One Month Old

I can't believe it has gone by so FAST! Shane and Brock are very in love with him. Brock especially goes out of his way to be with Blake and I love it!!! Blake has been a pretty fussy baby but we are figuring him out and he is getting a little bit calmer.

No new news here really, Dan got some temp work and we will find out hopefully the end of this week or beginning of next if he gets it. It is very labor intensive work at a cheese factory, but a paycheck is a paycheck right now and there is opportunity for advancement.

I am hoping to get on with school the first of January but only time will tell if that is going to happen. I have to get Blake a little bit more stable before I leave Dan to weather all three boys on his own!

Shane is kicking butt is kindergarten and he really loves it. He is reading really well now and his writing and spelling is getting really good also. I love watching him learn so much and be excited about it. I worried so much over him but he has proved to be a champ!

Brock is dying to go to preschool too and if Dan gets this job he will. He is my little buddy at home but he is so bored! Helping mommy do laundry has lost it's cool. He is a good sport about it though. I keep telling him he can go to preschool when he stops sucking his thumb, cause I know that's not gonna happen!

Halloween

The boys had such a blast this year. John and Brad, my BIL's set up a small trailor behind a 4 wheeler and pulled them behind it, they got a fireplace and camp chairs too, they areso spoiled!!!

Blake Bradly Christensen

So I have been a huge slacker, but here is our sweet Blake's story. I got induced on Oct. 23rd at 7p.m. at night. I get the gown on and jump into the bed and the nurse comes in and asks me why I am there. I look at Dan quite confused and say sarcastically, cause I have a cold. She didn't think it was funny and said again no, why are you here. I am very confused at this point because isn't it obvious? I am in Labor and Delivery and very pregnant.....so I say to have a baby. Than she says why are you in here so early? Oh, now I understand that she wants to know why I am being induced at 38 weeks. So I explain and she seems satisfied, than she starts interrogating me about my cold, at this point I want to shoot the lady. So we start the pitocin and my doctor comes in around 9ish and breaks my water. I hadn't gotten the epidural yet and my Dr. suggested I ask for it soon. So I did right after he left which I am so glad I did because the contractions came like a freight train very soon after. By the time the guy came to give me the epidural I was in a lot of pain. After the epidural I was very relaxed and fell asleep. I woke up at about 12:15 to a lot of pressure, I was about to call the nurse (thank goodness they changed shifts and I got a different nurse) when she came in to check me. I was at a 9 so she started to get a few things ready when the pressure got a lot worse so I asked her to check me again (it had only been like 2 minutes since she checked me last) and sure enough I was a 10 and stage 2. She ran around getting everything ready than called the doctor. She had everything all ready so she suggested we do a practice push, I told her my last baby came out on the third push, so really fast, and she just said oh, well let's just see how you do. So I pushed and she was surprised at the progress and told me to wait a minute. She did a few more things than suggested I do another practice push, so I did and I almost pushed the baby out, he was crowning and she made me wait for the doctor to get there. WOW, that hurt is all I can say. It seemed like an eternity before the doctor got there and I could finally finish pushing him out. The nurse afterward said that next time if a nurse suggests that I push without the doctor being there tell her no. I thought that was funny. He was born at 1:04 on the 24th weighing 7lbs. 8 oz. and 19 inches long. He blew us both away with his blonde hair and blue eyes. I am very much in love and very sleep deprived. The boys have been pretty darn great with him.

Shane's B-day and Pumpkins!

Shane turned 6 this year. It blew me away, when did he get so big? He had a lot of fun and Brock was just as excited as Shane was over his presents! It was quite the laugh! We carved pumpkins the next night and that was fun. Shane tried to do most of it himself but he isn't quite strong enough! He put in a good effort though! We got Brocks all cut out and he spent the rest of the night putting the peices back in. It was cute.

Funeral

I am updating so late that I am going to be posting a million different posts today (hopefully I can get them all done!) I want to start out with Herb's funeral. It was great having family all together. The mortuary let us take his caket up to the burial site with a bobcat that Dan drove. It was pretty awesome! The service was so inspirational, he was such an amazing man, onery yes, but also very amazing.

Herbert Eugene

Dan's dad passed away while in Armenia on Friday the 11th. We got notified by the Armenian consulate on the 16th. He was in Armenia trying to find Liz's genealogy, what a brave hero at the age of 77 going to another country to strive and fulfill on of Liz's dreams that she could never accomplish. He died of a heart attack alone in his room. He was such a good generous man. He was the kind of man that was silent about his good deeds. He has touched many lives. We all have our time to go and I know he so desperately wanted to be reunited with Liz again, he missed her so much and felt very lost without her. What a great man who had so many accomplishments. We love you and will miss you so much! I will try no to be too sad for me and my kids because I know you are home now.

No new news

Shane started Kindergarten and really truly LOVES it! He is learning how to read and quite to my suprise, he is so excited every morning to sit down with me and read. He is being so patient with it which is very uncharacteristic of him. Brock tails along and pretends to read too, it is pretty cute! He is really picking up on his letters and sound though! Transformers is all we really hear around our house right now. Brock is especially into them! His favorite quote is "transform and roll out". He is always pretending to be Bulkhead, Bumblebee, Optimus Prime (Optimus Brock sometimes too) and a few other I am blanking out right now. I love watching there little imaginations at work it so so cute! We went to Walmart the other day and candy corn is just about my favorite thing in the world and I let Brock hold the bag while we went to the check out line, as he is holding it he looks up at me and says, this is my mission mom, to eat all the treats. I cracked up, it truly is his mission in life, I swear it!

I am still pregnant and very miserable, the picture is of me at 30 weeks. I have made the decision to try everything (nonharmful of course) I can once I hit 36 weeks to get this kid out!!! My belly is so huge and it REALLY hurts this time around. I have always gotten really big with my pregnancies but this one is off the charts! I am very excited to meet this little guy and have him in our family. We are pretty much ready for him, just waiting now!

Dan still has not found any work, besides construction, but we are at least getting interviews lately. We just got notified that his last one went to someone else which seems to be the normal song and tune of our life lately, but he has another one on Friday.

The first picture is od my little sis Hillary and Dan after I did tyheir glitter toes, yes Dan let me do his toes! The third one is of Shane who fell asleep with Dan head phones for shooting on his head. That kid cracks me up!!!

We never got to move, which I was very very very...........sad about. The old lady that lives upstairs bruised her leg.....it is healed now but they couldn't move because of it. Go figure. I have been kind of looking for other places but I keep thinking we need to just hang tight and see if we can actually get some sort of a miracle and find a job. Maybe I am being foolish, every opportunity that has knocked on our door the last year has not worked out. I am getting tired of hoping.

Finally Updating

I have been kind of onery lately so I haven't updated. My last couple posts seemed pretty grouchy so I took a small time out. We are slowly getting ready for our new baby, that we had originally decided to name Luke but now it is very undecided, I think we have at least narrowed it down to Guage, Blake and Russell; we will call him Rusty for short.

The boys are both super excited for him to come. I think Shane will deal with the change really fantastic and be a great helper but Brock.......he LOVES being the baby right now so we shall see how it goes. He acts so very excited right now but that could change in a heart beat!

Shane starts kindergarten in 2 weeks and we are all very excited! He is getting a bit naughty and bored at home. School does wonderful things for that boy!

Brock is hopefully going to be starting preschool in about a month also, we are just waiting to see if he got accepted into the headstart program. The 4 year olds get priority so if there is space he will get in! I think that if he doesn"t we might just put him into an at-home preschool for two days a week or something.

I am doing great at cosmetology school and I am really loving it. I struggle a lot with coloring peoples hair, it is pretty easy to do it is just understanding what color to put where ect......not as easy as it looks! I am in heaven doing it all also. I never saw myself being that person but I am really loving it!

Dan is still looking for work. Things are looking bleak out there but we are surviving and he does work construction during the day so I guess something is better than nothing!

We are moving in two weeks to the upstairs apartment and I am SO super excited! Is has more space and TWO FULL BATHROOMS!!!!! You would never think, but an extra bathroom is more exciting to me than anything else in the whole place! The move should be pretty easy too since it is just upstairs.

Well that is about it! I am so ready and excited for this baby to come out I can't stand it. I have been getting the clothes out to see what we have and what we need and it is so fun! I can't believe how small they come out!

This will be fast but we are having another boy! We are excited to welcome to our family Lukus Bradly Christensen

Crazy Life for Crazy People

So we had some really good talks while we were on the cruise and made some good (I hope) decisions. The first decision we made was that Dan is going to go back to school for an Engineering degree.We were just going to head for another bachelor's but the counselor said it would be the same time wise to get a Masters, so he is shooting for that. His first class starts on the 25th, he has got to get a head start on math poor guy!!

Along with all of this we decided to send me to cosmetology school. I started it this week, so Dan now gets to play mommy which he is very good at and I go full time during the day to school. Dan is working night so it is hard feeling like we are just passing each other but we will get used to it. I am trying to get in absolutely as many hours as I can before the baby gets here cause that is when it is going to get hairy! I am going to trade to night school which is part time so I only have to leave the baby for 4 hours each night.

The boys are adjusting fine to all of this, Brock is a bit confused and when I come home he gets so excited and says he found me! I must just be lost in his little brain. Shane seems to not care one bit so i guess that is nice.

I find out a week from this Monday what we are having. I am excited. I cannot believe I am only 18 weeks right now, it seems (and looks unfortunately for me) like I should be a lot further along. I have had TONS of people comment on how big I am, am I SURE it's not twins, how scared I must be for the end.......people........SHUT UP! I know I am big, it is obvious, LEAVE ME ALONE ABOUT IT!!! After a few comments on my size than they think about asking the nice questions like do you know what it is yet or when are you due. I am very ready to be done with this pregnancy. Maybe it is the hormones but I am so tired of it already. I think I am going to take the counter off here, it is just depressing . Shane loves it though. He asks all the time to see it. He is so excited for this baby. He is very sure it is a girl, his preschool teacher called me and offered her old baby girl clothes to me. I was a bit embarrassed to have to say I would love them...if I am having a girl. She was really shocked we didn't know what is was yet. My Shane. My camera won't work so I will have to post pics later! Sorry!

Cruisin' Fun!!!

We got back about a week ago and the reality of life is in full force! The kids did really fantastic, much thanks to Brittany, and had tons of fun while we were gone! It was crazy expensive to call them so that was one of the hardest parts to not be able to hear there little voices. Brock's reaction when we got home was priceless! He seemed truly shocked to see us. I think he might have written us off and gone forever. I loved coming home to them. Shane is being really awesome and just wants lots of extra hugs and has dreams of us leaving him but Brock is determined to make me pay. He is throwing fits left and right and again is having a bunch of potty accidents. The poor guy just doesn't handle change well. It should be fun when the baby comes.

I will give a replay of our fabulous vacation. I think it was the best vacation ever! We dropped the kiddos off on Friday night and Brit and Josh made us an awesome bbq dinner and we put the kids to bed. They didn't really seem to care too much that we had left they just wanted to see the stars and moon on Diesel's ceiling. It was such a weird quiet ride home Saturday morning we got up at 5:00 a.m. and left to the airport. We had a layover in Atlanta than finally got into Miami at 4:30. My Dad and step Mom Pamela met us at the airport (we had to stay later at the airport cause one of our bags didn't make our flight despite the 3 hour layover) anyways the met us at the airport and took us to get Cuban food. Oh my goodness, I LOVE Cuban food! I was nervous cause I am not huge on trying new foods like that but it was really good! A bonus also that my husband and Pamela finally got to meet after 7 years. Thanks again guys for the awesome dinner and fun night!

So on Sunday we met a bus and went to the boat, we pretty much just hung out, unpacked, ate dinner than went up and watched the sunset. It was the best one that first night. So beautiful!!! Monday was one of our days at sea so we mainly just ate and read in the sun,We did get the luxury of witnessing an elderly gentleman with quite a large beer gut in a leopard print speedo. It was a mix between comical and totally disgusting. That night was our Formal night for dinner and that was really fun getting all dressed up. By Monday I started swelling pretty bad.

Tuesday we went to Grand Cayman where we went to sting ray city. That was tonz of fun. They swim all around you. I held one which was cool and I was too chicken to feed than but one leaped out of the water to get food from my SIL Kim, scared the crap out of me. One decided to go in between my BIL Jon's legs and almost knocked him over. It was such a cool experience! The next stop was snorkeling which wasn't really all that great we didn't see much! The last stop with the boat tour was to catch and see some pretty huge star fish. Dan jumped in and caught one but by that point I was feeling really sick so I just admired from the boat. After that we went to a very awesome beach and swam and ate lunch. It was a very beautiful beach!!!!

The next day we went to Roatan where we went to a Botanical garden and drug my poor FIL up a mountain saw some beautiful jungle and nasty spiders. It turns out we missed the gardens, we took a wrong turn! Than we went and got some tacos and the best ever hot wings! We snorkeled there which had some pretty fun snorkeling.

Thursday we went to Belize, we got tendered from the boat again so I took an anti-nausea pill which made me feel pretty lethargic and calm. We took the scariest van ride of my life to go cave tubing. We almost hit a bus and a tree in a two second time frame. The people drive insanely out there. We got to the place for the tubing to find out there is a 20-30 min hike to get to the entrance...so we drug my poor FIL up on another hike. He was such a good sport even though we all knew he didn't want to. So floating down a river through a cave was a really cool experience. It was calm and very peaceful. The scenery was breathtaking. After cave tubing we went zip-lining...they wouldn't let me go cause I was pregnant....I was crazy bummed but it seemed pretty cool!

Friday was out other day at sea so we repeated the day in the sun which almost all of us got fried this time and eating most of the day. That night we celebrated my FIL's 77th b-day. Brad kindly drug his projector and we all watched family pictures on a large screen. It was a lot of fun!

Saturday we went to Key West. This was my favorite day! We rented scooters for 3 hour and drove around to see Key West. We went to a restaurant that has won the best Cuban for 8 years in a row. It was amazing! I even out ate Dan, I was embarrassed but very quickly got over it! We went than to find some of the best every Key Lime Pie. I still drool thinking about it. Oh wait I almost forgot that being led by Jon and Mara we broke into a Marriott hotel pool and went swimming. It was really fun. We got some souvenirs for the boys and went back to the boat.

Sunday we came into Miami again and had quite the wait until our flight left out of Ft. Lauderdale so we decided to rent a room at the Hilton and swim. It kind of turned out to be a stressful day cause nothing seemed to work out and I was very over tired and got quite over emotional and ornery. A side of me I don't think any of Dan's family has ever seen so sorry guys! Sometime I just need to go to bed!!!

Well that pretty much sums up our vacation!

St George

My SIL blessed her twins and they live down in St. George so the whole Christensen side of the family went down (well almost, we missed Lisa:( ) We had tons of fun and unfortunately I suck at taking pics so I got one activity that we did and that was pretty much it! The boys LOVED their time; Shane went through serious withdrawals when we got home from all the constant fun he had. Brock had quite a few potty adventures and let's just say he ended up in pull-ups after the first few hours of being there! I will save his dignity but it wasn't too much fun for anyone!

When we got there we went to a place called (shoot I don't remember) but anyways it was a lot of fun! Shane went through this really thin slot a bunch of times and loved it. Thank goodness for good cousins cause I was too freaked out to do it. It is a TIGHT squeeze and I was a little claustrophobic!

Than we went to the sand dunes and let the kids play and help Uncle Brad dig a huge hole aka bunker. The boys were all taking off their shirts so Shane did too, than Brock had to take off his shirt, than his pants and started to take off the undies when I convinced him not to streak the sand dunes!!!

After we had a great dinner at Mara's condo/hotel room. The next days was probably the best! Dave called us so went and saw him, Lei and the kiddos (man how they have grown just after a few month of being gone!) and we all tanked up to Mara's again and swam all day. Brad and Kim came a little late and Cami and Shawn came too with Miss Mia. It was a ton of fun!!! The kids crashed so hard that night!

The next day was the blessing, it was so sweet! Those babies are so cute! We had A HUGE Hawaiian dinner after that was absolutely amazing! Those Hawaiians sure now how to cook and eat! Thanks Cami and Shawn!

Zoo Fun

So I was really bored and decided to take the kids to the zoo. Brock was in heaven. He was especialy excited to see the animals that were on Madagascar and so the zebras were Marty, ect. He was so funny, Shane on the other hand was dying to go play on the play ground and that was all I heard. Are we done yet...can I go play now.... it made the whole event loads of fun! Pictures coming soon...computer is freaking out!