Merry Christmas 2011

Time for the family update. I can't believe it's the 23^rd and I'm only just now sitting down to write this. Better late than never right?

Let's start with Jon. This has been one crazy year for him. In May he decided he wanted to make some career changes. He has been doing construction his whole life and felt now was the time to change that. After a lot of conversations, thought and prayer we agreed that the right career for him was the Army. He was sworn into the Army Reserves on June 15th. He left just 3 short weeks later for his Basic training in Ft Jackson South Carolina. We were able to fly out to see him graduate in September and boy was it amazing! We had such a great time with him, but had to leave after a few short days so he could start is AIT training as a Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic which lasted 13 weeks. He was gone for a total of 24 weeks and just got home on the 15^th of this month. He made some really great friends while he was out there, but is glad to be home. We are LOVING finally having him home. Taegen wouldn't let him out of his sight for the first day or so and didn't want anything to do with me, which I was not complaining about :). Now that he's home he just has to go into his unit (308^th Medical out of St George) one weekend a month.

At the beginning of the year I was still working at the credit union. After Jon left I was able to quit my job and stay home with Taegen. This has been a tremendous blessing in our lives. Taegen has loved having me home all the time. He did although get really clingy to me, which has proven to be a little bit difficult at times. But what kid doesn't go through that stage...at least that's what I keep telling myself. “It's just a stage and he'll grow out of it...I hope” :) A couple months after Jon left, me and Taegen moved in with his parents to help save some money. Thank you Mark and JaRene for welcoming us into your home. Now that Jon's home we're hoping to find a place of our own soon and should be out of your hair shortly :). Adjusting to being a “single” stay at home mom was a little hard on me at times, but I eventually got the hang of it. Taegen is a handful to say the least and kept me fairly busy.

Speaking of Taegen, he had his first birthday in April. He is such a fun little boy, but like I said he is a handful. My dad jokes that if we have another one like him I'll be gray by the time I'm 30! He is constantly going and going and going. He's our little Energizer bunny. The only time I can get him to sit still is if I put one of his favorite movies on: Monsters Inc, Rio (or as he calls it, “birds”), Gnomeo and Juliet, or his all time favorite, Cars. This boy absolutely loves anything Cars related, including his toothbrush.

The best news of all is that we are all getting sealed together in just a couple weeks on January 7^th! We would love to have any of you that can, be there with us. Just contact me for information if you need it.

Well that's about it for us. It is has been a great year and we're looking forward to the many adventures in 2012. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year.

Love,

Jonathan, Kristina and Taegen Evertsen

HE'S HOME!!!

Jon got home Thursday around 11:00pm. It is SSOOOOO nice having him home, FINALLY! 6 months is a really long time.
We both wanted Taegen to be there at the airport so I put him to bed, but when we left the house I picked him up and put him in the car. Luckily he fell back to sleep (which if you know Taegen, is pretty much a miracle). So when we got to the airport we (me and JaRene) stayed in the car for another 20 minutes or so to let him sleep. When more people started showing up we all went into the airport and up to the observation deck to watch for the plane. It took forever! The screen said the plane was on time, but it wasn't. It was supposed to land at 10:40, but didn't show up until after 11:00. Taegen eventually woke up all the way and was running around. I put him in his ARMY uniform so he would match his daddy :)

I put Taegen down and he instantly ran to Jon. This is Jon waiting for Taegen to get to him. I wish you could see Taegen running to him, but thats ok.

 

 First time seeing daddy in 3 months! Boy was he excited

The signs we made

 My favorite picture!

 The banner I made that we put up on the garage

I'm so proud of Jon for graduating and starting this new adventure in our lives. Its so nice to have him back home, I just can't say that enough!  I LOVE YOU BABE! 

can't wait

I think someone misses his daddy...Thursday couldn't come fast enough!

Santa

Taegen saw Santa for the first time yesterday. I was at Steph's ward Christmas party and Santa came out on stage at the very end. Taegen got so excited and started clapping. I wasn't going to stand in line to see him because I didn't think T would like it. Plus me and Jon had talked about taking him to see Santa after he got back. But Taegen looked at me with such a huge grin on his face and said "I anna go". I asked him if he wanted to go sit on santas lap and he nodded his head and said "yup". It was too cute, I couldn't turn him down. So we sat in line for what felt like forever and he finally got to sit on santa's lap, well technically it was Mrs. Claus but he actually did pretty good. He wiggled for a minute but as soon as they gave him a piece of candy he was content. He wouldn't smile but at least he didn't cry :)

And here's a short video. My sd card was almost full so I was only able to record for a few seconds. But since Jon wasn't here I wanted to record his reaction for Jon to see.

Half a Century

I never did my birthday post this year. That's probably because it was pretty uneventful. We went to Penny's baby blessing, ate some breakfast (Thanks Julie, it was delicious!), then I went home and made my own birthday cakes. haha. Not having my husband around just kinda ruined it for me. Luckily he'll be home in 4 days! :) :) :) And can make it up to me then.

I'm officially 25. Wow that sounds kinda weird. When I was little, 25 yrs old always seemed SO old. Now...not so much. I don't feel any different, but I do gotta say that being able to rent a car and not get an under age fee is going to be so nice! Oh and the insurance getting lowered...yup thats nice too. I guess there are some perks to growing up.

I didn't take any pictures so I have none to post...sorry.

Videos of my cute little man

He's spraying himself with a water bottle. You can't really tell, but his shirt is soaked.

If you listen closely you can hear him counting 1,2,3 then jumping onto the couch. sometimes he skips 3 and just jumps instead of saying it.

this is how he goes down the stairs. He can go down backwards, but prefers not to.

He's almost done...

 Jon comes home in 2 weeks and 2 days!! He will have been gone for 5 1/2 months. I can't even begin to explain how excited I am. I just got back from visiting him last weekend and it was the best weekend I've had in a long time. It was so good to see him and actually get to spend some time with him off base. I was also able to meet some of the friends he's made. He's made some pretty good friends. We did some shopping, watched some movies, hung out with some of his buddies and just relaxed. I forgot to take pictures, but then again we didn't do a whole lot worth taking pictures of. So I'll just post a few of him in the past little while.

Here's the picture of him that was in the Jubilee of Trees. George Washington Academy did a patriotic tree and my nieces go there, so they brought a pic of him. It says 

"PVT Jonathan Evertsen 

308th Medical Company 

Serving in South Carolina 

Uncle of Emma and Hanna Lindhardt"

They are now given off base passes on the weekend and a couple weeks ago they went to Wal Mart and Jon found this cowboy hat. So of course he had to buy it.

 Ready to party :)

He only has 1 1/2 weeks of school left, then out processing, graduation and then he's on his way home. Dec 15 (or 16th ish). I have a feeling these next couple weeks are going to drag on and on. :)

A few of Taeg's

Grandma gave T a cupcake for breakfast

 and he absolutely loved it!

 I bet you'd never guess these two are cousins.. haha

T and Lucas

 He's so happy right after bath time.

 Grandpa put him on uncle Russ's motorcycle and since then he thinks he needs to sit on every bike he sees.

 Bundled up for the first time all year....so cute!

 Owl beanie

 He's in the  "do it myself" stage and it's driving me crazy. It wouldn't be bad if he could do it right, but he still hasn't quite figured it out and he makes a HUGE mess trying to get the spoon to his mouth. But he insists none the less...and this is the end result.

 So I ended up putting him in the sink to clean him off.

Halloween

Yes I know this is almost a month late. I've been such a slacker. Blogging has been on my to do list but just at the very bottom and for some reason I've been dreading doing it. But, I finally decided I needed to bit the bullet and do it. So here it is....

Taegen looked so cute in his little Army uniform. The one he's wearing is a little small for him, so I had Jon send me one from on base. It was supposed to show up on Halloween day from UPS, so I was thinking it'd be here around 3 or so. Oh boy was I wrong. It didn't show up until 7:30. We were already out trick or treating by then. So it was almost a waste. I say almost because I still LOVE it and plan on having him wear it when we go pick up daddy from the airport. They'll be twinners and it'll be so cute! I'm so excited (Only 22 more days!!!!)

Trick-or-treating at the mall

 After the first couple houses of trick-or-treating T just wanted to sit in the stroller and eat his sucker. It was past his bedtime and he was so exhausted in this picture.

 We took the kids to the little pumpkin patch on bluff street to get some pictures. I couldn't get a shot of Taeg's smiling for the life of me...but here's some anyways.

 Lucas was not enjoying it as much as Taeg's and Berk's

Painting pumpkins

Sorry, I can't figure out how to switch the video so sideways is just gonna have to do.

   We decided to paint pumpkins today with aunt Lexy and Berkley. I would have gotten him a bigger pumpkin if I knew how much he was gonna like it. Notice how nice and clean he is right here...

 and yes he is painting his stomach instead of the pumpkin. So much for being clean huh. 

 My little rudolph

 This is the face I got when I took away the paint brush

It was such a success that we decided we are going to do it again some time before Halloween comes. Plus aunt JoLee was just a little sad that she missed out. :)