"Minute to Win It" Christmas

Mandy found some fun "Minute to Win It" Christmas games online. She thought it would be fun to do them for our Christmas Eve. So we got the supplies, cleared out our dining room for the space and it was on. It was so fun, I haven't laughed so much in a long time. First up was the boys, they had to throw snowballs (marshmallows) in the Christmas bin. It was so hard to get a picture of them holding still.



Then the girls had to stack as many Christmas cups as they could with one hand.
This one was funny. Paola and Mandy had to hold a piece of ribbon in their mouth. At the bottom of the ribbon was a bom bom. With Vaseline on their nose they had to try to get the bom bom to stick on their nose without using their hands. So they could look like Rudolph.
Next was stacking bolts on top of each other and using only a candy cane.
Finally using a paper towel roll, a yard stick, and Christmas ornaments. See how many you can balance on the yard stick.
After the games were over. We let the kids open their presents from us.
Before we went to bed Ashley and Brooklyn opened their Christmas Eve jammies.
Christmas morning was very quiet. Ashley helped Brooklyn open her presents.
Brooklyn with her Christmas loot!

Christmas Time!

I cannot believe December is over. We had a great Christmas and had so much fun. In Early December the Emma and Lindsay performed at the Dickens Festival. While we were there we saw two of the wives from Sister Wives. The girls (and I) were star struck. They were so sweet and let the girls get a picture with them.


It was time to find our Christmas tree. It didn't take us long, but Ash and I were so excited that we got it tied to the top of the car ourselves.

Time to decorate. Brooklyn helped the best she could.We also celebrated Ashley's 20th birthday. Since her birthday fell during finals we celebrated after finals! Everyone came over and made her day better. Paola also brought a pinata. We did our best with our small back porch area.

Another December birthday is Nate's. He turned 3 years old this year. He had a fun party at Fiesta Fun.

Parker and Allie look like they are having fun. Oh Allie looks a little squished. You know what will fix that?
Add Brooklyn!
And then Penelope felt left out. How are you doing Allie?
Don't I have the most adorable nieces ever?

Brooklyn is 1 month!

Today Ms Brooklyn is one month old. I can't believe it's been a month already. She is such a good baby. She only cries when she is hungry or needs a burp. When she is awake she loves for you to talk to her or sing to her.

Her first two weeks home she had her days and nights mixed up. She would be up all night and sleep all day. She wasn't fussy or anything, she just would be awake and looking around at everything. I didn't want to lay her down when she was awake. So that was our bonding time. After her first two weeks she started sleeping better at night. She still gets up about everything three hours to eat, but it's not all night.

Right after she was born she nursed really well. Then just after Thanksgiving she started having a bad reaction every time she ate. I then moved her to regular formula. I didn't think I would be sad to not nurse anymore, and I am. She did well on the formula for a few days, and then started having the same reaction again. We now have her on soy formula and hoping she continues to do well.

She holds her head up really well. Every time I put her on my shoulder to burp her she lifts her head up for a while. It's so cute. I get excited when she smiles. I know they are gassy smiles, but I love them anyways. I still have not been able to catch one on camera.

Finally she loves bath time. She is so good and doesn't cry one bit.

Can I just say, I am so lucky to have so many people I can call if I need anything or have questions. We are truly blessed to have so many family members there for us.

Blogging Again.

My poor blog has been neglected for almost a year. So much has happened and you would think that I would blog. I am going to do my best to catch up, so here we go.

JANUARY
The day we left for our Las Vegas vacation, Fernando and Kristin were having a "gender party". What they did was when they went to the doctor to find out what they were having they had the doctor put the result in an envelope, then took that envelope to a baker and had the baker make a cake with either blue or pink icing in the middle. Then they waited until the party to find out what the baby would be. I think that would have been so hard, but thought it was so thoughtful for them to share with us. It was so much fun, they had pink and blue punch when we got there and we had to fill our drinks with the color we thought the baby would end up being.

Because Kristin and Fernando felt it was a boy, I did too. Well most of us were wrong because it's a girl. Thank you so much for sharing that moment with us.

Also in January I had decided to start school. What was I thinking? I figured this time was better than none, I decided to only take six credits a semester since at that time I was working full time.

MARCH
This was a very emotional month for us. To start off, the 18th was the anniversary of losing our little Hannah. But a week before that date, we received a call from Dave's family. They let us know that his mom had taken a turn for the worse. She was diagnosed with cancer in December of 2010, but doctors felt she had a fighting chance. So we were surprised to know she was not doing well. After talking to her and praying about it, we decided to make the trip to Minnesota to see her. Thanks to my bosses at the time, and Vanessa I was able to take a whole week off of work with last minute notice. Dave, Ash, and I rented a car and drove to Minnesota. Once we arrived I was so glad we did. I was glad Dave was able to see his mom, and I know I would have regretted if we didn't.

We got a call early morning on the 18th from Dave's brother letting us know that Judy had passed. My first reaction was really? Why did she have to pass the same day we lost Hannah? It was very emotional. Later that day I received a text from Mandy. She let me know she was sorry we lost Judy, but said how lucky Hannah was to have her grandma with her today. Thank you Mandy for helping me see it that way. Leave it to me to feel sorry for myself.

After a couple days visiting Dave's family and helping make funeral arrangements we were on our way back to Utah.

Now you would think that was it for March, but no. Before we had left for Minnesota I had a feeling that I might be pregnant. I had tried to keep it from Dave because I didn't want to get his hopes up. I told him that when we returned to Utah I would take a pregnancy test. Well the day came and I did not want to. I was scared. I had decided to start school in January because I was sure that I was not going to get pregnant. We had tried for five years after losing Hannah. I was 33 and would be 34 years old when this baby came. I just felt that after trying for so long I had accepted that no babies were in the future for me. Well I was wrong after three days of Dave begging me to take the test. I really didn't want to and just kept telling Dave no. So he finally went to Mandy and told her I had to tell her something. She came right to me and wanted to know what had been on my mind. I let her know and of course we took the test right away and it was positive. What a blessing.

MAY
On the 5th day of May we welcomed my new and beautiful baby niece Penelope Ranae. She was three weeks early and couldn't be more perfect. We were all so excited for our brother to finally be a dad. Kristin was amazing through everything. We are so happy to have her in our family.

Then that same month Vanessa and I got some bad news. The company that we had worked for for almost 5 years had been bought out by a company up north. They offered to let us keep our jobs, we would just need to move with it. I of course was not able to, so by the end of the month I was unemployed.

JULY
We all got together for the 4th of July. It was kinda of cloudy, but it made playing water games outside fun. We didn't get pictures, but EVERYONE got in a huge water fight outside. Ashley got all the girls decked out in their cute red, white and blue attire.

AUGUST
Two exciting things happened this month. Ms. Allie had her 1st birthday, and Ms. Lindsay was baptized. It was so fun to get together with the family for two days. Since Allie's birthday was the day after Lindsay's baptism.

SEPTEMBER
Jacob has joined karate, and had his first tournament. He came in first and he had so many people there cheering him on.

OCTOBER
The first of October was my baby shower! Ashley, Mandy, Paola, and Kristin did such a good job. I loved everything about it. I also loved to see my friends and family that I hadn't seen in a while. The same day that I had my shower, my family surprised me by going in together and buying me a new crib for Brooklyn's room. My brothers had set it up and put it together in her room, while we were at the baby shower. When I got home everyone was upstairs and surprised me. Everyone was squeezed together in her little room. I was so happy to have Aunt Kathy and Vanessa there too. Thank you Vanessa for taking the pictures at my shower.
My reaction when they surprised me with the crib. I cried of course!

Then just a few days later, on October 6th we got bad news. Our grandpa Eric had passed away. This was such a shock to us. We had known that his health was not the best, but didn't think he was going to leave us.

Grandpa was such an amazing guy. Growing up with a single mother, we didn't have a huge male influence in our lives, and he was one for us. He was such a giving person, and taught my brothers a lot. Thank you for being there for us Grandpa. We will miss you so much. We were able to have a beautiful memorial for him, to honor his life. It was so nice to see family from that side of the family, and get together to remember all the amazing memories with Grandpa.

And finally we have Halloween of course. Ashley always seems to come up with a clever way to carve her pumpkin. This year she did Harry Potter with lighting bolt scar and all.
All the kids were so cute with their costumes. As you can see we had 3 nerds, 2 transformers, 2 ninjas, and a Utes cheerleader to start off the night.

We were later joined by Fernando and his cute family. Can you guess what he was dressed up as? Well if you look closely to his name tag it says Mr. Brill. Mandy, Paola and I could not stop laughing. It was perfect.

Ash and I decided to join all the kids in trick or treating. Now by this time I was only a week away from having my scheduled C-section, but was so ready to be done with being pregnant. Paola kept telling me that if I walked it could cause me to go in labor. I didn't go into labor that night but I think it definitely kicked started everything, because I ended up having Brooklyn on November 2nd. I will post her birth story as well.

I am just going to end with some random pictures of my crazy family!