After 11 years...

Michelle w/ her youngest boy, Ammon, me and Ali

This May it will have been 11 years since I graduated from high school! Man how time has flown by! Ali decided it was time to get together with another one of our great friends from high school, Michelle Dimond (now Michelle Bigelow) and catch up a little bit. We met in downtown Salt Lake City at the Olive Garden and had a great dinner together. Things haven't seemed to change a whole lot... hearing Michelle talk reminds me of the exact same way she would say / describe things in high school. She is all business and then a little bit of fun. Ali is always up for a good time and never lets life get her down. If it does, she comes back fighting extra hard. I feel like I have changed a ton... maybe I have... and maybe I haven't. Who knows. In some ways I have learned how to relax a bit more but in other ways I am more uptight. I don't drive 80 miles an hour down a country road (marked 40 mph) for absolutely no other reason than the fact that I love to drive fast like I used to in high school --Now I am very cautious about speed limits and the effects of wreckless driving. I spend VERY minimal amounts of time getting ready and hardley ever wear much jewelry (that is a HUGE change!)

Anyway- it was a good time and THANKS to Ali for getting us out of the house!

A Day in the Life of Our Family...

Landen was playing with the toy shopping cart yesterday and he was being pretty rough with it. I stopped what I was doing to go check on him and found him saying, "Poppin' wheelies! Poppin' wheelies! Poppin' wheelies!" at the top of his lungs. He was pushing the cart around the family room "popping wheelies" while it was loaded up w/ fake money. He is lucky to have a fun dad that pushes them around Home Depot "poppin' wheelies" throughout the entire store. I wished I would have taken video of it cause it was hilarious!

Tonight we went to get some sherbet from Macey's to celebrate Abbey's school choir concert. On the way home we past the old PG Rec Center. Here is how the conversation went:

Abbey: "Mom, what do they use the old rec center for now?"

Braxton: "For selling clothes and breakables."

Bryce: "What is a breakable?"

Braxton: "Flower pots with glass."

I thought that it was so funny that he associates the rec center w/ the boutique! he cracks me up. I guess he has been there a few times w/ me and isn't allow to touch anything!

One last thing. Abbey had her Spring Choir Concert tonight at Valley View Elementary School. She did a great job! They did a cute slide show of the different grades while they sang songs and had a picture up on the screen from when Abbey won the bike in the beginning of the year from the "box top drawing." She had to have loved that! It was hard to get a picture of her looking at us and especially hard to get one of her smiling. She is all business when it comes to doing performances. She has really liked choir but I don't think that she will mind a little break and an extra 45 minutes in the mornings!

Abbey after the concert was over.
Abbey singing, "Surfin' USA."

It was a "Jazzy" good time!

My friend, Ali, invited me to the Jazz game last night and we had a FABULOUS time! I have never been to a playoff game before and felt really dumb sitting next to the Jazz trivia queen! Ali knows every stat possible on the Jazz and schooled me on them the entire night. I thought that she was going to throw me over the railing when the first basket of the game was scored by the Lakers and I started clapping. So... I was a little bit excited to be there... and I didn't realize that the Jazz always wear white when they play at home... so sue me! She was a great sport to put up with me all night.

I had to laugh though cause she was sitting next to 2 single guys and we hadn't been there more than 10 mintues before they were offering to buy her a drink and the guy she was sitting next to chatted to her ALL night! He even made sure he mentioned what hotel he was staying in for the night... we didn't stop by. You can't take Ali anywhere without the guys picking up on her! She is awesome so we just need to find the PERFECT one for her! :)

It was so much fun hanging out and talking all night! Thanks for a fun time! (Too bad the Jazz lost though.)

Knock Out in Round 1

Landen has successfully knocked out his first tooth (on somebody else!) Abbey has wanted her tooth to come out but has been too scared to give it a good jank so it sat and dangled by one root... until today. With Bryce being gone to his motorbike race in Montana it was just me and the kids for the weekend. Abbey was helping take care of Landen this morning while I got primary set up. She picked him up, he accidently knocked into her face and out came her tooth! She was SOOOOO EXCITED! I was glad to have it out since I can't stand to see it dangle and wiggle around. She played with it all during church (talk about nasty) and put it in a ziplock bag the moment we walked in the door. She has now lost it somewhere in the house and is sad she can't find it for the toothfairy tonight. I guess it gives the toothfairy one more night to drum up some cash... no cavities in this tooth means Abbey will make a quick buck off of this one!

I feel bad I didn't get a picture of her holding her tooth. I only had a few minutes before my meeting today to get this one snapshot and she had already lost it by the time I came home from ward council.

Keep On Wiggling It... Just Don't Show Me It

Abbey has been dying to lose her front top teeth. She is the ONLY one in her class that hasn't lost them. I keep reminding her that she is one of the youngest kids in the class but that doesn't seem to help her sorrow.

Abbey has been working those teeth with her tongue and almost has one out. Here are a few pictures I took last night as Bryce is helping this process along. It TOTALLY sicks me out and I can't stand to have her show me how loose it is getting but figured I needed to buck up and take a few snap shots since this means so much to her.

I am a totally selfish mom cause I don't want these teeth to fall out! It means that Abbey is growing up (which is happening WAY too fast) and it starts the awkward stage in life... beginning w/ enormous front teeth that takes 10 more years for her to grow into! AAAAAHHHH!!! I can't stop progress so I just don't say anything to her and act excited for her.

Lucky Me

Sunday afternoon I walked into the office to put some stuff away and the carpet was SOAKING WET! I instantly backed up to the laundry room where I could hear the toilet running... 2 inches of water all over the floor! I frantically started cleaning it up and was grateful that it only went 1/2 way across the office floor. I double checked to make sure that it hadn't gotten to the closet where I have all my pictures stacked in cardboard boxes (on the floor) and was relieved to see that they were safe.... or so I thought. It has been almost a week now and everything dried out great and we haven't had any other issues. I opened the closet door today to discover the box that held my ENTIRE CHILDHOOD sopping wet and crushed under the weight of 4 other boxes of pictures! The cardboard must have wicked the water from the carpet to itself. I panicked! Luckily the box took most of the water and the pictures should actually survive the whole ordeal. A few were sticking together from the moisture but I keep fanning them to seperate them. It is crazy to think that I could have lost my entire childhood worth of pictures in a matter of minutes and they would be gone forever! I finally sorted them into years this last November with the intent to do digital scrapbooks of them... then came Primary and those kind of projects have taken the back burner to keep up with everything else that is going on.

Well, I am glad that it looks like it will all work out. It makes me want to start my digital scrapbook tonight! (Especially since Bryce is gone for the weekend to a motorbike race he is doing in Montana!.... but then who would take care of the kids????) So it won't be happening this weekend.

EASTER!

Easter was great! We were up early to be ready for Whitney's baby blessing but I was able to grab a few quick shots of the kids w/ their Easter baskets.

Landen w/ his ninja turtle and an empty Reeses peanut butter egg wrapper. He liked the turtle and LOVED the candy! He didn't hesitate one second to get things in his mouth.

Braxton LOVED his ninja turtle and was also happy with his candy too. I think that it took him a bit to notice his candy though cause he was so excited for his ninja turtle. It went all over with us on Easter and still likes to troop along to the store and such.

Abbey was very excited about her twistable crayons that she has wanted for a while. Notes and pictures were mass produced all day long!

The Saturday before Easter was rainy so we dyed eggs with the kids. We all had fun. Landen liked to put his egg in one color and let it sit for a long time. He would look around trying to figure out why this was so exciting to the other kids. He finally discovered a spoon to stir the egg around in the cup with and all of the sudden he was enjoying himself... and I was having a heart attack watching the dye almost spill out of the cup!

The Friday before we had a wienie roast at Grandpa's orchard with an easter egg hunt. They kids had a blast. Landen felt shafted when he opened up most of his eggs and found money (nickels, pennies, dimes, etc..) instead of candy. He would get so excited till he saw it wasn't candy but he didn't give up, he kept opening eggs till he found treats! He gave his money away to Abbey and Braxton and they were more than delighted to get more cash!

Easter isn't just a one day event for our family! The weekend after Easter we went up to Idaho for another hunt at Grandma & Grandpa Christensen's house. They had a lot of fun with all of the cousins and enjoyed the treats and toys inside the eggs.

Sorry that there aren't more pictures but this year I decided that I wanted to be a part of the fun instead of stuck behind a camera lens.

I Have a Social Butterfly ...A Kissing Butterfly

Yesterday I decided to get rid of the textbook sized stack of papers that Abbey keeps hauling around in her backpack. I tried to peak at most of the papers so that I could talk to her about some of the stuff and keep tabs on things I might have been missing out on (since Abbey doesn't like to actually GIVE me any school notes.) I made it about 1/2 way through her stack when I came across two apology letters to Abbey from boys in her class. I wished that I would have saved them to get their exact words down but they were basically apologizing for holding her hand at recess and fighting over who would get to marry her!!! WHAT!?!? A few weeks ago I had to have a discussion with her cause a different boy in her class was kissing her on the cheek at school and holding hands with her during recess. We chatted about how she wasn't old enough to be doing those things and she told the boy (Burke) to stop... which he did. I HAD to ask Abbey about these notes so this morning she filled me in while we did her hair. I guess Burke, Titus and Kyle have all been fighting over who can marry Abbey and pulling on her arms at recess to get her to hold their hands. She acted like it was no big deal. I tried to not show her the HUGE smile I had on my face as she told me the story and held back a laugh as I pictured these 3 boys fighting over my sweet little girl. I thought that girls and boys had cooties till Jr. High or High School?! Anyway- I guess Mrs. Collins found out what was happening and had the boys write a note of apology to Abbey. This is definately something that I didn't think I would be dealing with in 1st grade!

Isn't Priesthood Conference Beautiful?

While the men were away... the women get together and play! :)

We had everyone over for dinner (including the boys) and then when they went off to their meeting, out came the beads and the creativity! We had fun making jewelry all night long! I wished we would have gotten pictures of everyone's masterpieces from the night but by the time we were all finished our eyes were bloodshot and our brains weren't functioning anymore. I have had to wait a few days to blog about this so that my fingertips could heal from trying to twist and bend wires all night.

A special THANKS to Lori, my sister-in-law, for her expert jewerly making skills and mounds of patience! We couldn't have done it without her!

Somehow my sister, Karen, and my friend, Ali, managed to skip out on getting their pictures taken but don't worry... I will get them one of these days!

Abbey showing off her works of art.

Left to Right: Hannah Shelley, Mikayla Shelley & Abbey Christensen. GORGEOUS GIRLS!!

What is cuter than Mikayla's jewelry??? Not a whole lot of things except her smile!

Here is poor Lori working her guts out helping everyone with their stuff. She never gets to make anything for herself since she helps us all night long. In her own spare time though she makes some fantastic pieces. Checkout the stuff she is wearing in the picture... all hand made by her! GO Lori!


Lori, Mikayla, Mom, Lisa & Kristie beading away!


Kristie's baby girl, Whitney, enjoying the night of fun... as long as the wild boy cousins stay away! :)

Abbey with her cousin, Hannah. I think that they had a great time and make lots of cute bracelets and more. They didn't want to stop. We finally had to just put the beads away for the night.

Here is Dave & Lori's little girl, Ila. She knew exactly what to do when the beads came out! She hopped right up in the chair and started stringing beads on the string without it even being cut off of the spool! I think that she gets personal lessons from Lori. :)

Thanks to everyone who came over that night. We had a great time. We will have to talk to the General Authorities though cause priesthood meeting doesn't last long enough for me to get more than a few beads done before they are home!

For Better Or For Worse... This is TOTALLY ME!!!

I hope that you got a kick out of it! Have a great day!

All PTA'ed Out

Today was the "World Fair" for Valley View Elementary School. As a room mom for Abbey's class that automatically put me in charge of a booth. I am not a big fan of arranging games so I chose to do the strawberry & cream booth. Luckily for me I have some great friends who came over and helped me for several hours this morning as we cut up 40 lbs of strawberries. (Thanks Stephanie and Shanda!) That was a lot of strawberries! I should have taken a picture of all the containers that we had filled up! (I was too tired and still had the rest of the day to go.) Bryce was sweet and came home a bit early to take care of the kids while I went down to the school to set up. Our booth was a success and we almost sold out of every strawberry! I do have some delicious icecream mix left and I am doing my best to not just go drink it straight from the carton! (I keep reminding myself of how many grams of fat and calories it must have and the extra work out time that would cause... so I decided to come and blog for a minute to get away from the fridge!)

Anyway- the kids had a great time at the fair. They had their hair spray painted, ate snow cones, cotton candy, lots of other treats, did a cake walk, panned for gold and who knows what else. (They came home completely sticky and full of sugar.) Bryce survived taking them all over the school with the million people who were there. He is a trooper and didn't even complain once!

I hope that the school made some great money cause I am worn out and ready for bed!