Growing Up

And now 2 quick videos by request. What Ben's fans want, Ben's fans get.

Lately, Ben's been doing a bit of light reading. He'll open up a book, and for several minutes turn pages, talk, and point. His favorite is "Hop on Pop" - or in his words "hop hop pop pop" or something like that. I just got the end of it on video, but it's fun I think. Also, when he's done with something he will often wave and say "see ya" or something close. Sometimes it's "syaa," "saa," or just "yaa."

On June 24th Benjamin took his first steps. 15 months old and we're there! He's better now than in this video, but it's the best one we have so far. P.S. he would always much rather scoot.

Three Syllabled Ben

And now, Ben's longest word:

Oh, yeah... blogging...

Some highlights from the last several weeks:

-Our laundry room is done!
-Carl went to Malta for a whole week for a Linguistics conference to present his paper that he recently had published. Yay Carl.
-Debbie's new calling is the Primary 1st counselor
-Carl's new calling is the Young Mens president
-Ben still doesn't have a calling
-Our kitchen cupboards had a face lift
-We have a garden
-2 year anniversary in Vegas
-Ben's 1 year checkup
-Ben is officially "cruising."( Yeah, it's a real term)

Luckily, I know how to adjust the date for the blog postings, so none of you will ever know I fell behind. Now I just need to blog about all these fun things...

Face Lift

While Carl was in Malta, I decided that I wanted to surprise him with new cabinets. Unfortunately, those cost money (who new?) so I took on a little project. I only had 5 full days, which means only nap time and nights after Ben went down, so I knew I had to act fast. I took off the hinges and handles, then with the help of my brother Seth, I cleaned and stripped the cupboard fronts. After those dried, I stained 24 cupboard fronts, 5 drawers, and then the actual cabinets in the kitchen. On Saturday, once everything had dried, I put everything back together, and put on brand new handles. It took quite a bit of work, and my kitchen and garage were a huge mess in the process, but I'm so glad I was able to do it. Carl was thrilled with his surprise. As soon as he walked in the kitchen he said "Oh my gosh!" Yay. I love surprises. We've been wanting to do it since we moved in, and now it's done! What do you think?

Carl took the camera to Malta, so I wasn't able to take a lot of before pictures, but I did find this one. Sorry I had to be in it.


And after. Now they are shiny, smooth and have handles that are not from 1976. Click on the pics to notice the handle difference, that's my favorite part.

The Laundry Room

So here it is, a few months ago. Exposed pipes, cement floor, old light fixture, oh and in case you're wondering what that line under the dryer hook-up...that's where the dry wall ends. That white stuff that you see on the bottom half is in fact styrofoam the previous tenants used for better insulation.



My dad ripped out several built in shelves we didn't want, and added actual walls, including a protruding wall above the washer and dryer, covering up all the pipes. My brother Jared added a gas line to accommodate the gas (not electric) dryer we now have.



Seth laid the tile, grout and sealer. He also put in the new base board (as well as painted most of it), after ripping out the old stuff.


All I had to do was paint the walls this lovely blue Carl picked out. Isn't it nice?


Lastly, Seth brought in and hooked up these beautiful Maytag front load washer and dryer my parents so kindly handed down to us. Aren't parents great?



So there you have it, one of woman's very best friends: the laundry room. A huge thank you to Dad, Jared and Seth for putting in lots of time and energy so I can do laundry at home at any time of day. Everything looks so nice. I've been taking laundry to my parents house for the last 10 months, and though I'll now have to buy my own soap, I'm so very excited for this new addition to our home.

The Best 2 Years

Sometimes it's appropriate to tell your husband how you really feel, honesty really is the best policy. Anniversaries are the perfect time for that.

Dear Carl,
I'm so hopelessly and desperately in love with you. I love you more every minute. Thank you for marrying me and for making me feel prettier than I am. You're my favorite thing and I'm so excited for the rest of our adventures and babies. You're my best friend and I love you a lot a lot a lot.

Love Deb



Alright, enough of the mushy stuff. This year for our anniversary, we decided to cash in our voucher for 2 nights at the Riviera in Las Vegas. Thankfully, Grandpa Christensen was done with teaching for the semester at SUU and was happy to watch Ben for us during our little vacation. (And congratulations to Grandpa on becoming Head of the English department!)


Ben doing one of his favorite things with one of his favorite people. Thanks Grandpa! (Don't they so much alike?)

We drove down to Cedar City to drop off Ben, stayed a couple of days and headed down to Vegas. The first thing we did when we got there (after a trip to the drive through) was go to the temple. It was a quiet Tuesday afternoon with very few people, and a perfect start to the trip. This was a new temple to add to our lists, making it #8 for me and #14 for Carl... Just pretend you can tell we're outside the temple. There was no one there to help with a picture.

Carl touching a sting ray at the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay

The Imperial Palace has this sweet car show with a bunch of classic cars, some of them for sale and a few of them worth over a million dollars. We just window shopped. One of the main attractions was Johnny Carson's first car. That one wasn't for sale. Otherwise, we might have talked numbers.

And of course, what would Vegas be without a trip to the Showcase Mall? Did you know the M&M World has like 6 floors? If you're wondering what's in the bag, it's a peanut M&M mouse pad for Mothers Day that we bought for my mom, a lover of computers and a big lover of the peanut M&M. Happy Mothers Day to both of our lovely mothers. And to Grandma and Grandpa Christensen: thank you so very much for taking such good care of Ben while we went away. It was so relaxing, and great to have alone time. Ben had a lot of fun, he still talks about it. Thanks a million! We love you.

Cruising?

Ben has been getting faster at moving, though it may be a bit different than other babies, it gets the job done. Here's a little bit of how Ben gets around.

Party Time

Ben's party was Saturday and it was a lot of fun for us. It went about how you would expect a 1st birthday might go: friends and family came, there was frosting everywhere, and the birthday boy was spoiled with presents. Thanks to everyone who came and made the day memorable.

I did the obnoxious mom thing and made Ben where a hat that said "I'm one!" but only for a bit. I saw it in the party store and Carl consented. I thought it was pretty much adorable.

A nice birthday hug from his buddy Ethan. These two love playing together.

I made a chocolate mouse crunch cake for the adults and cupcakes for the kiddos. Ben had one giant cupcake, though I'm pretty sure all he ate was frosting. We stopped him early to prevent a sugar high or a stomach ache.

Ben and Mommy just before bedtime. What a long day. He's waving bye to the camera.

Sugar, sugar, sugar

And of course, what would a birthday blog be without a little cake action? I realize this video is long, but I don't have a program to edit it. So there. Just stop the video when you've seen enough, though the clapping and jabbering is cute in my opinion. Oh and you may want to turn your volume down. The party guests are wild.

Family Facts

Life continues to fly by for us, as I know it does for everyone. Ben has discovered just how much fun it is to move around and get into things, which keeps me on my toes, whereas before he was content to play in one spot. A few weeks ago, Carl decided to spoil us and bought gym memberships. We thought for sure we would only need to pay half price because you can actually see the gym from our front porch. Unfortunately, no such discount exists. It's been so nice to be able walk down the street and work out, sometimes together. Thanks to our families for always making themselves available to watch Ben for us. The first months results are in: we've each lost about 3 lbs and have toned up a bit. I've lost 1/2 inch off my arms, thighs and calves, and Carl's lost 1 1/2 inches off his waist. We've been working with a trainer that puts together lots of exercise routines for us, and we're loving it. Here's to health.

Carl is involved in several research groups at BYU and is always working on extra papers and projects. A few weeks ago, he found out he's being published again. This will make number 3, but this is the first time he is the lead on the paper. I'm so proud of how hard he works for our family. I don't know how he does it. An exciting extra, is that he gets to present his paper at a big linguistic conference this May. The conference is being held in a little place called Malta, a beautiful country near Italy. He gets to fly out, attend the conference, and tell everyone how smart he is for doing something really smart. He'll be gone a week, and I'll miss him terribly, but I'm oh so excited for him.

Other than playing with Ben, a lot of my time is spent finding new recipes and creating things in the kitchen, and it's been so much fun. Carl and I have some new favorite recipes and some not so favorite recipes including these awful lettuce wraps, and some not-so-delicious black bean soup. Thankfully, Carl said he still loves me. I just get so excited about some of the stuff you can do with food. And my Vita-Mix. If there were one kitchen thing I could not live without, it would for sure be my beloved Vita-Mix. It was a group gift at my bridal shower, and it has brought us much happiness. I use it literally every day. I've used it to make soup, salad dressing, milkshakes and smoothies... so very many smoothies. I even use it to grind my wheat to make bread, rolls and crackers. As you might have guessed, I am in love with it.

Sunday marks Ben's first birthday and so far, we've all survived. I'm a little nervous to wean him and honestly a little sad. I have exclusively nursed him and now I have to worry about him getting his nourishment by other means. We've already given him cows milk and he seems pretty happy with it. My baby is growing up. Some of Ben's favorites as of late are: light switches, his ball popper, pulling off his socks, pounding on the keyboard of the computer and piano, and dancing to absolutely anything with a beat: music, our footsteps as we walk to church, my Kitchen Aid mixer, or mommy doing her jumping jacks. But his most favorite is Daddy. As soon as he hears the garage door open and he knows it's that time of day, he stops whatever he's doing and waits anxiously, looking longingly out the door of whatever room we're in until he sees him. And in that moment, he can hold his excitement no longer. He immediately bursts out shrieking, and giggling, as he kicks and bounces until Daddy picks him up. It melts my heart every time. I love my two boys.

Avo-ghetti

A few weeks ago my sister was visiting and wanted to see Ben eat avocado because she had heard it was amusing. Unfortunately, Ben didn't perform to his full potential, so hopefully this will make up for it.

Alternatives

Recently, Ben discovered that if he were very brave, he could go from sitting to crawling and get to something that was out of his reach. He has even more recently discovered just how unnecessary that is.

Bliggity Bloggity Blah

You know how at the top of the page of the HYMNs, it gives you a suggested emotion and tempo with which to sing the song? Well since you can't hear my emotion as I think the following post, and I don't care to be misinterpreted, I suggest that you read this blog with the sarcasm and wit with which it was intended. 140 wpm.

I'm starting to realize just how huge all this blog stuff is, and how I can't quite measure up. Remember the good old days when the big thing that made moms so cute and creative was scrapbooking? Back when you could kind of fake it, cuz it's not like anyone could actually access your scrapbook through the magic of the world wide web? Well, that's all gone. Now you're a quick click away from seeing just how on-top-of-it all the other cyber moms are, and whether or not they truly have the cutest blog on the block. I really don't know how you all keep up with it. Between scrubbing poop out of half of Ben's clothes, trying not to burn dinner, figuring out the perfect schedule for nap time, and looking up where I can find the cheapest cereal and bananas, I'm supposed to find time to tell everyone what I did that day?... oh, and here's a few dozen pictures of my family? Well, the answer is: OF COURSE. And so, I must, at least if I expect to keep any of the friendships I've made throughout the years. And because I seem to offend my friends if I ask them, "What've you been up to?" and i get a response close to, "Haven't you read it in my blog?" oops. Wouldn't want to loose the closeness and personalness (I am aware that isn't a word, but my linguistic husband isn't home to give me help) of our relationship. Yes Blogging. It's what all supermoms do. Maybe it's the pressure, maybe it's a good outlet, or maybe it's this hidden and burning desire to be discovered like that Julie What'sherface, and have our life made into a movie and become loved and adored by all the world. (And rich. Let's not forget rich.) And so, I join the elite group, trying so desperately to tread water. Here we go.

Ben's Latest Feat

Many of you may know that Ben's dad may not have walked until he was 18 months, and since he seemed to have turned out alright, we're not too worried about the fact that Bens motor skills are a bit (or more) behind many other babies, like several cousins and second cousins who've mastered these skills months ago, regardless of the fact that many of them are actually younger. However, being first time parents, we have the right and duty to celebrate every little accomplishment. As you can see he is reluctent at best to find the courage to take the plunge. Go Ben go.

Our House

On December 15th we moved our family into our first home together. It's the type of grown up thing I would be too scared to do, but Carl was all about it. Of course there were the incentives that made it easier; the $8k back from the government, along with the 2 car garage for us to park, so we never have to wake up early to go scrape snow off the cars. Other incentives included the things we would leave behind like the 2 flights of stairs I had to climb with one arm full of groceries, and the other arm full of Benjamin and more groceries, and possibly our neighbors that we'll never have to share walls with again. We'll never have to hear blenders running first thing in the morning from one wall, or vacuuming 4 times a day from another. Never again will we suffer through the Michael Jackson memorials, in which I have heard the same song cranked on repeat for over an hour on more than one occasion. (I'm all for MJ, but hearing 'Beat It' 14 times in a row is a little much.) We will be free from all kinds of noises during nap time and the loudest of all, the extended family crammed into a small apartment living below us, that you could hear throughout all hours of the day and night, whether it was loud conversation, music blaring, movies blasting or children running around screaming just outside the door. I will most assuredly not miss the dirty looks from across the parking lot from my neighbors whom I kindly requested (once) that they keep it a little quieter, at 10 o'clock at night, after my baby kept waking up, as they had a conversation with one person in the apartment and the other in the car, yelling out everything she needed to remember at the grocery store. Suffice it to say, we're so excited for our new home. The backyard is full of fruit trees, making us even more excited for the spring. It's been fun making all the changes to make it more our own. We've spent most Saturdays, as well as some nap times painting. My dad is giving our laundry room a makeover, and there are other little things we are doing. The process is going a little slower than we'd like, with Carl's busy schedule and a little one that needs constant attention. We've made some progress though, and there are pictures below for your viewing pleasure.

Our first night in our new home.

The color here is the color we chose for Ben's room and the office

Guest Bath
BEFORE
Notice the sea shell wall paper and the pink plastic shower rod. When we moved in there was a matching shower curtain. You won't see it here, because we took it down immediatly. We appreciated the thought, but why, oh why did they leave their old shower curtain for us?

DURING
He's only smiling because I told him to. Scraping off wall paper actually is not fun.
No more sea shells!

AFTER
We took out the mirror and slider cabinet underneath and replaced them with a 36" white trim medicine cabinet with the triple mirror (perfect for doing your hair). Replaced the shower rod, ripped out the caulking around the sink, recaulked the sink and shower, and painted the walls green, and the base boards bright white.

Here is our room. The only thing that's different in here is the paint, so for a "before" picture just imagine dirty white walls. There's a part above the closet that's not quite finished. And we still need to hang our pictures.

Funny Carl

I couldn't resist posting this one. It reminds me of the movie Incredibles. The sene at dinner when they tell the mom she makes a face. I love that he is completley unaware. I was trying not to laugh into the camera.

My Precious

A day under 10 months and we did it! Not totally smooth yet, but we'll get there.