Merry Christmas

Ok, so Christmas is my all time fave. Seriously. I. LOVE. IT. There were numerous times before Christmas that my kids and I would be jumping up and down saying "It's almost Christmas! It's almost Christmas!" Anyway, the day finally came and it did not dissapoint.

We stayed the night at Brandon's brother's house in Fruit Heights. His other brother and parents were also there. It was a lot of fun. We did Cafe Rio type salads for dinner and had a Mexican theme to the evening. We learned about mexican traditions and even had a pinata. The kids sang and did puppets for the nativity story.




After the festivities, all the kids went to sleep in Collin's room. We never thought they'd fall asleep but they did after a while. Of course, Caleb was still up LONG after the other kids had fallen asleep. But, what's new?

We went to sleep soon after. PS. I thought Aubrey was going to sleep awful considering we weren't at home and all the commotion and what not but this was the second time in her life that she slept ALL night long! (BTW, last night was the third time!) Aubrey was up for the day at 7am so Brandon and I came upstairs. Oh, at 5am Caleb got up and came into our room and we thought he was up for the day. But he fell back asleep and didn't get up until 8am. So Brandon and I are sitting upstairs in the living room with all the presents until Collin and Sami wake up at 7:40am. We're thinking what is going on here?! It's Christmas and it's 7:30am and not a single kid is awake! They all woke up soon after and loved their presents. The kids all got what they asked for.


I got some pretty cool gizmos too (Magic Bullet, crock pot, griddle, waterproof case for my ipod with waterproof headphones so swimming laps won't be a dreaded chore anymore and a gps watch for running. I am so lucky. Thanks to both mom's and brandon!) Brandon didn't get near the loot that I did. His came a few weeks ago and is 52 inches and sitting in our basement. He's spoiled.

Anyway, we had a fabulous Christmas. Sorry we didn't do a Christmas card. We felt like everyone already knows what is going on in our lives through the blog. Maybe next year. Maybe.

We do feel very blessed in our lives right now. We have a nice home; Brandon has a secure job; We have three wonderful children; We are all healthy. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season!

Santa's Lap

We took the kids to see Santa at the mall. Santa was so nice and there was a fun train for the kids to ride. Caleb asked for a race car track, Brynley asked for a castle and Aubrey asked for some pacifiers. :-)

Caleb's School Christmas Program and Christmas Crafts

Ok, so I've got a lot of back tracking to do and I'll post as quick as I can. First, let me take you back to Caleb's kindergarten class's school program. It was very cute and the whole school came to watch. The did a song with bells and one with sticks that they hit together. It was fun to watch him.




We did a couple of Christmas crafts before Christmas. Here are the kids doing their "gingerbread man house".

We also made some homemade ornaments with applesauce and cinnamon. They were fun and smelled great!

That's all for now. More to come...

Anniversary

Wow, I almost started to actually believe all that nice stuff Lindsey wrote about me after reading through it. It reads like a eulogy. Lindsey is a great eugoogoolizer... Not to mention forgiving, patient, understanding, loving, and super fine (that's a Brandon/Lindsey inside joke). Everybody knows how lucky I am to be married to Lindsey. I'm pretty sure I'm that guy that people see with his wife and think, "how did he manage to land that hottie?"

Thanks for being so great Lindsey and not one of those controlling wives who nags all the time. I'm thankful for you and I sure love you.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Last year I gave a run down of our last seven years together that included lots of pictures. So feel free to look at that if you haven't seen it.

Our eighth year brought us a third baby. We also went to Seattle to visit Brandon's folks (oh my gosh. I just said folks. Lol). The rest of the year was spent pregnant and having a baby. Ok, I'm starting to sound like a Christmas card, which I guess is fine since we didn't do one this year. Let me move on.

So, this being our 8th anniversary I want to list 8 things I love about Brandon.

1. Brandon is the best dad ever! He is so cute with Caleb and Brynley. He puts Brynley to bed every night and he just loves her so much even if she's a little stinker to him sometimes. (Aunt Kelly says she's playing hard to get. Lol.) And he adores Caleb and loves to wrestle and play games with him. He usually isn't to big on babies but he loves Aubrey. Since I've stopped nursing he's really stepped up to the plate and helps me feed her and even gets up in the night with her. Aren't I so lucky?!

2. Brandon can fix anything. Really. He can. If he's trying to hook something up or fix something and he gets frustrated I never get worried because it always ends with said thing in perfect condition. Even the kids say "Daddy can fix everything."

3. Brandon can also find anything. He is very good at looking for stuff that is lost. If any of us loses anything, he can almost always find it.

4. He does things he might not want to do without (too much) complaining. His calling involves doing something he hates: helping people move. And in our ward that is a very regular occurance. Rarely do I hear him complain. He just does what he needs to do.

5. He supports me in what I want to do even if he doesn't necessarily agree with the idea. At least he acts like he does.

6. He's so funny. He always keeps me laughing.

7. He's so stinkin hot. I mean c'mon. Just look at him. Nuff said.

8. Best of all, I know he loves me even with all my faults.

I love you, Brandon! Happy 8th Anniversary! (Brandon's actually in Chicago this week so we aren't even together... sad.)

Random pictures

And yes, Caleb is alive and does still live here. I don't know why I don't have very many pictures of him

Always a Princess

I took these pictures through our sliding glass door. Brynley was outside pretending to play in the snow. I just loved her outfit and had to share.

Brynley goes to dance!

Brynley is pretty much potty trained and we told her when she was done with diapers she could do dance! She (and I) were so excited! She is taking at this dance studio across the freeway from us. Here are some pictures from her first class. Sorry about the quality. The pictures were taken through a window.



She had this wedgie the entire time. We have tights this time so hopefully no more wedgie.

My Christmas Present to you... Free Training!

I want to give you all a Christmas present! I am giving you all a free month of online training! Check out my training blog (linked on the sidebar) if you are interested. There is no purchase necessary. Just a free month. It does need to be used in January though. That's the only catch. If you still have questions after checking out my website let me know!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My whole family was together for Thanksgiving and it was a lot of fun. I will start with some random pictures first:

My kids like honey nut cheerios for every meal. Really. I'm not kidding.

Cute little bather

Grandpa is worn out!



We had thanksgiving dinner at my parents house. My aunt, uncle and cousin also came over. We had a lot of fun and a lot of great food!
The girls

I love my sis!

Caleb played with this remote control car for a long time.

Brynley and Uncle Dane hid from all the monsters in Grandma and Grandpa's yard. There were a lot of them! And they had so much fun!




MMMMMM.... Dessert!


A few days later my bro, sis, mom and I went to see Twilight.


And we left the kids home with these two hooligans

Then we all wanted to join in on the fun


Thanks Kell for letting me steal your pictures!