the slc christensens..: 2009

Friday, December 25, 2009

Christmas Eve

We had a fun Christmas Eve this year.
We started the evening at my brother's house.

He and his wife made us a yummy turkey dinner and then the cousins exchanged presents.

We think Ains looks like strawberry shortcake here
in her adorable outfit from Baby Wes :)

She also got some great ponies from Gavin. Totally Spoiled Happy Girl.

Hanging with my momsies!

The Tuttle's

After the kids had some new toys to play with we started
the White Elephant exchange we decided to do this year
instead of buying for names pulled out of a hat.
We played bingo to decide who got to pick a present.

Tom won boxing gloves and got Ainsley
to take out her Uncle Matt. She's buff.

There was a Santa outfit floating around
that all the kids had part of on at some point in the night,
tho I think Ainsley liked it the best of the kids
because she eventually got it all on and wouldn't take it off.

Ainsley was so excited for Santa, she couldn't stop talking/singing about it. :)

Then we headed back to my moms and set up the tree and hung up the stockings. One of my favorite old family traditions is hanging our stockings. We've always done this, and if I remember correctly it's an old swiss tradition. We hang the stockings on a pole and that hangs between chairs. I love that it's actually hanging when it's full, and there's usually a present underneath it as well.
I hope we always do it this way.
(Here's the stockings and mom finishing up some presents.)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Pictures, Picture and more Pictures

I really am a very blessed woman to have a professional photographer go on many of my vacations. :) Tom's sister Anna is very talented and we took the opportunity of having all of us together in one place over Thanksgiving to take family pictures.

She was also super nice and took pictures of Ainsley too. Here's just a few of my faves.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Winter Fun

Sledding

video

Ice Skating

video

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Thanksgiving '09

We had quite the adventure this Thanksgiving. As Ainsley puts it 'we went in the big airplane! way way up in the sky to Seattle'. I was really worried that she'd be scared on the flight. The last time she was on a plane I nursed her during take off.. so that was quite a long time ago, she definitely didn't remember it. But we got her excited about it, and she even said 'weeee' as the plane took off. She did great. She mostly sat and watched her shows on my iphone, with a little bit of coloring in the middle. I think the people around us were nervous when we sat down, because everyone commented on how great she was when we landed.

I'd forgotten to take her hair out the night before and so when we woke up early to get to the airport is stayed the way it was. They had been little loops but ended up looking more like something out of who-ville. Here's the best pic I got of her Cindy-Loo Who hair. It's hard to tell, but it went straight up and then shot out at a 90 degree angle, lol.

My flight buddies

The house we stayed at isn't really in Seattle. It's actually about an hour and a half south west of Seattle right on the Puget Sound. It's gorgeous there, hard to believe all the trees, green everywhere, even at the end of November! Here's some shots from the cottage we were staying in.

View from our balcony, you can see the Sound.

Most of the trip we hung around the house, cooked, enjoyed the scenery. But we went into Seattle one day. The big attraction of the day was the aquarium. Here's Ains and all her cousins old enough to walk on their own.

touching a star fish

Here she's watching a seal. She thought he was amazing.
(personally, I prefer the otters)

the underwater dome

my whale rider

We had a great time, ate yummy food and Ainsley was in heaven with all her cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents. The flight back went great too, she slept the whole way.

Saturday, December 05, 2009

New Moon

My Aunt/Kindred Spirit/Good Friend Lavinia flew in for the premiere of 'New Moon'. My cousin Janell had been hired to make a special cake for the Release Party and Lavinia got to be one of her assistants. It was all generally silly, but we had fun.

Janell makes great cakes. The one she was hired to make was a copy of Bella's birthday cake from the movie. (for those interested you can find her at One Sweet Slice)