Sleepover!

Late Sunday afternoon Clifford left for his first sleepover at his friend Xavier's house! I was so excited for him. I gathered up some pj's and a change of clothes for him. I let him pack his backpack. He just shoved everything in within a second (so much for taking my time to fold everything nicely! haha). According to Xavier's mom, they went out to dinner at Blazin' Onion. The boys slept out in the living room, playing Lego Star Wars and watched movies. She said that the last time she checked on them they were still wide awake at 11pm, which really surprised me and Pete because Clifford is not one to stay up late. The next day Clifford joined the family and went up Steven's Pass to help move a family member. I was told Clifford and Xavier ran around the backyard the entire time. Clifford didn't come home until Monday around 4pm. The two boys got along great without any fighting or breakdowns. They're excited to get back together again for another sleepover!

As for the rest of us, Pete and I enjoyed our alone time with Kristjan. The house was extremely quiet with just Kristjan compared to having both boys home. You give Kristjan some play doh or coloring, and he's good to go for hours without making a peep. We had pizza and lounged around the house. We let Kristjan stay up past his bedtime for a bit. Pete and I finished the night off watching a movie and cuddling on the couch. I could get used to this whole sleepover deal! :)

Kristjan turned 5 today!






Tonight we celebrated Kristjan's birthday. Kristjan chose to have mac 'n cheese for his birthday dinner. I tried making it from scratch, but it didn't turn out too good, though we ate it anyway. After dinner Kristjan opened up his gift from us: a new little mermaid doll set for the bathtub. For his birthday dessert he wanted cookies 'n cream ice cream.

I can't believe I was in the hospital having Kristjan five years ago today!











Fun facts about Kristjan's birth:

He was planned!! well.....for the most part. haha. I got pregnant with Kristjan when Clifford was four months old. With all the hormones running rampant, I wanted to have another baby soon. So our mindset was 'if it happens, it happens', though we honestly didn't think we'd be having another little one exactly 13 months from our first one!! :)

We knew with him we were having a boy. There was no doubt about it. During the ultrasound, the nurse could immediately tell the sex of our baby. I had the nurse type 'boy' on the picture next to Kristjan's boy parts to confirm it 100%.

Pete got to name Clifford. It was my turn to have complete control of naming this one. I wanted Christian Glenn. It wasn't until we were at a Nielsen family reunion on Lopez Island that I decided to change the spelling. I was reading some old newspaper articles and one was about Pete's Uncle Mike, whose real name was Kristjan, pronounced 'krist-yawn' (it was explained that he changed his name to Mike to make himself more 'American' when coming to America from Denmark). I loved the spelling! I told Pete immediately that was how we would spell our son's name. Plus it has more meaning since it's a family name. As for his middle name, Glenn, it's named for after my grandfather.

There were no complications with my pregnancy with Kristjan. I had a different doctor with this pregnancy and my doctor was going to let me attempt a vbac. Sadly, my body never went into labor and a c-section was scheduled for February 21st.

The c-section wasn't much fun. I remember feeling faint during it and my blood pressure was a little low. Afterwards I spent (I think) almost 2 hours in recovery because my body wouldn't get back up to temp (maybe it wasn't that long, but if felt like it). I remember feeling cold and shivering, plus my face itched like crazy because of the drugs. As for Kristjan, when he was born, his O2 level was low. Pete told me later that the doctor said we were seconds away from him deciding to have Kristjan and me transferred to Children's Hospital if he didn't get his oxygen level up. But at the last second everything turned out fine, with Kristjan's oxygen level going up and him now being a completely healthy little baby boy :)

Here's a look at Kristjan's past birthdays.

1!!

2!!

I love the look on his face. This is him after he opened his gift from me-a Ken doll! (however, he wasn't nearly interested in it as he was Barbie)
3!!

4!!

Finally...the G4 backpack is complete!

After a total of 12 hours of cutting out patterns, fabric, and sewing, Pete sewed himself a G4 backpack. It is quite impressive. It looks really nice. Pete is already thinking of his next backpacking trip where he can try out his 'new baby' :)

Pete LOVES his Singer sewing machine he found at Goodwill


Making progress...


The finished product!!

Pjs and Pancakes

This morning Kristjan had some school friends over to celebrate his birthday. This year he had a pancake party, where everyone came over in their pajamas and joined us for breakfast. We served up hot pancakes, bacon, strawberries and juice! The kids loved it! Afterwards we opened gifts. The kids played for a bit while the parents talked before everyone started to leave. The party was a success and a lot of fun!!

More Projects

Here's some more preschool projects. Kristjan has winter break all next week, so this is the last set of projects for a while until after school starts back up. Enjoy :)

Clifford and Bella sittin' in a tree....

K-I-S-S-I-N-G!!!

It was so adorable on Thursday when Pete and I went to pick Clifford up from school. So Clifford likes Bella, who happens to be the one who gave him a kiss on his cheek (which I blogged about in an earlier post). We were walking away from the school to our car, and Bella and her dad happened to be walking in the same direction. Bella kept yelling "Bye Clifford" until Clifford finally paid her attention. I looked over at her and she goes "I'm Bella. I'm in his class". I replied back "Clifford talks a lot about you". She then says "I talk about Clifford a lot too!". Pete and I both smiled and chuckled. We're all still walking in the same direction and Bella runs over to Clifford and says "walk with me over here". So Clifford and Bella are walking together, Pete and I are smiling and thinking how cute this is, and then Kristjan goes "ah, you're walking with Bella!", with a look and sound of teasing in his voice of 'that's your girlfriend'. Clifford immediately tries to hide his smile and mumbles "yea yea. be quiet Kristjan". They continue walking with each other until it's time to part ways at our cars and say goodbye to each other. It was so dang cute!!!!

Paradise

Over the weekend Pete and Clifford went on a snowshoe trip with friends Gordon, Nick and Nate up to Paradise in Mt. Rainier. Clifford was so excited to go on a 'guys-only' trip. I dropped them of at Gordon's house on Friday night. About 5am Saturday morning Nick and Nate picked the three up and headed out on their adventure. Pete said Clifford did alright, but he's still a bit young for any future snowshoeing trips. The guys' goal was to build a snow igloo, which they succeeded in doing. Clifford thought it was awesome to sleep inside it. His favorite part of the entire trip, though, was when the guys let him hold their knives (just for a second, of course). I guess during the night they had a visitor or two come into their igloo and steal their camp food! They woke up the next morning to find their food torn apart everywhere outside. Pete figured it was a fox. Gordon said he's sure there was mice as well. Pete was flabbergasted by this incident, since he's never had an issue with animals getting into his food in winter. I guess the guys told Clifford it was a 'monster' and that the 'monster' left footprints, since that's all Clifford could excitedly talk about when I drove back to Gordon's house to pick them up on Sunday.