Christmas!!!

I hope everyone had a jolly Merry Christmas!
We had a good time watching Kenzie opening her presents. She only hesitated for a split second and was soon oooing and oohhing in a high pitched voice while Josh helped her open her presents. Here are some videos we took in hopes to share the cute moments.







Later we went to my parents' house. We had breakfast and then opened more presents. Grandpa got McKenzie an animal pillow that Kenzie absolutely adores! She is always rolling around on the sheepskin rug at their house so I guess my Dad thought to give her something similar to take home with her. She really likes it!

I couldn't get Kenzie to go down in the playpen that night so I gave her to Grandpa for him to try. I came down later and found Kenzie fast asleep on her pillow in front of the Christmas tree! It was a priceless moment! I always loved sleeping by the Christmas tree on Christmas night as a kid and now Kenzie was able to do that on her first Christmas!!

With the presents we received, Josh and I are now able to shovel snow, launch snowballs, work out at the gym and have socks for our feet. :) Kenzie is decked out for the snow with a snowsuit, sled, boots, hat, and gloves, for being dry after a bath, sitting by the fire, dressing up as Santa, and playing with awesome musical toys! Needless to say, my family had a great time shopping for Kenzie.

Oh, and if you see any pictures on facebook of a grown woman in a pink sleeper tagged as Christie Foster, that's so not me...
:)
Sorry but we can't get the video to work right now. We will post them soon!

Random things that make Kenzie laugh!!

!
Kenzie breaks out into laughter at the most random things, I'm only touching her shoulder with the sippy cup (the first time on accident which started the giggles).

Josh is just drawing circles on a paper and Kenzie rolls about it. if she's making us laugh hard now, I can't wait until she starts to talk! (The video is having trouble uploading, we will try again later)

Computer Geek

I thought this was worth sharing since it gave me a new perspective on Mr. Foster over here. I didn't think he was a computer geek until I came across this little figure on top of the printer. I stand corrected.

Cousin Playtime!

I thought I'd take a few shots of McKenzie and Henry since they were both awake and camera friendly. McKenzie sure loves Henry, they're best buds if you ask me! :)










We taught Kenzie how to give kisses to Henry so she wouldn't just hit his head all the time :)

The sound works

As you probably know, the video on our camera rarely catches the sound. Finally it randomly caught the sound on this video! If I had known it was going to play the sound I would have filmed longer and better. Josh can get McKenzie to dance if he 'dances' and plays songs like this one form Ok Go. :) She's getting closer to standing up by herself. I can't believe she's so old!

Josh and Chistie's Baby Pictures

I wanted to show how cute Joshua and I were when we were babies and then see how similar McKenzie looks to us. These two right underneath are Joshua and I at about 3 months. It is so special because if you merged these pictures so I was on the right of Joshua it's as if we are holding hands!!!
This is Joshua, isn't he adorable!!


This is me, and no it's not fake hair :)


And then McKenzie! Her 3 month pictures... :)(someday I will scan in her studio ones, but until then, this post can't wait :)


Now for the 9 month pictures! Again, there seemed to be a trend in baby pictures back in the day because Joshua and I are both sitting on a chair and holding on with one hand! Is that crazy or what!



I'm tempted to do the same with Kenzie and take her picture on a chair. But for now, my sister Stephanie took this and other pictures up at my Grandma Bagley's house in Soda Springs. Then my other sister, Katie, edited it to make it more clear and bring out Keznie's eyes. I love this picture! I love how Kenzie can light up in a moment, just like Joshua.


And here is another one from early this month, I think she looks more like the age Josh and I are in our pictures.

The Krazy Coupon Lady

My sister's sister in law is one of the Krazy Coupon ladies who wrote the book, "Pick Another Checkout Lane Honey". So I'm starting to learn all about coupons and trying it out. The whole concept is trying to stock up on items you use when they go on sale in the store but also using coupons to lower the price. I know of people getting paid to shop because they get most of the items free! I haven't done much with it lately, but I'm starting to print coupons and getting organized. I figure I can just focus on getting cheap diapers if anything! You can go to the website at http://thekrazycouponlady.com/ . It's really fun to see how easy it can be to save money. This is an invisable button from the website. It takes you to a jack pot of coupons you can print! Have fun!

Stuck in LIfe?

What do you do when you get stuck in life? This is what McKenzie did! She's able to scoot backward on hard wood floors and I left the room long enough for her to wiggle herself between the fridge and the pantry. Maybe she wanted to get the broom? But the face is priceless! I guess when you're a baby getting frustrated learning to crawl, getting stuck is all you need to ruin your day.

My Family at the Ranch

Grandma Bagley is my hero! I admire her so much for the way she treats others and for her ambitious character. I loved coming to her house when I was a kid. There are some things I hang on to from my childhood, and Grandma's ranch is a big part of it. So having pictures of my husband and daughter around the ranch are priceless. Thank you Sara for taking such great pictures while I was sleeping! This picture in particular tugs at my heart because I remember climbing that tree in the background, which we all called the Willow, and talking with my cousins about being a mom and what we would do with our lives. We have our names etched in there and I couldn't count the hours we spent playing in that old tree. I love thinking that I brought another generation to this wonderful place where they could see and experience the things I did that I believe helped shape my character for the better.

4th of July in Soda Springs

It's become somewhat of a tradition for Josh and I to go to Soda Springs, Idaho for the 4th of July. I love going because a lot of people from High School come back to visit their families and also because Soda is a really fun spot during the 4th. They have train rides, fair booths, craft set ups, a parade, and lots of good food. We decided we would take Josh's sister, Sara, with us since she was going to be staying with us the rest of the summer. She was a great help and we had a great time :) We stayed at my Grandma Bagley's house. She fed us extremely well and had plenty of her awesome oatmeal cookies on hand. Sara was amazed at Grandma's house and all the work she has and continues to put into it. Josh, Sara, and I went to the fireworks and watched them from the road. The next day was the parade that included a gigantic shopping cart! Only in Idaho right? David, Julie and Grandma came and watched it with us. Then afterward we went to the carnival. There was a booth of all these quilts that were exquisitely designed. It made me want to quilt and sew more. I ran into Desiree and her family which is always really fun, I love her little family. And I had to go through the Cemetery and review all my many relatives buried there. We had a really good time, and I was very glad we went.
The most fun I had during the trip was when Grandma Bagley sat down with us and told us all these neat stories about her family and named the people in the picture frame. She has boxes of old pictures and has a vast knowledge of her family history. One story was really inspiring. My Grandma's grandfather, Daniel Balls, came to Soda Springs to homestead a house. He had purchased property and while they waited for Daniel to build the house, which I think included a winter,he and his wife Mary, who was pregnant with TWINS! slept on the loft in their neighboor's barn. I think this tops any discomfort I experienced for sure. Grandma says Daniel was a very kind sweet man. Her father said the only time he was ever physically disciplined by Daniel was once when he was very upset at him, he wacked his shoulder with his dress gloves. I thought that was very impressive.
On the way home from Soda we stopped by a couple who had served in Joshua's mission. They are super nice and really fun. They had a farm/ranch where they could get their work fix. :) That's definitely what I'll need when my kids are grown, some projects I can keep busy with.



And of course, we had to stop at Bear Lake. Sara
is fashionably sporting the all famous Garden City
raspberry shakes in front of Bear Lake.

Kenzie's Blessing Day

McKeznie received her baby blessing back in June! She was blessed the same day as her cousin Henry and her second cousin Ryan, how convenient for our families right! Fortunately, everyone's church schedule didn't overlap sacrament meetings so we were all able to attend the others. I thought it was really special to see these beautiful babies receive such rich blessings so early in life. Needless to say I was nervous for McKenzie's blessing because I really didn't want her to cry during it, but she didn't, phew!! She had a big circle of priesthood surrounding her as Josh gave a very touching blessing. Since she could sit up pretty well, Josh just held her in a sitting position. My dad said she sat very still and looked around at them during the blessing. I would put up more pictures of that day but I had my sisters take pictures with their cameras, so when I get those, I will post them as well.
After all the blessings, whoever was able to came back to our house for dinner. My mother-in-law, Jamie did a lot of work preparing the food. It was quite the party with multiple relative from every direction, geologically and genealogically!
Since all of my immediate family was there, we took a nice family picture. It was actually a good experience too! We weren't stressed about what to wear or where to pose, it was just 'click', 'click', done!! Josh's Aunt Darissa was very nice to take them for us with her nice camera.

Here's the nice, collected family picture.

And then, of course, my family in their natural state.

Updates! Foster's arrival and a new cousin!!

Long time no type! I haven't been very active with my blog for a while; life has been very busy with family the last couple months. Joshua's family came out to Utah to see Kristen and Mackay's new baby boy Henry, and stay until both McKenzie and Henry were blessed at the end of June. We have had so much fun!!

Three days and 2,000 miles later...They're here!!! The Foster Family made it to Utah!!

We're so glad they were able to come out and stay long enough to go do stuff together! Kenzie loved having so many people around! She really loved when Emily and Chelsea would come and talk to and make faces at her, it was great to watch her light up to people, especially family. :)




Kenzie's first dip in the pool! Josh took Kenzie out into the water and showed her how to splash. She caught on pretty fast and was promptly soaked from smacking the water repeatedly.
We went with Erin, Brian, and their son Calvin and their cool friends. I'm excited for when Kenzie learns how to crawl and then swim. I plan to start teaching her when she's about 6 months, which is soon!






McKenzie has a cousin!!!

Kristen and Mackay are very proud parents of this little ball of joy! Henry Mackay was born May 26th... He is so awesome!! Not to mention he made me an aunt and Joshua an uncle! :) Here are pictures of the cute cousins and with family.




What's really neat is McKenzie's reaction to Henry, it's as if they were already buds just catching up. We put Henry up to Kenzie and she squealed and laughed and then reached out to grab his arm and hand. It was really really cute. :)

FoOd StOrAgE

So! We've recently decided it's that time of year again to beef up the food storage! Becoming prepared for the future is so exhilarating and relieving at the same time! I love it! I'm really glad we're doing this especially when we have a dependent, she does eat quite a bit already :) I'm going to take before and after pictures because I think that's fun. But the food we get won't all fit back in our little cubby hole, we'll have to get creative as to where we store it all. Hopefully we'll own more mass in food than possessions by the time we move! For those that have been observing me, I've been in the nesting stage since I got over morning sickness - and still am! Woo! Anyway, I hope I can encourage you as I post more about this later; because the Prophets aren't going to bother reminding us anymore as my sister Katie periodically reminds us. (don't you love the floating empty water jug!)

McKenzie's Latest Tricks

I thought since we've been able to catch so many of her new talents on camera, I should make a post out of it. She craves attention and is figuring out life at what seems like an accelerated rate.Joshua and I believe she is the oldest 3 month old ever and is no longer a baby but now a little girl!



Of course, the best and cutest trick lately is this tongue smile she gives us! Her personality is coming out more and more, especially this last week. :)




This is probably Joshua's favorite trick, he can prop her up and she will stay there and just drool and smile at him. He's really good at getting a genuine smile out of her. :)




Kenzie enjoys having everything and anything in her mouth, she just can't grab or maneuver as well as she would like. But she found a way to hold on to one toy in order to keep the teether in place.




This girl loves to use her muscles! I let her stand there and then realized I didn't have to hang on to her, she's now obsessed with standing on the couch! :) She will wine if we take her away too soon.



The friendship displayed from the previous picture with "Z" on facebook is looking unstable. We're thinking McKenzie is going to be a carnivore for sure! And prefers the endangered meat. :)





I put McKenzie on the couch with her binkie in her mouth, left the room for about 10 seconds, and came back to find her confused as to where her binkie went!

So there's a few of the new things Kenzie can do! Joshua is working on posting the awesome laughing video so that will probably be up this weekend. :)