Christmas card and letter (electronic version)

Isabel and Josiah's Christmas present to us was cooperating for adorable Christmas photos! Thanks kids! We couldn't have asked for anything better.

Our favorite Christmas memory this year was that on Christmas morning, after about a half hour of opening presents, Luke and I noticed that Isabel was not in the living room with us anymore. We called for her and her little voice answered from her bedroom upstairs.  We crept up the stairs to see what she was doing and there she was, sitting in her pink chair in her bedroom quietly looking at books by herself (looking at old books, mind you, not even new ones that she had just gotten for Christmas).  When she left the living room to find her "quiet book corner," there were still literally dozens of unopened presents under the tree. We just love our little bookworm!  We realized she must have been a bit overwhelmed and this is how she dealt with it (we are so thankful that she deals with it by retreating quietly instead of by acting out or getting hyperactive!). From there, we took things slow with opening presents and just did a few at a time over the next several days.  Josiah was at a fun age this year and tried to join in the present-opening fun, particularly by trying to chew all the packages open! :)

We hope that God has blessed your Christmas season and that 2011 is filled with more blessing than 2010!

Much love,
The Christensons
Kristy, Luke, Isabel, Josiah, and Ginger

You'd better not cry

Last year, we were in Florida when we visited Santa Claus. Isabel was just barely two years old, and a little apprehensive when we were standing in line. However, as long as Mommy, Daddy, and lovey were with her, she was content to sit for the photo (on Mommy's lap, not Santa's lap, mind you) with a very serious expression on her face. No smile, but no tears.

This year, we were hoping for much better results, and for a photo of just our children with Santa, with no parents in the picture.  We had high hopes as we were standing in line, because Isabel could barely contain herself, she was so excited to see Santa. And lovey was safely hidden away in the bottom of the stroller, not mentioned or asked for.  Things took a turn for the worse when we arrived at the front of the line and Daddy walked up and placed Josiah in Santa's lap. In a chain reaction, first Josiah began to cry, then Isabel began to back away and cry, and Santa was clearly not going to be okay with us just thrusting a screaming 3-year old at him when he was trying to hold onto Josiah (who, to his credit, stopped crying pretty quickly). So I grabbed lovey, handed it to Isabel, grabbed her and sat down next to Santa, hoping she would at least stop crying if she was in my lap, but no such luck....

We now have a classic meltdown Santa picture!  You will notice she is missing one shoe...that came flying off as we were nudging (dragging?) her little body close enough to Santa to get a photo!  At least we were entertaining to those in line behind us!  You know we were memorable because about an hour later, we ran into another family in the elevator at the mall, and they said "We were just behind you in line. We have a crier too!"

Next year, I swear, no mommies or daddies in this household will be allowed in Santa pictures. If the kids are not OK sitting with him by themselves, then one or both of them will not be in the photo and it will just be tough luck! :)

Merry Christmas!

A little dusting of snow this weekend

So we had a little snowstorm (rather, a MAJOR snowstorm) this weekend.  I knew it was big when we opened the blinds and found our windows downstairs completely covered with snow.

The next day I (Luke) decided to brave the outdoors (it was 0 degrees with a brisk northerly wind) and shovel the driveway.  I do not own a snowblower.  I'm not sure that my back will ever recover.  There were 5 foot drifts at the end of the 3 car driveway.

 This is what the snow typically looks like after a big snowstorm in March.  Not sure what this will look like come this March.

Notice the snow piled as high as the fence........honey who let the dogs out?

Carved a little path to our neighbors.

Ginger always appreciates the freeway I carve out for her in the backyard.  

Lots of snow.

Ginger was actually in this picture.

If we are not careful we might loose Isabel in this canyon.

Finally....lots and lots of snow!



Applause, please!

Mommy and Camille have both been working hard on this one with Josiah. Yesterday, he did it for Camille for the first time, and now he does it on command (and does it a lot even when we do not tell him to!)...with a look on his face that says "I am pretty cool!"

(Video clip will appear below - you may need to wait a few minutes depending on your download speed).



Show me your smile

Today was Isabel's first visit to the dentist and she did SO GREAT!

Yesterday, she accompanied me to my dentist appointment, and everyone in the office was completely enamored with her. She was on her very best behavior and I was so proud of her (actually wished I could take that behavior, clone it, and apply it to all our time at home together!) Yesterday, on our way to the dentist;s office, I gave her a choice if she wanted to go first, or if she wanted me to.  She she was still a little apprehensive about the dentist at that point, so she was very adamant that she wanted me to go first. "I am just going to watch you, Mommy. Then it will be my turn." So that is what we did. 

When I was the one in the big chair, my hygienist was so helpful and interacted with Isabel the whole time, explaining what she was doing all along the way with Mommy's teeth. Isabel was very talkative with her as well, and just sat on the floor in the corner, talking to us, and playing with her bracelet and bouncy ball they had let her pick out from the prize box. When the hygienist told Isabel she was going to floss Mommy's teeth, Isabel got very excited and said "Do you want to see the dental floss in my Dora book?" She proceeded to get out her "Dora goes to the dentist" book, and flipped through each page one by one, mumbling, "It's not on here" as she turned to each new page, until she got to the right page, and said "There it is! See! She has floss just like yours!" and came over to excitedly show the hygienist (SO cute!)

So today, I picked her up from school early, and she had no hesitation or apprehension as she announced to the class "I am going to the dentist!" Then she turns to me and says "Mommy, will you hold my hand at the dentist?" I told her that of course I would.  When we got there, I grabbed lovey just in case she needed it, but she never asked for it the entire time we were there.  She waltzed right in like she owned the place, climbed herself up in the chair when they asked her to, put on the sunglasses (see below) to shield her eyes from their "special light", and was very brave when they reclined the chair all the way back and scooted her tiny little body all the way up so her head could rest on the pillow.  She had just a couple of minutes when the hygienist tried to start looking at her teeth, where a look of sheer panic came over her face and she shook her head and would not open her mouth. But she was not doing this in a defiant way, and neither a tear was shed nor a tantrum thrown.

With just some minor coaxing by the hygienist ("Are you sure you don't have any teeth in there? Oh! I see two of them peeking out! Are there more in there?" etc), Isabel gradually got comfortable enough to not only let them count her teeth (which was their ultimate goal for her first visit), but also to let them do a full polish with bubble-gum flavored toothpaste, and even to floss all her teeth!  Needless to say, I was very impressed. As were both the hygienist and the dentist. Both of them said that she is the youngest child to have ever let them do a full cleaning and exam on her first visit.  Way to go, my growing-up-way-too-fast baby girl!

And the moral of the story is that she has NO cavities!  They are very happy with our tooth care routine for her at home and said to keep it up. They are also not concerned at all about the alignment of her upper and lower teeth being negatively affected by the fact that she still sucks on her middle two fingers on her left hand. They said we don't need to worry about trying to get her to stop doing that anytime soon. I was certainly relieved by that and feel she will eventually and gradually wean herself from that.

What do jumping, remote controls, and broccoli have in common?

The three things in the title of this post may seem completely unrelated, but they all played a key role in entertaining my children yesterday, on a very blustery, cold, wintry day.  On days like these, the kids have to find activities to entertain themselves and one another. Activities such as...

Isabel dancing and jumping in front of Josiah as he bounces vigorously in his stationary jumper...

(I love seeing them interact together in this way. His gaze constantly follows her every move when they are in the same room together).

Practicing hard at following in his daddy's footsteps as a future channel surfer....

And yes, at dinnertime, they were both entertained by eating broccoli. This was Josiah's first time having it and he had a blast. I could barely keep up with cutting the flowery parts off and breaking it into small enough pieces for him. And not only did Isabel eat a bunch of broccoli, but she ate a very hearty helping of cooked carrots too. I totally live by the philosophy of "keep offering vegetables" because every now and then, like tonight, she will completely shock me by eating and liking them!

Winter wonderland

This is what we woke up to this morning....

And somebody was PRETTY excited about that, so this is what we did...

Luckily Josiah was cooperative enough to take a 45-minute nap while Isabel and I bundled up to enjoy playing in the winter wonderland. I don't know if he would be quite as enthralled with it yet!

Halloween adventures

Our Halloween weekend started on Saturday with our first time carving pumpkins as a family.



With some coaxing, Isabel eventually learned to enjoy taking the "goop" out of the pumpkin!

 Josiah enjoyed watching and was our "model" as we carved!

 Isabel was pretty proud of her first jack-o-lantern!

 Daddy convinced Isabel to be a Minnesota Twins baseball player this year for Halloween. I think it turned out pretty cute, our little "girly girl" dressing up as a baseball player! (At least I got the french braids in her hair for a little girlish flair)

 And trick-or-treating wouldn't have been complete without our little monkey hanging out on Mommy's hip!

 "Hey guys, wanna see my cute tail?"

 "There it is! Whoa, I am falling over!"

"Mommy, more frick-or-freaters are at the door!" (Isabel enjoyed handing out candy almost as much as getting the candy herself. Surprising, for how much she has loved candy these past few months after basically not getting it for 2 1/2 years!)

Out of the mouths of babes

I am creating this new post which to your dismay will not contain any photos, but I hope the cute quotes (currently from Isabel, but soon enough from Josiah too) will warm your heart, make you smile, or even make you laugh out loud! I will add to this same post whenever I feel a kid-quote needs to make the list!

• Isabel (EVERY time I put my hair into a ponytail, October 2010): "Mommy, I don't like it in a pony! I just like it FLAT!" (side note - she does not relent until I take my hair back out of a ponytail).
• Isabel (when it was her turn to pray at dinner, the weekend of 10/9/10): "Mommy, will you teach me the words?" Then all I had to do was say "Dear Jesus" and she took over all by herself and said, "Thank you for this food, thank you for this day, thank you for Josiah's owie on his head. In Jesus' name, amen." (We have been praying that God would take Josiah's owie on his head away, so she got this a little out of context, but I admire the effort!)
• Isabel (10/18/10): She chose to bring her giggling baby doll and her new singing Princess Dora doll to bed with her tonight. Around 9:30pm, she woke up crying pretty hard in the monitor (rare for her, so I went up to see what was the matter). I walk into her room and she is sitting up in her crib, and the conversation goes like this: "Mommy?" "What's the matter, honey?" "My friends are making noise." "Your friends are making noise?" "Yeah." "Do you want them to sleep in the doll bed?" "Yeah, not in my crib." (I proceed to tuck them into the doll bed and lay Isabel back down who clearly wants to be sleeping and was annoyed to have been woken up by the "noise." What must have happened was that she rolled over onto one or both of the dolls and they started giggling, singing, or a combination of both. Well, that would startle and annoy me too! Too funny!)
• Isabel (weekend of 11/28-11/29/10): Spins around and around in a circle, and says "I'm busy! I'm busy!" The most adorable thing about this is that I am told I used to do the exact same thing and say the exact same thing when I was her age.  And I swear, I did not tell her to do or say that..she did it all on her own!
• Isabel (12/2/10, as reported by Jenna): "When I get bigger like Camille, then I can put my own shirt on."
• Isabel (12/3/10): "Mommy, are these jeans?" (Me: "Those are not jeans. They are khaki pants.") "Mommy, these are NOT tacky pants! These are NOT tacky pants!) Whoa, guess she is a little hyper-sensitive about her fashion sense! :)
• Isabel (12/17/10 while we were watching Frosty the Snowman on TV during our family jammie date. Frosty had just announced he needed to go the North Pole where he would never melt): "Santa is going to be there!" (smart girl!). (Daddy: "Isabel, are you going to go to the North Pole?") "When I'm older!" (Daddy: "How old do you have to be to go to the North Pole?") "I don't know...three, no, four!"
• Isabel (4/5/11): She was heading up to bed and I squatted down and said "Isabel, can I have a hug and a kiss good-night?" She looked right at me, cocked her head slightly to one side, and said so matter-of-factly, "Mmm, not tonight. Next time you can have one, Mommy! Next time!" Then she turned tail and headed upstairs. Oh, the rejection, but oh was I laughing!

Cheek to cheek

These two sure love each other! :)

Triply blessed

We are blessed to have...

 ...Grandma and Papa Beach who came all the way from Florida to see us last weekend.... 

...and Aunt Jessie who came all the way from Georgia to see us this weekend!

We must be really special kids and we know we are truly loved!

Thanks Grandma, Papa, and Aunt Jessie! We just love you very much and we miss you already!

~ Isabel and Josiah

Josiah - where did the 6 months go so fast???

Josiah had his 6-month doctor's appointment on July 30th, and is still a tiny little man at 12 lbs 2 oz and 23.75 inches long.  He has not even gotten onto the growth curve yet (still under the 0% percentile) but is healthy and Dr. Williams is really happy with his progress.  She was impressed at how quickly he rolled onto his back when she put him on his tummy (a trick he learned to do in the middle of the night and that Mommy and Daddy (jokingly) wish he could NOT do!) 

He is not quite as happy of a baby all the time as he used to be, but the doctor thinks his bottom two teeth are going to come in soon and that is quite painful for little babies, so we are going to blame it on that and hope it passes soon!  For the most part, he is still a very good baby, he just has some more fussy time in the evening than he used to (which might also be a result of Mommy going back to work and him just needing some more attention and time in the evenings with Mommy and Daddy).  The hardest part with teething is that we can't use Motrin with him until he is 6 months old corrected age (so 8 months old actual age) since it would be too hard on his tummy right now.  So hope those teeth make their appearance soon and give him some relief (and then, that he learns to nurse without biting!)

Here are some photos of our little man!

Hanging out with Daddy on the deck

Hanging out with his best friend Levi in the pack n play (yes, Josiah is holding Levi's hand!)

Playing in the Exersaucer

Hanging out with Grandma Tina on a recent visit up at our house

Pooping on the potty!

Alternately titled: This post will mortify Isabel when she is 16 years old!

Many of you will recall the beginning of our potty-learning journey, which took place a little over two months ago (see here and here).  The two months has seemed a little long to us, because after the first week, the potty-learning road became very much a roller coaster ride for our family.  As soon as Isabel learned that peeing and pooping on the potty was something that we really wanted her to do, she, in true Isabel fashion, dug her heels in and decided she was only going to do it when and how she decided she was ready.  We so wanted her to be successful, and we had to come to the realization that all children are different and for Isabel, the "intensive" potty-learning experience just did not work for her. She required a much more laid back approach.  Toward the end of June, when things were about at their worst, we had many outings with Isabel in tears (and Mommy very nearly in tears) after having peed or pooped (or both) in her panties, and we were going through 4 or 5 pairs of panties a day.  We decided to relax in our approach a little, but still did not want to go back to diapers because we thought that starting the whole process over again was not the best option for anyone.  So, we started using Pull-ups on her during outings, and also for some time at home in the evenings.  She would go all day dry at school, and then would come home and have 3 or 4 accidents (sometimes within feet of the bathroom).  Very frustrating! 

This pattern continued throughout much of July, and we just continued in our sometimes-panties, sometimes-Pull-ups routine.  This past week she has turned a major corner!  Last Saturday, she said, very matter-of-factly, "Mommy, I need to go poop" and took herself up to the bathroom.  A few minutes later, she exclaimed "I go poopy!!!!"  I came upstairs and was astounded to see that she had indeed had an entire BM in the toilet!  Her reward for this is a piece of Kit-Kat candy bar, which she promptly asked for and received.  This process repeated itself Saturday evening.  She then went two days (Sunday and Monday) without going poop at all (and also kept her panties totally dry!), and so on Tuesday morning I mentioned to her teacher at school, Ms. Krisi, that she would probably need to go that day.  She said she would pay close attention and have her try if she looked like she needed to go (she had not yet pooped at school).  That night, her daily sheet came home and said "Isabel had a BM on the potty today!! She was very excited to get 5 stickers!"  We praised and praised Isabel that evening.  The next day at school, she went poopy on the potty three times (receiving 15 stickers!) and today, she has taken herself to the bathroom and has gone poopy four times!

With as much as I am rinsing Josiah's poop out of cloth diapers, I am definitely glad to be at the point where I will very rarely need to rinse it out of Isabel's panties!

Look how proud she is of herself (yes, I will delete this photo when she is 16 years old and embarrassed by it!)

Indoor relaxation on a hot summer day

Today after church Isabel and Josiah decided to "chill" inside, as it is a very hot and sticky day here in Minnesota.  We thought the grandparents in particular would enjoy these rare photos capturing both of them on camera at once!

He prefers to laugh, not sleep

So many of you have asked for more Josiah updates and photos on the blog. To be honest, he has not gotten his fair share of press because he has been such a content, happy-go-lucky baby, and his more intense big sister "steals the show" a lot of the time!  But the other day, I was able to capture some pretty cute Josiah giggles on camera.  Hope you enjoy! 

(Side note - good thing I caught this on camera and can re-watch it from time to time, because these giggles are what keep me going when I am getting up in the wee hours for the umpteenth time with our little boy who decided a couple of months ago that he was going to be anti-sleep and has very stubbornly stuck to that plan ever since)!

Isabel moments

Some moments with Isabel just need to be captured on the blog for others to enjoy as much as Luke and I do, and there are not always photos to correspond. You will just have to use your imagination to picture how adorable she is during these moments! I will be posting about these under the title "Isabel moments." Some of my favorites from this week:

• Luke and I were getting a lot of projects around the house done, and asked our lovely neighbor girl, Kayla (who Isabel adores) if she would like to play with Isabel for a couple of hours while we finished some things up. She was happy to, so when Isabel got up from her nap, I told her she was going to play with Kayla. We were getting her snack together and she said "Mommy, you go outside?" She was still waking up from her nap and sounded a little concerned that I wasn't coming with her, so I wanted to convince her that she was going to have so much more fun than me. I replied, "No, Isabel, Mommy and Daddy are working inside today. It's pretty boring. But you get to go have fun with Kayla outside!" She thought about this pensively, and said so sweetly, "Ohhh, that's OK Mommy, you can go outside next week!"
• This morning on the way to school, Isabel asked to listen to her songs. "Her songs" are a children's Bible song CD that I often play in the car for her. A few minutes after the CD began, she was cheerfully singing along with all the verses to "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." I couldn't stop smiling!
• This evening, Luke and Isabel were at the dinner table starting dinner while I was nursing Josiah in the living room. Lately, Isabel has been talking during mealtime prayers, so tonight, Luke asked her if she wanted to help him pray for dinner. He had her repeat, "Thank you for this food," and "Thank you for this day." Then he said "Please bless this food" and she interrupted him with "to our body's use. Amen!" Luke always completes our mealtime prayers with "Bless this food to our body's use, and us to Your service, amen," (as his dad did at mealtime prayers when Luke was growing up) and we had no idea she had picked up on it until she finished the prayer perfectly for him! Luke informed her she definitely proved that she belongs to our family! We were both laughing pretty hard!

Abundant blessings,

Kristy

Bumbo chair

Isabel used to really enjoy sitting in her Bumbo chair (photo taken June 2008, 6 months old)

Now that it is out again, she likes to see if she still fits! Big girl now!

And it is fast becoming one of Josiah's favorite places to sit too! From here, he can see all the action that is going on in our house (believe me, it is one active place!)

Abundant blessings,

Kristy

Happy Daddy's Day!

This morning I scooped Isabel out of bed while Luke was in the shower, and we headed down to the kitchen to make blueberry muffins for Daddy's Day! What a great little helper she is turning out to be! Isabel and I also went shopping yesterday and bought Luke a water-resistant Twins pullover, that he can wear to his frequent visits to Target field (he has had a habit of going to games during inclement weather!) Isabel was chanting "Baseball shirt! Daddy's Day!" on the way home from the mall, but by the time we got home, I had her saying "No telling him!" instead. She did a GREAT job of keeping the secret until we gave him the present after we got home from church.

Look closely at the two photos below. Can you tell a habit that Isabel apparently picked up from her mommy? We both stick our tongue out slightly when we are concentrating hard on something! Too funny!

To my wonderful husband - Nearly 6 years of marriage and two-and-a-half on this crazy journey they call parenting. Thanks for being my partner, my best friend, and the absolute best, most involved daddy that our two precious blessings could ever ask for! I love you!

Abundant blessings,

Kristy