Woops!

After we all went shopping one evening we came home and I wasn't feel too great. I ended up getting some 24 hour bug that seems to be going around. Luckily, no body else caught it. Josh was able to do a lot of his work at home in the morning so he watched the kids. And thank heavens my sister lives in the basement because she pretty much took care of the kids all day long. I don't know how I would've been able to do it without her. At one point I heard a small crash and knew that the box of Cheerios I had put back in a very unstable spot had fallen and spread all over the floor. My sister, a girl after my own heart, grabbed my camera instead of a broom. The kids had a blast playing in the cereal, spreading it all over the floor while they ate them. Thanks Rachelle for all your help!

Pretty Necklaces!

It took Brooklyn a while to get into girl stuff. There is a good chance that that was because of Brayden's influence and the fact that it took us a while to get her girly stuff. Brynlee, on the other hand, is already so girly. She is always bringing me Brooklyn's tutus and wants me to put them on her, as well as necklaces. She loves to play with these beads...just putting them on and off and on again. So cute!

Yum! Lettuce!

Brynlee is our little salad eater. I eat a taco salad almost every day for lunch, and she LOVES it. She especially loves when I let her play with the head of lettuce. On this particular day, she swiped the lettuce and took off with it. She was too cute to interupt, so I let her enjoy it.

Christmas Chain

The kids have been WAY excited for Christmas. We thought it would be fun to do a chain to countdown to Christmas, since everyday they wake up and ask how many days are left. Here they are drawing on their links and gluing them together.

Brayden's Birthday Party

There was no way I was going to be able to do Brayden's birthday party before our trip, so we opted to do it after. We did Jungle Jim's again and the kids had a blast. We had about 16 kids come. There was only one other small birthday party there so it was nice to almost have the place to ourselves. The kids loved the rides, of course, and even Brynlee got in on some of the action.

We did manage to pause long enough for pizza and presents. We've learned from previous years that there is no time to do cake and ice cream. So we chose cupcakes instead and it was perfect.

Brynlee LOVED the swings:

I wouldn't let Brayden ride this ride because he always gets sick. Brooklyn, however, loved it:

Brynlee also LOVED the carousel.

I was a little nervous to let her ride this ride, but Brayden was a fun brother to be with. She did great for most of the ride, then started crying.

Here's how this ride went...Brynlee looked like she woul love being in the car with Brooklyn.

It started going and here is where she is realizing she is going away from mom into a tunnel.

Not a fan.

She loved it, however, when I rode with her:

Happy Birthday Brayden! We hope you had a lot of fun!

St. George/Thanksgiving

Josh's family went to San Diego for the week before Thanksgiving and stopped in St. George on the way back. Since there was extra room at one of the St. George condos, we decided to join them. We left on Tuesday night and the drive went SO much better than expected. The kids did great and fell asleep half way through. After watching the kids' heads bounce around while they slept I remembered that the back seats in the van recline. So it was perfect to recline the seats so the kids were more comfortable.

Once we were there we relaxed all day Wednesday (Josh's family wasn't coming until late Thursday night.) We headed over to Pizza Factory for lunch then to Walmart to scope it out for Black Friday. The kids napped all afternoon. That night we went and visited some friends from college, Eric and Janae, and their 3 kids Sadie, Kallie, and Bryson. The kids LOVED playing together and we had a fun time catching up with them.

Thursday was pretty relaxed as well. We took the kids swimming in the morning. Brynlee wasn't a huge fan (a little chilly) but the other kids loved it:



We had originally planned on going to Chuck-A-Rama for Thanksgiving dinner. When Adam's mom found out she insisted that we come over for dinner. We had a wonderful afternoon/evening with them and dinner was SO good. Brynlee slept through most of it, but that just meant that I got to enjoy it a little more. We tried to get some good family pictures in their beautiful yard.



On Friday we did some shopping then took the kids out to play:

The rest of the weekend we continued to relax and hang out with the Ericsons. Most of them left on Saturday morning. Michael and Natalie stayed with her grandma on Saturday night so it quieted down on Saturday. We shopped a little bit at the outlet stores on Saturday. On Sunday we woke up and packed up everything and headed home. The drive went ok, but not great. It's just hard to entertain the kids that long...especially the baby. Overall, we had a great time. It was a good break and it was fun to enjoy a little warmer weather.

Brayden's Birthday At School

The day after Brayden's birthday I got to go to school with him and do a 20 minute spotlight. He got to be the special leader for the day and loved it, of course.

I brought his hoop. I know...shocker. He loved dribbling and shooting for everybody:

Our 5 yr old!

Thanks for letting me be part of your special day!