The green monster...

Oh boy, are we in trouble... Bryn is now a big 17 months old (less than a month to nursery, yeah!), and she is a beautiful, wonderful, fun girl. But does she ever keep me on my toes!

Brent and I are full back into the swing of things; he's working very hard to get in all his requirements during his last semester, and I'm as busy as ever with my millions of projects and plans and trying to get our house put together to sell. Bryn makes all of this extra interesting. :)

I was busy doing something on my computer, both the kids in the living room with me. I have a pretty good idea of the state of the house and the things Bryn likes to get in to, but she suprised me with this one. I look up and she's covered in green...

This picture doesn't even do it justice! Apparently she had gone into Drew's room, the door of which should be and usually is always closed. And there happened to be a dollar-store stamp (the kind that's both a stamp and an ink pad all in one) on the floor. She was eating it...

There was the bright green all over the bottom half of her face, in her mouth, all over her hands and running down her arms, dribbled down the front of her (new) shirt and pooling in the seat of my special rocking chair. Yes, I freaked out!

The chair was the easiest part to clean, and I had to soak her shirt with OxyClean, but that came out, too. But she looked like this for the rest of the day. The green on her face faded to this funny, thin mustache by dinner time. I'm just glad she didn't get sick.

I have to admit, it's pretty funny. This girl definitely makes us laugh every single day! I asked her to show me her hands and this is what she did...

And now, we must introduce you to my favorite face, the stink face. Not sure how she started doing this, but it makes me laugh, and then she laughs at herself, which is ridiculously cute... (This looks especially appropriate with all the green on her face.)

Haha! Seriously, what will I do with this little character? Probably just love her to death and try to laugh at everything she puts us through.

... and a happy New Year!

Although my parents thought we were coming up on the 26th, we ended up driving to northern Utah on Christmas day and surprised them. It was so fun, plus since we were going to come back down to Cedar before we headed home, it was nice to get a little extra time.

We got three more Christmases at my mom's. I think the kids were pretty disappointed when we got home and the tree didn't mean more presents.

Drew got a Pillow Pet, and he loves it! That was the first thing he took for show and tell when we got back.

We had a fun week, visiting with the family and a few friends and just relaxing. We got a few days with my brother and his wife, but then they were in the middle of a move, so we celebrated New Year's with my grandparents and my sis and her hubby. We had so much fun -- we went out to eat at Winger's and we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Look at that big ol' plate of sticky fingers! Yum.... We also played our favorite Winger's game: Throw popcorn in someone else's mouth. Drew was having a blast!

Then we stopped by the old courthouse and looked at the Christmas lights in the little village.

Check out this gingerbread house! It's a masterpiece!

We sent Bryn to bed and played games until it was time to ring in the new year. Drew made it all the way to midnight!!

We celebrated Mormon style with some Martinelli's. :) We had a great time...

We also were able to fit in some quick family pictures, which was wonderful! Yep, pretty good looking family if I do say so myself. :)

Thanks so much for squeezing this in. I'm so glad we've got new pictures. We loved seeing you!

What a merry Christmas...

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year! We were all together, which was extra sweet knowing that several of us will be going on some big adventures this coming year and I'm not sure when we'll get to see everyone again.

It was also extra special because my mother-in-law gave us a special gift: She used to make pajamas for all her kids for Christmas. This year, she did it for ALL of us. I'm not even sure how many sets she made, but I have to say it was pretty incredible! I feel very lucky to be part of this family...

'Course, this is how we usually look... :)

We opened our special jammies from Mary on Christmas Eve, and then spent a fun evening all together.

Bryn looks pretty spiffy in her red Christmas jammies...

After a yummy dinner (and some of the most delicious prime rib I've ever had, and that's saying a lot coming from someone who's barely a meat-eater), the kids made reindeer out of cookies and other fun treats.

And when I say the kids made reindeer, I mean the cousins made reindeer and Drew ate his treats. :)

The little boys had some story time with Grandma. Jax got bored and wandered off, and Lennix fell asleep. Drew was the only one who made it through the story. Then we threw a bunch of matresses on the floor and tried to find a place for everyone to sleep. Not sure how much sleep everyone got, plus we stayed up really late...

The next morning, our monkey bread almost exploded it got so big. It was so good...

Christmas morning was a wonderful flurry of wrapping paper and happy shouts. It was really nice...

Drew was a little unsure at first; he definitely didn't get enough sleep. But once we brought him some presents, he got more excited about things.

We were lucky to get to spend some extra time with Mitch and Julie. We wanted to take a trip in September to go see them, and then it didn't work out. And we can't try again this year because they're going to Korea for baseball this season. Good luck, you two! I'm sure it will be a wonderful, exciting year but we'll really miss you.

Jaxon bagged up his haul and was ready to take it home and get playing with it. But before everyone left, we went to church together. It was really neat having Christmas on a Sunday this year, and spending some time in worship. It was a great reminder for this season, and doing that with our family was priceless.

After Christmas morning and church, we let the kids get a little rest in and then headed up north to surprise my parents, who thought we were coming the next day...

It's party time...

We had so much fun going home for Christmas this year. But before we went home, we had a little Christmas of our own -- there was something really special the year before when we didn't go and we had Christmas with just our little family.

Bryn is getting so big; I don't think she totally understands about Christmas, but she really liked ripping the paper off everything. (I love that she has started wearing my shoes, I had to throw this picture in...)

Drew was sooooo excited for Christmas; after we set up our tree, every morning he came into the living room and said, "Oh, the tree!" And he'd shimmy underneath it to turn on the lights and the star.

We stopped first in Vegas to go see our best friends. Their little boy, Shay, and Drew were fast friends. It's always great to see them, and never long enough...

Then we headed to Cedar and it was wonderful to get to see everyone in the family. We went sledding and out to eat and caught up on everything. One of the highlights of our trip was a big party my sister-in-law Julie planned for Brent and his brother, Jay, both of whom will be graduating in the spring from dental school.

She did such an awesome job with this party! We had a delicious dinner and lots of fun little activities. Here Julie's giving my nephew Lennix a fake shot with syringe pens.

The soon-to-be dentists with their kiddos

Ang and Lexie having some dinner

We had a table full of candy, and Bryn was trying to get anything she could grab. Luckily it was the wrapped candy that was within her reach.

And you can't have a party without embarrassing the boys a little -- they had to dress up as the tooth fairy for some of the activities. Pretty handsome in that getup...

Jens trying out the tiara 

The boys also had to do a Minute to Win It game -- take two toothbrushes from a holder on the bill of a cap and transfer them to another toothbrush holder. It looked so hard, but they both did it. Well, mostly... Brent almost had it but it fell out at the last second.

Oh, my silly Brent. I'm so proud of him, though. He has worked so hard in dental school, not only to pass his classes and get his requirements but also to keep a balance between school work and being home with us. We just found out he passed his boards with flying colors.  

More on Christmas is my next post...