Welcome home, Winston!!! We love you!!!

Our little Winston was born Monday the 10th at 5:30 pm.  He was one day over due but was definitely worth the wait.  He weighed 6lbs 13oz and was 19" long.  Wow, were we surprised.  We thought he would be at least 8lbs but he's healthy and well.  Mom was treated very well at the hospital and we had some visits from family and we were able to come home on Wednesday 2 days later.  Poor little guy had jaundace and so we had to take a lamp bed home with us to help control it.  After 3 visits to the doc's we were cleared to stop using the bed.  Yeah!!!  He really did not like it at all.  During the day it was fine but at night he cried all night.  Poor little guy.  We're super happy that he doesn't have to use that anymore.  We're still trying to figure out his schedule of feeding, burping, sleeping, and etc. but we sure do love him.  We find ourselves staring at him and smiling.  He is our little sweet boy.

 Here he is a few minutes after he was born.  They were just cleaning him up and gave him his first shot.  Whit got a few photos and some video--it's only been a few days but we just watched it and were oohing and aahing over it.  He is such a cute baby!!!

 He stayed wide eyed for such a long time after delivery!  He just kept looking around at everything.  We just couldn't get enough of him :)

 Whit's work sent us these beautiful flowers.  They were so bright and beautiful to have in our room.  They are still blooming in our home now and today Whit pointed out--yellow flowers for a yellow baby!  :)

 This is right after we got home from the hospital.  He did great for his first car ride!

 He loves being swaddled and we love taking pictures of him :)

 Every once in awhile he was really good on his Billy Bed.  This time he just laid there contently for about an hour and then fell asleep.  It was great!  Too bad every time wasn't like that :)

 Being rocked by Grandma C (who made that cute blanket he's wrapped in) :)

 Dad loves him so much!  He will just hold him for hours at a time.  I think Winston likes his dad because he always seems to be calmer when Whit is holding him.

 Poor guy had to keep getting his blood drawn at the pediatrician's.  Sometimes they would have to poke both heels since his blood was so thick and slow to come out.  But he was a trooper and the last time we went, he didn't even cry at all!

 Watching baseball with his dad :)

 I think he likes watching baseball about as much as I do!  :)

 Here's what the Billy Bed looks like.  I'm so glad we don't have to use it anymore!

 Sporting the leg warmers I got him.  I think it will be awhile before he grows into them :)

 Our first walk around the neighborhood!

 Just hangin', the boys.

"Thanks mom, I'm so content!", says Winston after a good feeding. :)  We love him and how can you not with that sweet face!!!

October is finally here!

But sadly our baby isn't :(  we have been busy waiting for him though--anything to pass the time until his arrival :)

Three Saturdays ago (I know, I'm terrible at posting!) my cute friends had a fun baby shower for me.  I got to see some dear friends and we had a great time eating and talking!  It was way super fun and everyone gave us such nice things.  I am so blessed to have such wonderful friends!

Two Saturdays ago, Whit went fishing with his friend.  He caught one of the biggest fish ever!  Does he look happy or what?  :)

While he was away, I went down to my parent's house and spent the day with them.  My dad was busy harvesting honey, and unfortunately got stung a few times in his hand!  It swelled up quite a bit--but I still think my ankles take the prize!

Isn't that one bee huge?  I'm still working on photography skills, but you can kind of get the idea that he is about twice as big as all of the other bees.  It was crazy to see!  So, I had a fun time hanging out with mum and dad and we all went to the Relief Society broadcast together that evening.  It was a wonderful day.

Then this Saturday was conference!  I absolutely love general conference!  Whit and I watched the morning session together and then went for a little walk around the neighborhood.  Then my family came over, they all went to the session at the conference center and came to our place after.  We all went to lunch at one of our favorite thai restaurants.  Then Whit had to go into work for a few hours and my family stayed with me and watched the afternoon session at our place.  Then we went for a walk around Daybreak to take advantage of the beautiful yet windy weather.  :)  I tried to take some great family photos, but like I said, I'm still learning.  After reviewing these, I have decided that it's best to wait for a non-windy day, and it's good if you don't take people's pictures while they are staring into the sun.  But it does make for some classic Christensen photos, that's for sure!  :)

Aren't my dad's sunglasses the best?  He says he takes the title of grandpa very seriously and has started dressing the part :)  It was really fun to spend the day with family.  Whit went to priesthood with his brother, and they went to dinner after, so that is fun too.  We are so lucky that we live close to family!

Well, that's about it.  We are happy and healthy and hopeful that the baby will come soon.  We don't seem anxious at all, do we?  :)

Temple to Temple 3

We had our third annual Temple to Temple race yesterday.  It was a smashing success!  I wasn't the best at advertising or recruiting this year, I'm learning that it's called "pregnancy brain" for a reason.  I really do forget things all the time, and feel like I'm only using a tiny portion of my brain.  I'm desperately hoping that goes away once the baby is born :)  At any rate, one of my co-workers ran the race last year, and he did some recruiting this year and got some of his family and friends and another co-worker of ours to run.  We also had Whit's sister come down and run, and then some friends/neighbors from our ward here.  So we ended up with a good group and everyone had a great time.  We started at the Draper Temple with these fine folks that ran the half,

and ended up at the finish line at the Oquirrh Temple with everyone else--people that ran the 5K, volunteers that helped at aid stations, and family that came to cheer.  It was a great group and we had beautiful weather and no one got lost or injured.  A successful race for sure!  :)

Last week all of Whit's family, the Anderson sisters/mom/nieces had a lovely baby shower for me!  They had a delicious dinner and we had a great time chatting.  They are all so much fun!  They gave us lots of wonderful gifts, a stroller, rocker, baby bathtub with bath supplies, some adorable clothes and blankets, and doorway jumper seat.  And this awesome tricycle made out of diapers, a blanket, bib, and sippy cup! 

I had to take a picture when I got home, because it is just so fun.  I'm sad I forgot to take my camera to the shower though--hopefully I can get copies of the pictures that others took (hint hint :)  It was a super fun night though and I'm so grateful to be a part of such a wonderful and loving family!  :)

Other than those fun events, life has been pretty low key as of late.  My feet are so swollen that it's painful to walk, so I'm getting pretty lazy and not wanting to do much.  But the doctor says things are looking good, the baby is still moving a lot so I know he's still alive, which is always a good feeling.  This is a picture we took a few weeks ago, it's really unflattering but I've got to post it for posterity's sake.  When our little boy is giving us a hard time, I can show him this picture so he can see what I went through to bring him to this world.  I think this photo would make anyone feel sorry for me, don't you?  I mean, just look at those sausage feet!  Gross!!!

I honestly don't know how my stomach is going to get any bigger, it's so huge already!  But I have a whole month to go before our due date.  He's going to be a big baby, that's for sure.  :)  We are so excited to get him here and see him and hold him.  I'm hoping that September will just fly by, and before you know it, I'll be posting pictures of our brand new baby!  :)

While Whit's away...

I get to play!  Whit went fishing again this weekend, so I had a few days to myself. 

(This pic is from his last fishing trip, and even though he didn't get a picture of him with the fish he caught, he assures me that he did catch a couple :)

Thursday night I got to babysit a two month old, he was so cute!  I visit teach his mom, and she and her husband wanted to run across the street to go to the temple.  I was more than happy to watch their little one.  He was super cute and we had a great time, until he decided he wanted to cry for a bit.  Good practice I guess--babies get heavy after holding them for awhile!  So I counted that as my workout for the day :)  And I bounced with him on the yoga ball for a bit.  He liked that for a little while.  Anyways, that was fun!

Friday I rode the train to work, and as I was turning my phone to vibrate I saw that Whit had put a cute note in my calendar for that day.  He is so thoughtful :)  So I worked all day and then ran a few errands on my way home and then I put up these curtains in the spare room!

 I guess one of my "symptoms" of pregnancy is that I have developed a snoring habit.  It's getting so bad that Whit has taken to sleeping in the spare room :)  But he says he hasn't been sleeping very well in there, since it is so light.  So I'm hoping these curtains will help!  Before we just had the roller shades but I guess the light from the streetlights still came through.  So hopefully this will be a happy surprise for him when he gets home :)

Then on Saturday I slept in, cleaned the house, did laundry, made some zucchini bread, painted my toenails, sewed a ruffle on a dress that was too short, went grocery shopping, and watched a documentary called "The Business of Being Born."  It was pretty interesting.  And a busy day.  But it felt good to get a lot of things done.

I posted a picture like this on facebook yesterday, but I wanted to have one here in the blog--since someday I'll make a book of all of our posts.  And this big belly needs to be recorded for posterity :)  But this is the dress that I sewed the ruffle on the bottom.  It's a little on the long side now, but I would much rather have it be too long than too short.  And it was super fun to use the sweet sewing machine that my mum and dad gave me for my birthday.  I have decided that I really like sewing and I can't wait to do some more projects.  I have some leftover fabric from the crib skirt that I made.  I think I'm going to attempt to make a quilt with that.  Maybe that's what I can work on the next time Whit goes fishing and leaves me alone for the weekend...   :)

Jivin' July

So I’m the biggest slacker! I can’t believe we haven’t posted since May. Ugh—time flies by too fast. Well, I guess we should start with the highlights from June:

We had several friends and neighbors that have had babies, and Whit’s been awesome to make dinner for them. So we’ve been out a-visiting and I’ve loved holding all of these sweet little newborns.

We had a “family reunion” for our immediate family on the Christensen side. Whit’s dad and stepmom graciously let us use their cabin, that is up near Kamas. My mom and dad and brothers McKay and Dallin came all the way from Spanish Fork, my grandma came from American Fork, my brother Tyler and his family came from Bloomington, Indiana, and my sister Kira came from Tucson, Arizona. Since we are all spread out, we don’t all get together in the same place at the same time very often. So it was wonderful to have 3 full days together up at the cabin!

 

Dad loved playing with the grandkids :)

My family loved 4-wheeling, even though in this pic Kira looks scared to death

One of my favorite hiking photos!

The gang at a lake that we hiked to

My brother Tyler organized a family olympics--we had several different events that we competed in.  My grandma aced the discus :)

The next weekend Whit ran in the Ragnar Wasatch Back. He was in a team that was organized by one of his high school buddies. Well, that friend had something come up at the last minute, and wasn’t able to run the race. So Whit ran the race with a bunch of strangers :) He said they all got along great, and they had a fun time together. I went up to cheer Whit on for the last leg of his run. It was fun to see him come in and finish. Made me want to be a runner and not just a spectator though :) But then the next day when Whit couldn’t walk because he was so sore, I was glad I didn’t run it myself!

My cousin Kari-lynn came to town, and she brought her son over for dinner. My dear friend Heather came over with her son too! Heather was roommates with me while I was going to the U. Then she moved to Ogden and was roommates with Kari-lynn there. It was so fun to get together with them. Whit made us a yummy dinner and we spent the night talking about baby stuff :)

That weekend we had a bridal shower for one of my favorite friends Kasey. She is marrying a golf pro, and is quite the golfer herself. So we had a golf-themed shower that was super fun. My friend Holly is so creative and came up with all of these golf-themed food ideas, we had “club” sandwiches, chips (I guess chipping is a golf term), “green” salad, sand traps (vanilla pudding with crushed wafers on top), and golf ball shaped cake balls. It was darling! And we all had a great time holding those precious babies—they are just so cute!

 The bride to be!

My friend Carla and her cute baby boy.  We can't wait to have play dates for our sons!  :)

Before you know it, it turned into July! To celebrate the 4th, we went down to Spanish Fork Sunday night. Whit wanted to check out the Spanish Fork river, to see if it’s a good time to go fishing there. So we all piled in my parent’s van and took a Sunday drive up the canyon. We got out to check out the river and had to tromp through a field to get there. We were quite the spectacle, walking around in our Sunday clothes. But I think the only ones to notice us out there were the mosquitos! They attacked in full force. We tried to take some fun pictures, but the mosquitos got the better of us and we ended up running back to the van. And just in case you’re curious, there is still too much water in the river for really good fishing :)

On the 4th of July, we went to my parent's annual neighborhood breakfast. We ate tons of food and then played this soccer game where you hit a ball with these swimming floaty noodles. It was quite the game. Whit, Dallin, and Brother Beatty took on the rest of us, and of course they scored way more goals than us—even though we outnumbered them about 3 to 1! However, the highlight of the game for me was when I was close to the goal line. I was just about to score a goal when Whit stole the ball away from me. He then hit it really hard to go back into the playing field, but it hit me instead. Right on my belly where the baby is. And then it bounced into their goal line. So I like to say that our baby has scored his first goal! It was pretty funny :)

Well, that about wraps up what we’ve been up to. I’m enjoying summer, just not the swollen ankles that come with it! :)