Abbie turned two!

Baby Abbie is not a baby anymore, she's a two-year-old! April 12 fell on a Saturday this year so we got to spend the day together as a family.

Excited to have Daddy back in town

She woke up to balloons and presents and a pink doughnut for breakfast! She got two big presents, the first, her purple polka-dot everywhere chair from Grammy. Jackson got his red chair when he turned two, so I guess we've started a tradition. And we got her this larger than life doll house, I ordered it on a killer deal months ago and we'd been saving it for her birthday. She also got some princess dolls, books and clothes along amongst other things :)

She woke up in such a cute and happy mood!

 She learned the birthday routine from Jackson and would keep saying, "nother present" after she opened each one.

Squinty Eyes, Cheesy Grins

Loving her pink birthday doughnut

 

After breakfast we got ready for the day ahead and for Abbie's party that we hosted at 11 am. She had a combined party with her friend Ariana from our ward, who happens to share the exact same birthday as Abbie!

Most of the kids with the bean bag toss game

It was a beautiful day and we ended up playing outside for a while

The food table, including snow white not-poison apples and Christina made an owl cake.

Having fun with some Princess coloring pages and stickers

Happy Birthday to you!

About to dig in to her snow white cupcake

It was a pretty low-key party with a couple games, some pizza and fruit for lunch followed by an owl cake for Arianna and Snow White Cupcakes for Abbie :)


After a nap, the birthday girl had fun in the sun for the rest of the day. The temperature was 70 degrees for the first time all year and it seemed like the whole neighborhood was outside that day. We played at the park, tried out Abbie's new helmet and chalk she got as presents.

So proud of herself on her "new" bike

A fresh box of chalk to start the season!

 We had one of Abbie's favorite meals - Mac & Cheese from Panera Bread, for dinner. We all ordered food and got it to-go so we could eat it at a park. We weren't about to sit inside on a day like that!

Her new nightgown from Nana was a big hit!

All in all it was a perfect day with our purple, princess loving girl!

General Conference

This April, I think it's safe to say we had our first successful general conference weekend with the kids! Well I should rephrase that, "I had the first successful general conference weekend with the kids" since Tyler was out of town all weekend. But that almost makes it more impressive, right?

After our weekend of the gender reveal and Jackson's birthday party, Tyler began 2 weeks of work travel. Monday morning he flew to Utah and was there for 36 hours before flying to Vegas Tuesday night. He worked there for a few days and then met up with Tom & Mike for a couple days of boys fun. He went to the temple, went golfing, played tennis & just lived it up with his college buddies. He didn't fly home until early Sunday morning Vegas time, but with the 3 hour time difference and cross country flight he didn't get home until Sunday evening, right after the Sunday afternoon session ended actually!

So home on the ranch, I had a fun week with the kids who normally behave really well when Tyler is out of town which I am so grateful for. We had some nicer weather so the kids and I were able to play at outside again which always makes for more fun days.

Last General Conference we were in Vermont with the Cooks for our leaf-peeping trip so it wasn't the norm. We attempted to watch on Sunday but Jackson didn't watch much at all and it was frustrating for me since the Cook kids were coloring and listening and Jackson just wanted to run around and play on the iPad.

Oh the difference 6 months makes. Things that we did that made a great weekend:

I brought the picnic table into the family room. This is normally in the basement and having it in the middle of the family room was a special treat.

Saturday morning session starts at noon for us.

They ate lunch during the "morning" session.

I also had three buzz words to listen for "Jesus" "Family" and "Temple." We started with 3 blank pages and as soon as they heard that work, they got to pick a sticker to stick on that page. I should have taken a picture but by the end, the "Jesus" page was overflowing with stickers! That was all we did for the first morning session and then about halfway through Abbie needed a nap and Jackson went upstairs for quiet time.

For the afternoon session, I knew they'd be awake and ready to play at 4 pm eastern time so this is when I brought out the big conference packet.  Most of it was too advanced for Jackson but since it had the A-Z theme he liked picking out a letter and he'd color on the pages that were tricky. I made him right his name on each page when he was done. Then he was still listening for the buzz words and would get stickers from me if he heard those words said.

Abbie even helped color a few pages

He really stayed engaged for basically the entire 2 hour session and I have to say that was our most successful session! He would get so excited if he heard a phrase he knew, such as "holy ghost" "Child of God" or just words he recognized like baptism, resurrection, or state names obviously :) Abbie even heard her friend's name "Mariah" mentioned in a talk and would get excited when she heard it repeated. I didn't even point that out to her, she noticed it on her own.

So proud of my sunbeam

As soon as that session ended we went out to dinner at 5 Guys for a special treat. A whole week of Tyler out of town and that was our first meal of eating out - props to me! ;) Then we stopped by the grocery store real quick to get some easter candy that we would use the next day.

Sunday morning, since conference didn't start until noon, we got together with some friends for a brunch at 10 am. It was perfect weather so we were even able to do it outside as a picnic! I made this California Breakfast Casserole that I pinned years ago and finally got around to making. It was a hit and I've already made it again since, Tyler wanted to try it of course! But it was a great way to start the morning, Jackson got to play with friends, Abbie got to see Alice & Mariah and had fun smiling and flirting with all the adults like normal, and I got to spend time with adults which is always nice when you are husband-less.

When we got home we had a little snack but the kids were pretty full from the brunch so no lunch was needed. That day I busted out the church bag, so special books, color wonder books, puzzles, etc that they only see once a week. This session also happened to be the one that my entire family was at since my Aunt Jean was speaking! Jackson spent a lot of the time scanning the audience trying to find Grammy, Grandad, Paige, Ben, Michael, Annika & Steven. No luck sadly.

Where's my family!?!

They kept listening for the buzz words to add stickers to our papers and they also had two more words to listen for. If they heard the word "pray" they got a jelly bean, the word "love" got them a chocolate cadbury egg.

Still  loving that the table was in the family room luckily.

Sunday afternoon they got a little distracted, but who could blame them. The highlight was Jackson hearing the MoTab perform I Stand All Amazed, he was thrilled they were singing his favorite song and even sang along. They stayed in the family room for most of it but then I sent them upstairs to play near the end so I could start preparing dinner and actually listen for a bit. We ate dinner as the session was ending and then Tyler got home about 15 minutes later. 

We were all very excited to see Daddy and show him what we'd been working on all weekend, especially the sticker pages!

The next day (Monday) I put the picnic table back downstairs and Jackson was sad to see it gone, I told him that was only something we did for conference. So when he got back from preschool that day he dragged it back up the stairs and requested to watch conference again. He even requested a talk he had remembered about the Oklahoma Storms - they sat and listened to the talk and I was so happy to see that they have an understanding already about the importance of conference and listening to our prophet and apostles speak :)

Monday morning Session :)

 

Number 3 is a girl!!

On Friday, March 28 we had our ultrasound to find out the gender of baby #3! This was only my third visit to the doctor and actually was my third ultrasound as well. At my first appointment I was 8 weeks along and they had the standard ultrasound to determine if things look ok and to determine the due date. While at that ultrasound the tech thought she saw some abnormalities in my placenta. I was a little bit worried at first, but they said it was just something that normally goes away within a couple weeks.

A couple weeks later I actually had another doctor call me and inform me that they took a second look at the ultrasound and determined it was actually fine, and that the tech had made a mistake in interpreting the ultrasound. But they still wanted to do another ultrasound at my next appointment just to be safe. This made me feel a whole lot better about things :) So I went back in in February when I was just about 14 weeks along and had a perfectly normal ultrasound and heard the beating heart. After this appointment is when we publicly announced the pregnancy.

I scheduled my next appointment for 5 weeks later, which put me at just almost 19 weeks along and in the perfect "find out the gender" period. We scheudled it for a Friday morning so Jackson was at preschool, Abbie was at her friend Mariah's house and Tyler was able to leave work for a bit to come join me.

OK So my thoughts going into the u/s were pretty mixed. At the start of the pregnancy I had thought it was a boy because I got pretty sick early on. While in Utah I was only 6 weeks along and starting to feel nauseous after eating certain foods, especially in the morning. Tyler's mom also did a little body test with me and thought it was a boy. But then things really calmed down and it was reminding a lot more of my pregnancy with Abbie. The entire first trimester I had weird food cravings but there wasn't once that I was completely grossed out by seeing or preparing food, like I had been with both earlier pregnancies. But yeah, I ate cheese a lot - just like I did with Jackson, so that led me to think boy too. The other thing that was new about this pregnancy was caffeine - I haven't been a soda drinker for 8 years but all I wanted was Diet Dr. Pepper for weeks! I have now cut that out of my diet again luckily, but still enjoy it sporadically :)

So anyways - what will this baby be??? Jackson thinks its a boy, Abbie thinks its a girl. Tyler went back and forth but near the u/s date he was beginning to think more that it was a boy. I was clueless. I went back and forth but I think deep down I always thought girl since it was such an easier pregnancy than I'd had with Jackson. Although it wasn't identical to Abbie's, it was much more similar to hers than his.

But let's be honest - we have one and one - so either way we're good!!! Well the results came in and...

IT IS A GIRL!!!

I guess I must have been still having some thoughts of boy because it still surprised me to see it and hear it that morning! I think Tyler was really surprised. But we are now so excited to have two little girls in a row!

From the appointment I went to the grocery store and got a bouquet of pink balloons to show to the kids when we got home. I had Jackson and Abbie go sit on the couch and then I brought them in from the trunk of the car. Abbie was so excited and Jackson was disappointed, and then cried. "I don't want pink balloons! I wanted blue balloons to play with! I thought it was a boy, I was wrong and Abbie was right? Daddy was wrong? I don't like girls." Were the things he said at first. And honestly I think he was just as sad about being wrong than he was with it being a boy.

And now I know, next time I bring home pink doughnuts instead because at least he'll still enjoy that :)

A sad little boy at first

But then he decided to have fun with Abbie and play with the balloons. He's such a good big brother to a little girl, I'm excited to see him with a baby too :) I also feel that this is going to make the relationship he has with Tyler grow even stronger, sticking together as the boys of the house ;)

We tried to take so many pictures with the kids and balloons but seriously none of them were working so this was about as good as it got!

Jackson at age 4

Age 3 was so much fun with Jackson and I'm even more excited about having a four-year-old! He went through so many changes this year and is now a big boy in so many ways.

Since his last birthday he was potty trained (very easily), he stopped taking naps (but still takes a quiet time), he moved into a big boy bed (and never gets up in the night), he started preschool (which he adores), he started going to Sunbeams (which he also adores) and his mind is growing and eating up spelling, numbers, and geography.

His Favorites, I asked him today:

Color-     Green (and gray, which is his assigned color for his preschool song for graduation)
Letter-     J
Number- 25
Toy-       T-Rex Race Track
Game-     Settlers (own version that involves rolling dice, finding numbers and building roads)
Snack-    Pirate Booty and Ritz Crackers (what he happened to have for his snack at school today)
Book-    Curious George and the hot-air balloon (recent library check-out)
Day-      Friday (because it's boys show and tell)
Shape-   Circle
Song-     I Stand All Amazed
Movie-   Frozen & Despicable Me 2
Thing-   Daddy
Animal- Spinasourous

The kid was way too addicted to sippy cups and he would never drink water out of them, which meant he was drinking a lot of flavored water, juice or chocolate milk aka way too much sugar. I told him when he turned 4, no more sippy cups, and he totally went along with it! I wasn't sure it would stick but he even reminded me on his birthday, no more sippys mom! He now drinks only water out of his new camelback water bottle and he keeps that in his room for quiet time and at bed or will drink out of a normal cup (no straws either) for meals.

So I'd say that was the biggest change that happened when he turned four. But his mind is seriously always going and it's been so fun to watch him learn and grow.

He now is fascinated by numbers, and is always counting things and is starting to be able to recognize not just 1-9, but 25, 42, etc putting the 2-digit numbers together. When we're at a red light he'll figure out what number car we are (aka how many cars are in front of us) and then try to track those cars along the road - passing number one is always fun for him.

He is getting much more interested in putting letters together to spell words and reading. He recognizes all his letters and now we point them out and sound them together when we read books. He is able to memorize and identify some words which has made reading a whole new adventure. I am hoping to help him start reading this year. Thanks to some apps on the iPad for helping with this I think, yay for quiet time learning!

He enjoys typing on the computer and spelling different words, normally his friends' names.

He is completely fascinated by the map of the United States and a few weeks ago could correctly identify all of the states. He has 3 map puzzles, 2 apps on his iPad and a map placemat he studies at every meal. Some of his favorite states are Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Washington (probably because they are cool shapes or fun to say I'm guessing) Tyler went on a work trip to Nevada and he thought it was so cool that Daddy went to that state because it looks like a diamond :)

His puzzle of choice, and he does it in just a few minutes

He still loves playing with train tracks and now enjoys building more intricate tracks on his own. I don't have any pictures of his recent big ones but this one below was a "little track" he made for Edward. He used to get really frustrated while building tracks when they didn't match up just right but now he has figured out how to manipulate them that he can make it work on his own. 

He still also loves playing with race cars, trucks, planes, legos, and dinosaurs. He is starting to get into super heroes a little bit but I'm enjoying this innocent little boy stage while it lasts. His imagination is really cute and he loves playing games with Abbie, they play either the zoo game, the preschool game, the restaurant game or the toy store game at least once a day. He comes up with the game and luckily she normally always enjoys playing whatever he comes up with. She is normally the purple baby hippo in the zoo and he is some type of alligator, frog or snake. She is the little girl and he is the daddy dropping her off at preschool where I am the teacher. He then will take her "home" and put her down for a "nap" and watching him read books to her and tuck her in with a blanket on the couch is one of the sweetest things ever.

He really is so sweet and such a good big brother to Abbie. He loves giving my tummy kisses and talking about the little baby. He got a doughnut one day and wanted me to take a bite of it so the baby could taste it and would say it's yummy :)

Doughnuts for baby!

 Since being in primary, he has loved learning the new primary songs and now the primary cd is what we listen to often in the car. He loves He Sent His Son, and I Stand All Amazed since those are the ones we've been learning. He requests me to sing either I Love to See the Temple or Families Can Be Together Forever at night. He rarely wanted me to sing songs at bedtime before primary. 

 After being in the hospital with Kawisaki's last April, he has not been sick since. Like seriously, we've never been to the doctor for a sick visit, it's kind of amazing. He's had a runny nose or a slight cough here or there and has randomly thrown up at night a couple times (he's got a tender tummy like the Christensen family) but nothing that prevented him from going to school or playing like normal. We are so blessed.

 He is such an obedient little boy and I love him so much. He loves snuggling with me on the couch and sharing the blanket on cold mornings. He always remembers to take his vitamin every morning and reminds us about family night multiple times a week. He never fights bedtime, and wakes up happy every morning. Abbie is his best friend, Daddy is his hero and I'm lucky enough to be his mom.

Jackson's 4-year-old Paw Patrol Party

Jackson's party this year was pretty low key but fun! We had discussions for weeks about what the theme of his party would be. He changed his mind several times and then settled on a dragon party. Seriously? He doesn't own a single toy dragon and had just started being interested in them that week but I wasn't sure it was an idea worthy of a birthday party. He stuck with dragon for a few days and finally I thought of something that might trump dragon in his mind - Paw Patrol. This is a new show on Nick Jr. all about rescue dogs who drive different trucks - perfect combo for this boy! He got introduced to the show while we were in Florida watching tv at our hotel in the mornings. They also happened to have a paw patrol marathon on Valentines Day so he got to watch it the whole flight home from the trip. We don't have Nickelodeon so he hasn't been able to watch it here but he still talks about the show and we discuss which dog is his favorite.

So naturally when I introduced paw patrol for a theme he was really excited about it. I figured I'd just get some paw patrol decorations but mostly stick to dogs for the theme. We bought him one episode through Amazon that he got for his birthday, so he watched that every morning before his party on Saturday.

We had the party Saturday, March 29 from 11 - 12:30 and just had it at our house since it was still cold outside and actually had a forecast for rain that day. He invited Levi, Nate, Eleanor & Audrey from his preschool class and they all came! He also invited Brinley & Devin from church (James, William & Aaron couldn't come) but we still had lots of fun and plenty of friends!

We served different types of hot dogs, watermelon, apples & veggie sticks. Tyler grilled all the hot dogs and luckily we made a lot since most of the moms stayed and ate too.

Jackson with the food table

Thanks to nickjr.com for providing all of the paw patrol party decor. Since it's such a new show, there is nothing available to buy in stores. There is literally not a single toy on the market yet so party supplies weren't happening. Luckily they had lots of free printables we took advantage of, including a poster now hanging in Jackson's room. The other dog themed decor came from the dollar store and I ordered the balloons from amazon.

The cupcake toppers was as fancy as we got

Each friend chose a puppy to adopt for the take home treat of the party

We played pin-the-fire-badge on Marshall

Nate, Eleanor, Levi, Brinley, Devin, Audrey, Jackson

All the friends (and a couple little sisters) picking their dogs name and coloring on the adoption certificate

The gang eating lunch (notice Abbie sharing a chair with her brother)

The gang eating cupcakes

Jackson got some great presents from his generous friends!

It was a great party that we threw together pretty fast but I'm sure the kids all had a great time :) There were no injuries or tears even, the kids had fun but weren't too crazy so seriously it couldn't have gone much better!

Jackson the 4 Year Old!

Jackson turned 4 on Monday, March 24th and we had a great day! Daddy was able to stay home a little longer that morning and helped make Jackson his recent favorite breakfast of pancakes and bacon. He woke up to balloons, a birthday banner and he even got to open a few presents too. He got a new outfit, shoes and dinosaur camel-back water bottle along with a couple toys. He had been asking for Chug from the movie Planes and he opened a new v-tech dino, T-Don the Pteranodon which was a huge hit.

After just about every present he exclaimed, I love it!

No more sippy cups for this boy, just water bottles and big boy cups!

Gotta love chocolate chip pancakes!

And the lucky boy was able to go to preschool on his birthday and Daddy got to drop him off which was a special treat. He got to see all his friends, wear a crown and be the line leader of course. I dropped Abbie off at her friends house and was able to bring a treat to Jackson's preschool. He was also supposed to pick a favorite book that we could read to his class, so we brought his special book, Frogs that he got from Nana. He was so excited to have me read it to his friends and point out all his favorite frogs (bumblebee frog, red eyed tree frog, strawberry and blue dart frogs and the big African bull-frog) The treat he requested was donuts, and not the big ones the baby donut balls aka chocolate munchkin donut holes from Dunkin Donuts. We included his favorite food of strawberries too and put them on skewers so each kid got a skewer with donuts and strawberries. Of course I forgot to take pictures of any of this but his teacher was taking photos, I'll have to get copies later :)

After finishing his donut and strawberry treat.

In his new birthday outfit looking way too old.

Since Abbie was already at a friends' house, I was able to take Jackson to a special mom-son lunch date. I was hoping he'd choose something else, but I should have known he chose McDonalds! He got the chicken nugget kids meal with lemonade and couldn't help but bring in his new favorite dinosaur toy too.

Say "French Fry!!!"

My four year old and me!

And while I'm not a huge fan of their food, it was kind of perfect that he got to play at their play-place since it was actually a really cold day and he wouldn't have gotten to run around and play outside anyways. A special surprise was his friend Emery from preschool was also at lunch! They were able to play together for a bit before we left to go get Abbie.

Pretty sure there's a little crush going on here actually...

During Abbie's nap I let Jackson open another present - the movie Frozen! It came out on DVD just a few days before his birthday so it was the perfect present for my Frozen lover and a perfect special quiet time activity for us. I felt a little bad for Abbie when she woke up and the movie had just ended so we watched a few of her favorite scenes again together.

Cuddle buddies

After Daddy got home he gave Jackson his big present. We thought he kind of knew he was getting a bike since we'd had him test out different sizes at stores the week before, but he hadn't mentioned it on that day and I guess he had forgotten about it! There hasn't been much bike riding going on this winter so luckily it's just spring time weather so he can start trying it out!

He opened the rest of his presents that night after a yummy dinner of fruit, sweet potato fries and cheeseburgers grilled by daddy! His other presents were a zoo lego set, an IronMan Action Figure, State Puzzle, Airplanes and a race car. 

Abbie was so excited that she got a present too, a snow white!

When I asked Jackson what kind of cake he wanted, he changed his mind several times. But he always was clear what he wanted on top (blueberry, strawberry, blueberry, strawberry - like a pattern) So we went with the classic chocolate bunt cake with his fruity request. 

Seemed random but he loved it!

Abbie is a serious cake eater

We had such a great day with our four year old and are so lucky to have him in our family!