Santa? Did Santa come?

playing cars on the floor.

singing carols at the cemetary.

All bundled to go to the cemetary. (Dave's siblings)

Preston LOVES his cousin!

Baking "cold to hot" cookies for Santa with Hailey.

This was a car Christmas for Preston. He LOVED IT!

Can you get a cuter construction helper?!? I think not!

The tree at about 1 AM.

Preston is a Papa's boy!

Michelle's parents and my niece Madeline.

One last visit with Santa on X-mas Eve.

Christmas came and went and I am still reeling from the mess of it all! It looks like Santa's sleigh threw up in our house and I am still looking for those ellusive elves to come and help me clean it up! Hailey was so excited for Chirstmas this year. We saw 3 different Santas in the month and everytime she would ask for the same thing "I want Up and Pinkalicious. Up is a movie, and Pinkalicious is a book." I was glad when we saw Santa on Chirstmas Eve that she didn't change her tune! We made "cold to hot" cookies (refigerator dough) for Santa and Hailey insisted that we get him chocolate milk, that he would like that better. We had a family party with my dad's side of the family and by the time it was 9 I was ready for bed. We put the kids down, but Hailey didn't want to sleep, she kept popping up. Dave stayed up to make sure she would stay in her bed and I went to sleep! We set an alarm for midnight and then got up and did gifts. Once everything was out Dave and I were so awake so we played our new game, Scrabble Slam, until about 2AM. He fell right asleep and I lay there looking at the ceiling for another 2 hours just wishing everyone to wake up! I was the first one up on Christmas morning and went and started to make cinnamon rolls and bake the ice cream cake roll. Hailey got up just after 8 and in her half awake stupor came into the kitchen and groggily asked; "Santa? Did Santa come?" I told her yes and she turned and went and crawled into bed with Dave! :) A little while later she bloted out of the room and rushed into the living room. I wanted to get her reaction on camera so I quickly followed suit. She ran to the little table where we had left milk and cookies for Santa and she gasped with glee that her present for Santa had gotten consumed. She didn't even notice all the gifts or the 4ft doll house sitting by the tree. Hailey ripped all of her gifts open and wanted to play with all of them at once. Preston was so contented to play with his cars and figure out how those little twist ties on the boxes work. He didn't open all his Chirstmas from Santa and when his big sister realized it, she opened them for him!

After openig our gifts we did my family and then my other grandma and then brought Preston home for a much needed nap. I think that was the best part of the day. No parties, just us enjoying some quiet time together. Then it was off to Dave's family for the traditional hamburgers and rootbeer floats and then caroling at the cemetary. (love that tradition!)

What a great Christmas! I really love this season. Now time to celebrate my birthday and the New Year. Happy celebrating to you all!

Let is snow!

The kids have been loving the snow. Especially Preston, he loves to be outside and doing! Here are some cute pics from our recent outing in the snow. I think it takes just as long to get everyone all bundled as it does for us to get cold enough and get back into the house! Oh well, it is fun while it lasts.

Family pics

For the record, I just love the Target photo studio. They are so reasonable and we always get a good pic. Here are the latest..can I just say my kids are the cutest!! :)

All Aborad the Polar Express!

This ward does not dissapoint when it comes to parties. I hate to think of the time it took the activities committee to plan and carry out something like this! They delivered tickets to the whole ward instructing us of the theme and telling us to wear our pajamas. When we got there, they had a large train cut-out and train tracks with a conductor there to punch our tickets. The gym had been transformed into a winter wonderland with hot chocolate waiting at our tables. They had a yummy dinner and then showed the kids a shortened version of the Polar Express movie. And then right on cue as the closing credits music swelled, Santa walks in with his jungle bells shouting "Ho!Ho!Ho! Merry Christmas!" The look on Hailey's face was priceless! She was in awe and so excited to see him there! She and Preston hopped right up on his lap and Hailey told him; "I want 'Up'and 'Pinkalicious'--it's a book!" This time of year is really so magical with children. I just love them to pieces!

Extended Family pictures

What a daunting task to coordinate the schedules of an entire family! But it all worked out, we got all 33 family members there, on time and beautifully, dressed. The photographer snapped about 10 shots and told us we were done. I was a bit skeptical that with that many people the photo wouldn't turn out, but thanks to the wonders of photo shop it did! There are too many of us to fit in a studio so we went to my neighbors house and used their gorgeous living room. Their home is beautiful and has a lot of little photo-op nooks, so we took the opportunity to snap a few pics by the tree since the kids were already dressed up so lovely.

O Christmas Tree! O Christmas Tree!

We took the annual Brown Family trek to the mountains to cut down a Christmas tree. Maybe Dave and I are too practical, but our tree is bought and paid for! We have a fake, pre-lit tree . We got ours set up and decoarted in less than an hour. But it is still fun to go out in nature and cut down a pine tree. Since Dave had to work, I took the kids and we went after some intense black Friday shopping. The kids loved running around and most of all I enjoyed the time spent with family. The tree we got looks like the Charlie Brown tree on steroids, but I guess it's more the thought that counts in keeping up with tradition!

Pretters!

Wow! I am telling you my Preston is ALL boy! He is now 20 months old and into everything. I can't seem to even my back on him, he just goes! He has figured out by pushing a chair over to the counter you can reach anything you want! I caught him on the counter peeling the bananas, putting utinsels into the toaster oven and the scariest of all, pulling knives out of the butcher block. Although he is active, I count my lucky stars that he is not destructive! He is just very curious about everything and wants to know how things work. He is learning more words and his favorite is to get ahold of a light switch and announce as he is turning the lights on and off. He really is such an easy going boy and generally very happy.

Lately he is obsessed with his Papa and when he is home that is who he prefers. My dad is re-doing their bathroom and so of course Preston is right there to help. Here are a few pics of his mad skills with the electric drill! :) He would laugh and was so intent on knowing the drill went on the screw head and you push the button, dang, he is smart!

Happy Halloween

Ah, the holidays. I love a reason to celebrate, or even no reason, I just love CELEBRATING! The kids are growing up so quickly. After about 2 doors Preston really got this whole trick-or-treating thing and was trying to open people's doors! Dave and I got a great work out pushing the kids in strollers up and down the steep hills in our neighborhood. I just love this season and I am especially glad the weather was so wonderful. And now it's figuring out how to get this candy out of my house so I don't thwart my weight loss... Here are pics of the kids. Hailey was Tinker Bell and Preston was a dragon. (he has really got this roaring thing down.)

What did I do? I dunno, I just did it!

Before and After...




We had a great weekend in St.George, (I will blog about that later) While we were there we went to visit my good friend and trainer from my mission, Bonnie. She is an amazing stylist, so I asked her to cut my hair. Dave had begged me for a long time to just go short, so I just decided to do it! Just like that. Bonnie started to cut and I am thinking "What the? Am I really chopping off all my hair?" I am still having those moments when I catch my reflection in the mirror and I think; "that's me?"  I am going down the fine line between "cute and sassy" and "frumpy brown helmet hair". But on the whole I like it, it is hard to get used to not having long hair, but it is fun to have a change! And all in all, it is just hair!  Thanks for the new do Bonnie! :)

Conference Camera

Kim and baby Zeke

"watching" Conference

"Light on!" Preston is learning about on and off.

My mom and baby Zeke (ignore the pink blanket, that is my nieces!)

We have so much fun!!

He is always so happy!

Preston checking out baby Madeline.

I always look forward to Conference weekend as a time to be inspired, get things done and to just be with family, I got it all this weekend! We had a great family dinner on Sunday and I got the wonderful surprise of having my bestest friend, Kim and her hubby come up with their new baby. It was great to spend time with them.

We are in the market for a new camera and since Kim just got one we had a great time playing with it! :) Here are some pics, good times!! Thanks, Kimmy-Lou.