Wednesday, December 14, 2011

House and Family Pictures

Christmas shopping is finally finished, hooray. And it has been so much fun, I have been going in the evenings when the kids are in bed. Shopping by myself is quite relaxing and therapeutic. We are anxiously waiting for family (Mom, Dad, Trever, Hailee, Derek, and Carly) to come to Texas for the Christmas break. We are hoping to be in our house (fingers crossed), before Christmas! Here is a sneak peak at our new house, we are just waiting for a final underwriting thumbs up. Buying a house is a big deal, and we are so excited! It is a perfect house for us!Here are some of my favorite family pictures. We aren't always posed perfectly because Brett had his own ideas for where each of us should sit. Overall I think they turned out cute!

This year is the first year Jeff and I have had a Christmas tree and we've been married almost 5 years. It has been so fun decorating and doing Christmas crafts with the kids. Christmas is that much more magical with kids.
Ready for the ward Christmas party.


Lighting up the tree. Notice the pine needles, yes Jeff thought it a must to have a real tree.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Kids are funny...

These kiddos keep me laughing. They do and say some pretty funny stuff. Dantzel has a very funny personality. She is the noisiest eater, she moans and groans and mmmmms the entire meal. We cant even take snacks to church because she is so loud when she eats, its quite distracting, but I love it.
Charlie Brown Thanksgiving playgroup. The kids had so much fun, and I had fun watching the movie because I hadn't seen it in a long time. Love the feast: jelly beans, toast, popcorn and pretzels. I didn't made her a feather headband at first because I didn't think she'd care, she's 1. But she had a minor meltdown when all the kids had them on and she did not. Once the feathers were on her head, all was well.

Falling asleep at lunch, but I love that it looks like she is praying, so cute baby.

Takes her hair out every time she is in the car seat. And this is what happens to her hair, not good.

Brett does and says very interesting and funny things. A couple of my favorite Brettisms are:
After being in the house all day he matter of factly states: "I gotta get out of this dang house"
Walking up the stairs in our apartment: "these stairs are too much for me" and
this is how he asks to get his clothes on in the morning "can you get my dressed on, on."

Brett claims that his pillow and bed "makes mine eyes burn all night long". So, he as been sleeping on the floor for the past week. My hips just hurt thinking about it, silly boy.

Brett and I did a simple Thanksgiving craft this week and he was thrilled with his work. He collected the leaves and I let him help me hot glue them on, which he loved. After we hung up his craft, he kept walking by it saying, "oh my gosh, everybody come look at my turkey, it's so great". I should do more crafts with this boy.

A military museum in Austin. Brett posing as an airplane.

Birthday!

I celebrated my 26th birthday this year, and I'm feeling old. Haha. When I met Jeff he was 26, and I remember thinking I was marrying an old man. It was a great day just chillin' with my peeps (Brett and Dantzel of course). Jeff came home early from work and we went out to Texas Roadhouse, mmmm honey butter on hot rolls.

26 years and 21 weeks.

I love this picture, Brett was so excited to sing happy birthday to me (it's one of his favorite songs and sometimes we sing it before bedtime even when it's no ones birthday).

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Happy Halloween

First and most importantly we are happy to announce we are having a girl around March 12th. So far she is healthy and perfect and I am feeling good as well, with a tummy that is no longer hide-able.
For halloween this year the kids and I were farm animals and Jeff was the farmer. Unfortunately, we didn't get a family shot but I did get some of the kids.

Helping mommy make pumpkin shaped sugar cookies for our Halloween party.

Mmmm, we are loving these holiday sweets.

Our little lamb we named Lulu.

Brett wanted to be a puppy dog and named himself Coco.

Most of the time he wouldn't wear his puppy dog ears, but he was still so cute.

Camping/Kayaking Fall 2011

We have a couple of inflatable kayaks that we pulled out to float the San Marcos river, a natural running spring river. We each took a kid and floated down, and paddled back (it's a really slow moving river, perfect for little kids).

Ready to go!!

Yay, we found another fun family activity here.

We made it, now for a little food and a rest in the car.

Camping season in Texas is during the fall. The weather has finally cooled off to mid 80's. We are trying to find fun activities for our family to do here. We went camping and I'm starting to think that tent camping is self inflicted hip pain. It really was fun and the kids were in heaven.

They slept through the night! Maybe we will go camping again.

Brett waving his hand rebuking daddy.

There is a burn ban in Texas right now, so it was pop-tarts and "yucky" charms for breakfast. The kids sure didn't mind.


This little girl loves nature, especially rocks. You can see in this picture she is trying to dig a rock out of the dirt with her right hand. She then has to taste test them.

Around the house...

We are in Austin, Texas. We moved mid-september and are finally settled into our apartment, the ward, and the general area. So far we like it here are we are trying to find fun things to keep us happy here. Here are pictures from typical days around the house.

These kids share a mini bag of popcorn everyday! They take their bowls to the living room, dump them, and eat it off the floor.

Then lick the butter from the bag...mmmm.


Datnzel was determined to get Brett's vest on after church. We had to help her get her arms in, and she was very satisfied.


"I'm so glad when daddy comes home", and so are they, obviously. As soon as they hear the doorknob turn, they run to gate screaming "daddy, daddy".

Desperate for a "cycle" ride.

Learning about static electricity!

A perfect fit!

Cool trick: Brett piles up his dump truck, bike, and Datnzel's push bike. Then he puts a blanket over them and sings Happy Birthday to whoever is near, and then that person gets to open their surprise! Wow.
This picture makes me think of that scene in the new Pride and Prejudice, when Mr Darcy is walking in the sunrise to tell Elizabeth Bennett that he loves her, but this is even better. It's my handsome husband, and my sweet babies, I love it!

She loves reading books, and I love taking pictures of those big blue beautiful eyes.

Grandma and Grandpa's Cabin

Before we moved to Texas, we had a little getaway to Island Park for a last minute family vacation. It was beautiful!!

Always eating nature.

Happy to be in the outdoors, it does a body good.

This is the face face she pulls when we say "funny faces", I love it.

Success.

Was frequently pulling down his pants for a little "peein' in the bushes".


Sunday, August 14, 2011

Idaho Summer

Brett, Dantzel and I are all in Idaho for August. Jeff is finishing up sales in southern California, with the last day being August 27th. We miss him like crazy! Thank goodness for Skype, cell phones and email, we use them frequently.



We are loving Idaho, especially the summer. Here are pics of life at grandma and grandpa's house...it's really a luxary.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

4th of July

It's fun teaching Brett about the holidays! We checked out a book from the library about America's birthday, and Brett made us sing the happy birthday song to America. We had a very traditional 4th of July (traditional is good). Parade, swimming, bbq, fireworks. The only bummer was Jeff worked, but he did get off at 5!!

Does this look like "cheese"? I don't think so. This face seems to take a lot more effort than a simple smile, oh well.

A long, hot and kind of boring parade. No candy, what's that all about.

The sweetest chubby nugget in red/white/blue I have ever seen.