Holiday Fun

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was great! Santa doesn't deliver to morturarys. So that sucked, but we still had a great time. We went over to the Christiansens in the morning and opened presents with them and then went over to grandma and grandpa C's to have Christmas morning breakfast. Can you say delicious??? Salsa on everything! AND kneaders french toast. MMMMMMM! I'm pretty sure I've gained 10 pounds in the last few days. The ten pounds I was supposed to start losing come the new year. Dang. After that wonderful meal we went over to grandma and grandpa Banks and celebrated with them! We had a great time talking with them and we got a beautiful candle. Later that evening we went and saw the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. WAY long movie, but Brad Pitt was good to look at. We have enjoyed the snow. I thing it is a lot of fun to have a lot of snow. I hate driving in it, but I still thing it's fun. It just makes me think of everything being clean when it snows. My sister is in town from college, but has mono so i'm excited to see her but she can't do much. We celebrated my moms 50th birthday last week as well. I didn't take any pictures, but it was a really fun surprise party! So that was pretty much our Christmas day!
The tree. A little bare, but thats how we like it.
Can anyone see the baby? His dad loves him in camo! We're a little bit country.

Walker and dad!

Walker on christmas morning in his christmas jammies. Just wanting to take a nap!

Aunt Hannah gave Walker a new toy to play with. He is still too small for it, but he doesn't mind hanging out in it for a couple minutes while I clean the kitchen. He is getting SO big! Life is getting pretty fun with him. What a fun little guy!

We made our first attempt on starting Walker on rice cereal. It failed miserably. He was all sorts of confused. So we tried for a while and gave up. We didn't have the right equipment anyways. No baby spoons. I guess we'll just keep trying!

We made out trip down to grandma Mayfields the day after christmas. It was a really crappy drive down, but we made it and we had a wonderful time eating delicious food and going sledding. We look forward to sledding every year in Mayfield canyon. It was REALLY super cold so we didn't go as far up the canyon as we would have liked, but we still had a lot of fun. Here is a picture of Marsh in his snow attire. Does anyone else think we should invest in some snow gear? Doesn't everyone wear hip waders and tennis shoes when they go sledding? I'm pretty sure he is doing a pelvic thrust to.......

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night?

I haven't posted in an eternity! Life has been a little bit stressful and busy for us. I have been sick, Walker has been sick and both of us were sick during our one insuranceless month! Of course! I have been working longer hours these past few weeks because of the holiday rush. So i ususally don't get home until around 8 or 9 at night and poor Marsh has to clean the mortuary by himself. This past week has been hectic. Walker has been constipated (poor little guy) and we have had to switch to all formula. So this past week we haven't gotten much sleep ( getting up in the middle of the night to make a bottle SUCKS)and the poor little guy is just confused, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. :) We have a lot of holiday parties to go to that I'm excited for. Hey! You can't beat a free dinner! And some time away from the munchkin. We went and got Walkers christmas pictures taken last saturday. Let me tell you, I was NOT impressed with Sears at taking his pictures. Cheesy cheesy backdrops ( and of course marsh picked the cheesiest one of them all that he HAD to have) and they were SO SO SO SO slow. That was the worst part. You would think that they would know by now that when you are taking portraits for an infant you would try to do things as fast as possible, because you only have a few precious moments before they start SCREAMING! We got a few cute ones though. There are a TON of pictures of him sucking his hands because that is just all he seemed to want to do! But my heart just melted when i saw the pictures. What a cute little bugger. And he has his daddies ears!!! He is four months today! yay!

Baby Blessing

Yesterday was Walkers baby blessing. I had the worst nerves all day long. I just prayed and prayed that he would be quiet during the blessing and most importantly that he wouldn't poop on his BORROWED blessing outfit. Well, one of the two prayers was answered. Anyone want to guess which one? Needless to say I dont have any pictures besides the one below of him in his white blessing outfit. Thank heaven it became white again though. The blessing was beautiful and I felt really good afterwards. I huge sigh of relief that it is all over with. I am really blessed to have such wonderful family that came and supported Marshall and I. We really appreciate them coming and taking time out of their schedules to be with us on this important day. So... thanks to all! We had an awesome dinner afterwords which is, of course, my favorite part. All in all the day went well. I could have done without the embarassing blowout, but oh well. We love you Walker!!!!

Trick or treat, smell my feet!

I hope everyone had a wonderful halloween! Ours was good. Walker made a cute pumpkin. Marsh and i were too lazy to dress up. We trick or treated around my parents neighborhood with the family and really enjoyed it. Was the weather not perfect? It felt so nice. Walker enjoyed hanging in his carrier and looking around while the kiddos went door to door. I cant wait until he can walk around and enjoy it more!

We like to move it move it! Phisically, Physically, Physically Fit!

I am trying my best to do what I can exercise wise. During my pregnancy I was so excited to be not pregnant and exercise and get my pre-married life body back. I'm sure all of us have those aspirations pre and post baby and find it much more difficult to find time to exercise. Maybe not so much time, but a way to do it without having to pay for it and figuring out a way to have some uninterrupted exercise time. I'm finding it hard to do. So Walker and I have enjoyed taking our walks through Murray park and around the neighborhood (which is hard because lets face it, my neighborhood is state street, the slums and southern exposure). Walker loves his carrier. We put him in it everynight while we clean and he always falls asleep. Before he falls asleep though I get to enjoy this cute angel little face just staring up at me. i.e. picture below. I love it. I should have invested in a more expensive and cushy carrier because this one puts quite a strain on your shoulders and back after a while. Now that the weather has turned I need to find a new way to get my legs moving. An indoor way I suppose.

Tagged by Hannah?? 4th of 4th

I tag anyone else who would like to participate in this tag!~

This picture was in the fourth photo file and the fourth picture in that photo file. I laughed when it was this picture. This is a backseat picture taken by my friend Jenevieve (love you vievers!) on Marshall and I's first date. Well, it was a double date, thus the Jenevieve in the backseat taking the photo. I'm not quite sure why the photo was taken and it isn't the best photo, but I love it because everytime Marshall and I see it I tell him he looks really nervous because he is playing with his lip. He insists that he was not nervous on our first date, but I always say yes you were! He was driving us to the ice skating rink where on our first date he head butted me in the crotchal area. What an awesome memory!!!

Bowl-A-Rama

This weekend was a fun one. We started out the weekend with a surprise from my little sister. She came all the way from school in Kansas to visit us for the weekend. It was really fun to see her and hear about all the fun she is having at school. Friday night we went over to Court & Jami's and ate dinner and decorated halloween cookies with the kidos. Saturday was a beautiful day. We went bowling and had a blast! I don't think my parents have gone bowling in decades. Probably since the snow cap lanes days. It was fun. My dad beat us all. He even got a sore hip from bowling....signs of old age? Jk dad! True to Christiansen style, well, more of Lauren and Fred style we had a hard time finding bowling balls with finger holes big enough to fit our sausage fingers. We laughed over that. So... the weekend was a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to next weekend and putting Walker into his costume! His blessing is this sunday too. I'm nervous!!!!!! Walker has started laughing. At first it was just laughing in his sleep, but now he is laughing while awake too. I love it!

Shots

Walker got his immunizations today. I felt so bad for him.... He handled it pretty well though. Blood curdling scream and then a pout face for a while, but when we got home I gave him some more tylenol and then he was fine! Here's some pics!

2 Months!

My little guy is two months old today. Happy two months Walker! We love you! I am getting excited for the holiday season! I have wished and wished and wished for cold weather and now it is here, and I think I take my wish back :). BRRRRR...... Tomorrow is Walkers two month checkup and he is going to get all of his shots. I am so nervous for him. He has no idea whats coming tomorrow. Poor little guy. I will probably cry again. I cried when they had to prick his heel and take blood for his PKU. I'm such a wimp!

p.s. He isn't a red head. For some reason he has red hair in all of his pictures, but when you see him in person it is a mix of blonde and brown. Weird!

p.p.s. He has mad scientist hair....i swear i comb it every day though.

p.p.p.s. I need to take cuter pictures. These were the newest I had! He loves his swing! Can't you tell? He puts his arms up like he's on a roller coaster.

Walkers first smile

Figured out how to get them off my phone! yay!

Update

Well, I haven't posted in the last little while because I've been waiting on cute pictures to post, but lets face it... I sit at home all day long. So, no pictures yet. I have cute pictures on my phone, but don't know how to get them off the phone and onto the computer. Am I retarded or is it possible? Walker is getting big finally! We have been to the doctor a little more than once a week for weight check-ups. The doctor has been really concerned because he wasn't gaining adequate weight the first 3-4 weeks of his life, so we have been feeding like crazy! And I am proud to say that he is gaining like a champ! Up to about 9 lbs now! Everyone keeps commenting on how tiny he is, but to me he is getting to be a chunk. Thats because I get to see him every minute of every day. I can almost see him grow! But we are very proud of him. He had his first real smile yesterday. Not just a gas smile, which I love, but an actual smile.I'm proud to be the comedian that got him to smile first! And ever since then I just keep on trying. I LOVE to see him smile. If I can get the pictures off my phone i would put one of him up! Help? Marshall started a new job in Salt Lake. He is working with metal. Still not his helicopter job yet, but we will keep trying. Hopefully some day soon we can get him back up in the air where he loves to be. The mortuary is clean as a whistle. I actually don't mind cleaning once I'm in there. It gives me a chore that I sort of look forward to. We plan on blessing Walker the end of October. There is something happening every sunday between now and then so we will have to put it off til then. Can't wait! I'm already feeling the anxiety of having the congregation stare and patiently wait for the mom to get up and bear her testimony. We all know we wait and expect the mom to get up, don't pretend like you don't. Well, thats about all thats going on in our life right now. Nothing too exciting! I will try to be a better blogger. I'm a really good blog stalker, but I need to do my fair share too!

Baby Walker

Walker Karl Banks was born on August 12, 2008 at 5:46 am. He was 7 lbs 7 oz and 20 inches long. He came about a week before his due date, which was what I was praying for, but when labor did come I decided i wanted to wait another week for this. Too bad! He was coming whether I was ready or not. He came with a little bit of a surprise. My doctor had told me at my last check up that he was head down, but when I got to the hospital after my water broke he was coming arm first! What a stinker!!! Already making things difficult. So, I had to face a c-section. Which I won't lie was a huge let down, but I definitely wanted him here and safe so I swallowed my pride and we went for it. For some reason the on call doctor didn't want to come until 5 in the morning. I was there at 2 in the morning and OF COURSE my doctor was on vacation. So, I sat there for 3 hours dealing with meaningless contractions (he was coming out c-section anyways), but I figured I wanted to experience the contractions for a little while so I didn't feel completely jipped. By the way--I find myself pretty lucky doing it c-section because those three hours of contractions were hell. Kudos to those of you who dealt with them for a much longer time. So...he came. He is perfectly healthy!! Marshall and I just love him to death. The first week has DEFINITELY been rough. I guess it will just take time to get the hang of this 24/7 responsibility. He's a good little guy though. Anyways... here's some pics!