E's 2nd Birthday

E had a great 2nd birthday. He got to celebrate in Utah with Grandma and Grandpa and his aunts and uncle and then he got to come home and celebrate AGAIN with Mommy and Daddy! What a lucky duck.

I don't know where this boy comes from. I really don't. He just made this face when we handed him his present.

Sooo excited for his train set. (I know that this one present looks so pathetic, but he's wearing some of the new clothes he got for his birthday, and those dang Thomas the Tank Engine sets are expensive.) We decided to get him the real thing because we already know how much he loves it and that it will get played with to death. He's pointing to the caboose in this picture.

E's train cake. Ben stayed up late the night before helping me decorate it. E couldn't wait to eat some when he spotted it on the counter the next morning.

Carefully eyeing which train car he wants to sample first.

Blowing out the candles all by himself!

I should note here that we then served up the cake and ice cream and E was extremely offended/angry that we cut up the train. I think he was kind of traumatized even though he himself was trying to eat all the candy off of it just before that. It was fine in his mind for him to eat some of the caboose but he screamed bloody murder when Daddy had some of the engine. I think he wanted to try driving the train on the frosting tracks. And how is a train supposed to drive without an engine!?

Utah Trip

I was able to go visit my family in Utah for Emerson's birthday while poor Benny had to stay home and study. :( Let me tell you, it was sure a sacrifice to go home and get spoiled.

This is Grandpa J and his little buddy with their matching blue jackets. Every time E wanted to go outside, he'd say "Papa! Jacket, shoes." The restaurant in the background is one of my family's favorite Mexican restaurants.

Papa giving Emerson a piggy-back ride while Emerson is giving Beah one.

They had lots of fun playing outside on the slide together and throwing rocks and sticks into the creek.

E was very concerned when the slide was a little dirty and kept insisting that we "wash it" even after we had wiped it off.

We got to celebrate E's birthday with presents from Mama J and Papa. He was soooo thrilled with all of his trains and kept guessing which train he was going to open next. He guessed James every time, so it's a good thing he got a James engine in the very last package.

He also got a little doctor kit and was thrilled to give everyone, including his trains, shots. He's had to endure so many, I guess it's payback! I'm happy to report that all of his engines are up to date on their immunizations.

E was so excited about his Thomas the Tank Engine cake. It was so nice of Mama J and Papa to get it for you! I'm holding him with an iron grip here because he really really wanted to drive the little train on the frosting tracks.

My weird child. This was his favorite position to watch his "shows".

Mama J can't resist the little squishy guy in his onesie! And he has apparently gone to his happy place.

Included in our fun activities was a trip to the Hogle Zoo. It was very enjoyable weather and was an all around good trip except for the dead zebras, dead polar bear, dead baby giraffe, and absent brown bears. Sad, huh? Although let me clarify that the dead bodies were not just sitting in their cages. The above picture is of Emerson when he finally realized he was actually riding a choo-choo train. It took him about 3/4 of the way through the ride to realize, and when it was over he cried and cried, so we managed to ride it one more time at the end of our zoo trip.

Us and the elephant. We were lucky enough to see two huge elephants relieve themselves right before our very eyes. It was disgusting.

E is about the size of an infant gorilla!

This is E about to get on the choo choo for the second time.

We had lots of adventures, and the trip was planned just right so I caught part of everyone's spring break and got to visit Ben's family a few times too. A summary:

-Ate at lots of restaurants including the Cheesecake Factory, Tio's, Cafe Rio, Noodles & Company, Paradise Bakery, Bella Citta, Ruth's Diner, and paid a visit to Mrs. Backer's pastry shop.

-Went to the Living Planet Aquarium

-Went shopping for maternity clothes and SHOES

-Celebrated E's birthday

-Tried a kouign amann. (Google it)

-Had an awkward moment at Noodles & Company when the teenage waitress told us to enjoy our meal and I pulled out a "You too. I mean...um...when you eat?" Any Brian Reagan fans will understand this.

-Went to see The Young Victoria and loved it.

-Had lots of people who were willing to play choo-choo trains with E so I could nap.

-Saw my little sister's play, Thoroughly Modern Millie. She did a great job!

-Practically sang all the songs from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with my sister during my dad's Sunday School lesson.

-Heard all about E's adventures in nursery from my mom (who is the Primary chorister) and his exclamation of joy: "CHOO CHOO TRAINS!" when they weren't doing anything with trains. He was just having a really good time I guess.

-Introduced my family to (non-alcoholic) mint juleps with syrup from Churchill Downs and unknowingly helped my dad cross that item off his bucket list!

-Got to enjoy my favorite meal cooked by my mom with her roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy. Mmmm. She's the master.

Thanks for all the fun, precious family! It was hard for us to say goodbye, but it was good to see Benny again. :) If you miss us, just start running around exclaiming "choo choo trains!" and it will be like E is still there.

General Conference

Easter, birthday, and Utah trip posts are coming, but I had to post some silly things Emerson said in regards to General Conference.

This picture demonstrates how he made Beah watch Conference. He held him right up to the computer screen and then proudly turned around and told me, "Beah. Conference."

Then he kept making Beah's feet graze the keyboard and then pulling him back and sternly telling him "No no Beah! Don't touch." Hmm...where did he learn that?

But my favorite was when I told Emerson to come sit down and listen because the prophet, Thomas S. Monson was going to speak. He thought about it for a second and then his face lit up and he picked up Thomas the Tank Engine, drove him up my leg and said "Tabos! Tabos Monson!" (Kinda like he's been searching for a last name for Thomas the Train all this time and it finally makes sense!) Oh how we love this boy. Everything MUST relate to trains somehow.

Happy 2nd Birthday E!

Today I have a 2-year-old. It absolutely blows me away.

The birthday boy

I couldn't decide between the two previous pictures because both of them demonstrate his personality so well. :)

I can't believe he used to be this small

Emerson, we love so many things about you. You make us laugh every single day with your clever phrases and how you seem to remember everything. Some of my favorites from this week are:

1. When I put shorts on you, you cried and said "No! Pants! Off. Off." and proceeded to pull them off.

2. When I tried to convince you that you needed to wear new shoes because the old ones were too small you threw a huge tantrum and screamed bloody murder and then went to find your old ones. Hmm...something tells me you don't like change. But oh well it's not like you're getting a new sibling in a few months. I'm sure it won't be a big deal. (Yikes)

3. When we went through the drive-thru pharmacy yesterday you asked for chicken because you remember one time I ordered you chicken nuggets at a Wendy's drive-thru.

4. When I attempted to serve you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with chunky peanut butter you opened it, furrowed your brow, and then handed it back to me while saying "Hurt. Sammich hurt."

5. When I kept talking about your birthday, you would say "Blow candles! Bird-day cake!"

6. Anytime I get you a snack lately, you look me right in the face with a big smile and say "Tanku Mommy!" It melts my heart.

7. You repeat your prayers at bedtime very well, and also the ones in nursery when it's someone else's turn to pray.

8. Your superlative for expressing excitement is "CHOO CHOO TRAINS!" even if what's making you happy has nothing to do with trains. (Those are few and far between though...I can't think of much that makes you happy that doesn't involve trains.)

9. You come up to me and say "Hold you" when you need a quick dose of comfort when you're hurt or tired.

10. You've started saying "Watch! Watch it!" when you have some new trick to show me with your trains.

11. Whenever you hit your head, on accident or on purpose because you're being weird, you intently tell me "bonk".

12. When you drop something, put something in a clever place, or do something you think is humorous, it is quickly followed by you exclaiming "Silly Emerson!"

Happy Birthday Little E! You are our very favorite little boy in the whole wide world and we're so lucky to have you in our family.

Bring On The Pink...

We're having a girl. :)

Here's a shot of her face with her two little hands up by her chubby cheeks

Here's a shot of her really long legs and, ahem, lack of boy parts.

So who's up for making hairbows and teaching me how to accessorize my baby girl?

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. :)