Happy 36!

For Ryan's 36th birthday, he got to have a party at Jungle Jims!!!

Happy 36th birthday to the best husband and dad ever!!!

Big T turns 16 months

By big boy is 16 months!!! Crazy. He is such a fun little boy and into everything. Not a moment goes by that I'm not grabbing him off the counter or the table. He loves to color and grabs any pen he can get his hands on. He is only walking now... or about running. And we finally got him to wear shoes... amazing. So he'll take off outside as well.... he doesn't even care if it's cold. It will be quite something if we can keep him from opening the christmas presents and stop taking the ornaments off the tree... oh the joys of a toddler:)

on the ??? day of Christmas...

working late at nights has taken away a lot of my blogging time:(

On the 15th day of Christmas I assembled the neighbor gifts.

On the 16th day of Christmas we visited Santa at the Library... Brenner was too busy crafting to sit on Santa's lap. And he was determined he wanted to see Santa at the mall instead. ryan took the kids to see santa at the mall but it was too expensive to buy pictures... besides Brenner refused to be in a picture with terek because he would just cry.

Terek does not like Santa, but he did like the candy cane he gave him.
Joren was being shy.

On the 17th day of Christmas we had Ryan's work party. (I don't know why I didn't take any pictures). It was a lot of fun. we had pizza and exchanged white elephant gifts. we played games and did crafts with the kids... (seriously it would have been fun to have some pictures).

On the 18th day of Christmas we decided to head up to the zoo lights because I actually had a night off work.
brenner is a warm body and kept taking his coat off. he was great to walk around except up the hills then we wanted a ride.
joren doesn't like the cold and didn't even want to go. but he kept warm in the stroller.
on the 19th day of christmas we had the ward christmas breakfast... finally a pic of brenner with santa.
on the 20th day of christmas we made sugar cookies... I think they are all gone and once again, no pics, sorry.

whew, i'm all caught up.

we hope everyone has a Merry Christmas... only a few more days.

on the 14th Day of Christmas...

... Ryan and the kids went with Lucas, Shellie and Legacy to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point.(I had to work)

On the 13th Day of Christmas...

... we had our C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S dinner with Lucas and Shellie.

C- cranberry drink

H- hors d'ouvres (spinach and artichoke dip with red and green tortilla chips)

R- rolls

I- Ice cream

S- stuffing

T- turkey

M- mashed potatoes and gravy

A- asparagus

S- salad (or stuff to go on ice cream, depending on who you are:)


good times!!! wished we could have done it with the whole family.

On the 12th Day of Christmas...

... we went to the Daybreak festivities and saw some real reindeer... pretty cool:)

On the 11th Day of Christmas...

... we went to Gardner Village to do the Elf Scavenger Hunt. The kids got a candy stick as their treat:)

My new job

So I have a job! We've been struggling a little with this crazy economy so I decided to get a part time job to help us out a little. So a friend of mine works from home for a company called O'curance. She helped me get a job. Basically I answer phone calls for Your Baby Can Read and Provo Craft products like the Cricut and Yudu and such. It was a crazy whirl wind and I'm still a little in shock. I was called for an interview on Wednesday afternoon. I had my interview on thursday afternoon and was hired on the spot. I wasn't supposed to start working until the 28th of December but they called me Friday morning and asked me if I could come in for training that day. They trained me for a couple of hours and put me on the phones. I have to work in their office for up to 60 days then I can work from home. My schedule is from 7 PM to 1 am so I kind of miss out on stuff in the evening but I do have thursday and Friday night off. I'm hoping for more flexible hours after my 60 day training. This job could get old really fast but I can play on my cell phone when I'm not talking on the phone. Wish me luck!

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

On the 10th Day of Christmas...

We stuffed envelopes and addressed and stamped our Christmas cards. We hope we didn't forget anyone... let me know if you don't get one in the next week.

(So, I created this as a 5x7 then ended up printing it as a 4x6. So, I apologize for cutting Ry's head off... it wasn't intentional).

On the 9th Day of Christmas...

... we went to the planetarium to see "The Light Before Christmas" on the Imax.

On the 8th Day of Christmas...

... we wrote letters to Santa.

... the boys were surprised when Santa actually answered them the next morning.

Christmas Cards

I'm working on my Christmas cards.... if you want one, leave a comment!

On the 7th Day of Christmas...

... we went to Target so the kids could each buy a new ornament for their tree.Terek picked Big Bird
Joren picked Rudolph (although he was having a hard time deciding between the abominable snowman, the dog from the grinch and rudolph)
Brenner picked a cool light up snowman that changes from red to blue (he also couldn't decide between that and the grinch and a video game ornament)

sometimes it's just hard to make decisions!!!

On the 6th Day of Christmas...

We did a play of the nativity. ryan was the narrator. anisa was a donkey because joren couldn't decide what he wanted to be (first a cow, then a donkey, etc.) brenner was a wise man. legacy was Mary. terek was a sheep. brock (joren's doll) was baby Jesus. and lucas had to be Joseph because we couldn't talk anyone else into doing it. (Shellie was the photographer).

On the 5th Day of Christmas...

...We went to temple square to see the lights.

We piled our whole family in the van including Lucas, Shellie and Legacy.
Brrrr.... it was cold.
We warmed up by going in the Joseph Smith Memorial building and looking at the lights from up high.
Then we went to Denny's for hot chocolate and cheese fries. Good times!!!

On the 4th Day of Christmas...

.... Ryan and I ditched the kids with Lucas and Shellie to go see New Moon. Our calendar said to watch a Christmas movie...

... and Lucas and Shellie had planned to decorate Christmas cupcakes....
... so the kids got to do both!!!

Thanks for watching the kids for us so we could go to a cheesy movie!!!

On the 3rd Day of Christmas...

... we went to the Festival of Trees (for our ward playgroup).

The kids loved the gingerbread houses the best!!!
Brenner wanted a pic with the Nutcracker for Grandma Blake.
Merry Christmas!!!

Terek at 15 months

Terek is such a crazy little boy! He wants to be a big boy like his big brothers.... he wants to do everything that they do. He won't sit in his high chair. He doesn't want his food cut up and it must be on a plate and he must eat it with a fork. He loves to color (especially on his clothes). He wants to play on the computer. He wants to sit on the couch with a Wii controller in his hand and play like his brothers. He loves to climb. The list goes on.

He is starting to walk now and will for praise, but for no other reason. But, the kid can climb! He can climb up on the barstools and get up on the counter, the tables, etc. Nothing is safe from him.

He has his 8 front teeth, all 4 1st year molars and he's working on the incisors (I think that's what they are called) right now.

He has a hilarious fake laugh and a fun little fake smile similar to his "bitter beer face" that he used to make a people he was scared of. He has the funniest way of sleeping...(I must get a pic but I'm always afraid of waking him)... he lays on his stomach with his arms and legs tucked up under him.

He loves his Daddy!!! And we all love him (most of the time!)

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

...we made teacher gifts. Brenner and Joren made things for their teachers out of Bendaroos and I made these cute vinyl silhouettes.

I'm participating in a Boutique in my old neighborhood (Oquirrh Park) on Saturday and I will have some more fun frames like these. Also, check out my craft blog, Twiddle Thumbs on Friday, for pics of my frames.... they are my new obsession!

on the first day of Christmas...

We decorated for Christmas.

We put lights on our house.
Each kid gets their own tree to decorate with their own ornaments. They get to buy a new ornament each year and then they can also put the ornaments that make at school on their tree. Terek keeps pulling everyone's trees over trying to get the ornaments off.
The boys were really nice to share their ornaments with each other. Joren gave his Elmo ornament to Terek. Brenner gave his Cars ornament to Joren and Joren gave his Hulk ornament to Brenner.
A black and white living room is not complete without a black and white tree. This picture does not do it justice!!!
Merry Christmas. We are excited for our Christmas countdown. We loaded up the advent calendar today with our daily activities and candy, of course. Joren helped me put the candy in. We had rolos and kisses. First he said, "mom, I need to try one of each." Then he said, "mom, I had to eat this one because it was open." After me telling him again and again to stop eating them, he said, "I have to eat this one because I can't remember what it tastes like." He was full of all of the excuses tonight!!!

Bling!

Brenner got a couple of necklaces from prizes at arcades and from the jubilee of trees. So he decided he wanted to collect necklaces. So grandma gave him some of Grandpa's old necklaces that he doesn't wear any more.

He was nice and shared one with Joren too!
Don't they look awesome!!! (I totally don't want to say what I think they look like in case it makes my blog come up in some sort of weird search).

The Art of The Brick

This past Friday, we went to the Nathan Sawaya: The Art of the Brick® exhibit at the Kimball Art Center in Park City (don't try to go there now, the exhibit is over.) I had heard about it from a friend on facebook and I thought the kids would love it.

They did love it. That guy can do some amazing stuff with legos.
These were the kid's favorites, but he had some amazing other things too.
The funny thing about it was that it took them about 10 minutes to see all of the art and then they were done. We drove an hour to park city for 10 minutes. However, in the basement, they had some legos out so the kids could build their own art. They spent an additional 30 minutes down there.

It's a good thing we needed something to keep us busy on a friday afternoon and the drive was rather peaceful.