While our pipes were frozen and we had no water I wasn't able to do any laundry. So of course we ran out of pj's. Luckily I found some of Brayden's old ones that fit Brooklyn perfectly. Each morning Brooklyn's hair looks like this from being up in a pony tail. I couldn't help but laugh when she was in Brayden's dinosaur pj's and looked just like a little triceratops:
(If you are starting with this post, you may want to skim through my last post first to fully understand the pipe issues we had.) As I mentioned in the last post I had about 8 hours worth of stuff to do in about 3 hours. Amazingly Brooklyn took a 4 hour nap and Brayden slept for 3 hours so I was able to do it all without having to worry about them. I quickly cleaned the house and started working on the pipes. I spent about half hour on the pipes and realized I needed more stuff at Home Depot. So I stopped working on the pipes and showered and got ready. Josh stopped and got what I needed on his way home. I was able to get the kids ready, the house clean, and myself ready by the time people started arriving. Now what to do about dinner?! Luckily I had made the alfredo sauce and meat sauce the night before so those were done. I solicited help from some of our friends to help Josh finish up dinner while I went outside to work on the pipes with the help of Ryan. (No, Josh is not normally in the kitchen while I am working on the house :) but b/c I spent the day with the plumber it was too hard to explain to someone what needed to get done.)
We exchanged white elephants with the kids first. It was fun to see them all have something new to play with.
I couldn't believe we ended up taking the picture with the kids all sitting in the same spot as last year, with the new addition of course. 
We then exchanged white elephants with the adults. Andrew ended up with the black widow Josh has been keeping in a jar for about 3 months. Here he is when he realized what he had opened:
Adam showed up at the end of the white elephants, so Andrew wrapped the spider back up and gave it to Adam. Adam didn't appreciate it. He ended up putting it in the box by the front door. Later that night Josh and I were wondering what happened to the spider, assuming that Andrew and Adam hid it somewhere in our house. So we texted them and found out about Adam putting it in the box. Well...that box ended up being the Tuckers. They found it when they got home and unloaded their stuff. Needless to say, they left it on their porch overnight so they could go throw it in a dumpster the next day. The party ended up being a lot of fun and went really well. After everyone left Josh and I returned to the pipes and spent about 1 1/2 hours finishing up the insulation while it was about 7 degrees outside. We let the water run in all our pipes until the lows were back into the 20's. Tyler from our ward is going to help us solve the problem in a few weeks after Christmas. We are SO grateful for wonderful ward members that are willing to help us out eventhough we don't know them well yet.
They hooked up a huge heater fan and built a tent on the back of our house to warm up all the pipes. Here are pictures of the tent and heater.
Tyler left while the plumber and I waited for the pipes to thaw out. One by one our water was turning on. We were down to one last pipe that went to the kitchen hot water. The plumber asked me to run downstairs to see if starting the dryer would help heat things up. As I got to the laundry room I heard a waterfall and saw water coming in everywhere. The plumber quickly turned the water off as we determined that the last pipe obviously thawed out and had burst. Fantastic. Luckily all the water was contained to the bathroom and laundry room so I could quickly sweep it down the drain.
The plumber started looking for the burst pipe. We ended up making a mess of our ceiling before finally finding it. (After Tyler saw what he did and knowing it was NOT necessary to do that to our ceiling b/c of how it was built, he was very angry at his plumber. Tyler and his brother are going to fix it for us to make up for that mistake of the plumber.)
Here's where he finally found the burst pipe:
Within about 30 minutes he had the pipe replaced and the water was finally on for good! The only problem was that our house still didn't have any protection for our pipes since the geniuses who built the house put all the water pipes tightly against the cement of our house, so not only do we have a problem with the pipes in the overhang freezing, we have potential problems with all the pipes along the wall. No one had this problem before us b/c the basement was unfinished so there was warmer air inside to counteract the cold cement.
So the plumber left about 2:45 and you would like all would be well. Unfortunately, that only gave me about 3 hours to get the house ready for our friend Christmas party we were hosting at 6. I had to clean the house, set up all the tables, shower and get ready, bathe the kids and get them ready, and I had about 2 hours worth of work to do on the pipes to insulate them. Hmmm...not going to happen. To be continued in the next post...
Brayden was very excited he got a BYU stamp. He wouldn't stop talking about it when they got home, and the next day, and the next. (Pretty much everyday until the stamp wore off.)
My family does Thanksgiving every other year, so since we were with them last year we were supposed to be with Josh's family this year. The only problem was that half of them went to St. George for Aaron's soccer tournament. So we ended up having a Thanksgiving dinner with them the Sunday before. We wanted to just stay home, but figured we should be grateful for all the wonderful offers we got for dinner, so we ended up going to my grandma's house. I was a little worried since dinner was at 2, which is right when the kids nap. Luckily, Brooklyn took a nap at 12:15 (first time ever!) and we were able to enjoy the afternoon without tired kids. Brayden made it until the end when we started getting pretty sleepy. Here's a picture of 3/4 of the group:
Dinner was SO yummy. We're so grateful my grandparents were able to squeeze us in. After dinner the kids were playing and I couldn't believe it when I turned around and Brooklyn was chillin' on the floor like this. I remember those days when I was that flexible!
My aunt lives next door with a bunch of animals. As soon as we pulled up Brayden didn't stop asking to feed them, so after dinner Josh and my dad took the kids over to see the animals.
Every time we go to my aunt's house Brayden gets braver. This time he actually went inside to pet the sheep! This is progress! Here he is with my aunt petting and feeding the sheep.
Brooklyn loved the swingset, of course.
On our way back to my grandma's for pie Brooklyn decided to chase the rooster. She was laughing so hard we couldn't help but laugh as well.
Looks like she made a friend! Although that's close enough Brooklyn...
I'm late with this post, but we did get up our Christmas tree. In fact, we got out all our Christmas decorations a few days before Thanksgiving. I just couldn't wait any longer! It was a lot of fun letting the kids play with all the lights and decorations. We ended up doing a BYU tree this year. I'll post pics of the finished product soon. Here's a few pictures of the kids helping:
Of course Brooklyn lost interest before we were done, so she opted to play with a balloon instead.
I couldn't resist posting this cute picture of Brooklyn snuggling with her grandpa. She doesn't snuggle very often, so when she does it's a rare treat.
