While the math doesn't exactly add up, I do think we deserve to have the BEST SUMMER EVER!!!

Here are some of the plans:

constellation jars

and maybe let them build a fort and sleep in it with this in the room. like camping, but easier:)

awesome paper airplanes

me on the map

I haven't decided if I am just going to have them draw each place, or have a black and white map for them to color, but I do know if will involve google earth.

painted wooden spoons

along with a 

cardboard puppet theater

condensed milk painting

and maybe an adorable fairy garden

terrariums 

and other things like swimming, splash pads, embroidry stitching, packing healthy lunches, making story books and home videos. Should be tons of fun.

Oh, and I will probably make these ^genius things ^ for a road trip to California to see some of our favorite people, Brett and Natasha & co. 

(taken last summer, I think I should always pose with my hand on my hip)

 On a side note - if you like twitter and you like to laugh, you should follow Natasha on twitter  (@natashalevinger). I had kinda given up on twitter and then was on there again (kinda by accident?) and found myself scrolling through just to find all of her tweets I had missed and then reading them outloud to Russ. She is one funny lady and Brett is really funny too. I am convinced they sit around their house all day just laughing at each other (and their hilarious children).

So,summer 2012, please do not disappoint!!!

winding down

So now the school year is winding down. William had his end of year program last week and still has one more week left of school (I am not sure why his is going longer cause everyone else is already out). The first graders sang "A You're Adorable" and it was...adorable. We were running late and Russ had to meet us there from work, but I am so glad we made it on time because the look on his face when he found us in the audience told me that it meant a lot to him.

The also sang America the beautiful and I may have gotten a little choked up.

Then they sang your a grand old flag last and then it was time for dessert.

Poor Joseph is just so cute that his siblings can't keep their hands off him.

I tried to get a picture with William but the punk kept making faces.

It was funny for awhile but then I told him he wouldn't get any dessert if he didn't make a normal face. 

He got some Jello and shared it too.

William has done really well in school this year. I am pretty proud of him.