The celebrations continue....

I have not written in what seems like forever, and I have so much to catch up on......but, let's start with the fun and exciting days (that turned into weeks) to celebrate the boys' birthday. :) Boy these little men are spoiled! They just have too much family! :) And this year, we were ALL about baseball!

s our gift to the boys, Teage and I really wanted to take them to a Mariner game, considering that is their number one pastime. As we all know, they are still very obsessed with baseball, and going to see the Mariners play is just about the most exciting thing in the world for them. Which works out, since Teage and I enjoy it as well. We invited Grammy, Papa, Uncle David, and Auntie Lindsey to come along with us, were able to find wonderful seats thanks to stubhub, and ended up only being about 5 rows up from the field. All in all, a fabulous game! Plus, the M's even won! :) And added bonus, Dylan ended up getting an official major league ball out of the whole thing as well. We were standing next to the field after batting practise, and one of the groundskeepers found a ball sitting right there on the field and handed it to him. He was thrilled!!!

The whole group, minus Daddy

There he is :)

Another fun surprise, we put a message on the board for the boys' birthday. Definitely worth it! It was so much fun!

Then a little while later we had a small family party over at our house as well to celebrate with the rest of our large family. :) The boys really wanted to have Mariner cakes for their birthday, specifically Ken Griffey and Ichiro cakes, though I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to pull that off. Finally I decided to do baseball cakes instead, with the players' numbers on them, and thankfully the boys really enjoyed it. :) We had fun just eating dinner and chatting with everyone, watching the boys open some presents and blow out candles, and just enjoying the beautiful day. It was perfect. We are so grateful for all of those people who love the boys and make them feel so special. And I really can't believe that they are three already. I remember sitting there at home with them throughout the entire first year of their life thinking "will they EVER get to 1 year old?".....it seemed like an eternity at the time. :) And now they are jumping, running, baseball playing three year olds. The time truly goes by so quickly.

I love these little men so much. They challenge me constantly, and are such a blessing in our lives. Teage and I feel so grateful to have them in our little family.

Happy Birthday Dylan and Lucas!!!!!!!!

With Uncle Brandon and Auntie Tracy

The boys with my oldest friend, Lindsay

The "other" Christensen Clan. :) Uncle Brett, Auntie Beth, Kai, and Auntie Sunni

Boys with Tutu (not sure where Poppi ran off to!)

Papa Christensen

I love all three of my boys!!!!

My big 3 year olds!

Happy Birthday to my Dylan and Lucas! I can't believe that it has already been three years. Know that I love you forever and ever, and am so proud of the sweet little boys you are becoming!! 5 days old

1st birthday

2nd birthday

Just a few days ago while visiting Western, where Mommy and Daddy met

Off To The Beach!

After all the craziness of the auction was over, and I was able wind down a little bit :), we decided to take our little family to the beach for a weekend of relaxation and family time. We realized on our way down there that we really hadn't taken a vacation just the four of us, ever. We always are visiting someone else, or going with someone else. And not that we don't love doing those things as well, but this was a real treat for us. We left on a Friday morning and went to Klipson Beach in southern Washington, and stayed through Sunday. We really didn't have an agenda, we just did whatever we wanted! Fabulous! We rented a little one room cabin just about a half mile from the beach that had a fire place and little kitchen, and it ended up being perfect for us. We made a make-shift bed on the pull out sofa for the boys and lined it with pillows so they wouldn't fall off, made little lunches and ate wherever, walked around town and on the beach, and played as much baseball as possible. The beach was practically deserted, so we got it all to ourselves! I can't tell you how much it filled my tank, even just a few days. We had such a wonderful time as a family, and made some wonderful memories. The boys are still talking about it to this day and want to go back as soon as possible. :)

Snoqualmie Night for the Cure 2010

Snoqualmie Night for the Cure

May 14th 2010

In memory of our friend Jolene Armstrong and in honor of all those still fighting.....

We will find a cure for Cystic Fibrosis!!

We miss you Jolene!
Our Cystic Fibrosis Benefit Auction went so well this year. After months of planning and preparing, we finally were able to pull off a wonderful and fun night of fundraising and remembering. What a joy it was to be there with a room full of Jolene's friends and family, friends of many other families effected by CF, and wonderful supporters! I am so thankful for everyone's love and support!
Thank you so much to everyone who came the night of, volunteered, donated, and helped in any way!

The amazing night began around 6pm with silent auction, raffle, appeitzers, and fun with friends. We then had a sit down dinner with food donated from the Olive Garden and Outback Steakhouse, as well as some live entertainment provided by the SnoValley Dolls (who were amazing!). The night was beautiful and all of the decorations were just perfect. We had a wonderful tribute for Jolene and spoke about cystic fibrosis and finding a cure. Karine gave a amazing talk about Jolene's life and spirit, which was beautiful. After the dinner we did our live auction with Teage as our amazing auctioneer, and he did an fabulous job. We had so much fun! Overall, the night was such a success and I was extremely grateful for all of the help and support that we received.

Our live auction table
The beautiful cake that was donated for our lovely dessert!

Our auction items were absolutely AMAZING this year! Such generosity, even in this economy.

Some of our wonderful volunteers.....we couldn't have accomplished this night without them. They were all so very amazing, just jumped right in and did everything they could to make this night a success. I LOVED all of them!

Teage was our amazing auctioneer!! He did such a wonderful job!!! I was very proud of him.

Erin, Karine, and I after when the night was coming to a close. What fantastic supports they are!

My little family the day after the auction with our special Ropes for Hope bracelets that Kaitie made us. Kaitie also came the night of the auction to sell her bracelets and be Vanna for Teage during the live auction. She was such a good sport! Thank you Kaitie!!!

Happy Mother's Day and Anniversary

What a big weekend we had for Mother's Day, as it was also the same weekend as Teage and my 6 year anniversary! Teage and I usually trade years for planning our anniversary celebrations, and this year (fortunate for me!) was Teage's year.....so poor guy had to plan a whole weekend this time around. :) And he really did a fabulous job. He decided to surprise me with a fun day, both with the boys, and with just the two of us. Friday night we went to a Mariner game, which was so much fun! We didn't make it on the jumbotron this time, and every few minutes Dylan kept asking me, "Mommy, why we not on the big TV??" Hilarious....

On Saturday we first went mini golfing with the boys, who had a FABULOUS time! They did not want to leave, though we had already been out there for quite a while. They were adorable with their little golf clubs, trying so hard to get that little ball in to the hole. I think that I had even more fun taking pictures of thier little faces!

Then we went out to lunch with Tutu and Poppi at one of my favorite resturants of all time, The Spaghetti Factory. We even got to sit in the train!

The boys went to hang out at Tutu's house so Teage and I could go have some time together after lunch. Teage took me up north to the huge outlets in Mukilteo which we had never been able to go to before, and we just walked around by ourselves, trying on clothes, enjoying the sunshine, and not worrying about anything! Then he had this amazing plan to make me go on my old marching band field and play my saxaphone all by myself while he video taped me......oh goodness! :) Fortunately for me, the field was closed for renovations, so I escaped that concert. :) We did a little shopping, hung out at the street market, and then went over and had dinner with the boys. What a fabulous day!!!!!

Us after a long, but fun day! :)

Mother's Day was great as well....Teage had to work, but we had dinner together when he got home and I got some amazingly sweet cards from all of my boys. I love my family!!!!! And I am a very blessed girl!

Happy 6 Year Anniversary Baby!!!!!!!!!!

Time Out for ME!!!

I have so much to write about, these past few months have been big and busy ones for us. But, I am going to start with a little get-a-way that I was able to have with my girlfriends, because let's face it, those are few and far between and I had a fabulous time! I was able to drive over to Spokane with some of my buddies from our ward, as well as my great friends Kim and Karine to Time Out for Women for the weekend. Time Out is an amazing experience where women can come together and be uplifted and strengthened through wonderful talks, music, and "girl bonding time". And I can tell you, it was so worth it. The group we went with was fantastic, such fun and spiritually uplifting women, all of whom I look up to in some way or another. It was truly a pleasure to be around such amazing women in this setting. We heard some fabulous stories and talks, cried and laughed, and had a lot of fun along the way. Boy do these women know how to have a good time! The weekend was short, but sweet, and I can't wait to do another one soon!

Our whole amazingly awesome group :)

Some of us with our favorite speaker of the day, Mariama Kallon. What an inspiration!

A month of firsts....

The boys and I have had a lot of fun lately...I absolutely love seeing them try or see new things for the first time. They get so excited to show me what they have learned, I love it! And with the summer coming up, I am also excited to be outdoors more often, experiencing and learning new things everyday!

A few weeks ago we started the boys' very first swim lessons. Honestly, I was pretty nervous about this step for the boys. But, I really wanted them to learn for themselves, so I needed to put some trust in the professionals. :) Both boys were also pretty nervous at the beginning, even with me and Tutu in the water with them. But they soon figured out that swimming in a pool twice a week was a lot of fun! They have come so far already, and love to talk about how they "kick kick kick" and do the "starfish". These pictures of the boys were on the first day of swim lesson....they LOVE their Buzz swimsuits.

Then just a week or so ago we found some super great deal tickets for the Mariner game and decided at the last minute to go with the boys. Since they were so last minute, we had FABULOUS seats from season ticket holders that couldn't attend. We had SO much fun! Not only did the boys get to high five the Mariner Moose again ("I high five the moose!), but we also got up on the jumbo tron AGAIN as well! These boys are good luck charms! It was so much fun....by that point Lucas was so tired that he pretty much was sleeping on my shoulder, but Dylan was still dancing around on Teage's lap the whole time we were on the screen. Even though both boys were exhausted by the end of the game, they had such a great time and were talking about it for days afterwards. We are hoping many more Mariner games are in our future!

Weekend Get-A-Way

We had a great opportunity to go to the Tulip Festival a few weekends ago as a family, and meet our good friends Kim and Mark along the way. Quadrant was in the LaConner parade during the day, so we dressed ourselves in our best Quadrant green and marched along with the best of them through town. The boys had a BLAST throwing candy to the crowd, I couldn't believe how much they got into it. Everyone seemed to be having a fantastic time, and LaConner was such a fun place to be. Yeah Quadrant!After the parade, we took the time to go see some beautiful flowers while there as well. The boys were so tired by that point that they slept in the car while we took turns taking some fun pictures swimming in the sea of daffodils. :) They were so beautiful! We haven't seen the tulip festival since we lived in Bellingham, so it was really fun to go through the flowers with Teage. Kim and I had a great time too! And if that wasn't enough, we decided to venture up to Canada as well. Thankfully the boys did a great job, even on little sleep. We knew that we wouldn't have another opportunity to get to Canada in the next few weeks and we really wanted to go to the Vancouver Temple open house. And though it was a VERY long day, we are so thankful that we went. The boys loved seeing the temple and being able to go inside and walk around. It really was beautiful, we all loved it. I don't think I have seen anything more beautifully situated. We even had time to go out to dinner to celebrate Kim's birthday before heading home. We loved being able to spend some quality family time, I feel like we haven't been able to do a lot of that lately.What a fantastic day! Thanks Kim and Mark, we had such a wonderful time!