Our 8th Anniversary

And if you don't think we've had enough festivities this month, Ryan and I celebrated our eighth anniversary too.

... and in the tradition of this year, why celebrate just once?

First Celebration
Last Thursday was Ryan's older sister's 10th anniversary, so we joined her and her husband at the movies.

We all saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie and LOVED IT. Super good. I can't wait to see it again.

Second Celebration
On our actual anniversary, we took the day off from parenting. Thanks, Nana!

In the morning, we headed out on the four-wheelers for some exploring. Unfortunately, we had to share one since one's battery wouldn't stay charged. Then the "good one" broke down, and Ryan had to push it home. Oh well, it was still fun - while it lasted - to hug my babe while speeding around.

In the afternoon, we headed to the movies again. This time we saw the new Mission Impossible movie. I liked it, but Ryan was bored.

Then we headed to dinner at Black Angus. We had a coupon, so we got way too much food: the sampler appetizer platter, each our own steak and sides, and chocolate fudge cake. Delicious!

Flashback (August 2003): After Ryan and I decided we wanted to get married, coincidentally both our parents came to Provo for our older sisters' graduations. We figured they should meet, so we arranged for us all to meet for dinner at - you guessed it - Black Angus. What was planned to be a simple meet-and-greet became a detailed planning of our wedding and reception - dates, times, colors, flowers, dresses, hotel stays, etc. All Ryan and I remember of the dinner is feeling small and insignificant. Most of all we felt silly - We weren't yet engaged!

Happy Eight Years, Babe! Here's to many more. I love you!

Christmas - Takes Two & Three

Christmas - Take Two

Amid Collin's Birthday #2, we squeezed in Christmas #2.

Collin received a double helping of Lincoln Logs, and Brennan got an adorable white polar bear.

And if you are wondering if Collin is confused with all this gift-opening... Last night I was reading to him a book about Clifford's Birthday and he said, "But what did Santa get him for his birthday?" Yep, it's all pretty muddled for the poor kid.

Christmas - Take 3

On Christmas Eve, all the kids opened their new pajamas from Nana. They each got a pair of matching pants and a black shirt with their name on the sleeve.

 They are adorable!

Ella (almost 6) holding Brennan (almost 1), Grant (7) holding Sylvie (7 months), James (3-1/2) and Collin (barely 3)

After all the photos, we ate appetizers and listened to a CD of The Forgotten Carols, while Emily showed the pictures. The kids listened for a while, ha ha.

After we put the kids to bed again and again... and again, it was finally Christmas morning. We had the kids open their stockings before Church.

Inside they found a tie or skirt from Nana, as well as some little toys to play with in sacrament meeting. Each mini-family matched. It was dang cute.

After some serious running around and cleaning up, we headed off in our matching attire.

Like most of you, Church was just a short one-hour meeting, consisting almost entirely of singing by one of the largest ward choirs I've ever seen. Sigh, I could get used to that! We headed home for more photos.

Nana and Papa and all the kiddos after Church

 Mallory, Ryan and Emily

We were sad that Megan couldn't come down from Seattle. She was due with Baby #3 on Christmas Day, but little Charlie has yet to make an appearance. Miss you, Meg!

 Me & Ryan, Mallory, and Dan & Emily

After the photo shoot and a little snack, it was FINALLY time for presents. 

Collin opened some cut-able fruit (Velcro) with an accompanying plastic knife and cutting board. It was the hit of the party!

We also got this cute Snowman Kit from Emily. Here's Ryan modeling the hat and scarf. I guess I can finally say I'm looking forward to some decent snowfall in Illinois in order to put it to use. The buttons and eyes are awesome. I'll make sure I get a pic when we use it all.

Brennan got more MegaBloks to add to the ones we have. This was kind of a gift more for me, since every time I build anything I'm frustrated there aren't enough.

Collin also got a set of kitchen tools and mixing bowls. You can also see his new Little People race track in the background. It was also a hit.


After SEVERAL melt-downs from my kids during present-opening, it was finally nap time.

When everyone was up again, it was time for the big Christmas dinner. By my own request (hey, I missed real Thanksgiving dinner, remember?), we enjoyed the most delicious turkey I've ever had. It was by Butterball and seriously amazing. Of course, we also had stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas. Here's Brennan enjoying the caramel sweet potatoes, Nana's specialty.

And last but certainly not least, here are the adults of the house. Ryan's grandmother lives just down the road, so she joined us Christmas Eve, at church and Christmas Day.

I'd say it was quite the perfect ending to all our Christmas partying. Oh, and I got a food processor I can't wait to get home and use. Yahoo! Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Third Time's a Charm

Why not celebrate your third birthday three times?

Birthday #1
Collin's first birthday celebration was certainly the simplest. I made him cupcakes with fun-fetti icing which he took to preschool on the last day before Christmas Break. All the kids loved the frosting (who doesn't?), and they sang to him. He was thrilled.

Birthday #2

His second celebration was at his Grandma & Grandpa's house in St Louis. Themed in snowmen, we started with dinner. He had his own special snowman plate filled with ham (his favorite) and a snowman jello jiggler. He meticulously cut it into pieces and placed each one on his spoon - and then ate none of it. Silly boy.

 Then he opened a new set of trains from Ryan and I, and a new stuffed snowman and snowman church outfit from his grandparents.

 After presents was cake time. It had an adorable snowman drawn on it (Thank you, Walmart). Unfortunately, his fear of fire prohibited the lighting of his Three candle, but he obliged us with a pretend-blow for the camera (definitely something to remember and tease him about when he's older).

Birthday #3
His last and correctly-dated party was Sesame Street themed. Breakfast was "yuki" pancakes made by Daddy.

Then he decorated the Christmas tree with his Nana all morning. After lunch, we sang and pretend-blew-out candles on an Elmo cake (Thank you, Albertson's) with a Sesame Street balloon on his chair.

He opened his gifts - a new set of dishes with cooking spoons and vegetables from IKEA and a kid camera.

After nap time, we headed to Chuck E Cheese for pizza and token game-playing. His cousins from Idaho arrived just in time to join the fun and brought with them a new toy Caterpillar truck.

Now what other three-year-old got three birthday parties? Happy 3rd Birthday, Collin! We love you.

PS: I bet his wife is shocked when we tell her on his thirtieth birthday he needs thirty parties. Ha-ha.

December Activities

Back in November, I decided I wanted us to have a Family Home Evening most evenings in December. So I printed a calendar and scheduled something for each night. Of course, life got super busy, and we didn't get to it all, but we got to do lots of fun things nonetheless.

I had originally planned to do each activity in the evenings when Ryan was home from work, but Collin has shortened up his naps considerably, so many of these were a good activity to keep us busy each afternoon before dinner - which every SAHM knows is the longest and hardest part of the day.

So, without further adieu, here are a few things we did:

Christmas Around the World
I emailed a few friends and invited them to our home for a Monday evening. Each family's mom or dad had served a mission overseas, so we ended up having three presentations about Christmas in another country. Ryan taught us about the unimportance of Christmas in Japan, and then we did a traditional New Year's activity of making mocchi. We also learned about Christmas in Germany and the Dominican Republic. I hope to make it a tradition each year to invite different families over and learned about many different countries.

Saint Nicholas Day
On December 6th, Collin helped me put carrots and apples in his and Brennan's shoes by the fireplace. A looked up Saint Nicholas on Wikipedia and read to him a couple of the stories that are told of his miracles. Then we pretended that his horses came to eat our treats overnight, and they got toy cars in their shoes the next morning.

Gingerbread Men
I checked out two books from the library and read them to Collin.
"Gingerbread Boy" by Karen Schmidt
"Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett
Then we made one giant gingerbread boy and many gingerbread babies. I used this delicious cookie recipe and this one for icing. It worked great.

While they baked, we took turns pretending we were the gingerbread man and the little boy. We hid under the end-tables in the living room, and then pretended to run out of the oven and around and around the house yelling "Run, run, run. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man!"

It was fun to decorate them together too. Collin wanted the man to look like him, so we ended up with yellow curls and blue eyes. So cute.

Other Activities
We also spent an evening decorating our tree, and another delivering cookies to the neighbors and some other friends. Another night we made Christmas cards for family around the country. We made a paper chain to count down the days until we leave for our trip. We watched the Christmas Devotional online and had popcorn. We've driven around and looked at the Christmas decorations in the fancy neighborhoods, and we paid to drive through a light display in East Peoria. On a Saturday, Ryan took Collin shopping to purchase gifts for Brennan because "we buy presents for the people we love to show them how much we love them." We also have watched the "Frosty the Snowman" movie with pizza and popcorn on the evenings Dad hasn't been home. We've done the real Christmas story at least three times (each with differing props and nativities), and we've read a few Christmas classics like 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and the Polar Express.

Hopefully you see something fun you could do with your kids. There were lots more ideas online too; these were just the ones I thought we age-appropriate for my little ones. Enjoy, and have a Merry Christmas!

Christmas - Take One

This is our first full-size Christmas tree. We bought it last January on Clearance (just before Brennan was born), so this is our first year using it. Isn't it a beauty?

We celebrated Christmas last night. Yep, that's what I said. Surprised? Hey, we didn't like waiting when we were little, so why should be make our little ones wait too? Ha-ha. No, really, it just seemed simpler to do it here instead of paying to fly all our presents to and from Nana & Papa's house.

After church yesterday afternoon, we went ahead and got into our Christmas jammies. Here are my attempts to capture the family together. First, Collin with Mommy & Daddy.

Then Brennan with Mommy & Daddy.

Then Mommy & Daddy with two half-kids.

Hey, my arm's only so long. So here's my compromise photo with no Mommy.

Man, are they all handsome or what? Hopefully we'll get some more use out of our pjs... and be able to get someone to get our picture altogether. Those pants were far too much work for this to be their only showcase.

After naps in our new pjs, we watched "Mr. Kruger's Christmas" and made orange rolls.

Then we listened to "The Tape" (aka The True Story of Christmas), a family tradition of mine since as long as I can remember.

This picture doesn't really make sense here, but I wanted to mention our awesome Ward Christmas Party a few weeks ago called "A Night In Bethlehem." We were each supposed to dress up in biblical attire (as we dutifully attempted), but I only got a picture of Collin. Oops. We each had to sign the census when we got there, and then we sat on blankets in the cultural hall because "there was no room in the inn." We were also all given ten "gold" coins to purchase our food with in the Jewish marketplace. The marketplace also had "gold," frankincense, and myrrh as well as a place to learn to play dreidel. After shopping and playing in the market, we watched the youth perform the nativity play. It was great.

Anyway, back to our Christmas, since I had a doctor's appointment first thing this morning, we went ahead and opened presents last night too. Shame on us.

As can be expected, our almost-one-year-old liked the wrapping paper and boxes better than the presents.

What a cutie-pie.

Collin, on the other hand, LOVES his new "Little People Corn Tractor." I don't think there could be a happier little guy.

After our wonderful Christmas, I have to admit we're a little concerned about Collin. We are going to have one confused little three-year-old come Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - Take Two. But that's just how we roll around here. Merry Christmas!

Oh, and don't deny you're jealous about our Take One Christmas. You know you want to do it too.