Merry Christmas

Since we've been incredibly busy and in an effort to converse resources (both money and paper) we decided to do a digital Christmas Card this year.
We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We hope your families are blessed with peace and happiness in the coming year!
Here's a quick update on our family:
This year we added another member to our family, Julia Alysse on February 24th, Christian got a new job, and we moved from Utah to Casa Grande, Arizona.
Christian is busy enjoying his new job (as of May 2008) as a project manager at Frito Lay, being an awesome Dad and husband and administrating Addie's website.
Addie is busy being a mom of two energetic girls and doing photography part-time. (Check out the new website, www.addiewhitephotography.com)
Eliana is now 4 going on 16 and full of energy. She stays busy with preschool and play dates. She is definitely a social butterfly.
Julia is a happy 10 month old that brings so much joy into our family.
We feel so blessed by our Heavenly Father and know that He has brought so many wonderful things to us this year! We are very grateful for Him and for our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Things We Love About Eliana

On Eliana's birthday, Christian and I made a list of the things we love about Eliana right now.

We Love:

Her Smile, laugh, cute voice... how she says her L's as W's.... ex. Charlie and Wowa... (instead of Lola) her curls; we hope they never go away, her competitiveness and how she talks about being "speed" i.e. the other day she had been coughing and she put my hand on her chest, she said "feel that, feel how fast my heart is beating?" I said yes and was feeling sad b/c I knew it was b/c she had been coughing so hard and I started to say that and she interupted and said, "yeah, it's because I am speed!" her joy when playing outside, how sweet she can be, i.e. the other day I said Eliana, I love you, you rock and she said mommy I love you too, you rock too. She loves her friends so much! We love how she can be such a great friend , in primary she will hug all the kids and tell them they are her friend and I can see how good it makes the kids feel, her strong will, her silliness... there is so much more too but just wanted to have a record of what stands out to us most right now!

Eliana's Birthday

Eliana got to enjoy a FULL day of celebration for her 4th Birthday! In the morning we took her to breakfast at Mimi's.... she LOVED it and keeps asking to go back. In the afternoon she had a birthday play date at the park with her favorite friends...

As you can see, Eliana managed to knock the pinata down... but it didn't break open.
Elise, her almost ten year old "best friend" (one of the many :) ) suceeded in cracking it open!

The kids had a great time getting as much loot as they could! Blowing out candles at the park in her cupcakes. This was the second time, they put a candle in her pancakes at Mimi's too!
Yummy delicious cupcakes! Above is Eliana with Madeline and below is Elise and Dean.
Eliana and her buddy Dean. She is so cute, she calls him Bud... or little buddy! The other day when he left they hugged and then kissed each other. I wonder when they will start thinking that is yucky???

So if that wasn't enough celebration for one day! We let Eliana pick dinner and she wanted pizza and salad so that's what we had with a cake too, homemade carrot cake at her request. Okay, so yes, she is spoiled I guess! She got to blow out candles 3 times in 1 day!

Grandpa and Bedste got her the leap frog Tag book thing which she LOVES!! (Thanks so much!)
Grandma and Grandpa Williams got her some really awesome dress ups and markers and paper and stuff! (Thank You!!)

In these last 2 you can really see her bangs she cut!!! arghhh!

Blowing out candles for the THIRD time.

Eliana had a wonderful day and has already started talking about her 5th birthday!

Asthma Stinks!

About a month ago we found out Eliana has Asthma and she has been sick ever since! Supposedly she is only suppose to take medicine when she's sick, but like I said we haven't experienced that yet. I looked up the best climate for those with asthma since it seems odd that it suddenly started now that we are in AZ and the WORST places for it (in the whole country) are Tuscon and Phoenix... of course we live right between the two. Hopefully she will be well soon! I feel so bad for her! Oh on a side note... she cut bangs yesterday! They are very short... you can see where I put the front part back in the picture but still some are coming out! Thank goodness hair grows fast!

Just had to put on a pic of Jewels too!

9 months

Julia is now 9 months (as of 11/24). She is crawling, cruising a little and making us all smile! She is such a happy, fun girl. She loves interacting with people and smiling lots! She says mamamamama, babababa, dadadada... something that sounds kinda like hi and then some variations of all three. She loves her big sister and loves watching her be crazy. She has 5 teeth... the bottom two and three on the top. Teething is very hard for her. She really feels it! (and so do we since she doesn't sleep well when they're bothering her.) We are so blessed to have her in our lives, our little Jewel!

Almost 4!

Eliana turns four this Wednesday (12/10). It's hard to believe! She is getting so big! This is the invitation we made for her birthday party we're going to have this week. Last year there was a major snow storm on her birthday, this year we're going to the park. Quite a difference that's for sure!

The Builder

Eliana occasionally talks about "the Builder." When were in Utah she asked something about why we didn't have a toy/play room like her friend Braden and I told her that our house wasn't big enough. She said matter of factly, "Let's tell the builder to build us a bigger house." If only it was that easy. The other day were were playing and she said something about not living with us when she grows up. I said yeah, you won't b/c you'll be married and have a family of your own. And then I asked her where she wants to live and she said she'd have the builder build her a house across the street from us. I said that would be a great idea and told her she needed to live close (starting the brain washing now!). It was a moment that I realized how quickly time flies by and even though 20 years is a long time, when it gets here, I will wonder how time escaped me! It gave me more determination to enjoy every day with my children at the stage that they are now b/c I will miss these days even if it does seem challenging now.

It reminds me of part of one of my favorite talks from conference by our Prophet, President Monson. He said:

If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.

Grateful

On Thanksgiving we always go around the table and everyone says what they are thankful for. Eliana was so cute this year, she sounded like such a big girl. This is what she said:

Thankful for:

• going to the park with my friends
• having friends over
• going over to friends houses
• Mommy when she listens to me
• Daddy when he listens to me
• Julia
• Heavenly Father
• Jesus

Thanksgiving

On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, Eliana helped me make pies. We were working on an apple pie and I went to go take care of Julia for a few and this is what I came back to... an apple stuck on the apple cutter and a big chunk out of another apple. Atleast she didn't hurt herself. I gave her the duty of washing dishes next so I could finsih the apples. (that means she just plays in the sink actually)We had a fun Thanksgiving. Christian's parents and his sister Amy, her husband Mike and their adorable little boy Nathan came. Eliana and Nathan had fun playing together.
Julia hanging out watching the kids swing. What is it with our kids and boogers... as you notice her tongue licking them as they come out! Gross!

Hanging out.
Katie came too but she wasn't feeling so well! We hope you are better now!
Of course we had to take a few pics of Nathan while he was here!

The Christensens

Jason, Jenolyn and their three fun kids; Jarin, Audrey and Hayden, came for a visit! Eliana had so much playing with all of them and we loved hanging out with Jason and Jenolyn.

Jarin was Eliana's first Best Friend. They are either 2nd cousins or cousins once removed... not sure. But cousins nonetheless. Jenolyn was taking a couple of pics of them together and told Jarin to kiss Eliana and this is what she got... Kissing Cousins I guess! Funny anyway. We wish we could see them more!

Playing in the backyard... we are waiting for our winter grass to come in... and it was pretty wet out there... they got really dirty!

I took a few of these pics and Jenolyn took a few...

Play Date with Dean Bean and Rebecca Claire

Dean is 6 days older than Eliana and his little sister, Rebecca is 3 weeks older than Julia. They came over to play the other day and I had to shoot a few pictures.

Gotta Love Eliana's awesome outfit! This bathing suit she found at her grandpa and bedste's house in CA a couple of years ago and loves to wear it for dress up. She was making Julia laugh as you can see in the bottom corner.

Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Farm

Eliana's preschool took a field trip to the ostrich farm but we missed it. A few days later (11/17) we went with her buddy Dean and his mom, Tiffany. They have little donkeys, deer and birds too. The kids loved it... Eliana had no fear until a ostrich pecked her. She didn't want the birds to get anywhere near her, but still enjoyed watching them. Dean feeding the deer. Eliana is so cute she calls Dean her Buddy or Best Friend Buddy or Little Buddy.


Tiffany looks like a crazy bird lady here. (you know you love this shot Tif)

Bloggin'

I have done quite a few posts in my head over the past few weeks but just haven't gotten the time to sit down and actually post them... so watch out because here they come!

Happenings...

Last Saturday Christian was saying he wished it would just be cold and rainy for a few days so it would actually feel more like fall. The next day it rained! It didn't last long and it wasn't much but it was nice anyway. Eliana was really excited to go out in it and had to put on her rain boots that she loves and I think are super cute but that Christian hates. Last Monday we took Eliana to an apt. in Tuscon and went to the Zoo. It was lots of fun and really nice b/c our Phoenix zoo pass works there and it's a nice small zoo where you can get close to the animals. It was perfect for Eliana. The apt. was with a pulmonologist and we found out that Eliana has asthma which explains her episodes of pneumonia and long lasting coughs when she gets sick. Thank goodness it is mostly just induced by viruses and exercise. She only has to use medicine when she's sick. Of course she got sick this week and it went straight to her chest but the inhalers have helped her not to get an infection! Yay!




Poor Julia wasn't feeling well when we were in Tuscon. She was okay with hanging out in the stroller for a bit though. It was a bit chilly on Monday...in the mid 60's as you can see we had her bundled up. She was not feeling well for about a week... she had a constant fever for about 3 days and I thought she might have an ear infection and be teething b/c she was SO grumpy and sad. It turned out to be just teething and a virus that followed. Her two top teeth came in. So between her and Eliana being sick we haven't gotten much sleep lately. She is finally doing better though and we are so happy! She is generally such a happy girl that when she isn't, we know something is up.