The girl that our baby Gabbie was named after.

To our great surprise, I got a letter this week from the family in the Czech Republic whose daughter is the one that we are naming Gabbie after. They sent us some pictures of them, and I've decided to include some of the pictures of Gabi (the way that they shorten her longer name Gabriela) that they sent to us so that you can all see what she is like:

This is how I remember her: (she's the older one)

This is a more recent picture of her with her Mom (Lenka) in France:

This is her with her Dad (Erik): They are standing on a bridge in Paris.

There were a few things that really impressed me about Gabi when I met her and her family. The first was that she really loved animals.

Another thing that really impressed me about Gabi was that, although her family was not religious at all and she had not been raised in any church, at only about 9 years old she seemed to be very interested in spiritual things. Whenever we would go over to their house as missionaries, it was generally Gabi who would instigate the discussion about what our church believed. She seemed to be really curious about the general religious questions like "why we are here on earth" or "what happens when someone dies." It really impressed me that at such a young age she would be as interested in these questions as she was.

Another thing that I really liked about her was her family. They were so good to me and my mission companions while we were there.

Lastly, I just really liked the name. Gabriela was such a beautiful name.

Thanksgiving at the Kim Christensen home.

So, for Thanksgiving this year we went to my parents (the Christensen's) house.
As usual it was an exciting experience.

To start off this post I will play a video that really gives you an idea of what Thanksgiving is like at my parents house:

(okay, so this was taking way too long to load, and the other ones I posted didn't show up, so if you want to see the video, let me know and I'll e-mail it to you)

This is what the tables looked like (with Justin (our brother in law) in the background:

My sister Marta did all of the centerpieces.
This was the "kid's table":

There were enough people that we even needed three tables.

One really fun thing about this Thanksgiving is how fun it was to watch Justin "the manly-man" Cooley doing arts and crafts for the kids. He told me he would help me fold the napkins when he was done.

I realized when I got home that I went a little crazy with the camera. I'll try and say the name of the people in these pictures and how they are related to us.

This is Parker. He is My brother Matt's third child and oldest son.

This is Millie. She is most well known in our family as "the miracle baby." She is my sister Missie's (Justin's wife) oldest daughter.

I'm not sure of the name of the baby on the left in this picture. Her parents names are Bonnie and Brent and they have come to Thanksgiving dinner with us for the last 3 years. The baby on the right is Connor, My oldest brother Matt's son.

I'm not sure who the crazy guy on the left is, but the one on the right is my oldest brother Matt.

At one point in the evening, Parker needed to blow his nose, so Matt asked him to go get some toilet paper. This is what he looked like when he came back. (we really think that Parker would get along really well with Christy's nephew Aiden)

One of our big family-get-together traditions has become "kids horsey rides on uncle Kyle." Here are some fun pictures of the Cowboys and Cowgirls:

Annie (Matt's second daughter), in back, and Maddie (Missie's second daughter), in front, had some major fun rinding the horse. Millie thought it was pretty fun to see her little sister hold the horsey's ears.

Annie got lots of turns.

All the kids waited their turns and had tons of fun riding the horsey.

Luckily for the horse, Jake was the biggest kid that got a ride this time. Oftentimes everyone seems to want a ride.

Another fun thing this year was having my Mom's Mom and Step-Dad there.
They really enjoyed themselves.

To the point that Marv was really tuckered out.

Soon after, My dad decided that he would get involved in the action and we found ourselves having an 'old guys tuckered out club' in the corner.

Another great tradition that has been started at Grandma and Grandpa's house is when Grandpa (or somebody else) loads all of the kids up in the tractor and takes them for a ride. We actually got a pretty good video of this this year:

Grandpa decided that he wanted to have more than just the Grandkids be involved in this tradition this year, so he loaded some hay in the back of the trailer and we went for a hayride over to see the lights:

Anyway, that was our fun thanksgiving!

Christy's Baby Shower

A few weeks ago, Christy was given a Baby Shower by Kyle's Sisters and Mom.

I think that the biggest hit of the party was the game that was played

Basically, Kyle's sister Megan melted a bunch of candy bars into diapers and we had to guess what kind each bar was.

After the game was over it was pretty funny for everyone to watch Kyle eat the melted butterfinger out of the diaper.

There were a few little ones that got pretty tired from the excitement.

Christy and Kyle were sooo grateful for all of the gifts.

The many ladies that came seemed to enjoy themselves as well.

Prior to the shower, Gabbie didn't have much of anything other than furniture.

At the shower we were able to get lots of clothes,

Lots of Blankets,
and some pretty fun toys and bath stuff too!

Gabbie's Cousin Millie also had some fun singing a song for everyone!

Baby Gabbie

So here is an update on Gabbie for those of you who are curious.

I went to the doctor last Wednesday and I was still dilated to 2 cm. We talked to the doctor about stripping my membranes but he said they won't do any of that until I am 38 weeks. Now I am 38 weeks and 4 days.

We have a doctors appointment tomorrow and if I haven't made any progress, I am definitely having him strip my membranes. I'm hoping that it will not be necessary though.

Physically, everything is much harder. I struggle just to make it through a day of working and then pretty much come home to crash the rest of the night. I am very lucky to have such an amazing husband who is very considerate of the way I feel. Hopefully we will have a baby girl here soon!

Kyle's Two (and a half) Loves.

As many of you know, to be in our family you have to be a huge fan of BYU football.
This was a rule that I made when I was about 3 years old. If I were to make a list of family priorities it would go something like this:
1. Love for God/Spouse
2. Love for kids
3. Love for BYU football/Duke basketball

Other than the two years that I was on my mission in the Czech Republic, there hasn't been a single season when I haven't been able to be at the stadium for at least one game. In fact, in my lifetime it is quite possible that I have missed watching less than 10 total games.

One thing that I love about Christy is that she knows more about BYU football than almost any other female fan there is. It's always fun when I get to hear her explain to someone or correct someone on certain aspects of the game or team.

This year, because of financial difficulties, we weren't able to buy our tickets in time to get all-sports passes (student discounted tickets), but we made it a priority to make sure that we got tickets to as many games as we could so that we could make sure that Gabbie is raised as a completely true fan (one who is raised that way from conception).

These pictures are the view from where our tickets have been throughout this season. Nothing incredible, but pretty good for a pregnant lady.

This is my favorite picture from that day.
When I go to the games I get to be with my 2 (and a half) loves.

Gabbie's Room

For the last two weekends, we have been trying to get Gabbie's room ready for her arrival. Staining her changing table was not one of the funnest things I have ever done. I ended up getting most of the black stain on my legs, fingers, arms and hands.

We decided to stain the changing table two colors to try to bring all of our furniture together. Most of it is mahogany with black accents.

I was not allowed to do any of the staining near the parts that were going to be mahogany. Oddly enough though, Kyle was the one that messed up and had to use some stain remover to take off the black. Here he is fixing the small little mess-up.

With Gabbie's crib, we sanded around the edges to give the bed an antique, rustic type of look. Kyle was sitting on the couch sanding down the pieces of the crib. He kept working so hard and was completely absorbed in his work.

Here he is after working for awhile. He got really dirty!

Doesn't he look like he had fun?

And now....here's the finished product. Here is a part view of her changing table and the glider we got from Kyle's cousin Marcie. It's really comfy and I can't wait to use it.

Gabbie's travel system.

Here's a closer look at her car seat.

The complete view of the finished changing table. Kyle really enjoyed taking the time to work on this. It was fun watching him get completely involved in something that he loves. Woodworking is his passion. Hopefully we will be able to afford for him to get time to indulge in it.

We looked and looked for a swing that would match the theme for Gabbie's room. We wanted it to be frogs and this is the closest we came up with. It has a red jungle frog and has six different types of music.

Here is the crib that Kyle sanded down. It's a mini-crib so we've had kind of a hard time finding bedding that will fit. The mattress is actually the size of a portacrib mattress.

This is the bedding we bought. It's really cute. The boy frogs have bandannas around their necks and the girl frogs have little flowers behind the ear and necklaces.

It's nice to finally have her bedroom put together. Now we feel like we might actually be ready for her arrival, at least in this regard.

Pregnant Lady

My sister called me tonight and asked me to take some pregnant pictures. I figured that if she wanted to see, there might be some other people that were interested as well. This is what I look like at the start of Week 35. Kyle was in Provo so I had to try to take these through a mirror.

Here is the side view...

Another side view....

I never knew about the kinds of things that were going to happen to my body. It's very interesting and I experience something new each day.

The beautiful full belly shot....gotta love that gorgeous line going down the middle of my belly. You'd think I swallowed a hole watermelon or something.