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!