A Merry Little Christmas

It was a fun Christmas this year with Aiden.  Last year I just remember being really tired (Aiden was just a month old)..haha.

Aiden sat on Santa's lap last week at our ward Christmas party, but really didn't seem too interested.  He just wanted to get down and move on..haha.

Couldn't forget his candy ;)

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents' and had dinner followed by our annual Christmas Eve program (reading of the Christmas story and singing of hymns).  I didn't get a single picture.  With all of my sisters wanting pictures on their cameras, it usually just seems monotonous to get mine out too.  Whoops.  I'll try to be better.  We each opened a gift before we headed home.  

Aunt Amy got Aiden this mustache pacifier. Too funny!

We put Aiden to bed and put together his Christmas gift - a trike!

Trent and I woke up around 8 and opened our stockings and Aiden woke up around 8:15.  Here is video of him coming out to the Christmas tree.

Aiden was completely enamored with his trike so I had to get another video :)

I'm a little bummed that the trike is too big.  I think I saw a smaller one a few months back, but it was gone when we went to buy it.  He'll grow into it!

It was fun to just spend some time as our little family before we headed to my family's for a little bit.

Aiden is always the complete center of attention and always gets the most gifts..haha.

He got a cute little wagon from Aunt Amber that matches his new trike.

And then my camera died.  Dang.  Lesson learned for next year - charge the camera battery before Christmas morning.

We spent the rest of the day with Trent's family just relaxing.

I can't believe Christmas is already over.  I love the joy this season brings. I am so grateful for the birth of my Savior and His perfect example. And now that I'm a mom I can't help but think of Mary at this time of year and the humble circumstances in which she had her sweet baby. I am so grateful for her obedience and strength.

Reunited!

Well it's been a week, but I can't not post about it!

Sister Christensen returned home from her mission last Wednesday around 2:30 in the afternoon.  She served 18 months in the Carlsbad, California mission (learn more about missionary work HERE).  Having 5 daughters, my parents didn't know if they'd have any missionaries, so it was really fun for all of us to experience welcoming home a missionary (Amber could still serve, but as of right now, I don't think she wants to)!

Waiting outside Amy's terminal!

Our signs.  The first one includes Amy's catch phrases throughout her mission :)

It seemed like we all of a sudden saw Amy walking towards us and it was a huge rush to get our cameras ready and what not.  This is the best picture I got of my mom and Amy hugging..haha.  I was way too zoomed in and my camera is having shutter speed issues.  I think it's time for a new camera ;)

Again, completely missed them hugging b/c my camera is so dang slow :/

Aiden got to officially meet Aunt Amy!

He wasn't sure what all the commotion was about :)

My mom told me to hold our sign above my head? haha

We really wish Jill could have been there.  The life of a Utah teacher.

On the ride home and throughout the rest of the day Amy would just randomly keep tearing up.  It was very sweet.  She couldn't talk about her mission without crying.  She was really missing her "family" in California.  We all noticed a strong spirit about her and she just seemed so peaceful.  Very cool.  We are all so proud of her.  I know I would have never been brave enough to serve a mission.  

That night she was released as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had to hand over her name tag.  That was hard for her and she definitely misses wearing it.

She gave her homecoming talk on Sunday and talked about being a true disciple of Christ and gave 3 examples of people from her mission.

In the last week Amy has taken Aiden off on many different outings :) She's making up for lost time ;) We are so happy to have her home! Jill gets home tomorrow night and we are looking forward to a few weeks together as a family before Amy heads back to BYU!

Photo Sequence

So these pictures are from the end of October so they're pretty old, but I still thought I'd share them.  I mentioned in Aiden's 12-month post that he loves to drag things around, particularly my purse, Trent's backpack, or his diaper bag, which are all funny because they're way bigger than him.  I got this sequence of pictures.  This was before Aiden was really walking so it was quite a feat!  We were impressed!

He actually started way back by the computer, but we didn't really notice.  And as you can see, I was doing laundry that day.  It was the 1 day between our trip to Virginia and our trip to Utah.

He got pretty frustrated at this point because he couldn't get the backpack behind the table.  Trent helped him out :)  It's like Aiden's favorite place.

And then when Trent went to pick up Aiden, he still wouldn't let go of the backpack!  He always has us laughing :)

12 months

I'm finally getting Aiden's 12-month post up.  I've been sick this last week, so it's been on my to-do list all week.

Aiden turned 1 on November 17th.  You can check out his birthday party post here :)  We went in for his 12-month appt. last week and he weighed 20 pounds 10 oz. (25th percentile) and is 29 inches long (50th).  As Dr. Laks got up to leave, Aiden spontaneously started waving "bye bye" (he does it all the time lately) with a very serious look on his face, as if he was shooing her away.  It totally cracked us up. He has learned he does not like the doctor's office.  He had to get 3 vaccines - 1 in each leg and 1 in his arm.  I was feeling so bad because he was sick at the time.

Here is what Aiden's been up to in the last month (and a half since I'm behind):

• Aiden is full on walking.  All he wants to do is walk.  He took the most steps we'd seen on Halloween (you can see the video here). The only time we see him crawl anymore is when we're chasing him and he falls down and knows it'll take too long to get back up :)

• He has 8 teeth (4 on top, 4 on bottom) and a molar coming in.

• He loves to drag anything with straps or handles all around behind him.

• It's hard to keep him seated when I'm pushing him around in a cart during errands.  He's always trying to grab things off the shelves.

It's a little blurry b/c they were moving.  I don't normally let him do this, but we were both watching and moving slow.  I think I'll start putting him in the bigger part of the cart since it's deeper.

• He loves the shower.  We brought him into the shower with us a few times while he was sick to help clear up his congestion and now he always wants to come in.  Just this morning he tried to climb in the shower with me fully clothed!

• He went through a phase where he'd lift the toilet lid and stick his hands in.  And it was usually in our bathroom while I was busy trying to get ready.  We ended up getting a toilet lock.

Caught in the act!

• He laughs when we laugh.  It's so cute.  And he loves to be tickled. He puts himself in positions and just waits for us to tickle him :)

• He is becoming more and more independent.

On this day (it was actually his birthday!) he wandered off and I just found him in his room quietly reading books :)

• He still loves to crawl into small spaces.

• He loves to drink out of a glass and loves it even more if we let him do it himself.  He usually ends up pretty wet!

• This is weird, but Aiden will not let us have blankets.  Like when I cover myself in a blanket he always comes over and rips it off.  It's really annoying when I'm cold.  He usually just throws it on the floor and goes about what he was doing, but if I try to put it back on he immediately comes over and takes it off again..haha.  I'm laughing while typing this because we just don't get it!

• This one seems a little similar to the last one.  We have a 5-disc DVD player, and pretty much any time we're trying to watch a movie Aiden goes up to the player and changes the disc and walks away.  I guess he doesn't like when we watch movies?  Maybe he's just doing these things to get our attention?!

• He still runs over to the dishwasher whenever we open it.  In fact, he has learned to open it himself, so now we'll probably have to just keep it locked whenever we put it up.

• He is now a whole milk drinker!  Yay!

• Our house is just a constant mess.  We swear that Aiden sees us picking things up (cleaning up) and follows behind us and takes them right back out..haha.  We can't keep up with him!

• He is pretty much constantly jibber jabbering.  Sometimes it's like he's having a full conversation with us :)

• He continues to love a good play date.

On this morning, Aiden thought Jackson was so funny throwing the balloons around :)  Many of you already saw this on Facebook.

• And lastly, Trent wants me to add that Aiden is the best 12-month-old there ever was!!

A few final pictures.

Just look at that bed head!

Aiden loves his alphabet magnets from his birthday.

Aiden loves Ritz crackers and on this morning he only wanted Ritz for breakfast.  I had to get this shot with his stack of Ritz standing on the dishwasher..haha.  And he's in his Christmas jammies (thanks to Amanda!).

Our Christmas tree is looking pretty sad b/c Aiden keeps pulling all of the ornaments off.  He can reach ones I never thought he'd be able to and has already broken one, so I've had to move them up higher.

And I just realized that in like 3/4 of these pictures Aiden is in jammies.  I promise I get him dressed!  I guess I must think he's the cutest when he's in them :)

Disneyland

Trent and I got to go to Disneyland this last weekend!  My grandma had some tickets that had to be used by the end of this month that she gave my family, and no one else could really make it happen, so we were the lucky ducks ;)

We made it to the park around 4:30 on Friday and it was already getting dark (plus it had been raining so it was really cloudy).  We decided to do California Adventure Friday and Disneyland Saturday.

It was fun to see the park all decked out in Christmas :)

We started off with Soarin' Over California and then the Aladdin show. The genie was really funny and made the whole show.  He'd throw in all of these modern lines - like social media shout-outs.  I don't know if that makes sense.

Josh, Tiersha, and baby Charlotte headed over to the park once Josh got off work.  After dinner with them Trent and I went off to the World of Color show.  They do a whole water show, kind of like the Bellagio, but theirs is all colorful and they illuminate movie clips onto the water. Pretty impressive!  I wish there wasn't a really tall guy standing in front of me the whole time, but I think I caught most of it ;)

A tire tree in Cars Land before the show.

The World of Color show was here in front of the ferris wheel.  You can't really see the water.  It was cool though because they incorporated the ferris wheel some.

We met up with the Whitmore's again and Josh came on a few rides with us. 

The Tower of Terror.  Classic.

We were saying that the picture people must get so annoyed when people take a picture of their picture instead of paying to have it printed. Whoops, I was totally a culprit :/  The three of us are in the back row.

California Screamin'.

We stayed until the park closed at 11.

I wasn't feeling so cute, but I thought it was better to wear a hoodie than look cute in case there was more rain.

A picture with the Whitmore family :)  Tiersha looked so cute carrying Charlotte around in the Baby Bjorn.

The Whitmore's were so generous to let us stay at their place even though they were staying at Tiersha's parents' while babysitting the whole weekend!  Thank you again Whitmore's!

Saturday we had some lunch in Downtown Disney before heading into Disneyland.

Woody all made of Legos!

I loved that these tall trees had ornaments on them :)

The traditional picture when you first walk into Disneyland.

You'll notice that there were wreaths on all of the buildings.

Huge Christmas tree!

Sleeping Beauty's castle all covered in "snow" :)

First we hit up Star Tours.  I am not a Star Wars girl, but this was an awesome ride!

Had to get a picture with his dorky 3-D glasses on ;)

We proceeded to go on Space Mountain (which was different than I thought it would be - maybe it's different from Disney World), Matterhorn Bobsleds (too bumpy!), the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage (you actually get in a "submarine" and they take you under water - so cool!), Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (way more fun than I expected!), and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Just me and the castle :)

Jordan, if you're reading this, I got this picture b/c of the flower balls. They reminded me of yours.  So pretty!

It was dark by the time we went on all of those rides.

We walked through Tarzan's Treehouse.  I just love "Tarzan."

And were off to the Haunted Mansion.  It was completely revamped for Christmas.

I thought this banner hanging off the mansion was kind of fun.  Take a closer look at it :)

It was hard to get too many pictures while the ride was moving.

There were presents everywhere.

We finished the night with Splash Mountain.  Trent insisted.  Thankfully it was the last ride we wanted to hit because Trent got a lot more wet than he expected to!  We grabbed some dinner at the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe (I had the most delicious grilled cheese and Trent got some fabulous hot chocolate) and then we headed back to the Whitmore's.

Heading out.

We headed back to AZ Sunday morning.  Aiden stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles.  This was my first time being away from Aiden.  I was totally okay until we picked him up, and then tears were definitely shed. Aiden was asleep when we showed up so I rubbed his back to wake him up and he immediately gave us the biggest smile and stood up as fast as he could.  Totally melted my heart :)

And while we were riding roller coasters in Disneyland, Aiden was riding a roller coaster of his own!  Grandma and Grandpa got it for him and it is hilarious!  Aiden loves it!

I was watching Aiden and not the camera..whoops!

A huge thank you to Grandma Whitmore for the tickets and to Tanis and Kent for watching our sweet boy!

And I promise - Aiden's 12-month post is coming up next!