Finally some writing!

So now that I have posted all of those pictures... I guess I will tell you a little bit about what has been going on in our lives the past few months. Jay has been doing an internship for the last few months here in Virginia. He LOVED it. He finished this last Friday and is now enjoying spending time at home with us! We are loving having him home with us!
Me, well I spent my fall taking care of Karlee and another little boy named Ben. Now let me tell you a little something about Ben. He was a cute little thing... but man he was a very needy baby. And he hated the bottle... making 9 hour days VERY long! He is 4 months younger then Karlee so they really didn't care much about each other until the last few weeks when he started in interact more with her.
During the fall my sister and her family came to visit a few times. It was so much fun having them here and having the cousins all together. I am so sad though we didn't really get many pictures of them together whenever they came.
Also, this fall we went to almost all of my brother Christopher's soccer games. He plays for Southern Virginia University here in VA. It was fun to go watch him play. But man it made me miss soccer a lot!
It has been a lot of fun for me to spend so much time with my mom. Our relationship has grown and changed a lot and it has been a neat experience. I thought it would be a little difficult moving back in with my parents after being gone for so long, and being married, and with a baby. And yes it has had it's difficult times, but all in all it has been wonderful. It has been a lot of fun to see my parents interact with Karlee and to see her interact with them too.
Karlee has changed a lot since we have been here. She started crawling at 7 months and picked up on it very fast. Then at about 8 months she started walking along furniture and would get where she wanted to that way. Soon after that she really showed interest in the stairs and figured out how to climb up them really fast. But she took a while on learning how to come down. But she is a champ at it now. Then, at 10 months Karlee started walking! She was pretty shaky at first of course but really mastered it quickly. She walks everywhere now. And if she falls down, she gets right back up and keeps going. I can't believe she will be 1 in less then a month. This whole year has gone by so fast.
It was fun to be here for my brother's birthday also. And, Jay will have his birthday also on the 21st of this month! Happy 25th Jay and Christopher!
We are excited to be here with my family for Christmas, but just a few days after Christmas we will pack up the car and head back to Idaho for Jay to get back to school. It will be pretty weird for me to go back there and not be a student anymore. But I am very excited to stay at home with Karlee and enjoy the milestones with her! We have missed a lot of friends and family as we have been away. But we really believe this was a great experience for us and something that we needed to do. We have learned a lot through out this fall as well. I am so grateful to my wonderful parents for openeing their home to us to live with them for 5 months! We will miss them so much when we go back. But, it's also what we have to do. Something that my mom and I have talked about is the fact that Karlee won't remember this time at all. But, mom and dad, and Jay and I will! It is a little sad that she won't remember any of this, but that's why we have pictures to show her later on. What a wonderful blessing it is to have such a wonderful family and extended family. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have that families can be together forever. I love my family so much and am so grateful for the wonderful family I have and for Jay's wonderful family as well. Jay is so good with Karlee and I am so blessed to have him as my husband and Karlee's father.
I am so sorry I have been so bad at this all fall. But, I have been very busy and spent my time in other ways. But, I hope you feel like you are a little bit more updated and I hope you enjoyed all of the pictures!
Love,
Jay, Savannah and Karlee
Christiansen

More pictures!

Just some more pictures!

Karlee is a walking machine now!

What a cute family

I love my little girl

My mom's parents sent this outfit to Karlee

Karlee loved helping Uncle Chris open his birthday presents!

Karlee and Uncle Chris on his birthday

She loves getting in the fireplace

Airplane!

She opens these drawers and pulls all the movies out

Karlee with grandma and Papa

And she LOVES climbing on daddy's back!

HALLOWEEN!!! What a cute bunny! (Check out the bunny tail on the car)
The bunny family!

And our bunny mobile of course!

Carving the pumpkin!

So sorry I am posting so many pictures all at once. I have had people wanting to see pictures... but I didn't want to just skip to where she is now. So I am putting up some from along the way. It is hard to pick just a few, we have so many cute ones. But here are some more silly pictures!

What a pose!

Karlee gets lots of snuggles from grandma!

She sticks her tongue out all the time!

This was taken right after her first peanut butter and jelly sandwich! It was all in her hair!

The first snow! And the message Jay left for me on our car!

Karlee loves doing this any chance she gets!

And these are her favorite of all time!!! (Just like her Papa)

So cold at Uncle Chris' soccer game!

I promise we are still alive!

So this is backtracking for sure. But I just wanted to post a few pictures from the past while. I have more to do in another post! All of these were from a few months ago. At this point she had been crawling for a while. She started crawling at 7 months old and we haven't been able to stop her since! She also finally had her teeth come in around 8-9 months! So she has two bottom teeth. No sign of anymore yet.

Karlee loves her Cheerios... but got a hold of the box and this is what happened...
We went up the the parkway one evening as the sun was setting.

Jay took this picture of the sun setting.

This is Ben. He is the little boy I watched all fall. He is a cutie!

And this is how Karlee likes to roll! She loves to be naked!

She loves her daddy!

And her mommy!

She loves to get in the arts and crafts cupboards and pull everything out.

And this is her favorite spot of all!!!

Oops!

So today (December 15) I had decided finally post something and I realized that I still had this saved as a draft.This is from our trip to VA. We stopped in Chicago to visit my sister and her family. We did a lot of fun things there! Sorry for the few months delay! :) Enjoy!

The trip

This was a favorite picture of mine from the drive. Everytime she would go to sleep we would put her cover on, but she would always stick her feet out of it. It is so cute!

About two hours into our drive we ran into this beautiful lake that was huge and went for miles and miles. The view was so beautiful. The sky was pretty and blue and the color of the water was beautiful too.
We drove all the way from Rexburg, Idaho to Nauvoo, IL straight through. Our only stops were gas/potty/feeding karlee breaks. It was a little crazy with a 6 1/2 month old. Over all though she did very well. She had her moments where she broke down and nothing would get her to stop crying for 10 minutes or so, but we got through them and still had a good time. That stretch was about 26 hours (including our stops). It was so nice to finally be able to get out of the car and walk around for longer than 5 minutes. When we got to Nauvoo we were welcomed back to humidity, wow, I forgot how much I hate it! It was so hot and humid, so we only stayed a few hours. Here are some pictures from our afternoon there.

Jay was trying to get a picture of her with the flowers, but she was more interested in playing with them, but he finally was able to get this one.

Mom was such a huge help on this trip and Karlee really got to know and love her! THANKS MOM! It was also a lot of fun for me and Jay to spend the time with mom too.

After we spent a few hours in Nauvoo we got back in the car for another 4- 4 1/2 hours and drove to Oswego, IL to go see my sister and her family!

We are still here I promise!

So since I last posted a lot has happened! I GRADUATED! YAY!!! I am so glad to be done!

Jay's family was able to come

My wonderful family

My parents also got to come

Our cute little family

We also moved the same day as graduation (I do not recommend this to ANYONE!) Karlee loved playing in the boxes the whole time.

Jay has decided that he wants to be a Physicians Assistant, so he is doing his internship this fall with a family friend of my family. He is a PA at a hospital in Virginia in my hometown. So, we arein Waynesboro, VA for the whole fall with my parents. It has been so fun being here so far! The whole last week of school we were very busy packing up our apartment and doing finals and getting everything ready to leave. Things were pretty hectic. Karlee was starting to become very mobile and rolled everywhere. She was a little unsure about what was going on. But we got everything done. Friday (July 23) was the last day of school, and graduation, and we had just about everything out and into storage that night. Saturday morning we woke up at about 6:30am and finished putting the last minute things in the car and drove out to begin our very long and crazy drive east from Idaho. Luckily my mom very kindly decided she would driveback with us to help with the driving and the baby. I will post another post about our trip here.