Fun with Grandma and Grandpa Christensen

This is what you may call picture over load but I wanted to share them all so here we go:

 All of us on top of the space needle.

 One of the views from the space needle.

 Happy Birthday Kali!

 The Vietnamese restaurant down town we decided to try.  What I had was different but it was good.

 Anna got tinker bell panties!  Yay!  She was really excited.

 Kali opening her presents for her birthday!

 We bought her that big elephant and she loves laying on it.

 The Troll bridge.  Weird looking thing!

 Grandma and Grandpa Christensen bought the girls a trampoline for their birthdays.  What great fun they have already had with this and will continue to have I'm sure.

  On the grounds at the Seattle temple.  So many pretty flowers.

In so many pictures Anna will not smile at the camera.  She has way too many other things on her mind apparently.  Oh and about Zach's hair, many of you wouldn't notice but well I like his hair short.  Well we went to cut in and the clippers were having major issues so we had to postpone it till we could get some other clippers.  It's amazing what a new clipper set can do!

 Love Anna's CHEESE face!

 We took a ferry to Bremerton and it took an hour to get there so we got out and explored the boat so much fun!

 Seattle as we were coming back.  What a beautiful view!

 I still can't believe that we live in the beautiful city.  It's so strange to have water EVERYWHERE!

 The fun trampoline again

 Best friends!  For life I hope.  It's so much fun watching these two grow up.  I just love them!

 Had to post these pictures because I put this same outfit on Anna when she was a baby and when she was 1.  I can't believe that my little Kali is 1!  Look how much she has grown.

Kali's 1st birthday

Kali's turned 1!  I almost still can't believe it!  She is so much fun and pretty much always happy.  

 She is always smiling like this too people.  Especially when they give her attention.  She loves laughing after we laugh as well!  Love her smile, it makes my day!

 The damage done

What a weekend!!!

This weekend was pretty crazy!  So Friday Zach baptized Mariana Saldana.  She asked me to speak about baptism so I gave a talk.  Her Husband Mauricio and his brother Juan were baptized like 10 years ago before Mariana and Mauricio got married.  Mauricio and Juan have been inactive for a while but one day the missionaries knocked on their door and they were ready to hear the gospel and come back to church.  So it all started when on one Sunday we had the missionaries over for dinner and I told them that Zach speaks Spanish if they ever needed help with any investigators that speak Spanish they should have him come.  Well low and behold he went to the Saldana's house with them and eventually we all met.

Yesterday in church Zach gave Mariana the Holy Ghost and both of us spoke.  I also had to give a lesson in Sunbeams and Zach had to give a lesson in Gospel Principles.  To add to that Anna is potty training and she thinks she has to go pee 4 times during sacrament meeting and then again 2 times during class(can you imagine with trying to take Kali and Anna potty?).  Lets just say it was a busy day!  I hope this potty training thing gets a little easier cause right now it's just hard.  She is doing pretty well but still often pees a little in her panties before we actually get to the bathroom when we are out.  She does fine when we are at home but when we are out it's hard.  She is still having a hard time going poop in the potty.  She is doing better but she still wants to hold it forever until it is killing her.  The only way we survived the day was to find humor in the crazy situation.  One of the sisters from nursery came and gave Anna to me because she said she needed to go potty.  Well I took her and I should have brought my bag just in case but didn't so when I took Anna's panties off I accidentally dropped her panties into the potty (you can laugh it's okay) so I had to go back to the primary room and leave Anna in the bathroom without panties.  Well I finally made it back and the ladies in the Mothers lounge and I had a good laugh (I left Anna with them while I got the panties.)  Well one of the ladies said that a little girl that was potty training came to her house and would say that she had "the feeling" when she needed to go.  How cute is that?  Well anyways we survived that episode thanks to the panties we brought with us.  Then close to the end of class they came again saying she had to go.  So I took Anna again but this time the toilet broke...no JOKE!  So I investigated and the lever had just got off track so I fixed it and we were as good as new.  Let's just say it made the whole situation very entertaining and Anna was really worried about my breaking the potty.  Thank goodness for some good laughs through all of this.  Oh and to make matters worse the other teacher that teaches with me didn't come to church cause her daughter was sick so I was all by myself trying to do all this during the 2nd hour and thank goodness Zach came and helped me during the 3rd hour or I wouldn't have survived!

p.s When I get pictures of Mariana's baptism I will post some.

 

Potty Training Over Here Once Again

Anna in her big girl panties!  

This time around has been much better!  Anna actually is liking it, I think.  I mean she has her moments of not liking it but overall I think she is doing great!  So the day started off with getting her big girl panties on and then explaining that there are NO more diapers. We actually put them in a box last night and Zach taped them up and stuck them outside.  We then told her that they were going away forever.  She wasn't so sure about all this but she did pretty good.  So she wouldn't go for like 3 hours after she woke up and I'd given her 3 sippy's with juice, a popcile, and a juice box.  So finally she got really nervous and started shaking her hands.  She kept saying that it hurt so we would ask if she needed to go.  Of course she did but she was holding it and didn't want to.  Every time I would take her she would just say it's okay it's okay...over and over again right in front of the bathroom because she didn't want to go. She has this thing about being brave about not going potty.  I don't know what it is but oh well.  She would also go to her room and try to get a diaper every time she needed to go.  She kept saying I want a diaper Mom.  Well I would tell her that we threw them all away and she was like NO Mom.  She really didn't like that.  But I tried to get her busy doing something else and that usually helped.  She is loving all the attention that I'm giving her right now and I hope that I can continue to give her the attention she needs so that we can succeed at this.  She did go in the potty a few times though!  Yay!  Usually after I told her I was going to go potty and brought her in there with me. This may sound weird but every time I went she almost always would start going so I would put her on the potty and she would go.  She also got a small reward for going like a skittle or starburst.  She is so cute wearing panties though!  Potty training is hard work man!  I hope tomorrow brings about good results as well.  We usually go to the park on Tuesdays but tomorrow we will be staying here potty training.  I hope in the end all this is worth it.  Right now our biggest problem is bedtime.  Hopefully overtime it will get better.

Side note-lately I've really been thinking a lot about all the changes in life that happen.  Specially when kids are young.  It's crazy to take a step into the dark on a new faze of life.  Sometimes it can be a little intimidating and scary.  Yes I try to look at it as a blessing of moving forward with faith but it is also one of sadness to think my little girl is growing up.  I can't believe that she is going to be 3 in November.  She is so smart and she amazes me everyday.  I'm sure blessed to have her as my daughter!

Camping (Whidbey Island)

Well we decided to finally go camping this summer!  It was a lot of fun.  I wish it wouldn't have taken so long to get there because by the time we got there and set up it was like 7 and we had to rush to set everything up before it got dark but we still made it fun.  We decided to take a ferry to the island but it took forever.

  Getting on the ferry to go to Whidbey Island.  Our first time on a ferry = success!!! yay! Finally after waiting for 1 1/2 hours to get on.  But the only other way to the Island is about 1 1/2 hours around the top so I guess it was worth it to wait.  

 Once on the ferry you can get out of your car and go up top to see everything. This is the inside where passengers without a car ride.

The view from the deck up top.  On the way to the Island and Anna loved being on a boat.  

 Smores!  Anna loved cooking one too~!

Zach made a smore with oreo crust a reese's peanut butter cup and a marshmallow!  YUM!

 We were trying to take pictures in the dark and we got a super good laugh out of it.  You see the flash was so bright we would close our eye and they open them up at the last second.  This is one of the funny pictures we got.  Zach didn't even open his eyes!

 The best one we got.

 Our camp site~

 From the campsite you can walk down to the water.  This is pudget sound or the beach that we walked down to.  It's a fun little trail.  The end has a bunch of steps but it's fun and the girls enjoyed going down there for a bit.  We didn't stay too long because we had to get gone by 1pm from our campsite but we are glad we went.  We thought about staying another night but didn't because the night before wasn't a good one.  We put the girls in the car to sleep because it was warmer but I couldn't hear Kali if she screamed so I decided to just go in and feed her at like 2am.  Well she wouldn't go to sleep after I fed her and so both girls were up till like 330 or 4 and then only slept till like 7 when Anna came and hopped in our bed. Needless to say we were super tired and decided bed sounded really good.

 This was too cute not to post~!  She was on Zach's shoulders in this picture.

 As we were driving back we decided to go along the coast of the Island all the way around.  It took us about 3 hours to get home but it was fun seeing this part of Washington.

 One of the bridges we went over.  All those little Islands you can see I think are so cool!

Callings

Zach and I now have callings.  A member of the Bishopric came over Saturday night and gave us callings.  I'm the sunbeams teacher and Zach is a ward missionary.  I think Zach will be really good in this calling.  At first I wasn't so sure about watching kids all week and then going to church on Sunday and watching different kids but after getting set apart I feel this will be a good calling.  I know I will learn the gospel in a whole different way, in a simple way.  I think it's good sometimes to go back to the basics of the gospel because sometimes we make things way more complex then they need to be.  The most vital parts of the gospel are the simple truths and I'm excited to explore those simple truths with my sunbeams.

Life...

So some big things are happening over here.  First of all Kali is finally sleeping through the night.  Well at least she did 2 days ago.  Lat night she only woke up once.  I can handle that.  Waking up once is just fine.  More than that, no fun but overall I think she is doing better.  We decided to feed her a ton and see what happened.  Well I think it's helping.  But seriously this girl can down the food.  For instance last night she had a least 1 cup of watermelon, a few saltine crackers, a few graham crackers, a thing of mixed veggies, and some egg noodle probably enough to cover her tray.  That was all between about 530 and the time she went to bed.  Then I nurse her and put her to sleep.  It's crazy how much she eats but if it helps her sleep why not right?  Anna never ate this much at her age but every child is different, right?

The next thing is Zach and I signed up to go to LA Fitness.  I always swore I would never join that gym again because they can be soooo pushy and all kinds of things but well it's the closest one to our house and Zach can go with me.  We also can leave our kids in the kids club which hopefully will be nice.  I'm a little worried about Kali but hopefully overtime she will be okay.  I honestly wasn't sure I wanted to get a membership but after talking with Zach right now we've decided that is what is best for now.  Hopefully we won't regret this decision.

Zach has been doing splits with the missionaries a lot lately and I guess if the ward doesn't want us to have callings we will make one for ourselves.  The missionaries have been teaching this Hispanic lady named Mariana.  She is actually from Veracruz, Mexico.  Her husband Mauricio and his bother Juan are already members but have been inactive for a while.  Mariana is thinking about joining herself but she goes to work on Sundays usually and it's hard to get time off so she doesn't usually make it to church.  She has to come at least 1 more time before she can get baptized.  I sure hope that she does and that she becomes a member.  We have really become friends.  She is such a sweet woman and one night she invited us over for dinner and so a week later we returned the favor.  They made us tamales and we made them bbq chicken with rolls and salads.  She asked me to show her how to make bread and I said it's a deal as long as you teach me how to make tamales.  I'm excited to learn.  It will be a lot of fun.

I will try to get more pictures up soon.  I'ts hard to find the time to download them without one of the kids having a problem.koiogg-like typing something like this when I'm gone for 2 seconds...seriously