Ward Party

Our church had a get-together/party the other day, and it was tons of fun. We had dinner and then lots of activities. They had rockets to shot off, giant bubbles (the kids stand in the center of a hula-hoop that is submerged in a kiddie pool of bubble solution, and the hula-hoop is raised above their heads forming a giant bubble around them), two big parachutes, softball, and more. One of the other things was that they rented one of those big blow-up jumping things, and Parker loved it! We didn't get pictures of the other things because we forgot our camera and had to run home for it, but we got some of the 'jumping castle.' The pictures didn't turn out that great since Parker was moving constantly, but the videos are cute.

Cake class

My cousin talked me in to taking a cake decorating class with her and my aunt. She gets asked to make wedding cakes, and wanted us to learn more with her. We have taken course 1, and then we skipped to course 3 (which we're taking now). So here's one of the cakes I made just the other day. I thought it turned out pretty good and was amazed that I could make something look that nice! :-)


Another recent accomplishment was that we pulled our car into our garage! Since we moved here 2 1/2 months ago, it's been used as storage. It still is, but we've finally gotten it cleaned out enough and organized so that we can pull our car in. Of course it's still really hard to get our doors open so we'll have to do more, but it's looking hopeful for us to be able to put our car in there during the winter. Wa-hoo!

Clark Anders Christensen

Jessica had her baby! Clark was born Monday, Aug. 4, weighing 5 lbs 14 oz, 19 inches long. We are SO glad that he arrived safely and that he's healthy. Ever since Jess' 20 week ultrasound, we had been worried about how he was growing and developing. So to have him here and safe (although tiny!!), we are so blessed. Jess is doing fine, and the kids are liking their new brother. Here are some picture of my tiny new nephew!

Update

I haven't updated in quite a while because our computer was having issues. I couldn't open my pictures, which was very frustrating, and it kept freezing. We tried everything through Norton to fix it, but we just couldn't find the problem. We ended up having to back up everything on our external hard drive, and then reinstall Windows XP, but at least it fixed the problem. Not much else has been happening, but I'll give a few updates.

Both of the kids went to the doctor for well child visits, Parker's 2 1/2 yr and Madisyn's 9 mo. Parker is 25 lbs (still!) and 37.5 inches long. That's the 5th percentile for his weight, but 85th for his height. So I guess he'll just be tall and skinny like his uncle David. Maddie is now 16 lbs 9oz, and 27.5 inches long (10th percentile for weight and 50th for height).

Parker is saying 8/9 word sentences, and is like a parrot these days. He literally repeats just about everything we say, even if it's not to him. He is getting ready to start potty training soon (yeah!!). He's still a little young, but in a few months we'll start giving it a go. Madisyn is still scooting along all over the floor, and pulling up on everything. She's still not officially crawling, but she has stood by herself for a few seconds just a few times. Maybe she'll be one of those that skips crawling and goes to walking. Who knows, we'll see. She loves saying Hi (which you'll see in the next post), can go from her belly to a sit, loves drinking from her sippy and "big person" cups, and loves imitating things that we do. She is still such a happy baby, and we love her to bits!! Parker loves his little sister a lot, and loves going into her room to get her when she wakes up in the morning. Whenever he hears her he says, "Oh, Maddie's up!" and runs in there. She gets so excited to see him, too, and it's way cute. He also loves getting her to say "Hi" and loves playing with her (even though his idea of playing is to take all the toys from her and have her watch him).

We haven't done anything else that's much exciting, just the every day stuff. I'm going to put a few random videos up for my next post, and here's a few cute pictures of Maddie from the last month.

One time after Maddie had fallen asleep, I went in to check on her and this is how I found her. She had fallen asleep holding on to her bumper, which she was pulling on so that she could see out of her crib (this was before she was able to stand up in her crib). Cute, huh?

Maddie pretending to be shy

This is an outfit that we got from Ross. I love how cute it is!

Maddie sitting in her crib waiting for us to come get her.

Here's a few videos we've taken over the last month

Parker loves to play Hide-and-Seek. Whenever I go and hide, I will whistle so that he can find me easier. So he started whistling whenever he would hide too. He puts his two fingers up to his lips, and makes the whistle sound with his voice. It's so cute!

Just the other night before bedtime, Parker was getting Madisyn to laugh so hard! All he was doing was saying her name, but Maddie always thinks Parker is funny, so she was laughing so much.

Ben's was showing Parker the magic trick where the coin disappears, then reappears in his ear. It was quite amusing to watch Parker's face and reaction and Parker thought it was great. Here's part of the "magic show" where Parker takes the coin and tries to put it in the camera.

Like I've said before, Maddie loves to say "Hi" over and over. She was getting a ride on the back of Daddy and kept saying "Hi."

Madisyn has taken to saying "Ahhh" every time after she takes a drink. I'm not sure where she got it from, but is must have been from one of us. I think it is so funny!

Fourth of July weekend

First of all, we hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. We sure did, and the kids had a lot of fun too. Here's some of the stuff we did over the weekend.

We went to the parade in the morning. We all had red, white, and blue on, although you can't really tell from this picture.

Parker had a lot of fun, and got lots of candy. He liked the horses the best.

There wasn't much for Maddie, but she had fun just being with the family :-)

Just a picture of Maddie and I with the trick bike riders in the back.

Then later that day we went to a barbeque at Aunt Joann's and then went to the fireworks down on the river. Maddie was interested in the fireworks for the first few minutes, but then went back to playing around.

Parker, on the other hand, did not like the noise at all. He sat like this (with Dad's hat over his face) for the first 10 minutes.

Then he was okay watching them, as long as Dad covered his ears.

After a while, Maddie layed down and watched the fireworks like this. Cute, eh?

This is the "after" picture: both kids fell asleep on the way home, and slept in the strollers while we did our own fireworks at Aunt Joann's house.

The next day we went to a near-by lake and had fun in the sun.

Parker didn't go in the water too much, but had lots of fun in the sand.

Maddie liked playing with toys at the water's edge and splashing around. She loves the water!

Here's Parker and Maddie playing together.

After a while, Parker decided to smear wet sand all over his face and body. What possessed him to do that, I have no idea. But it was kind of funny looking.

Maddie having more fun.

TJ found a fish in the water and caught it. Parker thought it was quite amazing, since he's never seen one that big and that upclose. Of course he didn't know that the fish was half dead (which is how TJ caught it), but what he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?

Maddie all done at the beach, read to go back to the car.

We hope you all had a great Fourth of July weekend too!!

Finally!!

So Madisyn is now 8 1/2 mo old (9 months old on the 13th), and she was still not crawling/skooching/army crawling...nothing. She's just been so content just to sit there and watch everything and has had no inclination to move. Now Parker on the other hand, started to skooch when he was 5 1/2 mo old, started crawling and pulling himself up to a stand at 7 mo old, and started cruising around the furniture at 8 1/2 mo old. So I've been thinking to myself for a while, "Come on girl, you have got to get moving!" Well, she finally has. Hallelujah! She just up and started it about two days ago, much to my surprise and absolute excitement. So here's a video of her new accomplishment.