Ryan's Birthday

At the beginning of December Ryan turned 31 years old. (old I know.)


We gave him a few fun gifts and celebrated a little.


Brooklynn loves picking out gifts for Ryan. Especially stuff she can do with him.


In the morning Ryan went mountain biking with a friend. (This is the 3rd year in a row that he has gotten to mountain bike on his birthday.) He hopes to do it every year. Later that night we left the kids with Ryan's parents and we went out to dinner alone. It was nice.

Christmas 2010

We decided this year to make Santa S'mores cupcakes. They were delicious. I think Santa liked them too cause he ate them right up.


We had a busy Christmas Eve this year. We first went to my dad's for lunch and some gifts. It was nice to spend time with my Dad, his wife and my grandpa Dennis. We love the book he got us signed by the artist Al Rounds.


After that we headed over to my mom's to hang out then we had a nice dinner and opened some gifts. The kids got spoiled and had a blast.


We then headed to Ryan's parents to open gifts, read the nativity, opened up jammies and some dessert. This year we made matching pj's for all the kids. (Well I should say Danielle, Allyson and Nanci made the jammies. I was there, but only sewed a few parts. Good job ladies.) So it was fun, but has been decided that from now on we will buy the pj's. The kids were running wild, but it was fun. After a very long, exhausting, fun day. We finally made it home by 10pm.


Wow, it is always a fun sight to wake up and see what Santa left. I love that Santa wraps all the gifts in white. Sometimes though he has to borrow a few blankets of ours to cover the big gifts. But we don't mind.


The kids got a lot of fun toys. These are all the toys from Santa, mom and dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. Too many presents. We really scaled down this year, but after all the gifts from family put together, I think we will scale down a little more. What do you think?


This year was hard for me to get something for Ryan. First I was going to get him a nice gift card to his running store. The very day I was going to go there, Ryan informed me he was going there. Then I got him an MP3 player since he lost his and mine. Well come to find out the day before Christmas I find out he found his. Man this boy is hard. Well I ended up having him pick out new running sunglasses. Ryan did so good though. He got me a Kindle. I started looking into them a few days after Thanksgiving when I saw that everyone was buying Nooks and Kindles. I decided that I would save some money and buy one after Christmas when I got all my christmas money. Come to find out I opened one on Christmas. Even better that Ryan bought it before I was even looking at them. Good job honey. I love all the free books you can get on it and I even bought a couple. Now that I got my kindle I had $300 saved and we got nice new carpet for our living room. What a great Christmas.


Some of the kids favorite gifts were...
Brooklynn- Doll house, barbies, MP3 player, Goldilicous (she has pink and purple and really wanted Gold), Nickolodien's Wii fit for kids, Scooby Doo Haunted House, Tangled Leapster game
Cameron- Bike, Curious George movie, Wii Elmo game, Toy Story figures and Train set
McKenna- Swing (mom's favorite too), magic wand, baby block and books and teddy bear
The kids also got Toy Story 1,2 and 3.


Some of our favorite gifts were...
Ryan- XBox game, badly needed t-shirts, car washing stuff and he does like the MP3 player (it is better than his old one.)
Dani- Kindle, Wii Biggest Loser, some new shirts and fun new board and card games (and my new lush carpet. I will get a picture soon.)

It was a great Christmas to spend at home and with family. Always nice to remember the true meaning of Christmas. I love that Brooklynn understands and it is important to her.

Holiday Happenings

So it's been awhile. Here are some things we have been up to lately... Ryan and the kids decorating our tree. The kids colored the paper to make our Christmas countdown. Then we put service things that Brooklynn and Cameron had to do each day as they ripped off the link. (some of the things were... color a picture for someone special, call someone on the phone and tell them you love them, sweep the floor, Do something special for someone and so on...) The kids told me some things they wanted and through out the last month or so I was saving ads. Brooklynn helped cut them out and glued them on their papers. We did see Santa and showed him, but he let us take the lists home to save. Nice guy. Each year Ryan and I have been married we get a new book for Christmas. We are up to 10 books. (even though we have more Christmas books we only have 10 official christmas books.) So the kids got to open a book to add to our collection. This year we opened two. Last week we made a gingerbread house. It is one of Ryan's favorite things to do for Christmas. Cameron kept eating all the candy, but Brooklynn took the project very seriously. As she does most artsy things. It was fun and messy and a great tradition. Our ward does a Christmas breakfast every year and Santa always comes to visit. Brooklynn is always DEATHLY afraid of him. This year she said that she would at least go talk to him, but she wouldn't even be in the same room. So Cameron and McKenna went with out her. I was surprised that Cameron wasn't nervous. He just sat on his lap and jabbered to him. We have also spent a lot of time reading our Christmas books and almost every night we have watched a new Christmas movie or 30 minute show. It has been a fun year so far.

Last week

We have had quite the winter storms lately. Last week when "the big one" hit. (It was pretty bad, but only lasted a few hours. Ryan had to work and said he had never been so scared. He couldn't see more than a few feet in front of him.)We decided to have a pajama party and watch movies.


McKenna joined in on the fun!


The kids got their sleeping bags and got all snuggled to watch The Polar Express.


One of Brooklynn's favorite things is pajama parties and she loved it.


Cameron had fun, but didn't really stay laying down too long.


This is a picture I took towards the end of the storm. Not a great picture, it looked a lot worse in person.

Thanksgiving... I am so bad. I didn't take any pictures for Thanksgiving. This year we spent it with the Oldroyd's. So the night before we went to a movie with my family to see MegaMind. I got to see about half of it. Right away McKenna woke up and started crying. I had to rock her the whole time. Then about 10 minutes in Cameron decided he didn't want to watch, he wanted to play. So unfortunately Ryan walked around with him. But at least Brooklynn got to see it all and loved it.

The next day we had our dinner and dessert. The boys played video games and the kids ran around the house making messes. Of course the three daughters-in-law planned our Black Friday trip. Danielle, Nanci and I go every year together and have a blast. We planned our route and left at 11:30pm. We had a blast. My neice Katie went with us this year too. I was lucky to get everything I wanted.It was a great Thanksgiving.


Every year I do a different thing to write what we are thankful for. This year we made a hand turkey and wrote on the feathers. We have so many things to be thankful for here are some of them...
Ryan- My family, ability to run, good job!
Dani- Best hubby and kids, a good night sleep, the gospel!
Brooklynn- Best fmaily ever, Popcicles and gogurts, Scooby Doo glasses!
Cameron- My cozy Bobo, Cereal, Dinosaurs!
McKenna- Binky, food, swaddling blankets!

Pictures

Doesn't Brooklynn look so Stylin' in her new glasses? I love them.


My 3 kiddos. Got these cute matching outfits and wanted to get a picture. Can't wait till the blizzard is gone and we can take some Christmas pictures. (Don't you love Cameron's battle wounds? Thanks Berkie! Now he has a huge scratch and goose egg on his forehead... The toy box won that one.)


McKenna is one month old today. (As of 3 minutes ago actually.)

Cam & McKenna's stats...

"Let us simplify our lives a little. Let us make the changes necessary to refocus our lives on the sublime beauty of the simple, humble path of Christian discipleship—the path that leads always toward a life of meaning, gladness, and peace."

--President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "


Cameron went to his 2 year well check and I was a little surprised by some of the stats.
He is 36.4 inches tall (90%)
28 lbs and 2 oz. (50%)
his head is 19.4 inches around (70%)


Cameron is a healthy happy boy. He loves to eat and doesn't ever stop moving. He had to get shots at his appointment and just like his silly laid back personality when the nurse stuck him he gave a dirty look and said "OW" Then they stuck him one more time and he looked at Ryan and again said "Ow". He didn't cry one bit. That's my boy! We love him lots!


At McKenna's 2 week apt. She is doing great. At birth she was 5 lbs 14 oz. and they had us go back 4 days later. Then she weighed 5 lbs 7 oz. So not too bad. She just needs to be back at birth weight at 2 weeks.

She was 20.1 inches long,weighed 6 lbs 4 oz,and her head 12 inches around.

She is doing great and I was surprised how much weight she gained. She loves to eat and is a pretty good sleeper. She only wakes up once in the middle of the night and then again between 5:30 and 6am. Not too bad. She is a sweet little thing and we sure love her.

Stay tuned for pics of Brooklynn in her stylin' new glasses. She looks so stinkin' cute. We sure love her too!

Celebrations...

Last Sunday we celebrated a bunch of birthdays for October and November. It was first Cameron's birthday October 15th, McKenna was born October 23rd, My bday October 27th, My grandma Budd turned 86 November 2nd, Grandparents 65th anniversary November 7th, My Grandpa's 91st bday November 18th and my brother blessed their baby Zack.


Smile for the picture...


Everyone singing happy birthday and anniversary to us all.



For some reason I was the only one who blew out the candles. Good thing we didn't have each individual candle that would burn the house down. (it would be 273 candles- that is including the anniversary. YIKES!)


My cute Grandparents holding McKenna. They are so special to me and have been a huge part of my life and growing up.


4 generation picture.


Another 4 generation picture. My mom has 6 grandkids now and these are the only 2 girls so far.


Brooklynn loves feeding McKenna a bottle. We make sure to give a bottle at least 3 times a week. Poor mommy and Cameron spent a year together with only a few hours away from each other. It was a hard year. We are making sure McKenna takes a bottle.