Blue Eyes

Please disregard the runny nose....haha

Christmas 2011

I was SOOOO excited for Christmas this year. I'm talking, the most excited that I have been since I was little! I think it was because Brylee is finally old enough to kind of get the whole "Santa" thing and to get excited about her presents. 

My birthday was awesome. Craig went and bought us giant cinnamon rolls for breakfast, gave me some fun presents, and let me go shopping all by myself (which was probably the best present of all!). We went and had Christmas Eve dinner at Craig's parents house and had our traditional white elephant gift exchange. Craig's sister, Kaylee, made us hilarious "Ugly Christmas Sweaters" as our gifts. They were so funny. 

When we got home that night and got Brylee and Cole to bed, we made white hot chocolate, turned on Christmas music, and put together the Christmas presents until one in the morning. 

Here are some pictures from Christmas Day.....

Brylee's AWESOME kitchen

Cole's present from Santa

Brylee's expression when she walked downstairs and first saw the living room full of toys and presents.

Still in shock.

Finally understanding that all of this stuff was for her!

Watching Brylee prance around, excited about her presents.

Cole ALWAYS looks surprised, but I think he was pretty excited.

Still in shock.

Brylee decided she wanted to try Tanner's present. (Raw Hides)

Our Christmas Morning Breakfast. I got this idea from my friend, who has this tradition in her family. This is soooo good! You put pecans in the bottom of a bundt pan, put Rhode's frozen rolls on top, half a package of butterscotch pudding mix, and brown sugar mixed with cinnamon and melted butter poured on top. Then, you leave it out on the counter all night and put it in the oven while you are opening presents on Christmas morning. It tastes like the middle part of a cinnamon roll. mmmmmm...This is our new tradition.

Brylee literally played with her kitchen ALL DAY! She made us a lot of SOUP! 

Here is another one of Cole's presents.

We had such a good Christmas!

Thankful

I love this time of year for a lot of reasons. I love all of the time we get to spend with family. I love Christmas shopping and wrapping presents. I love the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. But the thing I love the most is how I am reminded almost constantly of how blessed I have been.

Saturday, I took pictures at a wedding for one of Sara's friends. I got to the temple pretty early so that I would have time to walk around and get a few pictures of the temple while they were inside. As I was walking around, it was really quiet and I just had time to think (something that hasn't happened in quite a while).

I realized how thankful I am that I went to the temple to be married to Craig. I am to be sealed to my family for eternity. I am so thankful that my marriage and my relationship with my kids won't end at death. I am thankful, not only that my religion focuses so much on families, but that it gives me a purpose in life. My relationships with Craig, Brylee, and Cole are so important to me. I am constantly worried that something is going to happen to one of them, because sometimes things seem too good to be true. Knowing that we were sealed in the temple brings me so much peace. I know that if something were to happen to one of them, I will be able to be with them again.

This time of year also makes me grateful to my Savior, who made all of this possible. I know that because of him and through the atonement, if I work hard to keep Heavenly Father's commandments everyday, that I will not only be blessed in this life, but for eternity.

Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts

Mom brought cookie dough over today so that she could decorate cookies with Brylee. Brylee has been in heaven having everyone around so much the last few weeks. She's not going to know what to do with herself when everyone leaves to go back to SC on Sunday. She had a ton of fun this afternoon.

This is how we make sugar cookies around here. Premade cookie dough and Betty Crocker frosting.
Of course, we had to have some chocolate chip cookies, too.

While the cookies were baking, we had to keep ourselves entertained.

Tanner and Cole had a few staring contests.
Cole won every time.
Cole had fun with Granny. He even fell asleep in her arms later on in the afternoon. It isn't very often that he does that with anyone.
My little Chubs.
Brylee was loving Aunt "Sessa".

Tanner was practicing making some pretty faces. Cole took a turn hanging out with Aunt Kelsey.
Brylee played a little dress up with Aunt Sessa's scarf.
Then it was finally time to decorate cookies.

If you look closely, you will see that Brylee ate her cookie while she decorated it.

We sure do love having our family around these days!!! We are going to have to find things to keep us busy again after they leave! Brylee went to bed tonight talking about cookies and all of the fun things she did today!

Christmas Lights

So....I stole the idea of taking pictures of the kid playing in the Christmas lights. Craig worked late a few nights ago and Brylee and I got bored, so we decided to try it. Taking pictures in the dark was hard! These aren't as cute as the pictures on Pinterest, but it kept us entertained. Brylee was excited about playing in the lights and taking them kept me busy until Craig came home. :)

Coley Poley

I can't believe he is THREE MONTHS OLD!

He makes me smile :)

Its Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. We have had Thanksgiving, potty trained Brylee, I have been studying for finals, and Craig has been CRAZY at work! With all of this stuff going on, we have had some major trouble getting into the Christmas Spirit. One day during nap time, I put together our tree and pulled out one box of Christmas decorations. Our tree sat undecorated for two weeks. Neither one of us really felt like decorating because we knew it would make a mess, Christmas tree decorations would be all over the floor and we would constantly be cleaning up broken ornaments, and we knew in about three weeks, we would have to take the time to pack all of them back up. We kind of both agreed that we would just leave our tree undecorated this year. Ba-hum-bug! ......BUT, yesterday I decided that I would take a trip to Hobby Lobby and find a few unbreakable ornaments for our tree. I ended up feeling REALLY crafty and made all of our ornaments. They were all really cheap, so we don't have to worry about Brylee playing with them or breaking them. I love how it turned out!!!

Here are a few pictures:

Our tree decorated, minus the oranges(they were still baking)

A few decorations from the ONE box of decorations I pulled out.

Stars that me and Kelsey made. We Mod Podged crinkled paper onto $.25 wood stars and hot glued twine to the back to hang them! They look almost like leather. And notice my rope garland. :)My wood ornaments came from a potpourri type box of stuff that was on sale. I tied twine to them to hang them.

I sliced oranges and dried them in the oven for about three hours. I sprinkled a little cinnamon on them while they were baking and my house even SMELLED like Christmas!

Our Christmas table settings
So last night, we made hot chocolate and watched Elf on TV with our Christmas tree lit and decorated. It felt a little like Christmas! (Notice our new couch! Merry Christmas to Craig and Me!)
I will end this with a picture of Brylee's little feet! She has been dressing herself since she has been potty trained. She looks pretty frumpy almost every day and it cracks me up!

My Niece

SO....Whitney is in the hospital right now getting ready to deliver her baby girl!

She'll probably KILL me for this, but I made her let me take a few pictures of her belly a couple of days ago. I had the settings on my camera wrong and we were going to retake them on Friday, but it doesn't look like we are going to be able to do that! We will be taking pictures of her baby instead!

Here are a couple of pictures of Whitney and her baby bump!!!

I can't wait to meet the little girl who is in there!

Congratulations to Whitney and David!!!!!