Christmas Morning

What is it about Star Wars? They hadn't even seen the movie yet!!
Carter with his loot

Jamison's Leapster

Torturing them before they can open presents for a photo op

The boys were so fun on Christmas morning. They loved every little thing and were so gracious, excited and happy. Jamison was up at the crack of dawn and suffered until Carter woke up so that we could all enjoy Christmas together. It was wonderful fun.

Christmas Eve

All the presents still wrapped and beautiful by the tree
The infamous Christensen Christmas Eve Program in all its lovely chaos

This is as good as it gets for a family photo with three uncooperative kids

I love Christmas Eve even better than Christmas Day - you still have all of the fun anticipation for the next day, and yet it feels so special because it's already here. I love our Christmas program especially because now my kids get to take over the spotlight as they perform talents and songs. Thanks to my mom for all of her hard work to pull this together each year - I'm so grateful for my wonderful family!

Sleeping under the Christmas tree
Carter was not a fan of Santa

Jamison was Santa's best friend

Making sugar cookies with Grandma and Grandpa Lee

I love Christmas! We have enjoyed the season so much and listen to the Christmas songs every day. Sadly, Wham's "Last Christmas" is still the favorite, but I'm working on getting less secular Christmas music to replace it! Carter is very scared of Santa, but Jamison understands that Santa is bringing the goods so will run ahead of anyone in line to make sure he gets his requests in! (Leapster and a remote control canon) We also let them sleep under the Christmas tree one night for fun, and that was a hit. Little kids make Christmas such a wonderful, magical time, and having a new baby brings a special tenderness in my heart for the humble surroundings of our Savior's birth.

Christmas Baby

If you remember Jamison as a baby, Sienna is an exact duplicate with a bow on her head. This bow might be a bit small though. We're so glad to have this sweet baby in our family - as you can see, she is excited to be here too! Her little googly eyes just light up when she sees her family.

A Blurry November

Sweet baby sleeping in her swing
Trying to smile and talk to Daddy

The Lee family and Thanksgiving Feast

Carter in PJs with his marble race

I'm going to be honest. I don't remember much that happened for the rest of November. There were plenty of days that I took care of three little kids, but beyond that, I'm not too sure what else we did. As you can see, we did have Thanksgiving here at the house, but I provided the pumpkin pies and Charlene did almost everything else. It was nice to have everyone around to confirm my suspicions that baby Sienna is adorable! I included Carter's very favorite marble race which we construct almost daily. In this pic, he's still in his PJs which also happened quite a bit in November. :)

Bringing baby home

Three kids is a bit busy, but for the most part we are adjusting well. We just don't do anything beyond feeding baby, holding baby, feeding kids, trying to get ready for the day, and then trying to get to bed at night. It's a good life.

Sienna is such a sweet, cuddly baby and while the boys have been thrown for a loop, they love love love their little sister. They both are acutely aware of her and her needs and remind me if I'm not getting to her fast enough.

Baby Sienna

So sweet and innocent
We all love her already!

3 minutes old

Sweet baby Sienna was born on November 6th at 11:53 a.m. I had contractions for a couple months, and then super intense ones all day on the 5th. I had dinner out with some friends and they wanted to rush me to the hospital but since I'd been doing the same thing for weeks, I wasn't as worried. I was up the whole night suffering, and by 5:30 a.m. I begged Ryan to call my mom so we could get into the hospital. I am friends with the anesthesiologist who works there, so of course I was interested in seeing him immediately. My wonderful friend came and hooked me up so that by about 10:00 I was happy, and then she was here before noon! What a dream.

She is so sweet and perfect and looks almost exactly like Jamison! It is amazing how quickly you fall in love with these little fresh people. Jamison and Carter love her too and were so happy to see her. To be honest, they enjoyed moving the bed up and down with the buttons a little more, but they also thought she was great. How did our family ever feel complete without her?

Halloween

In their Halloween shirts at Lorie's house
Pirate Jamison

Pumpkin Carter

We had such a fun Halloween! Lorie had us over for a healthy lunch before all the candy began. She is such a great aunt to the boys and we'll miss her since she is going to Scotland to work for the next year. Trick or Treating was super fun and the boys were happy with about 10 pieces of candy. (What a relief since I was tired and it started raining. Our neighborhood is very hilly and it is quite a workout just getting door to door. If you think I'm a wimp, come try it next year.) They loved even more to answer the door and hand out candy. I love that part too - but I have to be concerned when the "kids" coming are in college: one particular friend was balding! That is serious desperation for some candy.

Out of the Crib

Carter's last morning in his baby bed.
First night in the big boy bed! The stars make it awesome.

Since the baby is due at any moment, I figured it was time for Carter to stop sleeping in her crib. I like to think ahead. I can't believe what a difference it makes to see him in a big boy bed. He loves it and feels so proud to be in the same room with Jamison. They look so cute sleeping in there together. I guess it's official, Carter isn't a baby anymore! Sadly, his sleep-in's are over as well - now that he's with Jamison they both are up at the crack of dawn. I had been spoiled by his lazy sleep-in mornings. Too bad Jamison can't sleep past seven...

Scared Mom at the Scarecrow Festival

Tons of Inflatables
Fun friends Jack and Max

Loving it!

My friend Jen and I are on the same baby schedule. She has two boys the same ages as me and we are both due in the next few weeks. So we decided to take the boys to the Scarecrow Festival. It was super fun and a beautiful day to be outside - tons of inflatables and games for the kids. We'll see if Jen wants to come with me again though...

At one point the kids took off in different directions while playing games. Jen offered to watch Jamison so I could grab Carter, only I couldn't find him. It had been 5 seconds! The place was huge and tons of people everywhere and then my mind races because some guy had been looking at me and trying to get my attention (I think we had been on a date or something and I avoided him), but of course now I'm sure that he was after my adorable kids. So, after 15 minutes of panicked looking (it felt like eternity), I found Carter happily playing a toss the beanbag game. He was totally uninterested in me as I sat down on the ground next to him and cried with abandon for a few minutes. Let's blame it on pregnancy hormones, but not finding your kid is the worst feeling in the world.

Party in St. George

Lounging in our hotel room
Carter CRASHED in the afternoons after swimming all day.

Dad snuggling with boys before we left. They are so cute!

So, crazy woman that I am, I took the boys (without husband but plus my mom and dad) to St. George for one last party with them before the new baby. Don't mind that I'm the size of New York, we still had a great time swimming, playing mini-golf, going to parks, and best of all watching my dad win the Huntsman games in tennis! Of course - he's very sporty and has always been disappointed with my lack of coordination. We had so much fun - my boys LOVE St. George and are sure that it has something to do with monkeys since it was clearly named after Curious George. In fact, for years, the boys have called it "EE EE OH OH" (monkey sound) since St. George was too hard to say.

I did have a lovely swelling episode after eating my favorite Japanese grill (Samurai 21) and then going to Les Mis with my Dad. At the intermission, I couldn't walk because my legs had absorbed all of that salt and I could hardly even bend my knees! Lovely.

Babymoon

Beautiful Sun Valley

Fun times! You can't even tell I'm pregnant - oh wait, maybe you can.

See the swan? We stayed at the Sun Valley Lodge.

Ryan and I took one last trip together without the boys before the new baby. We are so lucky to go play with our friends the Johnson's and their best baby in the world. Really. He either sat silently or slept the entire time. Where do you get those kind of babies? We had a great time enjoying the beauty of Sun Valley, golfing, reading, playing cards, playing tennis, swimming and eating. It is always fun to remember how much we like being together - it sure makes for a different dynamic when you aren't trying to juggle the kids!

AMP office

Ryan finished doing a build-out on his office this summer. It looks great - what a change from the office being in our house. We've come a long way from Castleford days in Texas!

Mini Golf

So miniature golf has been the rage all summer and I thought I'd post a picture of the boys doing their thing. They are both getting quite accurate: Jamison usually gets it in within 3 and although Carter may hit it 29 times, he still celebrates when it goes in the hole.

I can't resist Carter's little face and moppy hair.

Life is a Competition

Jamison and Carter must create a sporting event competition over every task in their lives. Whether they are stuffing waffles in their faces to finish eating first, first one up the stairs, first one in their seat belt, first one to the sidewalk, first one to brush teeth, first one to gulp down their juice, etc. This is followed by the conversation between the boys that I hear at least 300 times each day:

I won!

I won first!

I won first!

No, I won first!

And then the inevitable fight over who won.

Unless, it's actually clear who won and then there is substantial gloating by one and substantial mourning by the other. Carter's is more pathetic, but Jamison's is more loud and they are equally ANNOYING. I'm not sure how to end this thing and I have a feeling that time will only create a greater competitive nature between the two of them.

Maybe I should start to create competitions for who loves me the most or who wants to help clean up the most, but I'm sure those things won't be interesting for some reason.

Jamison's thoughts on the baby

Here's Jamison perched on my big belly.

Jamison has been so excited about the new baby through the entire pregnancy, but now as he tells me that my belly is "REALLY FAT" and thinks the baby is coming soon (sadly still two months away), he has been very curious about the details. Granted, his misconceptions may come from the fact that I'm not about to discuss details with a five year old, but here are my favorite two today.

First he was very concerned about how the baby was eating. He wanted to know if we should give her some milk in a bottle. I was trying to explain that the baby was eating what I was eating; that we shared my food. His little confused face was priceless as he asked, "so she just goes and eats in your tummy like this?" (Gesturing eating with a fork)

Then, he wanted to know what she was wearing. I explained that she's naked now, but that we'll put clothes on her when she comes out. He did not like that so much, and wanted to know if I could just swallow some clothes so she could put them on!

First Day of School

Jamison is back in preschool again! This year he is actually enrolled in two separate preschools - on Mon, Weds he goes to a gym where they will help him expend as much energy as possible. On Tues, Thurs he goes to Learning Dynamics which is very academic and his teacher is awesome! He loves them both and we have created a schedule because he's so excited to know which school he gets to go to and when he gets play days too.
He wanted to show his gym skills before he even went to class!
He's actually quite fearless as his gym teacher let me know he was doing flips immediately on the tramp into the marshmallow pit!
After school showing off his hard work. When I asked him what he did on his first day, he told me that "I know how to read everything now." Guess he's in the right place!

Summer Days

We've had such a great summer and I'm so sad to see it end. It's been lovely to have a very mellow schedule and spend our days outside swimming, playing, more swimming, golfing, playing soccer, baseball, tennis, bubbles, etc. We've been to baseball games, aquariums, parks, water parks, California, St. George, etc. I try to be outside as much as possible since it didn't get warm until late June and winter will come way before I'm ready for it. Since I was terrible at taking pics all summer, I'm posting a few of us during down time at home. Carter loves to play hide and seek and his favorite spot is behind Daddy's shirts.
This is Carter's new funny face and he made it up himself. He looks so funny like a little mad hatter.
Jamison loves to help me make cakes! He wants to be a cook when he grows up at a restaurant called Coco's in California where they serve breakfast foods. Right now the kids like breakfast food the best so we eat breakfast for dinner quite regularly (pancakes, eggs, waffles, etc.)
This is poor Ryan TRYING to get some work done. The boys just can't resist especially since he bought....
a new I-Phone! It's all about the I-Phone. In fact, when Ryan got home from his trip last week he asked Jamison if he had missed him. Jamison's response: "I missed your I-phone!"