Playing in the snow!

We've been able to play in the snow quite a bit this winter.  Brian and the kids made a great snowman in the backyard.  Unfortunately, it didn't last for more than a few days.  Paige and Austin thought it would be fun to kick it and smash it and throw rocks at it.  I felt sorry for you, Mr. Snowman.  Maybe when we get enough snow again, we'll build you again! ;0)

Here's our cute "Purple Marshmallow" as the kids call her.

 Here's the said snowman before his brutal death.

 Brian's brother and his family came to visit for a few days.  After playing for a while at our house we went to Grandma and Grandpa A.'s house.  They have an awesome little sledding hill at the school by their house and we were able to play on it several times while we were there.  The babies didn't last too long because it was so cold (maybe 10 degrees), but we had lots of fun in short bouts of time! ;0)

 Our cute niece, Janie.

 Our awesome nephew and one of Austin's favorite big cousins, Ethan.  (He's one of Austin's favorites because he taught Austin how to play Star Wars with all the sound effects!!)

 Our very talented niece, Ashley.  She could ride on the big sled standing up the whole time.  That takes talent!

 We love this little sled.  It never tips over and it buckles the little babies in.  Bryn LOVED sledding down the hill!

 And last, but not least, our sweet niece, Lucy.  She is such a happy, smiley baby!  I want to hold her again!  (If she'll let me that it is.  She's a very active, mobile baby now!)

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  It was very relaxing and low-key because it was just our little family again this year.  The month of December, on the otherhand, was anything but low-key! ;0)  It was still wonderful, just busy.  I think I wore out my new piano with all of the practicing on it!  My piano students had their first piano recital which went very well, I had to play in our ward's Relief Society Christmas program, our ward's Christmas program and in Sacrament Meeting a couple weeks before Christmas.  I loved being able to play in all of these, but my fingers were getting a little worn out!! ;0)  I wouldn't take it back for anything, though, because music is such a powerful way to testify of our Savior, Jesus Christ, especially during the time that we celebrate his birth.  I'm so grateful that I have the talent I have so I can share my testimony of Him through music.

Now on to our pictures!

Our beautiful Santa baby!!

I really tried to take a good picture of the kids this year in their Christmas outfits in front of the tree.  As you can see, it didn't turn out.  Thankfully we had our family pictures from the summer to fall back on for our Christmas cards!!

I had a meeting to go to one night and when I got home I found the gingerbread house decorated.  Great job, Brian, Paige and Austin!  I had the house put together, but not decorated, for several days and I don't think the kids could stand it anymore.  I was just done with it because the dumb "royal icing" burned out my hand mixer.  I wasn't very happy!!  Luckily Bri is a good dad to help the kids finish it.  It looks great in my opinion!

On Christmas Eve, we did one of the activities in the December Children's Friend.  It was really supposed to be done on each day in December until Christmas, but I was a slacker and didn't get to it until Christmas Eve.  It worked well either way, though, so that's OK! ;0)  The kids loved decorating the tree after reading the Christmas Story scripture that went with each ornament.  Such a great idea!!

We decided to keep the tradition I grew up with and have the kids open the presents they gave each other.  Paige had Bryn, Austin had Paige and Bryn had Austin this year.  They each did a great job picking out the presents because they still play with those toys.  Yippee!!

 Austin got this castle with a knight, dragon and catapult.  The catapult works quite well! ;0)

 Paige got this "FurReal" puppy.  She named it Lily.  It moves it's head and tail when you pet it.  Paige can't let it out of her sight and has to sleep with her every night.  (It was a sad week and a half when we couldn't find Lily.  Paige said a prayer that she would find her, though, and a couple days later found Lily under her mattress!)

 Bryn loves her little ball toy.  She does it over, and over, and over...  The best part...it doesn't have annoying music or sound effects.  It's just the ramp.

 Aunt Kandra, Uncle Brandon, Sydnee and Dawson had us for Christmas this year.  Sydnee HAD to give these suckers to Paige and Austin.  Aren't they HUGE?!?  Paige still hasn't eaten all of hers and after Austin ate the equivalent of 4 normal suckers he threw his away and said he couldn't eat anymore of it. :0)  They said they were good, though! :0)

 Here's what our Christmas looked like after the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve.

 Our stockings and Santa's gifts to the kids

 The cards that Paige and Austin made for Santa.  As you can see, Santa enjoyed the cookies they left him and the reindeer loved the carrot snacks, too.

 Christmas morning.  Do all of my siblings remember pictures like these every year?!? ;0)

 Bryn enjoying her Ring Pop from Sydnee.

 Paige's awesome presents!  She got a full-size dollhouse, some books, fruit leather, a shirt, some pants, a ballerina Barbie, Barbie clothes, Princess and the Frog movie, a puzzle, a letter game, a hula hoop, Lily and the outfit she's wearing.  She definitely scored this Christmas! ;0)

 Austin and his loot.  He got a basketball hoop and ball, some books, a couple shirts and pants, a puzzle, a letter game, a sword, more train tracks and trains, fruit leather, Toy Story 3, his castle and a storage tote for his cars.  What a lucky boy!!

 Here's Bryn's stash.  She got a little computer, "CD player", a ticklish hippo, books, balls, her ball ramp, some outfits and her favorite things in the world, shoes!!  Grandma and Grandpa A. know the way to this girl's heart!! :0)

Brian and I did get some presents, too. ;0)  Bri got a tool box, a hand sander and a shop-vac.  Glamorous presents, I know! ;0)  I got new snowboarding pants, jeans, jewelry box and a new camera.  Yes, Brian always spoils and surprises me!! ;0)



Thanksgiving

Sadly I don't have any pictures from Thanksgiving yet.  My mom took most of the pictures since I was dumb and didn't even take my camera out of the bag.  (In my defense, though, the bag with the camera in it was in the cottage and it was just too cold to go back and get it when I thought of taking a picture!  Yes, I'm blaming it on Wyoming winter weather!!)  Once I get the pictures from my mom I'll post them on here.  For now you get to enjoy a picture of our Paige after she was practicing piano.  You can see some of my Thanksgiving decorations on the table, so there you go! ;0)

We did have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  All of my siblings except for Keith and his family were there.  We really missed them but had a good time with the rest of the fam.  Besides having a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, we played games, watched lots of football, shot some guns (that's just a given in my family), laughed at all the cousins playing, and helped my mom and dad clean and organize some (OK, a lot) of their things.  We went through old books and photo albums/pictures which we divided up between the kids.  The best part of this was the reactions of all of our kids when they saw their mom's and dad's old books.  Paige and Austin LOVE reading the books we brought home and I LOVE reading them because they bring back so many memories.  I remember reading "The Naughty Puppy", "FeatherFin", "Glitterby Baby", etc. and now my kids can enjoy those same books.  Love it!  It was also really neat to look through my mom and dad's old photo albums.  It's been a  really long time since I've seen those pictures of my parents' childhoods and of my ancestors.  There were even several pictures of my grandparents that I had never seen, so it was great!!

We also helped my mom organize her craft supplies, fabric and patterns.  We were very productive, let me tell you.  Plus, we were able to score some awesome supplies.  I'm so excited about some of the patterns I got from her.  Carebear, dinosaur, truck patterns, along with princess costume patterns, and many more.  I'm so glad we were able to help my mom and dad with this.  We gave so much to DI, threw away the things that needed it, and cleared a lot of the items in their storage unit out.  Great job, Mom and Dad!!

So, yes, we had a wonderful, productive Thanksgiving.  How about you? :0) 

I haven't posted since Halloween?!?

Where has the time gone?  Has it seriously been almost 3 months since I last posted?  I know it's been a long time when my dad calls me and tells me I'm in trouble because he hasn't seen posts about his grandkids for a while.  (He called and told me this almost a month ago and I'm just getting to it.  Sorry, Dad!)  We have been busy with school, church callings, vacations during Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, projects (mainly sewing projects), and just raising 3 busy kids.  We have lots of pictures that will soon be posted so beware of the picture overload in advance!  Well, here we go!!

Halloween Festivities

This is for you, Dad.  Sorry I've been a slacker!! :0)

We had so much fun this year during the month of October.  It's a lot of fun having older kids who truly love Halloween and really get into it.

Paige had so much fun at her Halloween party at school.  She LOVED showing off her little brother and sister to everyone.  Isn't she such a beautiful medieval princess?  Funny story...when we first got her costume, we told her that her dress made her look like a medieval princess.  So, whenever anyone asked her what she was going to be for Halloween, she would say, "An evil princess."  They would always look a little confused until I explained that she kept forgetting to say the "mid" in medieval.  By the time Halloween rolled around, though, she had the correct "name" down! :0)

Bryn LOVED this little girl's costume.  Those wings fascinated her!

As you can tell, Bryn liked the treats as well.  This was taken while Paige played her "Hot Pumpkin" game so Paige couldn't protect her stash.  Luckily Paige didn't mind sharing!!  What a good sister!

The "Hot Pumpkin" game

These little creatures visited our home throughout most of October.  Aren't they so cute?  Paige and Austin are constantly begging me to do projects lately and this is one we came up with.  Sadly, Bryn's didn't last more than a day.  She's kind of our "human tornado".  Everywhere she goes, there is a trail of messes behind her!!  Her crow was a victim of that!!

Austin with his crow.  Have to love that he's still in his jammies!!  It was because I was a slacker mom and didn't realize that he didn't have clean pants until that morning.  He had to wait for a pair to be washed.  Oops!

Bryn with her crow before she destroyed it.  Notice that she's upright!  She's finally walking!!  It's been nice having our 3rd child be a late crawler and walker, but it is nice not having to worry about holey pants and scuffed shoes as much as when she was just crawling.  Good job, Bryn!!

Paige was very proud of her crow.  She did everything by herself and couldn't stop showing it off.  Another post will explain this further!

Austin with his cute preschool class.  Transformers were very popular this year.  Two Bumblebees and one Optimus Prime.

They happened to play "Hot Pumpkin" in Austin's class, too. :0)  Paige was my photographer for most of the activities.

This is Bryn's "Peek-a-boo" pose.  She does this ALL...THE....TIME!!  We love it, though!

TREATS!

Our pumpkin assortment for this year.  The kids picked the big pumpkin for Brian at a farm that we went to (pictures in another post).  Austin thought it was so cool that the pumpkin weighed as much as he did - 35 lbs!  Can you guess which pumpkin Brian did?  We had to represent our teams, Ohio State (my pumpkin) and BYU (Austin's pumpkin).  Austin painted his all blue and wanted me to paint the Y.  Ever since he slept in his cousin, Ethan's, BYU room, he's been obsessed! ;0)  Paige's pumpkin is pretty obvious with the flowers! ;0)  And cute Bryn had a cute pumpkin to match!

another view of Paige and Austin's pumpkins

The kids in their Halloween outfits.  Do you recognize Austin's shirt from last year?  He wore it for the last time today.  It is now officially too small. :0)

Bryn with her matching pumpkin.  Aren't the teeth and the button nose perfect?!? :0)

Paige showing off her masterpiece.

See, he's obsessed!! ;0)

Here we are at our Trunk-or-treat.  For our decorations this year, the kids cut out pumpkins, bats and ghosts and drew faces on them.  Then we just hung them up in the back (I should say Kandra and Paige hung them up in the back).  Not as cool as last year, but oh well.  My SIL, Julie, took that prize this year!! ;0)  We picked up Bri's wig at the Pharmacy in town and he already had the tennis suit.  He's such a good sport!!  The hair is hot, though, don't you think?!? ;0)  Bryn was a little kitty, Austin as Bumblebee, Paige as a medieval princess, and me as a Gypsy.  Do you see Paige's bag?  I made each of the kids one.  Paige wanted a black cat, Austin a ghost and we made Bryn a jack-o-lantern.  They turned out really cute.  I thought I took a picture of them, but I couldn't find it.  Oh well.