Holidays 2012

We had such a fun time this Christmas! We spent a weekend in the country with Grandma & Grandpa Gibbles and my entire family. We had delicious food, fun games, snowmobile rides with sledding, and lots of good laughs. We love spending time with our family!

On Christmas Eve Brynn and I made Santa some cookies in the morning.The cousins spent the afternoon sledding and Daddy got off work early to take our kids. We spent Christmas Eve night at Grandma & Grandpa Mills and had the most delicious prime rib and Grandma made her famous cinnamon rolls. YUM! The kids watched movies and played and opened up their jammies. We came home and set out "Jumbo Kringle Cookies" for Santa and wrote him a note and the kids were off to dream land.

We spent Christmas morning at home. I woke up at 5:30 and figured since I was already up... everybody should be so I jumped on everyone's beds and yelled "SANTA CAME!" lol. I love the excitement in our children's eyes on Christmas morning. The kids came down to our Christmas tree on the main floor and opened their stockings by the fireplace while Daddy went down and lit a fire in the fireplace downstairs. We went down stairs and the kids were so much fun as they opened their gifts. They took their time with each present and we had a lot of fun playing and reading and just enjoying each other.

Brynn got McKenna! She has been begging for her all year and planning every detail of their lives together with each new American Girl Doll magazine she received in the mail. They are pretty cute together! They have the same color hair and eyes and they both do gymnastics!


Gavin got a new horse that he named "Horsie". The faster he rides him the faster the sound effects are and he LOVES that. He can also feed him a carrot and listen to him munching it. (Gavin also got these OBNOXIOUS teenage mutant ninja turtles that have sound and the longer you pull back their arms and legs.... the longer the sound effects last. I'm not quite sure what Santa was thinking on that one.)


Daddy made his delicious crepes with strawberries and chocolate and powdered sugar for breakfast on Christmas morning. We played all day and Grandma and Grandpa came by to see us. We all took a much needed nap that afternoon. When we woke up I made honey ham, cheesy potatoes and candied carrots. We set up our new TV and watched Brave with the new surround sound. It is definitely a much more fun experience and the kids were enthralled! I love my family with all of my heart and I'm grateful for these memories we get to make together~!

Before Christmas, we had a big snow storm and Daddy and the kids went out and built 5 snowmen/women/children! They had so much fun and our snow family turned out pretty cute!








Did you happen to notice the teeny tiny baby snowman in the picture on the left? We are expecting our third baby in July!!! YIPPEEE! I am pregnant! I never thought I'd say that, to be perfectly honest, but we couldn't be more shocked and excited! Brynn has been telling me for years to fix my belly and have more babies and we've told her that it doesn't quite work like that. We were perfectly happy with our daughter and our son and felt like our family was complete but God had other plans! We've had 2 ultrasounds and the baby is growing healthy and strong! We couldn't be more excited and it was super fun sharing the news with family over the holiday. We'll find out if it's a boy or girl in March so I will post more later.

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a very joyous New Year! Love you!

Nightly readings of Christmas books!

Annual SLC trip!

The lights were AMAZING this year!

It was SUPER cold and the kids would rather be back swimming at the hotel ;)

Morning of Thanksgiving... I'm so thankful for my kids!

1st Christmas Home

On Christmas Eve we headed up to Grandma & Grandpa's house for dinner. They made their famous prime rib which turned out delicious as always. After dinner we watched the grand kids put on the Nativity. Grandma & Grandpa had taken all the grand kids to their house for a "dress-rehearsal" earlier in the week. Brynn said it was a lot of fun and they got MCDONALDS! It paid off because the play had several "scenes" and was pretty impressive. :) After the play the kids all opened their first present from their grandparents.... SURPRISE -- Jammies! We put them on and headed home so that we could get Santa's cookies & milk put out by the fireplace and put reindeer food outside on the lawn (sparkles mixed with oatmeal).

This year was our very first Christmas in our own home! It was amazing to wake up in our own beds and have our kids come snuggle with us before we went down stairs to open gifts. It was very relaxed and our kids are at such cute ages. They weren't in a hurry to open their presents.

Our babies right when they woke up. They're ready to see if Santa came. (This is Gavin's new "camera smile". hahaha)


They opened their stockings and one present before we had Daddy's Famous Crepes. Matt had set up the table for breakfast and made the crepe batter the night before.




We then went to Sacrament meeting and enjoyed some amazing talks and songs. It was really neat to have church early in the morning and sing songs and here stories that remind us of what Christmas is all about. Brynn sang "Away In A Manger" the rest of the day. We came home and got back into our jammies and went downstairs and opened up the rest of our presents. The kids wanted to play with each toy and read each book before opening up another gift and we had SO MUCH FUN watching them!!!





I made my first Christmas dinner and it turned out pretty good if I say so myself. It wasn't super fancy but it was a really relaxed meal and we enjoyed it together.
Chris & Ellie came on Christmas afternoon and stayed the night! We always have so much fun with them and love them SO much. We felt pretty darn lucky that they would share part of their Christmas holiday at our house :).

It has been a FANTASTIC Christmas! We are so grateful for our babies who make the Christmas season sparkle!!!

Christmas in the Country

We spent the weekend before Christmas with my family and we had a BLAST!!! We had planned it all out and made all the assignments on Thanksgiving so we'd have plenty to do.

We played basketball on the new hoop the guys installed on Thanksgiving weekend. We went on rides up in the mountains on the new quad Grandpa purchased. Tiff had Bingo all ready for the kids with super fun prizes. The adults played White Elephant and played minute-to-win-it games one night and I admit that I did pee my pants a little laughing so hard. We went skeet shoot-n' on the back hill (imagine me saying that in my best cowgirl twang). We cut out and ironed paper snowflakes and hung them all over my mom's windows (if there was a national competition on cutting paper snowflakes... I'm sure my brother Dave would win it!) The kids rode their scooters and plasma cars down the super long driveway.

I'm so sad that I didn't take any pictures. (Tiff & Ellie - send your pics my way ;))

My family is amazing and we love each of them so much! I can't forget to mention my mom's FABULOUS cooking.... YUMMY! :) It was good times and we are so very blessed to have our family close!

Salt Lake 2011

One of our newest and most cherished holiday traditions is going to Salt Lake together. We love to swim, go to dinner and see all the beautiful lights on Temple Square. And mostly, we enjoy snuggling together and watching a movie and eating treats as we look at the temple outside our hotel window. It's awesome to bond and share these family memories (Brynn talks about it randomly throughout the year.)

Costumes 2011

Brynn's been talking about being Rapunzel for Halloween for months now. She kept talking about how Gavin was going to be "Pascal" and how beautiful and long her hair was going to be. I couldn't find an official Pascal costume so we dressed Gavin up as a frog. He loved it! He thought it was so funny when I showed him how he looked in the mirror and he cried when I took the costume off that night. I thought and thought about how I was going to make Brynn's hair "long and beautiful" for cheap. We found plastic hair at Sally's for $7 and I sewed those extension clips on it so it would clip in her hair. I put it in right when she got home from school so she could enjoy having long hair all day. She was VERY HAPPY with her long hair! She twirled and danced and petted it all day long ;). Here are some pics from the day.

"Rapunzel"



"Pascal"



Kidos loaded in the car to trick-or-treat at Daddy's work. (we're waiting for a guy to fix our garage door because Mommy ran into it that morning AND THEN broke the passenger side mirror off the car not even 20 seconds later... don't ask!)


Brynn & Gavers had lots of fun trick-or-treating. Gavin caught on really quickly and filled his bucket up while simultaneously sucking on several suckers ;). Brynn collected lots of candy but ate only 3-4 pieces. Every year the "Switch Witch" comes to our house. Brynn knows that (when she goes to bed on Halloween night) if she leaves LOTS of candy for the witch then she'll wake up to a PRESENT the next morning. She got a dog this year named "Bumper McBones" and he has a dog house and talks and walks. She couldn't be happier! Gavin got his first pull back car that slams into the walls and a transformer pops out of the top. He says "GO!" and races it down the hallway over and over again. :)

Here they are at Daddy's work.


Happy Halloween!

Loving Fall

This is my absolute favorite time of year! I get so high on the smell of leaves and carved pumpkins. YUM. I love to lay beneath the trees and look through the bright yellow and orange leaves contrasted against the beautiful clear blue sky. These pictures I store in my mind to bring out in several months when there's no color left. I honestly can't get enough of it.

We went to the Pumpkin Walk this past weekend as we do annually. The kids love seeing all the different scenes. Brynnlie's preschool put together a scene so Brynn was really excited to show us the pumpkin she decorated. Matt took us to our favorite Mexican restaurant afterward and we ate delicious chips & salsa, mango & passion fruit lemonade, and yummy burritos (my fave is the shrimp enchiladas ;)). We came home and Matt and I talked about how grateful we are for our little family. We have so much fun together!





There was an awesome pumpkin scene about Adoption so we had to take a picture. :)


We carved our pumpkins for FHE this week and roasted the pumpkin seeds for our treat. Brynn and I carved one pumpkin. She designed it on a piece of paper and I carved it. She named it Furcatsy and Matt named his Jack (so original honey).



We have a small road by our house that is perfect for crunching through the leaves. We go out daily to run up and down it a few times and get our autumn leaves fix (I'm addicted to the smell).




I accidentally recorded this video sideways. I apologize now for the crook you are going to get in your neck watching it ;).


We hope you are enjoying all the fun that comes with this season!

Fourth

Our 4th in Pictures....
Family




Fingernails

Treats


Dancers

Diamond Rio

David Archuleta - didn't get a picture but super fun to listen to!
Brad Paisley

AMAZING Fireworks



We also LOVED the Sky Divers & Fly Overs. We LOVE THIS COUNTRY & our FREEDOM! Thank you to all who sacrifice their time and lives for us to be safe and free!!! Happy B-day America :).