The past two weeks of our lives in a nutshell!

I started blogging because I thought it would be a good way to kind of journal our lives. I don't really enjoy doing it, though, and so I procrastinate all the time and at this time of the year, when things get hectic, it is easy to put it off. So this is a really long post! My goal is to do better this next year. I don't have pictures of everything I wanted but these are some that are okay. We start off with Dallin's 6th birthday. We had the Marble's over for a firepit and smore's and hot chocolate instead of cake and ice cream. The kids had so much, and I was a little worried with that many kids around the fire but they did great, all except for Brig who singed his hair by touching it with one of the roasting sticks.
Brig had his Christmas program at preschool. He loves Mrs. Amber's and has a great time with cousins Jalyn and Ryker being in his class. He even sang! I think that is a first for any of my kids to actually sing in preschool. My sister Tanya's little girl, Londyn, is on the far left. She is not a part of the class but Tanya dropped her off in the middle of the night so she could go have Baby Holly at the hospital. Londyn is the exact opposite of my kids and wanted to be a part of it even though she didn't know anyone or what they were doing. It was pretty dang cute! Mrs. Amber even let her and my other nephew Logan stay for the rest of the party after the program was over which they both thought was so cool.

Brig did his best but you could tell he was hating every minute of the program. He didn't take his eyes off his teacher the whole time they were singing and only half-way did the actions. I really enjoy Brig! He is a good boy and very fun.

Londyn hung out at our house for a couple days while Tanya and Nick were at the hospital. I don't think she really got that she was getting a sibling but she loved talking about baby Holly and playing with Brig. The two of them started dancing to music on the TV they were watching and it was so cute they actually looked like they knew what they were doing. Dallin was dissappointed that Holly was not born on his birthday, but the day after.

The weekend before Christmas we had a party at my parent's house. Alden had been playing hard all day and I thought he was just tired. He layed down and I had him hold Lila for me. They looked so cute together; that is until he puked all over her, right as Santa was walking in to door too! All the boys ended up with a stomach bug. Luckily it was a quick one and we were done with it after three days.

Alden missed Santa but the rest of the kids got to see him. Dallin got some of the throw up on him so he changed into clothes that were a little too small and luckily i had extra clothes for Lila too. I missed the whole Santa thing trying to help Alden and after that the party kind of fell apart.

Christmas Eve we went over to the Thurston's to try again. We met at the temple first to look at the lights. We always have so much fun there. The kids love going in the visitor center.

At Grandpa's the kids played games, opened presents, and acted out the story of Baby Jesus being born. They have such a fun time doing that. They were excited to get their pajamas. We went over to Scott's sister's house after that and decorated cookies to leave for Santa. The boys were so excited I thought they would never go to sleep but they actually did pretty good.

The boys all had a great Christmas and were very happy with what they received. Santa left them an Xbox 360 and mom and dad gave them Nintendo DS's so they are video gamed out!! They play every waking second unless i am getting after them to go play and get some fresh air. The kids each drew a siblings name to buy a present for and Scott is creative enough to help Dallin. He had him draw a picture of a butterfly (to go with her room decor) and then he took him to find a frame for it. It was so sweet and cute of him and he was so excited to give it to her. We spent Christmas evening at Scott's parents house and i, of course, forgot the camera. We had fun having a white elephant exchange and the kids had a puzzle exchange. There was lots of food and fun games. We had a great time.

After Christmas in one of our many attempts to get the boys away from the video games for a while we went across the street to the park. Scott took Brigs training wheels off and helped him learn how to ride. He picked it up quick and loves being a big kid. He claims that now he can ride in the desert behind the house like his brothers. We will have to see about that!

Santa Picture

We went to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa this year. I stood in line while the kids checked out all the cool things in the store with Scott. They had a blast. I never knew that store was so interesting and entertaining. After we saw Santa, we went and ate at the Toby Keith restaraunt "I love this bar". It was fun. Very loud, but the kids were at their own table and the adults were at a table. our waitress did a great job with a group of 26 and the kids were all very well behaved. Scotts mom and dad were there along with sandee and her kids, Ryan, Heidi and their kids and Glen and kim's family. Too bad I forgot my camera so no pics of dinner. :(

Thanksgiving in Utah!!!

We stopped in St. George on our way up to Provo and had Thanksgiving lunch with my dad's family. They are so Awesome! I have the best family anyone could ever want including extended family. My Aunts are the best. I could write pages on how awesome they are but for times sack I will only name a few. Starting at the left Kim is so crafty and always has some sort of project for us to make. She always has even as a kid had stuff for us to do. Laurie use to make the cutest clothes for us and is just the sweetest person ever, very caring and loving. Darla would do anything for anyone. I will never forget how much compassion she showed me when I had a miscarriage several years ago and she drove so far out of her way to bring me dinner and make sure I was okay. Dori is like a sister to me. I was lucky enough that she lived with my family for a while growing up and I have just always loved hanging out with her.
My boys had so much fun playing kickball and football after we ate with all the uncles and cousins. This park next to Dori's house was so nice. The weather was absolutely perfect and it was just a beautiful day for Thanksgiving.

Grandma T, me, Lila and cutie pie Abby watching the kids play.

We had a great time eating a second Thanksgiving feast in Provo on Friday. Tanya's family was the only one who didn't make it since she is too pregnant, and Liz since she was working. Tara showed all the kids how to make turkey's out of cookies and candy and we had fun hanging out in the church building eating and playing. What a great time we had!!!

These are the youngest grandkids (for now). Hyrum is the youngest but soon to be the biggest. Lila is the smallest little peanut and Kariah and Sam are in the same boat. Sam is a big boy too. it is fun to see the size differences.

Hyrum is two months old and about 16 pounds. Lila is 5 months old and about 13 pounds. I couldn't believe the difference in them!

Lots to blog about from Utah...

Our family had so much fun in Utah. We spent Friday evening hanging out at BYU. We went to the bookstore and bowling (which my camera died so I will have to get pics of some of those things from my mom when she gets back in town next week) and to the Bean museum. The kids loved the animals there. Here is Dallin with the "Liger" (tiger/lion mix)
The boys infront of the jaguar

this elephant was huge!!! I couldn't believe all the animals they had in here it was crazy.

Alden by the tiger.

Park City and Salt Lake City Utah November 28 2009

Lila spent the Day all bundled up she had on several layers of clothes and a couple blankets. I wanted to make sure she stayed warm. she had the cutest hat and mittens on too. Girl stuff is so much funner than boys!
We decide to spend the day in Park City on Saturday. The boys have not been in the snow much so they had a blast tubing and ice skating .

Scott had never been ice skating before either so I gracously sat out with Lila to let him make a fool of himself instead of me doing it. He actually did just fine though. He spent most the time pushing Brig around and helping him stand up though. Brig loved it!

These little walkers were so cute and helped the kids stand and balance but were hard to push. Brig did better with out it but liked having it anyway.

Alden loves rollerblading and so he did great. People around were commenting on how good he was doing and they were all very surprised when I told them it was his first time on the ice.

Dallin had a blast and did great too although he fell quite a bit. I think he had as much fun falling as he did actually skating. Most the pics I took are of him on the ground.

The boys had so much fun tubing we could have done that all day. I was thinking we should have gotten a babysitter for Lila. Scott and I had to take turns sitting out with her. Brig liked to get pulled while sitting in his tube, that was just as fun to him as going down the hill.

My kids did not have the warmest clothes, we don't even own snow clothes. So they are totally looking nerdy but that is alright they had fun and that is what matters. We brought dry clothes to change into in the car but they didn't get as wet as I thought they would so that was good.

We had fun looking at the Temple lights although I lost the camera, it fell out of the stroller, so these are the only pics we have of there. We took them right when we were leaving. Luckily someone turned in our camera at the Joseph Smith building. I was really sad walking around thinking all of the pictures from the whole trip were lost. Our camera sucks though so it would have been a good excuse to buy a new one we just wouldn't have any pictures from the whole week.

Scott had a terrible eye infection that drove him crazy the whole trip and we had a very long day so this picture cracks me up we all look very tired and ready to go home! Little did we know with our hotel room right next to BYU stadium it would take us FOREVER cuz the BYU/UTAH game went into overtime and was just ending when we were getting back into Provo. Good thing for left over pie and indoor swimming pools, once we finally did get back ate and swam we were good to go again.