Kaylyn

Last week Aunt Amy sent Kaylyn these adorable boots that she found at The Villagio (a Seattle thrift store called The Villiage that has been affectionately renamed). As you can see below, Kaylyn LOVES her new boots. A couple of days after we got them she was wearing them around the house just before nap time. As I rocked her to sleep I quietly slipped off one boot and she started crying! Luckily she calmed quickly and I waited several minutes so that she could fall back asleep before I slipped off the other one. Thinking that I was in the clear, I took the other one off and she started crying again and wouldn't lay back down until I replaced the beloved boot. So Cinderella took a nice nap with one boot on:)

Visit to the BYU Bookstore. She's a true Cougar.

Watching Baby Signing Time with her best friends Snowman, Piggy (notice the shoes), and Lion. 

This girl loves eating apples all by herself.

Passing time in the waiting room while Sister Coleman had her eyes examined. 

We went the Riverwoods with the Ellis's for the  annual lighting event and stopped in at Provo Beach Resort. Kaylyn tried bowling for the first time. She obviously loved the lights on all of the arcade games. Dad found a game that only cost 13 cents to play and tried it once and won 75 tickets!

Christmas Tree Tags

 One of my favorite Christensen family traditions is Christmas Tree Cutting. Micah's parents have done on the Friday after Thanksgiving for the last 20+ years. I started going with his family when we were dating and since decided that this was one tradition that we would keep forever! The first year that we were married (2010) just Micah and I went cutting somewhere in Wyoming. We borrowed Jeremiah's truck, drove for hours, and hunted for the perfect tree. There was a frozen stream at the top of the hill that we dragged our trees up so we tied the trunks to our waists and ice skated back to the car. What a dream! :) (I love ice skating) It was getting dark as we finally loaded our trees and found that the truck was stuck in the snow! For the next couple of hours we dug snow out from under the tires, pushed, pulled, and finally broke free. We hadn't seen any cars drive by so the possibility of us spending the night in the truck was very real, but we were so glad we finally made it out. We had a very late dinner at a random Mexican restaurant on our way home and it tasted soooo good! 

This year we decided to find a place that was little closer to find our tree...and we recruited others to join us:) On Thursday, Nov. 1st we met Micah's parents for dinner up in Heber. Micah's dad treated us to the Claim Jumper then they headed to a nearby hotel. We had our sleeping bags and pads and met the Ellis's at Micah's Zermatt property (one of his properties he bought on auction and is up for sale) in Midway. We had a late night swim with the kids before hitting the sack. We had an early morning ahead because we needed to be in line at 5:30am to get our wrist bands to buy our Christmas tree tags. We brought our camping chairs and joined the other hundreds of crazy people who were up that early. Kaylyn slept soundly in my arms until after we got our tags and were headed home. Of course she wanted to drive (as always). We picked up some donuts and chocolate milk on the way back to the Zermatt. The Ellis's had to head back to SLC, but Allen and Janis came over and we all slept for another hour before going back to actually purchase the tree tags. Kaylyn and I kept sleeping while Christensen crew made the purchases. 

To our delight, we found out that the local thrift store was holding their annual ski sale at the Zermatt that morning. We went over and found a couple of hats and a puffy vest for the munchkin. We shared a Rancherito's breakfast burrito (soooo good) and Micah fixed a few things at the condo before we headed home. It was a great start to the weekend!

My little snow bunny. This hat was one of the purchases we made at the ski sale. Luckily it's really stretchy so it fits her beautiful big head!

One morning Kaylyn woke up and immediately had two very specific requests: grapes and hat on.  The bib she's wearing is her favorite because it has a kitty on it. 

Another recent and almost every wake up request is that she have her blanky wrapped around her.

Halloween 2012

This was our 2nd annual pumpkin carving with the Ellis's the week before Halloween. Kaylyn loved my kitty cat carving  and makes the sound any time we come to the door and she sees it on our doorstep.

Oct. 24, 2012 was Kaylyn's first official day of walking. Here are some action shots of that evening at the Ellis's. 

The Saturday before Halloween Dallas joined me for a 5k run. Notice our "costumes." He has  a piece of tape with "costume" written on it on his shirt and I'm a pregnant soccer player. 

This is the 10 year old ghost that beat me in a sprint across the finish line. 

This little lion costume was my best purchase in a long while. $1.99 at Savers and it's Kaylyn's favorite thing! She asks for it first thing every morning, growls like a lion every time we put it on, and wants to wear it everywhere. Thank you Savers!

Trick-or-Treating at Chase Bank on Halloween morning.

I made some Halloween cakes for friends and our ward Trunk-or-Treat/carnival cake walk. Here's a little story about my husband: he remember hearing about a "cake walk" for the first time when he was about 10 years old. He couldn't believe that all you had to do was walk around in a circle, land on the lucky number, and you'd win a whole cake! He gets this one smile of his when he talks about it. So, there he is at the ward Halloween carnival. He decides to test his luck and try a round of the cake walk just hoping to make his 10 year old dreams come true. He steps in, stops on a number, they call his number, and WINNER!! He won his first cake walk! I was out delivering a cake when it happened and was sad to miss such a moment of glory, but so thrilled to hear him tell the story afterward. Dreams do come true folks. 

We finished the night off at Adrienne's house (Dally's lady) with the regular friend crew. It was a wonderful Halloween!

BYU vs Notre Dame, Police Chase, and Chicago

We went to the BYU vs Notre Dame game this last weekend. We flew into Chicago late Friday night, ate Chicago style pizza at Giordano's, and headed to South Bend first thing in the morning.

Famous stuffed crust pizza at  Giordano's.

We didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked  touring the Notre Dame campus before the game, but what we did see was amazing. What a beautiful campus! I'd like to go back there someday. On game day the street traffic is turned into a one-way circle around campus so we got stuck at the end of the circle, but that enabled us to have a long walking tour as we made our way to the campus bookstore. We sold our extra ticket (we found out we had to buy a ticket for Kaylyn the day before we left) and both got a Notre Dame hoodie before we made our way to the stadium.

We were impressed by how nice the fighting Irish were. Several Notre Dame fans went out of their way to tell us how cute our baby is not to mention giving us directions and being friendly and kind in general. Love those leprechauns:)

The game was so much fun! The Cougars put up a good fight and came close to beating the number 5th ranked team in the nation. I love a good football game. Kaylyn was so good the whole time. She'd give us high fives at every BYU touchdown and laughed and played until she fell asleep for the entire 4th quarter. Jeremiah was there with the Cougar Club and made the whole trip extra nice for us sharing his food and Montana hospitality. We sure love that guy.

After the game our trip got a little interesting. We searched for a hotel while battling internet problems on the road for a couple of hours. We started back toward Chicago and at about 10pm decided to stop in Gary, Indiana in hopes of finding a good deal on a hotel. Micah remembered hearing about Gary, Indiana in some musical so he figured it was probably a quaint little all american town. Turns out about every third house was boarded up and abandoned and we saw several police cars patrolling the town. Not a safe place. I had fallen asleep on the drive there, but my adrenaline woke me up as we drove around Gary searching for a hotel we had called a few minutes earlier. When we arrived at the place our GPS indicated there was no sign of any hotel. Just as we were about to call to ask for directions our laptop and both phones died. Needless to say we took that as a sign that we weren't supposed to be spending the night in sGary, Indiana.

But it gets better. We kept on driving and at about midnight we finally booked a hotel in Hammond, Indiana which was about 30 minutes from downtown Chicago. Micah paid for the room and we went down the street to McDonald's to get some food before we crashed in our hotel room. As we were pulling out of the drive-thru we saw a handful of police cars a block away. Just moments later they started speeding past us with their lights on. Micah counted 29 police cars and a helicopter! What on earth was this?

I told Micah that if all of those cops were going to our hotel then we couldn't stay there. Sure enough, as we neared our hotel we saw all of the cops parked on both sides of the hotel. Micah called the lobby from the safety of our car to ask what was going on. The receptionist said that there was a hit and run and the police were searching for the fugitives who had ditched their cars. This was like a scary movie. Despite my nervousness, we went to park in the back of the hotel. Kaylyn and I waited just inside while Micah parked the car. All sorts of things were running through my mind. Of course it seemed like forever as we waited for Micah to come back and here I was - four months pregnant and holding my little baby girl in the midst of this craziness - trying to think of what I would do if something happened to my husband. Micah returned safely and assured me that the odds of the criminals coming into our very room were almost none, but we were already one for one with our hotel choice so I was still scared. Funny enough, before we booked the hotel room the receptionist had suggested a couple of other options including a hotel in Lansing, but warned us that Lansing wasn't a very safe place. Micah then told her we had just come from Gary and she said that Lansing wasn't bad compared to Gary. Then here were in Hammond in the midst of a police chase. Here's a link to the news story of what was happening: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-police-car-crashes-on-eisenhower-during-pursuit-20121020,0,4307467.story

Needless to say we survived the night, but it made us so grateful to live in peaceful little Provo. We take for granted the safety and security that we live in. I'll take the quirky culture of happy valley any day. I love it here!

The police broke down this fence that lined the hotel lot where we parked our car. Scary!!

Despite the craziness outside of our hotel room, here is the cuteness that was inside our hotel room. She loves shampoo bottles:)

After a crazy night, we enjoyed a wonderful Sunday in Chicago. After church we went to the Sears Tower and walked to the end of Navy Pier. We found awesome parking spots - a feat for downtown Chicago - and enjoyed the cool sunny afternoon. Kaylyn was such a good little traveler as always. It was a great (and adventurous;) trip!

This is 103 floors up. It didn't even phase Kaylyn, but I was nervous to walk out on the glass.

Panoramic pic from the end of Navy Pier. I'm loving my new iPhone camera:)

At the airport I went to change out of my skirt before we got on the plane. I accidentally grabbed Micah's jeans AND went into the men's bathroom to change. I thought it was a little weird to see urinals in the women's restroom...I only scared a couple of dudes as I ran out wearing my husband's pants. It gave us all a good laugh:)

Happy Birthday Kaylyn!

Today is Kaylyn's first birthday! Yesterday we had a little party at Kiwanis Park with some family and friends. This was our Facebook invite:

Come celebrate Kaylyn's 1st Birthday with us this Saturday at Kiwanis Park! We will be having all but two of the following festivities:

1. Pinata
2. Greased pig contest
3. Micah dressed up as Nacho Libre (in honor of our little Chancha)
4. Birthday cake and light snack
5. Egg toss competition
6. Special birthday tribute by Elvis impersonator
See you Saturday at 1pm!

So we had it all except for the greased pig contest and the Elvis impersonator. I was trying my best to get Micah to dress in the full Nacho Libre costume - stretchy pants and all - but in the end we settled for the mask only. It was still a hit! Even little Kaylyn was interested yet slightly concerned at the sight. She still wanted her daddy to hold her even when he had the mask on because she recognized his voice and trusts him so much. It was very sweet.

We had Domino's pizza (that's our favorite lately), chips & salsa, the pinata, an egg toss contest (which my mom and Craig won), bubbles for the kids, cake/cupcakes, creamies, and presents. It was a fun afternoon and we were so happy that Kaylyn was surrounded by so many people who love her and people that we love so much too!

She was very slow and deliberate about eating her cake. Everyone kept saying how "lady-like" she was. That's so her. Very calm and deliberate. We love how her little personality shows through in everything she does.

Opening presents with a little help from her friends.

After the party Kaylyn decided to clap her hands for the first time and she's been doing it on demand ever since. Like Micah's sister Rachel said, it is soooo cute. We watched the BYU vs Utah football game that night and cried ourselves to sleep after an emotional roller coaster of an ending where BYU lost by a field goal. Other than that it was a wonderful day!

September 17, 2011 BYU vs Utah football game watched from the hospital the day after she was born.

September 15, 2012 BYU vs Utah football game watched from our house the day before her first birthday. Yes, we're wearing the exact same shirts that we did a year ago. We all look a little bit older too:)

Today we went to Stake Conference then came home and had a family nap. Micah had to go to a meeting so he left Kaylyn and I home sleeping and we slept for 3 hours! Kaylyn slept for 3 hours and 25 minutes. What a great nap! When Dad came home we delivered birthday cupcakes to the Davidsons, B-Money, and Willy then went over to the duck pond south of campus. It was fun spending the day with just our little family to celebrate Kaylyn's birthday. After she went to sleep Micah and I watched the videos from her birth. It brought back all sorts of emotions, tears, and gratitude for the sweet baby that has been ours for the past year. We never thought it would be so good. 

She only starting clapping yesterday and she's already so good at it! This little girl is very talented:)

Catching a duck feather. She loves the watching the ducks and the birds at the pond. 

This is her "sqeeeeze" move. One of her latest tricks that she thinks is hilarious. We obviously do too:)

This girl loves her daddy. She's got the best one in the world!

So here's to our calm, sweet demeanored, deliberate, fun but shy, playful, car seat sleeping, dancing, trusting, affectionate, animal loving, seven-toothed snuggler. Happy birthday sweet girl! We love you so much. You have made the last year of our lives so much fun, so full of gratitude, and oh so good. Happy birthday Chancharelli.