Our Christmases

We had a super busy Christmas week. It all started on the Tuesday the 23rd, when my brother, Kyle got home from his mission. He faithfully served in the Santa Rosa, California mission for the past 2 years. It was so great to see him at the airport! We are all so glad to have him home. He is just the same as he was before he left. After the airport we headed over to the Conference Center where he was realeased by the Stake President. Then we went to Ruby River and had a delicious lunch. Since he was home before Christmas we were celebrating Christmas with Lane's family a little early.
Wednesday morning we headed over to Lane's parents home, where we had yummy ham and a "Big Breakfast" in the dutch oven. Since we were going to be up to the cabin on actual Christmas, Lane' family graciously agreed to do their Christmas on Christmas Eve, and so did Santa.




We let the kids open all their presents first and then put them in the kitchen to play with some of their toys while the adults opened presents.

I got a bunch of scrapbook stuff, and Lane got a back light for the truck, since he broke the other one by backing into a pole! He also got clothes, and stuff for school.

Here is Brookie and Jayden playing with her activity coloring tray thing.

Then after we were all done with the presents, Papa brought out the big one for the grandkids. It's a John Deere car thingy. Brooklyn climbed in it, but as soon as it started going she freaked. Pretty much is for Jayden at this point, both girls were to scared of it.



Then we headed up to the cabin in a blizzard, we had to go super slow up the canyon. Once it started snowing it didn't stop for almost 40 hours. I don't have any pictures from the cabin except one. We had a good time, it was good to have the family all there after Kyle being gone. All the girls got new sewing machines, Lane got some hair clippers and Brookie got an easy bake oven. Here is the one picture I have of how much it snowed. We got there at midnight Wednesday night and left Friday at like 11 a.m. and this is how much it snowed.

Here are what our truck and my parents truck looked like, it was insane how much snow there was!


When we got home on Friday afternoon we finally had our Christmas, Brooklyn was really that into it. Lane got me a scensy candle, a new comforter bed set, and some bath salts. I got Lane some pants, pathetic I know but we were on a super tight budget. We wanted to make sure we got Brookie lots.



This was our big present to Brooklyn and where most of the money went. A kitchen set loaded with food and all sorts of utensils and pots and pans. She loves it! She cooks me things all day long. Sorry the pictures are blurry, I'm having issues with the camera.


All in all we had a wonderful Christmases. I'm truly grateful for what we do have and glad to spend time with family. I hope all of you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Brookie's Class

For Brookie's class that is at the Rec Center (the Mommy and me) they had a christmas party with all sorts of crafts, snacks and toys. First we necklaces, which I mostly did, Brooklyn just pulled the string.


She is so proud!

Here is Mrs. Claus reading them a book, Santa was there too but of course she freaked out so I didn't get a picture, she wouldn't even sit on his lap!

However, she did love this!! This is her all time fav.

I really enjoy going to these classes with Brooklyn, especially since I've gone back to work full time. It is one of the highlights of the week, to spend that one on one time with her doing fun things.

Pizza Factory It Is. . .

Okay drill girls, I've decided to get together on Monday the 29th. That is what works best for most people. We're going to do dinner instead of lunch because I work and I know other people to do. So Pizza Factory in Lindon @ 6 p.m. on the 29th. Sorry no husbands allowed but kids are. I hope you can all come!!! Let me know if you can make it so I can have some sort of idea how many people will be there. And you better come so that I don't look like a retard waiting for all these people to show but no one comes!!

See you Soon! Merry Christmas!!!

Lights and More

We try to do something fun together as a family once a week, since we only see Daddy on Tuesday and Wednesday nights because he his working so much. This week we went and saw the lights at Thanksgiving Pointe. You just drive through in your car. We had Dave and Tiff and their kids all pile into the our truck so we could only pay for one vehicle instead of two. It cost $7 and lasts for about 10-15 minutes.


Watch out everyone, Brookie is driving!! (I love Lane's face!)


The kids really enjoyed it. We then headed over to Chilis for some freakin amazing dessert!! A chocolate chip molten!


SHE DID IT!!!


She is potty trained!! I am so proud of her, it has been pretty easy. I think this is our second week of being potty trained. For the most part she tells you she needs to go but we still have accidents every now and then. For example, last night we took our friends Matt and Cassie to the airport which is about a 45 minute drive each way. I debated about putting her in a pull-up, but I didn't. We're almost there maybe like 5 minutes away and she tells me she needs to go potty. I said can you hold it for just a minute we're almost there. Matt did a really good job of distracting her and she held it. I ran into the airport when we got there and she went, good job!!! Then on the way back we're about 15 minutes away from home and she tells me she needs to go potty again, aahhh great! Well she couldn't wait that long and a few minutes later she tells me she's wet. Oh well! If we're home all day and not doing anything she does great, it's when we're out running errand that she kind of has a hard time holding it when we're not near a bathroom. Anyways I am extremely proud of her and can't believe how big she is getting!!

Let's Get Together

Drill Team Party!! So I know a bunch of you are coming back home to the PG, Lindon area for Christmas. I'm trying to set up a day that we can all get together for lunch and catch up and see everyone's kids and babies!! So leave me a note as to how long your going to be in town for and what day or days will work best for you. I know it will be kind of crazy with the holidays but I really want to see everyone. I'm thinking between Christmas and New Years, but I'm not sure how long people are staying. Let me know ASAP so I can pick a date and get it all planned!!!!

P.S. I know not everyone has a blog so I'll put this on facebook too, but if you know of someone and you have their number, call them and let them know. Thanks! :)

Festival of Trees

So Festival of Trees I believe is only something in Utah, so let me explain for maybe those of you who don't know. Every year they do Festival of Trees, everything is donated from the food right down to the place where they hold it. All of the proceeds go to Primary Children's Medical Center. For the past 2 years, my sweet mother-in-law has been on the board of committee and we've made it a family tradition every year that we all pitch in and help. Stephanie (mother-in-law) runs the Sweet Shoppe, which is full of candy, carmels, and chocolates; you name it and they've got it! People spend all year making trees, wreaths or gingerbread houses with their own money and time and then they have a bidding aution that anyone can come to and buy these trees. Some people buy them for themselves or their company, others buy them and donate it to someone. The trees are usually made with someone it mind as a tribute to them if they have passed on or if they are diagnosed with a disease. So all us adults go up Saturday night (we left Brookie with my parents) and after it closes at 10:00 p.m. we started to clean up the Sweet Shoppe, taking everything down. Each committee person is given anywhere from 4-8 trees that we have to deliver to the families that bought them or to who they were donated too. We had 4 this year. We go and put all the accessories around the trees in boxes and then shrink wrap the trees and get them loaded into a truck to be delivered first thing Sunday morning. We didn't get home Saturday night until 3:30 in the morning and then had to be up at 8:30 to go deliver them. Our trees were "A Wicked Tree," this was made for a boy who loved all sorts of spiders and crawling things. They had big spiders on the tree. "Heal the World," was made by one of the doctors and his wife for a little boy who's 3 and has Leukimia and loves spiderman. "A Quilting Tree," came with an acutaly old quilting machine and a couple of handmade quilts. "Calling the Angles," was made for a baby who was only here on this earth for a short period of time. The tree was covered in angels and tons of books about angels and teddy bears galore. Doing this volunteer work is amazing, it totally changes your life to see these children who are sick but their spirtis so high. It made me realize how lucky I am to have a healthy family and how many kids in the world are sick.

So we took the kids up there Wednesday night to walk around and see the amazing trees. We've also made it a tradition to buy the girls matching Christmas dresses that they have their picture with Santa taken. Apparently this year Brookie loved her dress and showed it to anyone that would look.

The two loves of my life!!

Here are just a couple of the hundreds of trees that are there!
This one of course is for Lane!
I'm not quite sure what this one was but I probably took the picture because I thought they did a good job on it! I don't know!
You can't really see this one too good but it's an ice cream tree. It has ice cream scoops on it!
And of course a TWILIGHT tree!! This was was so cool! Again, you can't seee it too good but people do amazing things to these trees and are super creative!! A Cullen Christmas it was the sash says and it had the names of the characters on each of the ornaments. There were presents under the tree with their names as well!


Santa was there and last year Jayden and Brooklyn screamed, this year it was Brooklyn and Kaylie. Jayden apparently has no problem with Santa, while Brookie for some reason is scarred to death of this man. Each year we are going to continue to torture her and hopefully someday she'll come to like him. But as you go from picture to picture, notice how their faces get more and more intense and obviously you can see where the parents are standing!





This picture is to show that we put our Christmas tree up, finally!!

Our Thanksgiving Weekend

Our Turkey Day was a good day and a good weekend. Our first stop of the day was IHOP for some delicious breakfast! Brookie could entertain herself all day putting the syrup bottles in and out of that little basket.


Next we went and saw the Pont family. We didn't stay for very long because we were headed up to the cabin, but Lane and Brookie had a plate of food, I however did not, I was saving myself for my mom's good cooking! But we did stop to say hi and so they could see Brooklyn.

Then we headed up to our cabin, which is in Timberlakes, just out of Heber. I totally stuffed my face with Thanksgiving dinner. I have been so looking forward to it for weeks now, the turkey, the mashed potates and rolls, chessy vegetables and of course pumpkin pie. I swear I gained 10 lbs from all the food I ate. Seriously in one sitting I had 3 pieces of pie!!! One pumpkin, one bannana cream, and one chocolate!
We played games, watched movies, went out in the snow for a minute and sat by the fire talking. Lane totally looks stoned in this picture, but he's just tired, we stayed up late playing. I am so thankful for this man. He is an amazing husband and father. I'm so thankful for Brookie and the love and laughter she brings into our home. I'm grateful for our friends and family who are always there for us and support us.

Last but not least, Sunday when we got home from church we made sugar cookies. Brookie's favorite part was to put the sprinkles on!

Prayer

Last night Brookie said her first prayer, it was absolutely adorable. It was just me and her, Lane was working, I didn't quite understand everything but it was so cute. I put her plate of food down and she knows right away, she folded her arms and said, "Mom, fold arms, say prayer." It made me smile. Some of you mothers might say she's a little old to have just said her first prayer (she was 2 in September.) Her talking came a little later than I think most toddlers, but not too far behind. She had several ear infections as a baby up until she was about 20 months old, when I finally said I've had enough and we put tubes in her ears. About 2 weeks after the procedure she was talking so much more and then a few weeks later she was speaking in full sentences. She talks really well now, I still don't understand everything she says, she has a language of her own, but can I tell you how nice it is to know exactly what she wants, I don't have to quess anymore!

Texas

This year we had an early Thanksgiving with Lane's family in Texas. His mom is from there so her family is down there. Lane's grandpa and aunt both work for American Airlines so we were able to fly standby really cheap, so that is why we had Thanksgiving early, because it would be easier to catch a flight when we weren't fighting the Thanksgiving rush of people going home. I flew down Thursday afternoon with my sister-in-law, Tiffany, and her two kids and also Lane's dad and sister. Then Lane came down Friday morning with his brother.

Here the kids are waiting to get on the plane, Brookie just loves to be with them.



She did so good on the plane, I went and bought her a little back pack filled with toys, coloring books, play dough and treats and of course her baby. We were at the very back of the flight right next to the engine, so during take-off and landing when it's really loud she got a little nervous. She would wrap her little hands around my arm and lay her head on my shoulder. She is such a cuddle bug when she's scared.


This is Lane's grandpa, he is not doing very well health wise, which is another reason we went down there to see them, but Brooklyn would play this game with him where she would hold the end of his cane and just move it in circles, I don' know why but it kept her pretty entertained.



Hurst is the town we went to which is just out of Fort Worth, the weather was beautiful! I had to put all 3 pictures because they all have different faces in every single one.

Brookie and Kaylie with their aunt "Lo Lo"

We walked over to the park and let the kids play while we where waiting for Lane to arrive.
Yes, my child has her hands down her pants, I'm not quite sure why.

This is Lane's uncle Mike aka "Uncle Buck." 5 months ago when he came here to Utah, Brookie was scared to death of him, but now he was her best friend. He reminds me a lot of my dad, that is why I think she likes him so much.

I don't have that many pictures, none from the actual Thanksgiving dinner we had with all of Lane's family because both Brooklyn and Kaylie woke up that day throwing up. Brookie couldn't keep anything in her stomach, and Kaylie had a fever of 103 degrees. So after being thrown-up on and not sleeping we went and had the dinner and then we left to go back to Lane's grandparents and put the girls to sleep. So our actualy "Thanksgiving" didn't quite go as planned. But then when we flew home on Sunday Brooklyn was completely fine, it probably was just the 24 hour flu. Other than that it was a good vacation. I liked it just because we were able to spend time with Lane. He took me out on a date, we went to On the Border (which there isn't one in Utah) and then we saw 007, which I fell asleep, I was exhausted after caring for a sick child all day. I was just glad to get to spend some quality time with him.