Happy 2013!

It's about time for the Christmas report, don't you think?  I'm slowly starting to get organized and back to normal life!  We had way too much fun over the holidays :)

 We took Winston to see the lights at Temple Square, when Whit went with the youth of our ward.  It was super cold, but Winston loved looking at the lights.  I was experimenting with my camera, trying to get some good shots of the lights.  But I failed!  There were soooo many people that I felt silly setting up my tripod, so all of the pictures turned out too blurry.  Oh well.  You'll just have to take my word for it that it was beautiful!

I got to quit my job!  I was only working two days a week, but now I get to stay home full time.  Hooray!  To help me celebrate, the day after my last day of work my family came over to play.  Dallin played Christmas songs on the piano, and we girls made sugar cookies.

My Auntie Lauryl was in town, visiting from Tucson.  She, my grandma, and my mum decorated all of these cookies for me to take around to our neighbors.  It was the best!  All I had to do was wrap them up and then take them around to everyone.

I made stockings for us, since we don't have any of our own.  Whit thinks they are too small, but they worked for us this year since I didn't even think about getting anything to put in them!  Sometimes I wonder where my mind is :)  I've definitely spaced out on quite a few things lately.  Like showing up an hour and a half early to my doctor's appointment today :)  But anyways,

This is our family Sunday shot in front of the Christmas tree.  Hopefully for the picture next year we can get Winston to smile on command.  He's so cute when he smiles!

Right?

Christmas Eve we went to the Fife family party at my Aunt Jo's house.  Winston was a little unsure of their dog, it was funny to see them react to one another.

Every year we do a white elephant game and this year did not disappoint.  It's a great Fife tradition :)

 After that party, we headed up to Farmington to the Anderson party at Whit's sister Katie's house.  They have a cousin gift exchange and the boys were so excited for Winston to open up his present.  It was really cute!

Then the Anderson girls did their Santa Lucia song.  They turn off all of the lights and come in by candlelight, singing a song.  It's adorable!  And one day our little girl can join in the ranks, don't you think a little Korean girl would fit in just right to this Swedish tradition?  :)

We got back to our place late that night and opened up a present, our new blue ray player!  Whit's wanted one forever so we finally used some amazon gift cards that I had saved up and got one.  What big spenders we are!  :)

Christmas morning we helped Winston open up his presents, all 3 of them!  :)  I love this picture, he's slurping the ribbon like a piece of spaghetti.  He loves the silliest things!

 Later that morning we headed down to Spanish Fork to spend some time with family.  My mom and dad put this letter in my stocking, it was some things I wrote I would give to Jesus as a Christmas present.  I was 11 or 12 when I wrote it, so it was fun to see again.

 Since there was so much snow, we took Winston in the back yard to see how he'd like being pulled on a sled.  He didn't like it one bit!  We sure got some good laughs out of it though :)

 The whole gang in front of the tree.

 And we finished off the night with a rousing game of speed Rummy-O.  What fun!

And sadly I didn't take any pictures after that.  But the day after Christmas we got to go to the airport to welcome home Whit's parents!  They have spent the last two years in Lebanon and Jordan, on a service mission for the church.  It is so great to have them home again!  It was quite an exciting time at the airport.

For New Year's we went up to the Anderson cabin for a lovely weekend of games, movies, and lots of food.  Some of Whit's family was up there and Winston had a great time with his cousins.  It was so cold that we didn't spend much time outside, but we had tons of fun just hanging out together in the warm cabin.  I love that place!  Then we came back and hit normal life full force.

Now my days are spent trying to learn how to menu plan, keep the house clean, and keep Winston from opening all the cupboards or going up the stairs!  My goal is to get lots of meals in the freezer and get the house all organized before baby girl gets here.  It's getting close and we are soooo excited.  Happy New Year everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

But first I'll need to catch up on the past month :)  We had an awesome Thanksgiving weekend!  Whit is currently serving as our ward's Young Men president, and he organized the first annual ward Turkey Bowl the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  

 They had a great time playing football, and Whit was even on the winning team.  That made him especially happy!

 We also got this little walker for Winston, and he is getting pretty good at walking with it.  I'm sure it won't be long until he gets confident enough to walk without it.  Then we are really in for it!  :)

 Sadly, this is the only picture we took on Thanksgiving :(  Whit spent the morning cooking, while I went to our clubhouse and worked out while Winston was sleeping.  It was so nice!!!  Then we got ready and headed up to Bountiful to Julie's place (Whit's mom) for Thanksgiving dinner.  We had such a fun time with family there, it was great!  Winston loves watching all of his cousins play.  Then we stopped by my Aunt's place in Woods Cross on the way home.  It was fun to visit with family there for a bit.  Then we headed home and put Winston to bed and crashed on the couch.  It was such a nice day.

 Friday Whit went into work, but only worked for a couple of hours until he realized that no one else was coming in!  So he stopped by a Black Friday sale on his way home to pick up some scouting supplies, and then we headed down to my parent's place in Spanish Fork.  We took down my aunt's couch for them, she was kind enough to give it to them.  It took Whit and my dad about an hour to figure out how to get it in their basement, but they eventually got it down and got the old couch up and loaded in the truck to take to DI.  My parents dropped it off and then were kind enough to watch Winston so Whit and I could go see the James Bond movie!  What a treat.  A real date on a Friday night, complete with dinner at the Pita Pit.  It was an awesome night!  We spent the night there in Spanish Fork and in the morning we all went up to the church to play a bit of basketball.  Then we hung out together for awhile, gave Winston his first Oreo, and we all made pies.  It was such a fun day.

 Our post-pie bellies!

 Whit's birthday was the next weekend, so he took Friday off work! 

His birthday present was these headphones that he's been wanting for a long time.  He was excited to finally get them :)

 Then we headed up to Jim and Karyn's cabin to spend the night.  Saturday we went up to the Uintahs to cut down our very first Christmas tree!  Here is the tree we found, it did make me a little sad to cut it down.  It was so pretty up there in the mountains!

 My mom and dad came too, and got a tree for themselves.  My sister Kira was nice and stayed at the cabin to watch Winston, so we didn't have to drag him out in the cold.  It wasn't too bad, but we did have to wear our snowshoes and I was glad we didn't have to worry about him getting cold in the backpack.

 We got home that night and set up the tree.  Whit started putting lights on the tree, but only covered half of it when we ran out.  So he got some more lights on Monday, but by then I had caught this silly cold and was pretty much out of it!  I've learned the hard way that you don't want to get a head cold when pregnant, they just don't work well together!  But after almost two weeks, I finally was able to breathe through my nose at night and slept the whole night through.  Yippee!  I'm sure recovery is now close behind.  And we did finally finish decorating the tree.  I love it.

Christmas time is here!

Happy November!

I can't believe it's already the middle of November!  I took this picture a few weeks ago on one of our walks.  Have I mentioned that I love living so close to a beautiful Temple?!  I love looking out my windows every day and seeing it there on the hill across the street.  We are so lucky!  And I just loved the beautiful fall leaves.  It's exciting that we have snow now, but I would have been happy to have just a couple more weeks of the beautiful fall weather!

Here is Winston with his toy box.  He just loves being able to get out all of his toys from the box.  And then he loves climbing on the box and playing with it, more than playing with his toys.  Go figure!

Rockin' the mohawk.  I don't think it's quite his style, or at least I need to learn how to do a better one :)

This is what we dressed him up as for Halloween.  He did have a hat, but it didn't stay on for long.  There is a Korean singer that is super popular these days.  He is quite chubby and really silly, so we thought Winston would be perfect dressed up as Psy for Halloween.  There just aren't a lot of chubby Koreans around these days :)  However, I didn't find a little tuxedo for him to wear, so he really doesn't look like the singer.  So he was just a rapper, or really just a kid in a track suit with sunglasses on.  We are so lame.  Next year he'll have an awesome costume, I promise!  I just wasn't quite up for it this year.

Here is his crazy hair!  It just keeps sticking straight up and was growing over his ears.  So we gave him a little haircut, and it ended up looking super dorky.  So a week later we shaved it all off!

 A couple of weeks ago I took a photography class to learn how to better use our camera.  I learned tons and have been trying to improve my photography skills.  I still need a lot of practice, but have had fun experimenting with light and the different camera settings.  Yay for learning new things!

 I keep trying to catch his expression, but I haven't quite got a stellar photo of it yet.  Whenever we give him fruit out of the fridge, he grimaces like it's the worst thing in the world.  But then he gobbles the fruit up, I think it's just the cold that bothers him at first.  It's so fun for me to watch!  I guess a kinder parent would let it get to room temperature first, but I just love seeing the faces he pulls!

And he loves looking out the window while he eats.

 And sometimes he gets tired and just lays his head down for a bit :)

 Here he is in his shaved head glory!

 Another attempt at capturing a cold fruit face :)

He's a fun photography subject :)  Although he never stays still for more than a couple of seconds, so I have to be quick!  He's become quite mobile this past month (even though he still doesn't crawl "normally") and is enjoying his new found freedom.  He's started getting into cupboards, crawling up on things, and moving all over the place.  It's exhausting!  But so much fun to see him learn and grow.

We continue to get ready for our baby girl.  I have to exercise a lot of self-control whenever we go shopping.  I want to buy tons of girl clothes, they are so cute!  But I've held back and only gotten a couple of things on clearance :)  I've started making a quilt for Winston's toddler bed.  Once I finish that and get a dresser, his room will be all ready for him.  Then I think we'll be set.  We are so excited to be getting another addition to the family, and I think Winston will enjoy having someone to play with.  I just hope he learns quickly to be gentle!  Yesterday at church, another boy came over to share Winston's toys and play on the ground with him.  Winston kept grabbing his hair and face and just about gouged his eye out!  I know he's just curious, but let's not be a bully Winston!  :)

Happy Birthday Winston!

Can you believe it?  Our little guy turned 1!  What's even harder to believe is that I have managed to blog for every week of his first year.  I don't know what makes me more excited, the fact that Winston's reached this great milestone, or the fact that I no longer have to blog every week.  Yay on both accounts!!!  :)

 Wednesday was his actual birthday, and so we sang to him and lit a candle.  He was fascinated by the flame and first tried to hit it and then tried to eat it :)

 Later in the week I got out his toy box and he was happily playing on the floor.  I could hear a little sucking noise, and came over to find that he dug up one of his old pacifiers.  He didn't like them at all when he was little, but now he thinks they are quite fun to play with.

 Saturday we had a little party for him.  Doesn't he look thrilled?

 Since Winston is (in part) named after his dad's fishing rods, I decided it would be cute to have a fish themed party.  He loves goldfish crackers, so we had them on all of the tables.  My sister made this fabulous fish cake for him.  She is so creative and talented!  I was impressed :)

 Here is the birthday guy with some of his Anderson cousins.  Everyone was so nice to travel our way to help us celebrate.  Winston had so much fun watching everyone play and eat and try to make him smile :)

 He had a great time opening presents and has loved having some new toys to play with.  Thanks everyone!

 I'm still jealous of his eyelashes!

 Blowing out his candle...

 When we put the cake in front of him, he went straight for the frosting.  I'm not particularly fond of messy kids, so I ended up taking the cake away and feeding him a couple of bites with a fork.  He is definitely part Christensen, he loves anything sweet!  He gobbled up as much cake as I would give him, which wasn't very much.  I'm so mean.  But he was getting tired...

And finished off the night with a bang!  I'm learning it's best not to plan things that will interfere with bedtime. For some reason, Winston doesn't think it's cool to stay up late.  I'm hoping that phase will last a really really really long time.

So happy first year Winston!  You have brought more joy and love into our lives than we ever could have imagined.  You are the best thing that has happened to us and we are so glad you are who you are.  I love every bit of you and can't wait to see what this next year brings!