Christmas Recital

(four students slipped out before we could shoot the picture)

18 of my awesome students played for our Christmas Recital Dec 14th and all did fantastic jobs. I guess all the hard work and lots of practicing payed off! :) Love all of you!

Hellyar Christmas Traditions

We started making gingerbread houses together the winter we were almost engaged. These are some old pictures I could find of us making the houses!

These are from our first winter together as newlyweds in 06. We made our houses out of graham crackers which worked pretty good and was fun and easy. I'm not sure why I look so mad!

Brad's house made out of graham crackers. Two stories with a fire pit in the middle. He is always so good at building things and being creative!

This year we decided to go all out and measure, cut out and bake real gingerbread to make houses with. It was kind of time consuming so we broke the process into two evenings. One to bake the gingerbread, and the other to decorate the houses.

Owen was so excited about all the candy (obviously) and bright colors and kept asking to eat the gingerbread or candy or whatever we would give in to!

Brad getting everything set up just right

Right at the start of the night I busted one of my walls in half. Thank goodness for frosting glue!

Just a quarter of the way done!

ahhh . . . Brad's masterpiece

My masterpiece even better! haha

We were totally excited how great our houses turned out. And we definitely want to make the gingerbread every time now!

Fairy-tale gingerbread land up close :)

Christmas decorating Fun

Owen was so excited to hang the ornaments on the tree. I just let him put ornaments wherever he could reach and I didn't move anything he put up.

Santa's little elves


We had a holly jolly time decorating our Christmas tree monday night for family home evening. Usually we put off decorating until right before Christmas and by then it seems like too much work for such a short amount of time. So this year we got right on it! I used to be all about the perfection of Christmas decorating but now I realize how great it is to just have fun with it as a family.

Thanksgiving 09

We had so much fun at Grandpa and Gramie's cabin for Thanksgiving this year.

Of course there was the famous slide . . .

And our cute daddy working his baby sleep magic

And our awesome three year old

and sleepy little cousin baby Freya

and cousins hanging out

These two are three weeks apart, Freya is older yet Chase is about 4lbs and 6 inches bigger!

and games and more games

and our famous thanksgiving cooks

and of course buddy the dog

and Gramie the wonderful babysitter

Birthday Fun!

Every year Owen and my birthday's are super close together so usually my birthday gets overlooked. But this year Brad planned ahead and filled my birthday wish list and threw me a surprise birthday on top of that. It was Great to have a great birthday and get spoiled!

For Owen's birthday we spent his birthday day decorating and making cupcakes for his party, going to the park and running around and getting frozen yogurt at u-swirl. He loved picking his own flavors of yogurt and pretty much always gets chocolate! He's so much fun and full of life like a three year old should be. He had a few friends over for his party and they had a blast with the train table his Grandpa Danny got for him.

Happy Birthday Owen!

Make a wish . . . Can't believe my baby's three now!

The train table was a hit!

Happy Birthday Me! I was actually really mad right before we got to the house when I realized it was a surprise party for me. Brad took me out on a birthday date that night, and made up a story about his stomach hurting so bad that we had to go home right after we finished dinner. Little did I know . . . silly guy!

Thanks mom for the home-baked cheesecake! I told Brad I wanted him to make me strawberry cheesecake for my birthday. He laughingly passed the task on to his mom. lol

Present opening just gets better and better each year!

Owen loved the chocolate cupcakes. He managed to cram a whole one in his mouth!

Fun at the park on Owen's B-day

Chase hanging out waiting for us to be done at the park so he could take his nap

The usual wrestling

My cute little runner . . . He'd say "I Win!" every time he'd race us, even if we finished first :)

The Race is on!

Chase vs Rice Cereal

"What the heck are you trying to feed me mom!"

"Yeah I'll just let that slide right back out, no thanks!"

So I was excited to try rice cereal with Chase the other day and this was his reaction. I just had to get a picture cause it was hilarious! Just because baby's can't talk doesn't mean they can't tell you what they're thinking!

November Off-Road trip

We took the boys out on a jeeping last Saturday with a buddy of ours. It was fun to get outdoors and get bounced around a bit. Owen has always loved Jeep or Car rides. He just looks around forever and then always falls asleep. Chase seemed pretty happy about the jeep ride too. But doesn't seem to be quite the car sleeper. He still was super happy and cried only a few seconds before he finally got so tired that he passed out a second later.

I just thought this second picture was funny. We look totally happy and if you look closely our boys look totally miserable! They were both really hating the sun in their face.

This is the mud hole we got stuck in for about half hour or so before Brad threw trees and brush and whatever else he could find to help get himself out. When all of that failed he hooked his wench to his buddies jeep and popped right out! Who would-a thought!

It doesn't even look like much, but it was at the edge of a marsh and had a little stream constantly running through it. Of course we didn't look closely to discover that till much later!

On our way up the mountain we spotted some deer. There were about 5 or so but these two stopped and wanted their picture taken.

BB: I don't want to grow up!

Ok, so I got a new nifty iPhone app that I am playing with that does video editing. So since the only video I had on my phone at the time was from the weekend with the family over I decided to upload it to the blog for all to watch. Anyway enjoy the production. (I think the video quality may suck so I will reupload a full resolution version when I get to a computer)

Trick or Treat and Trunk or Treat

Trick or Treat!

Owen was taking his time going from house to house. I think he got really tired at the end cause as soon as we got in the car to head home, he fell asleep and was out for the rest of the night!

I love this picture. The suspense!

Hyrum was cracking me up, he was a super aggressive trick or treater, always in the front. He got twice as much candy as anyone else!

So the pictures don't do him justice, but Brad spiked his hair all crazy and believe it or not, stretched his way into one of my pairs of pants. They were super tight! Believe me you don't want to see that again. haha! Love you babe! Anyway he dropped something at some point in the night and was like "Um I don't think I can bend over babe, I might tear something!"

Cute Cousins!

Owen and his friend, Jack

My Guitar Hero

Dressed up for our new ward's trunk or treat. You can't see it very well, but brad is wearing a skirt. I wore Brad's clothes and drew on a goatee. We got more laughs looking at each other that night!

Owen and Chase Hanging out

We went to both our old ward and our new ward's trunk or treat parties. For the first one Brad and I dressed up as each other. Yes, Brad wore my clothes. And the second time around Brad went as a guitar hero rocker. I had too much stuff going on that day with all of the fanily getting here and preparing food and whatnot for the blessing day to dress up. The kids had a blast. Rainya's kids were here to trick or treat too. They were so cute running around from house to house together.