Sorry I have been away...

I have an actual legitimate reason too. I went away, no husband no kids for a scrapbooking retreat in Silverthorne, CO and had a BLAST. I would have taken pictures, but I left my camera here for Chris to take pictures of the fun things he did with the boys. I hope to get some pictures from the other scrapbookers. It was georgeous up there (Amanda, you would have LOVED the leaves, fall has already taken a toll there and it was beautiful)!

I had TONS of fun, and met some awesome women. We headed up there Thursday morning (I went with my MIL and two SILs. The cabin we stayed in was awesome, I think I might want to move there. We did lots of scrapbooking, and of course some shopping. They have an outlet mall with some wonderful stores which had some great sales. I bought Chris a pair of dress slacks from Calvin Klien for only $10.00. I would have bought stuff for me, but man do I need to loose weight. (reason you never see pictures of me) I always get so depressed when I go shopping. I need to change that!

There were a ton of fly fishers there. I decided that would be a fun sport(it is a catch and release there) to take up, it looked soooo relaxing standing in the water just casting a reel listening to river flow past you feet.

Chris had a blast with the boys while I was gone. He said he didn't loose it once, and when he almost did, he called me and I was in the parking lot of our condos and life was good. On Thursday he took the boys to Chuck E Cheese. This was actually a prize for Austin to skate around the ice rink without falling, which he did. He really is a good skater, he just has a fascination with running himself into the walls as if he is checking someone. I don't have any pictures of this, because Chris forgot the camera (I let him know that was unacceptable, and he did great after that).

He did get some pictures of the boys wrestling on our bed. Aaron is a real go getter for a 1 yr old.

Austin also participated in a pumkin run at the Venetucci Farm with Rhianna and Emily. They had such fun, they all got a blue ribbon and would have been able to get a pumpkin, but they had a bad season.

(Don't you just love the pumpkin shades Austin is sporting?)

They also went to McDonalds to play afterwards and Austin and Aaron had a blast in the play area.

:::NEWS FLASH:::

Aaron (13 months) has just taken his first two steps, like 10 minutes ago! My little boy is growing up too fast!, *sniff, sniff*.

Other things Aaron is doing:

-finds a tissue, he puts it to his nose and blows with his mouth, then tries to eat it.

-finds a marker (don't worry lid is on) and pretends to color (then of course he puts it in his mouth)

-climbs, he is a climber. His favorite is climing on to Austin's mini recliner, then onto my rocking chair, oh and he LOVES to stand on the chair - he has not fallen ....yet.

-He wants to feed himself, he won't eat hardly a thing if he is not doing the feeding.

Yes, I Am a Country Girl!

My lovely sister Katariina got some Carrie Underwood tickets from a friend at work this past Tuesday (that is also when the concert was). She called me up (since she new I liked Carrie) and asked if I wanted to go...hmmmm...of course I said YES! It was an awesome concert. It was honoring the military, they they had the Color Gaurd post the Colors, and they honored 52 Medal of Honorees. It was really neat seeing all the men and women who served/are serving our country. (I was very disapointed though, the person who ran the ceremony , could not have been military, had the crowd sit down before the Colors were dismissed).

The concert it self was really awesome. There were two groups touring with Carrie Underwood, Lady Antebellum and Randy Travis (He has an amazing deep voice). They did a fabulous job. Carrie's performance was awesome, she is great with the crowd, and really interacts with her band. (wasn't a fan of her costume though) Katariina and I didn't get home until midnight, but ohh it was fun!

I would have took pictures if they allowed cameras, I could have snuck one in but I was trying to be honest (next time I will bring one, everyone else and their brother was taking pictures, and they actually encourage it on the artists' website, with and "upload your concert pictures here") I found one of Carrie and Randy posing together, you get to see the outfit I am not to fond of. She is wearing shorts, not pants.

Craft Fair

Last Saturday I went to the Craft Fair at the White Horse Ranch (it is not called this anymore). We had lots of fun, and saw some interesting thing. Of course I found some things I could not live without, and spent some money.
Here are a couple of the things I found/bought:
Appalachian Bow Knife (Walnut) - Cuts bread (even hot fresh bread without smooshing, and you get thin slices) cheese, vegtables, etc. I love this. The first time I saw this was at my SIL Amy's house in Durango, her husband bought it, and neither of them knew where they got it.

Next is Patty's Pantry Preserves. This was SOOOO delish! I fell in love with the Tayberry (mix between blackberry and raspberry) and the Pumpkin Butter. It tastes soo good on the french bread I so thinly sliced with my new bow knife.

Next was Soup/Chili Mixes from Plentiful Pantry. These were sooo good. We tried the red Chili (not pictured because we ate it) and all of us loved it, even Austin and Aaron. I cannot wait to try the rest of these. The nice this is they are ready in 20 minutes, and usually you only have to add water and meat (optional) - Great food Storage.

Wow, I go to a Craft Fair and find/buy everything food related.

My New Addiction...

Ok, I feel (key word, not a promise) I can forever give up my favorite caffine drink (Dr. Pepper) and replace it with this. It is ohhh so delicious! (reminds me of my Sonic working days)

Santa's Workshop - The North Pole

We went to the North Pole a couple of weeks ago with Grandma Burns and Lisa and her kids. I have never seen Austin have so much fun. He wanted to ride all the rides over and over. Luckily, I think there was only like 3 other families there, so it was like we had the park to ourselves.

When we first got there, we did the tilt-o-wirl. I asked the girl who ran the ride how old do the kids have to be, she said 1 year old and I decided it was time for Aaron's first ride (sorry I don't have a picture I was riding with him) He didn't cry, but he didn't laugh, the way he was holding on to me I could tell he had no idea what was going on. I didn't make him ride it again. Austin LOVED it though. I think he could have rode it over and over for the rest of the day. There were lots of rides the kids enjoyed. Dominic (Lisa's boy) was not very excited about the rides after the tilt-o-wirl. It took forever to get him on the ride, then Lisa just put him on it and he cried for about 5 seconds into the ride and then was fine. I got some great pictures of his soo sad faces. Austin was such a sweetie and rode a pink rocket with Emmalee, and a school bus yellow bug to help Dominic ride. We were also able to go and see Santa. (sorry about the pictures, they don't allow flash photography in his house) Austin jumped right in his lap and asked Santa for a fishing pole and a bunny (I didn't know he wanted a bunny?) Then it was Aaron's turn, he looked so comfortable in his lap, like he could fall alseep there.

We had soo much fun, but with the cost of $15.00 a person this will have to be a once a year trip.

In a Galaxy Not to Far Away...

Last Saturday we went to the Pottery Barn 4 Kids Star Wars Meet and Greet. We got there about half an hour ahead of 12pm(when it started). You had to have tickets to get in, so I went the day the I got the email.

It was a fun 2 hours waiting in line. There were a lot of fanatics there, little boys lightsaber fighting in line. They had security there (don't know why since they had the storm trooper and Jedi there?) ;) Darth Vader and the Storm Trooper came out for a little moment before they started letting people in. We also saw the Jedi and Padwaans arrive (I didn't see there ship though) We had lots of fun, and Grandma Burns bought a frame with a mat that had been signed by all the characters so we could put his picture in it.

Enjoy the pictures!

Here Fishy Fishy!

We went fishing up in Woodland Park, CO end of August. Sorry I haven't been very good at blogging.

This was Austin's first time, and he was SOOOO excited. We went with the Scadden's, Brian and Vanessa (goods friends and home teachers). While the guys were fishing, Vanessa and I had fun talking. We only caught four fish, and Chris did all the catching (YEAH Chris!) Chris also go to learn how to clean out the fish (I chose the least grusome picture). Austin was exhausted, as was Aaron. We had such a fun time, so fun, thinking about getting a season permit rather than a one day. Thanks Brian and Vanessa!

my mosaic

My cousin Molly saw this idea on Savoring the Details blog and did one. I thought it would be fun if I did one too.
Here are steps Molly created to make it easy
If you too want to create a mosaic about YOU then just follow these simple guidelines.Type your answer to each of the following questions into Flickr search. Using only the images that appear on the first page, choose your favorite image then copy and paste each of the URL's into the mosaic maker (3 columns, 4 rows).

Let me know if you give it a try

The Questions...
1.What is your first name? [sonja - yes that is my given name]
2.What is your favorite food? [sandwiches - they just feel healthy]
3.What high school did you attend? [Doherty High School - Go Spartans]
4.What is your favorite color? [Dark Blue]
5.Who is your celebrity crush? [Christian Bale - Loved him in Little Women, and he replaced Val Kilmer as my favorite Batman and Rebecca reminded me of Newsies]
6.Favorite drink? [Dr. Pepper]
7.Dream vacation? [Carribbean]
8.Favorite dessert? [Brownies]
9.What do you want to be when you grow up? [Artist]
10.What do you love most in life? [family]
11.One word to describe you? [independent - I asked my husband on this one]
12.Your Flickr name? [kristiinaburns - there was nothing, so I put a space inbetween names]



1. Sonja Henie, 2. magical sandwich up-close, 3. P3290633, 4. Blue dark chocolate M&Ms, 5. christian bale, 6. King of Soda., 7. St. John (USVI), 8. Valentine's day Brownies, 9. artists palette, 10. Snowmen family in TX, 11. NYC - Independent Subway, 12. Kristiina

iPhone 3G, Kaarina's New Toy, I mean phone

Aaron and I went with Kaarina to Denver to the Apple Store about 1.5 weeks ago to pick her up a brand new 3G iPhone. Due to stores selling out quickly, we needed to get there at least an hour before. So we left our house around 6am to stand in line by 7am and buy the phone around 8am. When we got there, there was already two people ahead of us. They were very friendly and we talked till the store opened.
At 8am a lady came out and handed tickets out to everyone standing in line, this ticket was good till 6pm that evening, and specified the color and gb amount. Kaarina got a white 16gb. We had a little trouble separating her from her fathers cell plan, but that was finally over come with a few phone calls and help/calls from father.
Aaron did quite well, but got a little cranky at the end. (which is understandable, I woke the poor kid up at 5:45am
Here are some fun pictures of Kaarina standing in line, in the process of getting her phone, you know the most memorable moments)
By the way, the Apple Store keep there place incredibly clean. It is an uncluttered store as it is, but they were sweeping/mopping the floor, dusting all the crevices, I was amazed, it looks clean already)

Hear ye, hear ye! The Renaissance Fair...

Colorado has a wonderful Renaissance Fair in Larkspur, about a 30 minute drive North from the Springs.

July 19, we were invited to the Renaissance Fair for our friends Josh and Bree's wedding. I was really excited because I have never been to a Renaissance Fair, and now I get to go and get the full experience with a wedding too.

I decided to try my hand at making out costumes, Chris said he didn't want me to make his because he didn't want it to look cheap, so I agreed in letting him buy his shirt. I made Austin a shirt that looked exactly like Chris' (by the way it looked just as good, maybe he will let me sew for him now...) Aaron wore a D&D onsie that was given to use, and I made my corset, shirt and dress. (My corset was fine for the day, but I now have my heart set on one of these for next time).

We had a fun day, first we had the wedding ceremony, where Josh the groom flipped a coin before saying I do (great laugh), then we headed to the party area where there was delicious food and cold drinks (definitely needed in the heat). After that we were free to roam the area, and then the Bride and Groom rode and elephant through the fair, it was neat to see. We watched a jousting tournament, and had fun looking at all the neat shops and fun(and some interesting) costumes. Enjoy a little glimpse of what we had fun seeing.

Eat Mor Chikin!

Friday, July 11, Chick-fil-a had free meals for any one who dressed as a cow from head to toe, or a free entree for those who had on something cowish. We decided to go all out. Austin and I created our costumes to go to the restraunt. Austin had fun coloring the cow spots I made on his old white shirt. I made some short for him out of cheap muslim (the waist to crouch was a little small, but he still love it. For Aaron I took a white onesie and colored black spots on it. For me I basted black spots on a white shirt. I made tails for all of us, and Austin and I wore headbands with ears. We had a ton of fun, our total meal costed $.32 cents, because I like the lettuce and tomato on my sandwich. We are definately going to make this a tradition.

Here is Austin posing as a cow

Here is the back of his shirt and you can also see his shorts, and the tail (My favorite part)

Aaron loved his tail also, the front of his outfit said Cowz Rool, and the back said Chikinz Drule

Here are both of the boys enjoying there free food

I love to see the temple...

We went up to Denver to pick up our car (it was fixed by Katjaana's husband Dustin - THANK YOU!) While we were in Denver, we decided to stop by the Denver Temple and walk around. It was a georgeously hot day, but we had fun walking around and talking about the temple. Here is a cute picture of Austin and Aaron in front.

Do ducks sleep on water?

I just love it when Austin asks me intelligent questions. (what I mean by intellegent questions is when he honestly doesn't know the answer, not like when he has seen a movie a billion time and knows it by heart, yet he still ask what is happening). Tonight when we were driving home he asked me: Do ducks sleep on water? I honestly don't know, so I told he we would look it up when we got home. Well, here is what we found, for those of you who didn't already know.

Here is the answer and here is where I found it:

Ducks generally use three types of areas: open fields (for food), a wetland near their feeding field (also for feeding, as well as washing and drinking), and a roost site (for sleeping). Roosts are found in areas where the birds feel safe and are seldom disturbed. These resting areas may be found over a mile from the feeding field. Depending on what is available, roost sites are usually medium to large ponds, or wide rivers.
To avoid predators, waterfowl are most often seen sleeping on the water, with their head turned around backwards and nestled into their feathers, to keep their unfeathered bill warm. As if sleeping on the water isn’t safe enough, ducks also have a habit of sleeping in a line where the ducks on the ends sleep with one eye open, watching for predators.
Many duck species may also be seen sleeping on land near their roosting pond, often standing on one leg with the other tucked up into its feathers. Again, this is done to stay warm.
Exceptions to these sleeping habits include the Harlequin Duck, which tend to roost on rocky shores to avoid sleeping in rough water, and Wood Ducks, who usually roost in trees. Stiff-tailed ducks, such as Ruddy Ducks, have difficulty walking on land because their legs are set far back on their body and are almost never seen sleeping out of the water. In fact, Ruddy Ducks are so comfortable sleeping in the water that, if you’re very quiet, you may see one blowing across a wavy pond!
-Darren Wiens, M.S. Candidate

Breaking Dawn Contest

Alright, I am a big fan of Stephenie Meyers, I love the Twilight Series and The Host Book (I even was blessed to be able to go to her The Host book signing in Denver. We Breaking Dawn's, the forth book in the Twilight series, release date is August 2. With that they are having a contest to win tickets to go to New York, NY for a Twilight Concert (it includes airfare, tickets, hotel and V.I.P treatment). So if you would like to sign up, here is the link. I have already put mine in the mail!

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

We have a membership to our Zoo in the Springs, and love it. The other day we went to see there new Rocky Mountain Exhibit. It was pretty amazing, the go rid of a lot of the hills. They brought in two grizzly bears, a moose, mountian lions, and porcupines. We were also there when they were feeding the hippos, I think that was Austin's favorite. Aaron's favorite was this little monkey that kept looking at him. I held him up to the window, and this little monkey kept tilting his head back and forth - Aaron LOVED it!
These Grizzys were having a blast wrestling with eachother, thier energy reminds me of Austin.

Here is the hippo getting a drink before he came into eat.

This Orangutan had at least 8 carrots in his mouth!

Here is Aaron making friends with this cute little monkey.

Here is Alvin as Austin says.

Messy Baby

Aaron has really been enjoying the babyfood lately, here is a couple of pictures of him after he is done eating. Good thing we had a bib on.

ALERT: What I would LOVE for my Birthday!!!

Ok, I know these are hard to come by, but I would LOVE this! PLEASE go in together to get me this. *puppy dog face*

My child is weird.

As I was putting Austin to bed here is a short convo we had.

Me: Austin what would you like for breakfast?

Austin: Broccoli

Me: Broccoli, we don't have any.

Austin: We need to go to the store to get some. I need it to be like Spiderman. Because it helps me get webs.

Me: Ok, we will get some at the store tomorrow. So what would you like for breakfast?

Austin: Carrots

Me: How about some Spiderman pancakes also.

Austin: Yeah, that would be good.

Thought it was too cute, the broccoli thing. Austin went to Durango around the end of April beginning of May. He was down with visiting with his Aunt Amy and Uncle Kermitt. Amy got him stuck on broccoli because of the way it looks like webs, and that is what Spiderman eats to get his webs. He bought it, and was dissapointed we didn' t have any broccoli.

Thanks Amy!

Too Cute...

It was sooo cute. Austin, Aaron and I went to the park the other day to play. While Austin was running around making new friends, Aaron and I sat down and observed. It was getting ready to rain, so the wind was blowing pretty good. I got a great picture of Aaron when the wind blew at the right moment. Enjoy, you can see his tuft of hair blowing pretty good.

Anything NOT to crawl

Aaron just doesn't want to crawl. The kid will be 10 months on the 2oth of June, and has absolutely no desire. I try to encourage it by putting him on his hand and knees. This morning he didn't bend his knees and this is what we got.

As you can see in his face, he got unhappy real quickly.

Father Son CampOut

It looks to me as if everyone is having one of these in the ward. A brother in our ward owns a ranch, and every year they have a Father & Son campout. This is the 3rd year Austin has gone (his first one was at 2.5 years, we start 'em young). They had such a fun time, and came back filthy as ever.

Austin loved checking out anything he could climb, run on and jump off.

What kid doesn't love a lake...

Don't worry, that is a rootbeer.

What a neat pan...

I ran into this Brownie pan when I was blog surfing. Isn't neat, I added it to my wishlist...

Teething Terror -- Poor baby

I feel soooo bad for Aaron. He is teething, and not enjoying it one bit. Poor little boy has trouble sleeping, and doesn't want to eat unless he has to. Doesn't want his pacifier or anything to chew on. I just want him to be happy again.

(Photo courtesy of Lisa Crane)

Book Signing - Stephenie Meyer

Monday May 19, Stephenie Meyer was in Denver, doing a book signing for her new book "The Host" (you might recognize her as the author for the Twilight Series). I found this out the Saturday before and thought this would be fun to do (I have never done a book signing before). It was really fun... My mother-in-law Jean and I went. I was kind of worried how late we would be there, because our tickets were numbers 699 and 700. There was about a total of 850 persons there, it was pretty crazy. They went in order of the numbers on your tickets to get your books signed. It started at 7pm and we got out around 10pm. I have to say I am impressed, 700 signatures in 3 hours. It was neat to see the dads who brought there daughters there for the signing, and the crowed seemed to be decent, which was great. It was a pretty fun evening. By the way, I loved the book. She did a great job.

ER - Take Two

What is better than going to the ER once, how about twice within a week and a half for the same wound. That is right Austin split his head open again. Him and his cousin Emmalee were playing cats and dogs and he rubbed/hit his head underneath the table and re-opened it. It was bleeding more this time than last time. In the picture below you can see how well his head was healing. This visit didn't take as long as the one in Denver, thank goodness. Austin really liked the bandage on his head, he called himself a pirate.

His head is all better now, and he will be able to play hockey again (he is very happy about that).

It was bound to happen someday, surprised it wasn't sooner...

We had a wonderful Friday. Amy, Chris' sister came to town as a chaperon/piano player with a middle school group for a competition on Saturday. They had a lot of fun things planned for Friday. First we went to the Denver Zoo, it was a mad house there. I think every school was there on a field trip. It was tons of fun. The Denver Zoo is much bigger than the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and it didn't have as many hills also, which is very nice when you are pushing two kids around. We saw tons of fun animals, lots that we don't have at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Some of the kids favorites were the Nemo fish (clown fish) and the Polar Bears, one of which was playing in the water with a big plastic thing. We were there for about 4 hours (definitely not enough time to see all of them, so we need to go back).

Next we went to the Cherry Creek Mall (these middle school kids don't have a big mall where they come from -- Farmington, New Mexico) so the really enjoy this. I had fun finding fun stuff on sale for Chris at Macy's, then we took the kids to the big play area to play in. It is a nice big area, they have breakfast food for the kids to play on, waffles with butter, eggs, bacon, bowl of shredded wheat and blueberries, etc... Well towards they end some little kid brought a football (and we all know Austin LOVES any type of sport) and they started playing together. A couple of minutes later Austin smacks his head on the side of the play area and literally cracks his head open. So after getting some ice and TONS of napkins for the blood, my mother-in-law (wonderful lady) drives me to the Children's Hospital. It took us about 30-40 minutes to get there, so the whole time I keep asking Austin all these question to keep him awake (he has already had a long tiring day before the incident happened), the only thing I am afraid of is him falling asleep and not waking up because of a concussion. (first time I ever thought of my kid dying, I know a little overboard for a cracked head). We get to the hospital for a long 5 hours before we get to go home.

The Children's Hospital (definately different than a regular hospital) was very nice, the food was actually very good (We had dinner there instead of Casa Bonita --huge Mexican restraunt with cliff divers). Austin recieved 3 staples to the head (staples work better than stitches on the head), poor kid. It was about 3.5 hours in the waiting room, we had to keep Austin from running around, you would have never thought he was hurt the way he was acting, he made new friends. Once they took us back they had to irrigate the wound they staple it. It was really neat, there was a lady named Roni whose job was to destract the kids while they fixed the wound. She had a huge backpack full of all kinds of neat toys, Austin really enjoyed that and I think it really helped him till they had to staple his head. But after it was over he was able to pick out a toy from the treasure chest, he chose the yoyo (he was very excited)

On our way home (11pm) Austin told me that he was tired and wanted to go to sleep. It was too precious, he thought I was going to still try to keep him awake like I did earlier...He was out cold.

What a fun day, something I will never forget. As for the ER visit, it was bound to happen, sooner than later with a kid like Austin...Actually surprised it didn't happen sooner.

We are slowly shaving (to help the tape stick with the guaze) and trying to wash out the dried blood from his hair. While shaving we had fun and gave him a mohawk for the day, we will be shaving it tomorrow.

I would like to take a small moment to thank Chris' sisters Amy and Lisa for ALL the wonderful help they gave in taking care of all my stuff and little Aaron while i rushed to the ER, and for Jean in taking me to the ER -- THANK YOU!!!

Just a small note...Do you know how hard it is to keep an extremely active boy not to be active? VERY HARD, and DARN NEAR IMMPOSSIBLE!

Here are some pictures from the zoo and Austin's battle wound...

Wow, I haven't updated in a while!

Wow sorry about not updating in a while (I know I have said this a lot) I will try to get better. So many thing have been happening since "a while ago" so please make sure you scroll down.

HOCKEY - Austin has started hockey (he is the shortest one out there, but not the youngest)! Colorado Springs Armature Hockey Association (CSAHA) has a Spring League Training type camp. It is and 8 and under league, they have beginner (which Austin is in) and advance. He is having such a ball! He loves playing hockey for the Jr. Tigers. They teach them a lot of exercises to teach them how to play hockey. They put cones down and the kids slalom through, skate on one leg, hop on one leg, pull each other on the ice, to do a fast side stop, handle the puck, moving from a standing position to sliding and back up. It is pretty facisinating how much Austin has progressed since his first to his fifth practice.
Here is Austin showing off his jersey

Here he is all ready to play, we even had to buy him a mouth guard (and a cup).

Austin scored a goal the first night when they had a little scrimmage! What a stud!

Here he is in his hockey stance listening to the coach. (First thing he learned)

Here is his hockey stance, bend the knees but not too far.

Here he is skating with the puck. He actually is pretty good at this. (Chris has been practicing at home with him, on our wooden floor)

Here is Chris and Aaron being Austin's support squad. (Isn't Aaron SOOOO cute!, We call him Jack Jack - from The Incredibles)



SPAGHETTI DINNER - I made a cake for the auction

I did my traditional spaghetti cake, I destroyed the first half of the cake, so I let Austin decorate it. Here are some fun pictures of our cakes, I bet you can't tell who did what cake.