Decorating, Elfie, and a Chocolate House.

I just LOVE family traditions. They are the best memories that I have from growing up. I get pretty darn excited when I get to start my own little family traditions. The weekend after Thanksgiving, we decided to pull out our Christmas decorations, turn up the Christmas music, and decorate.

That night, after we finished decorating, we gave our kids a bath, put on their PJs, loaded them up in the car with blankets, and headed to Thanksgiving Point to drive through their Christmas Lights display. They have such a fun display of lights and they even had live reindeer out there! It got us all in the Christmas Spirit. When we got home from seeing the Christmas lights, this little guy was poking his head out of our kitchen cabinet. Santa sent him to our house to watch our family to make sure we were being nice throughout the whole month of December. Brylee wasn't sure what to think about him at first. She just said, "Mom, he isn't real. He's just pretend. I wan't him to leave!!" It wasn't quite how I had envisioned it, but she warmed up to him after a while. I have NO IDEA where that little girl gets her attitude! ;)

The next Monday, for our Family Night, we make a chocolate house. I thought it was a gingerbread kit when I bought it, but apparently I have trouble reading! It was fun to make, anyway. Just a little more work.

We sure are a creative bunch!!! pffff...it tasted good anyway!

Minnie Mouse and Walking

It is a VERY rare occasion that you will find Brylee NOT carrying around a stuffed animal with her. She is always taking care of one of her "friends". We took her favorite Minnie Mouse with us when we went grocery shopping a few weeks ago. When we came out of the store, she was nowhere to be found. After I loaded the groceries into the car, I went back inside to look for her and the cashiers just looked at me like an idiot when I asked them if they had found a Minnie Mouse!! She was GONE.  Brylee cried and cried the whole entire ride home. She kept saying things like, " what if Minnie gets scared because she can't find me?" and "What if someone finds her, takes her home, and tries to sleep with her?" Oh man. It was sooooo sad. Here are a few pictures of Minnie a few days before we lost her.

....and don't judge me. My kids don't like to wear pants.

Cole started walking really well this month! It took him a little longer to figure it out, but now I can't slow him down! These two need to stop growing up! Seriously, it makes me sad.

Caught on Camera

Back in October, I shot Whitney and David's Family Pictures. It was a really windy day and Craig was running late, getting off of work. We decided it would be easier for him to meet me at the spot where we were taking pictures so that he could watch Brylee and Cole, rather than him driving all the way home. It was so windy that we were taking breaks in between shots to let the wind die down. During these little breaks I would just watch my good husband playing with my kids. I can't help but be extremely thankful for him. I love that my kids have such an amazing and involved Dad. I snapped a few pictures of them while they were playing. 

Can you tell Cole was pretty happy to have his Dad around that day?

Snow Day

It has been a pretty warm and dry winter so far (which I am pretty happy about)....but about a month ago we got our first snow of this Fall/Winter Season. It was actually kind of nice because it got me in the mood for the Holidays! I don't know what it is, but the longer I live in Utah the more and more I like this place. The mountains look so pretty to me now and I am actually excited about getting a little bit of snow this year. As soon as the snow stopped, we put on coats, gloves, and hats and went and played in the backyard for a little while. Craig and Cole played "skidding on the ice" in Brylee's Cozy Coupe and Brylee found a little sand box shovel and shoveled up the back yard. It was nice to have some snow for a few days!

Pumpkin Carving 2012

I'm finally catching up a little bit at a time! The Saturday before Halloween, we pushed the kitchen table out of the way and spread newspaper all over the floor. I THOUGHT we could keep the floor clean but it didn't work out quite the way I planned. It was okay, though, because Brylee and Cole had so much fun!!! While we were carving pumpkins, my VT brought over a plate of Halloween sugar cookies. Brylee and Cole ate them the whole time we were carving.....so when we were done, we looked around and there were pumpkin guts and cookie crumbs EVERYWHERE!!! 

They both worked so hard!

Craig pulled out his power tools and had all 5 pumpkins carved in about 45 minutes!

Brylee's "Frowny-Faced" pumpkin. She was SOOO proud of it. It didn't last long though!

If you look at the white arrow, this was the fate of Brylee's little "frowny-faced" pumpkin! Good thing we bought her 2 pumpkins!

So much fun!

Family Pictures!

I was so excited to finally have our family pictures taken in October. We didn't have any of us all together. :( We had them taken by my friend, Sherry, who also shot our wedding in 2008. Even though we were almost 45 minutes late because of traffic, Brylee fell asleep and her hair got pulled out by Cole and I didn't have a brush to fix it, Cole screamed for the hour long drive there and he lost a shoe in during his tantrum, and he decided he wanted to poop on the way and I didn't bring wipes (so I'm surprised we aren't plugging our noses in all of these!)......I am so glad we FINALLY have a few pictures of our family. We may not look perfect in them, but we don't ever look perfect on a normal day...so it works. Here are a few of our family!

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Now that it is almost Christmas, I am finding the time to post about Halloween!!! We have been really busy at our house! We are trying to slow down and enjoy the Holidays! We went to the pumpkin patch by our house at the beginning of October. We love this little Pumpkin Patch. Brylee and Craig spent so much time searching for the PERFECT pumpkins. Cole and I found ours right away. I forgot my camera, but I'm glad I remembered my cell phone. I love family days like this! It seems like my kids are growing up way too fast. Cole is running around all over the place now and Brylee is getting ready to start PRIMARY!! It makes me sad that time is flying, but I'm glad we still have a lot of years left to enjoy! Also, as they get older the Holidays and things like the pumpking patch just get more and more exciting. :)

I don't know why I LOVE this one so much!!! These kids crack me up!

They just loved riding in the wagon out to the field where the pumpkins were.

My good husband :)

He was hunting for the PERFECT pumpkin!

She spent a lot of time searching, too!

Mister

Here it is!!!

On our way to buy a wagon full of pumpkins!