Seven Months

Owen and I followed Dallin and Adam outside today to enjoy the beautiful weather. A few minutes later they ended up back inside so we had a few moments to snap some photos and smile at eachother.



Dear little Owen is sitting up by himself well now. He is enjoying his solid foods and is a good little eater. A couple of days ago I put some frozen diced bananas on his tray and he tried so hard but as far as I know he couldn't get one to his mouth.

Though I must admit that I wasn't watching too well so I don't really know. If you have a baby, here is a tip: when your bananas get just a little too ripe dice them up and spread them out on wax paper and freeze. Once frozen transfer them to a freezer bag and you have a great treat for baby. Throw them on a tray or mix them up with some cereal. No need to defrost because they get mushy almost on contact with baby's mouth. (That's my experience anyway, you know best for yours.)

Anyway, back to this cute kid:

Owen has gotten more playful. He thinks it's fun to shake his head back and forth really fast at you. He is an awesome little sleeper and takes great naps. He is occasionally still up once in the middle of the night, but most nights sleeps all night. Basically, he's perfect. And his brothers wouldn't even be jealous of me saying so because they are beside themselves with how much they love their baby brother. Someday I intend to write down every nice thing either Dallin or Adam says about Owen. It would included multiple comments like these:

• Isn't Owen so cute?
• Owen's being silly, mom
• I love my baby brother
• Owen laughed at me
• Owen, you're a sweet baby
• It's okay, I'm right here Owen (Adam's been saying this one recently)

And on and on and repeat. Oh, the love a baby brings into a house.

Gramps

These pictures were taken last June when we went to visit my grandparents in Sunflower, AZ.

Last Friday my Grandpa Christensen--Gramps--passed away. Gramps was a positive, happy, and friendly person. He knew how to bring a smile to someone's face--especially if that person was a little kid. He was well-known for his one-liners. At his 80th birthday celebration his children passed out papers with maybe a hundred or two of his classic one-liners or "Albert-isms." We went to visit my grandparents a few years ago and noticed gramps had a black eye. Mark joked something about "What did the other guy look like?" And gramps replied with, "No, I'm a lover, not a fighter." He says it jokingly, but it's true. Gramps crocheted beanies for the Church Humanitarian Center and for his grandkids and great grandkids. The day after he passed away Mark and I took the kids to the snow. It wasn't until we got there that I noticed we were nearly all wearing the beanies gramps had made for us and I had to smile thinking of an old man who crocheted hundreds and hundreds of beanies.

For a couple of years Mark and I have been talking about doing some video interviews of our grandparents. Long ago we sketched out some questions but we never got around to doing the interviews. In December of last year we started talking about it again and I began to get kind of antsy thinking about how we hadn't done this yet. I listened to the Mormon Channel (Latter-Day Saint online radio) one Sunday and the speakers were talking about living history videos. At the time I felt like the Spirit was pressing me to get these videos started, but even though I knew I needed to listen, I still wanted to be wrong that there was a reason we needed to videotape our grandparents soon. So, just before Christmas, amid the chaos and craziness that is that time of year I went with my brother to Gramps and Grams' home to videotape them talking about their lives. I learned so much about each of them and am so, so, grateful that we went and did that.

My gramps lived a hard life as a kid. When he was eight his father died leaving the poor family (his mom with six kids) even more poor. He told us about not having running water and trying to dig a well by hand to have fresh water by the house. They finally reached water only to discover it was salt water. Much later, the brothers were able to save the money to have a well drilled deeper than the first. The deeper well reached fresh water, but the family didn't have the money to put a pump on it. As time went on and enough money was raised to be able to afford a pump, they found the salt water had leached down into the fresh water and spoiled their well.

As gramps talked about having to leave school before graduating to support his family it seemed like there might have been a little embarrassment that he never finished. After the interview was over I thought about how my gramps had a hard life and he sacrificied and worked incredibly hard so that his children would have a better life. His children did the same for their children and that is why my life today is really so easy. Many of the blessings I have are because of him and others who have come before me and have made the real sacrifices. I wanted to tell gramps that but I was a little shy about saying so. When I visited him in the Hospice Center last week I gave him a hug before I left the room. I thought to myself it likely was the last time I would see gramps alive in this life. I wanted to tell him then that I was grateful for all that he had sacrificed, but I was too embarrassed about the other people in the room. But haven't I already learned not to care about what other people think? I am so grateful that since my grandparents have lived in Mesa these last several years I have been able to spend much more time with them and I am grateful that I am not looking back wishing I would have done better about visiting with them and seeing them. And mostly I am grateful for listening to that voice that told me to interview my grandparents. Two weeks after that interview my grandfather got very sick and never recovered. Thank you Gramps, hope you know how much you mean to me.

Quotables

Dallin, Adam, and I were sitting on the couch looking through a Thomas the Train pamphlet/ad and Adam says, "Thomas is coo--Thomas is awesome." He has been calling things awesome ever since, it's like he decided in that moment to make the conscious decision that he now wants to call things awesome instead of cool. And what's really great is that he says it so matter-of-fact without too much emphasis or emotion. That's just how it is.

Thomas is awesome.

After hearing Adam say "Thomas is awesome" a couple of times Dallin smiles and jokes, "Thomas S. Monson?"

And I have to laugh at Mark for this one. This was actually said a couple of months ago but I just came across the scrap of paper I wrote it on and laughed again.

Mark to Dallin: "That was funny like the first two times. And you did it six times. So how many times was it not funny? Like four times. That's called subtraction."

And lastly, I asked Dallin to take Owen's dirty bib to the laundry today and as he did he said in a robotic voice: " I do not want any spit up on me. I am not programmed for spit up."

My kids are seriously hilarious. They get it from their dad.

Six Months

Half a year, can it be so?



Oh how I love my little Owen.

What a sweet, sweet, baby you are. I often hear people call you beautiful, followed by some sort of disclaimer or explanation that baby boys can be beautiful too. And I agree, and don't mind people saying so, because you are beautiful.

You are not too anxious to exert yourself physically and that is just fine with me. Though I am trying to remember to let you have some tummy time because you need to work those little muscles. You hate tummy time and still sometimes your arms get in the way of you rolling over onto your back. For Family Home Evening last week we all made goals. Yours was to sit up all by yourself. We are working on it.

Your brothers love when I let you sit up on your own for a second or two until you timber over to one side or another to be caught by me. We like to call that game Owen Topple Tower.



You have been eating rice cereal for the last couple of weeks and you love it. You eat a lot of it and your little thighs are filling out because of it. I love those squeezable thighs. Once I can manage to get to the store we will start trying you on some other foods.

You suck on the first two fingers of your right hand.



You are playing with toys a lot, watching everything and everyone and getting quite grabby. Your brothers think you are the most entertaining thing ever. They love it when you smile or laugh at them and they think the little things you do are so funny. We love you Owen!

The Last of 2009

Here we go. We'd better finish off last year before it's December again.

This December...

We posed like a little model in our dirty bib.


We hired servants to work around the house for Christmas money. (And no, our kitchen is not usually this clean--I won't show you what it looks like now, for instance.)




We watched Santa arrive in a helicopter.


We noticed Adam's eyes are kind of starting to look green.

We snuggled under covers.

We worried our little brother.
This picture is pretty telling because Adam wants to give Owen hugs and kisses probably six to ten times in a day and Owen isn't always happy about it.

We enjoyed the long-awaited harvest of our five tangerines and five tangelos. I was worried that some teenagers would walk by our front yard and destroy these little guys before we had a chance to eat them, but they all survived.

Here I am relishing in my childhood dream coming true.
I never had dreams about what I wanted my wedding to be like or how many children I would have, but I new I wanted my own citrus trees when I grew up. Actually, my friend Rebekah's family had some and they let me get fruit at my pleasure, so I sometimes would sneak over there in the early morning or night and take some oranges off their tree and replace the trees with bananas or pears or little stuffed animals or whatnot.

We had a very nice Christmas.
"Thomas the Train!"
Adam had plenty of wooden trains before, but he got another set to add on for Christmas. He has been playing with his trains for hours every day since Christmas.




Owen says, "What? You must have spent like twenty bucks on me."


We kind of got deja vu after seeing this picture.

Christmas day 2009. Owen and Grandma Smith

Christmas day 2006. Adam and Grandma Smith


We kept finding the little guy with socks stuck in his mouth.
Dallin laughed for several minutes straight when he saw this. Owen grabs the socks off his feet then tries to eat them.

We um, took this picture.


And this one.


We did some fun Christmasy stuff.


And spent some time with family.

Mark's aunt Penny who lives in Colorado was in town so we took the opportunity to get his grandma and all the daughters (including Mark's mom) together to do a video interview. It's always a blast when these ladies get together, and inevitably they end up crying from laughing too hard. I don't know if we got that on video, but we got some good stories about their growing up.

And that, dear folks is about all for now.

Evolution of a Photo

Taking pictures of kids is...tricky.

Dallin wanted to hold Owen.

Dallin wanted Mom to take a picture.

It took a while to get the right shot.

Because instead of smiling sweetly, we got playing guitar on baby


and a baby that was more cooperative than his older brother


but eventually we got two smiles, though they were a little fuzzy


and then a shot that was a little better.


Then, "Adam! Come in here!"


And then, there you go.

Items and Ideas of 2009

Astronaut Giraffes

Don't kids make life entertaining?


Allowance

When Dallin turned five he started getting an allowance. Mark and I never got allowance growing up so the whole idea seemed like it was for kids who were spoiled. But eventually we warmed up to the idea. Done properly, the idea is that our kids will grow up to be even less entitled than if they didn't have an allowance. It's basically budgeting for the little things kids want, but handing the control over to the child. Every parent gives their kids money for things, and giving allowance makes the choice up to the kid what to spend money on instead of leaving it up to the parent to decide, "Do I really want to pay for the ice cream man or that toy or whatever?" Give the kid a fixed amount of money and the responsibility is theirs. Pressure is off the parents. Less arguing and tantrums. We made sure to give Dallin enough allowance that there was enough for him to set aside money for tithing and his savings account and still have a little fun money (what's left is only about a dollar a week). Instead of trying to decide if I want to buy whatever it is that he is interested in I get to tell him, "You can buy that with your own money if you want to." And, that makes him think more too about whether he really wants the item in the first place. Anyway, I know everyone has different opinions about this, but I am really liking this allowance idea now. Who knew?


Arizona Brand Corn Tortillas


We have tried them all, many times and these are the best. We like to fry our own tostada and taco shells or chips and no other brand fries as great as these do.


Curel lotion

We finally found a pump lotion brand that we like. It actually lasts all day and doesn't feel watery.

Ghiradelli brownies

Yay! A brownie mix without any dairy whatsoever. Even the variety with chocolate chips doesn't have dairy. Since Owen still has a slight dairy allergy these are pretty much my saving grace. I have been stocking up and make a bunch and freeze them in smaller portions so I can have one whenever I want. Not eating dairy also takes a lot of fat out of my diet, so these are pretty much a necessity.


Craigslist Free Stuff


Do you want to get rid of something quick? Post it for free on Craigslist. You will have 60 emails before you have time to check it.


Snuggi for DOGS


Look how happy and/or ambarrassed these dogs look in their Snuggie for Dogs! I told Mark to get one of these for Christmas. Then, get me a dog to go with it. If you think these are totally awesome, you will love this video. I really wanted to embed it in my blog post, but alas, it was not to be. The black and white portion of infomercials is my way favorite. And the dog in pink is totally thinking, "I just hope nobody cool sees me wearing this."


And of course the highlight of 2009 was the arrival of this little guy.
Next stop, maybe some more posts to catch up. Maybe later.