Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I was trying to be fun for this holiday so I made these rainbow cupcakes from Family Fun. I was worried they wouldn't turn out right, but they did! It's especially fun when you bite into them and see the colors inside.

Those little blobs of white on top are supposed to be clouds

I also cracked Ben up with my green breakfast of green pancakes, green eggs, and green milk. Those crazy leprechauns really surprised Ben when I poured him regular white milk and it instantly turned to green milk when it hit the glass! I think he was laughing at me more than anything because I was so excited. E thought it was cool too but his face was still frozen from just waking up so his big eyes got just a little bigger when he saw the leprechaun magic.

Almost 21 Weeks

Here's my belly and me at 21 weeks. I was feeling pretty small until I hit about 19 weeks and since then things have been growing pretty rapidly. I feel a little bad I haven't kept as detailed a photo record for this baby belly, but at least I've got this one, right?

A Quick Jaunt to Kentucky

This last weekend we decided to take a quick trip to Louisville. We booked two nights on hotwire at a hotel and loaded up our car for the 4 hour drive. On the way down, Ben surprised me by suggesting we go to the Jeffersonville outlets. What? Ben!? Volunteering to shop!? Yes it's true. And he even gave me helpful commentary when I was trying on clothes at Motherhood Maternity. :) We let E play for a few minutes at the playground there to break up the drive.

When we got to just outside Louisville, we were amazed at all the beautiful mansions with their black painted fences and horse trails. (I'm sure there's an official name for those, but I wasn't brought up in classy Kentucky so I don't know what it is.) At the suggestion of some friends, we ate at the Claudia Sanders Dinner House. (You know, wife of good old Colonel Sanders of KFC.) It was delicious and their rolls were to die for.


That night we went "swimumum" as E would say at the hotel and he had a blast. Even mommy got in the water. Aren't I fun? Then we got up and going the next day so we could see Churchill Downs. It was pretty cold, but the tour lasted the perfect amount of time. I'd love to see a horse race there someday, but probably one other than the Kentucky Derby because I don't have an extra $2000 or so to throw around at the moment, plus the funds for a totally chic outfit and hat to wear.

After the tour we couldn't help but buy E this dumb little horse. We lined up all the horses he could choose from and he picked the white one. We even gave him a second try and he still picked the white one. It kept him happy most of the rest of the day.

After that we made our way over to the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory. We were pleasantly surprised that they were making bats that day because the website said they don't make them on Saturdays until April. It was like a grown-up Mr. Rogers for me. We got cool mini souvenir bats at the end of the tour. Then we walked through the museum and Ben and E got to both swing Big Pappi's bat as well as Mickey Mantle's.

Outside the factory

After the Slugger Museum, we headed across the street to the Louisville Science Center and got in for free with our COSI passes. E played in the kids area for quite a while but couldn't manage to stay awake once we put him back in the stroller. :) He was out like a light for a long time while Ben and I looked around the rest of the museum.

That night ate at Lynn's Paradise Cafe. It's quite a funky little establishment with great food. I ordered some bean rice bacon cheese mango salsa concoction recommended by the waitress that was delicious and Ben got the jambalaya which was also tasty.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Sam's Club to get gas, and then went inside to just look around, and I tell you it was the classiest Sam's Club I've ever been to. The greeter actually sanitized the cart for us because he was worried about Emerson getting sick. Isn't that sweet? I'll just insert here that Ben bought me a large bag of Reese's Eggs--my all-time favorite, to enjoy back in the room as soon as E was in bed. As soon as we got to the hotel, E started running around yelling "SWIMUMUM! SWIMUMUM!" So we were nice parents and took him swimumum again just to end on a fun note for everybody.

Farewell Little Red

Farewell, little red car. You were good to me. You knew the road from Salt Lake to Logan by heart. You performed admirably in the snow. You got us across the country to move to Ohio. You brought home our new baby Emerson from the hospital. You could be counted on to start most of the time (except for the 3 or so times that you wouldn't for some reason and that resulted in $$ repairs.) You've been my constant through 7 years of friendship. Unfortunately, with our family expanding, you just don't provide enough room to haul us all plus all the baby gear. Plus you were starting to make funny noises again. Even though I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, after we traded you in I talked to my mom on the phone and got a little teary when I told her how sad I was to leave you behind. We can chalk it up to pregnancy if you're embarrassed for me, Little Red.





Little Red, I hope someone will buy you and take good care of you.

Boots!

Some nice people from our ward gave us some clothes that their little boy had grown out of, and with them were these adorable snakeskin cowboy boots. I don't think I've ever seen Ben get so cuted out before. Nor have I ever seen him be so persistent with Emerson when he wanted him to wear them. Even though Emerson was kicking and screaming and throwing a tantrum*(See note at end of post), somehow Ben got those boots to stay on. After they were on and Daddy put his boots on and took him stomping around in the little bit of snow left, E loved them. You wouldn't guess that from this face though, would you?

Please don't judge me by E's wrinkled shirt. I promise I always iron it and this one time it got away from me. But he was at least wearing a sweater over it at church.

Love this picture. :)

* Referring to the aforementioned tantrum, E has been very wary of change and new things lately. I pulled out a new pair of shoes since he'd grown out of his old ones and he absolutely refused to let me put them on. He went and found his old brown shoes and brought them to me. Then after a few days of seeing them around he let me put them on, no problem. He was also nervous when I pulled out some new jammies and looked and looked for his old ones that were getting so small that his toes were curling up in the little footies. He finally relented when I showed him the cool pictures on the new ones. He also screamed bloody murder when we were at a shoe store recently and were trying some little Nikes on for fun. I think people thought we were horrible, especially when we just laughed at him and put the shoes on anyway. I'm wondering if this is a common thing for kids his age or if it's just an E personality thing.

More Cookies...Blah Blah Blah

Here are the fun Easter cookies I made for the Ward auction. They didn't bring a very high price and were snatched up by the same red-headed child that also bid on (and won) all other baked goods entered. I'm not sure if he gets cookies very often or not, but I'm pretty sure he walked away with about 10 dozen plus some cinnamon rolls. I just hope he appreciated the delicate lemon flavor of the sugar cookies plus the lemon in the royal icing as well as the happy palette of colors that I slaved over for hours. (Don't worry, I know he didn't.)



I guess next year I should do something like weave a basket or sew a wardrobe of baby clothes. I wish I could say I was joking about the baby clothes, but we seriously have so many talented women in our ward that it makes me feel embarrassed when I buy a baby gift instead of make it. But hey, you can't make diaper rash ointment, can you? Or maybe you can...but anyway I'll be honing my crafting skillz if not for the ward auction next year, at least so I feel like a worthwhile human being. :)

Wagon

We love it when Daddy is around to play. He thinks up fun things like convincing Emerson to sit in his wagon and be pulled around. I'm not sure why, but I can't help but maul this little boy with kisses when he's just in a onesie. Maybe it's his pudgy little arms and thighs (which are sadly thinning out!). At least he still has dimples for knuckles though.

Trying to decide if he likes what Daddy has convinced him to do.

"Are you seriously taking another picture of me for the blog!?"

Trying to pull himself. :)

"Wagon" is just one of the many words Emerson throws out during the day. I feel like in the past two months he's just had an explosion of words. It kind of freaks me out sometimes because he'll throw out a word like "mirror" or "toothpaste" that I didn't even know he knew. It usually just makes me laugh and then I have to tell him he's a smart boy. We've been calling him our little copycat. He was actually able to say his own name a week or two ago, but still won't do it without a lot of convincing. I think we're entering into the terrible twos slowly but surely because he's got a defiant little attitude sometimes. We sure love our little man.

Sigh...No News

I had a doctor appointment today and got my hopes up that he would tell me the gender of Baby Christensen. But alas, no ultrasound...so it looks like I'll have to wait until 23 weeks. :( I'm a little disappointed.

FHE

On Monday night, Ben had the Family Home Evening lesson, and he decided to do it on temples. Please keep in mind that when we are having FHE with a not-even-two-year-old it goes something like this:

Me: Emerson, come sit down, it's time for Family Home Evening! (With big smile and excited tone)

Emerson hides on the other side of the kitchen table.

Me: Come on Emerson! Come sit down, please! (Amusement waning)

Emerson peeks out from under the table and giggles.

Ben: Emerson, you'd better come!

Me: Come on! (in annoyed tone) One...two...thr

Emerson runs over at the last possible second and plops down on Daddy's lap.
We sing the opening song with Emerson zoning out and copying a few words here and there.

Me: Ok, it's time to say the opening prayer. Can you show me how to fold your arms?

E: Choo choos.

Me: Fold your arms, please! Here, Bear will fold his arms.

Emerson folds his arms for .5 seconds. We attempt to keep his attention through the rest of the 5-7 minute lesson.

At the end when we were trying to recap, we turned off all the lights and turned on our little ceramic temple and asked Emerson who lives in the temple. His reply: "CHOO CHOO TRAINS!" And he then proceeded to try to drive them on the roof of the temple, almost knocking off poor Angel Moroni. But he did get really good at pointing at the temples and saying "tempo!" and doing Angel Moroni's horn.

Oh well, they always say that they'll remember you were consistent, right? Well I guess we'd better work on that and/or figure out how to incorporate choo choo trains into every lesson. :)