Christmas Time

We spent Christmas in Kanab as usual and had a wonderful time. We went to Grandma Shawna's for Christmas Eve Dinner then spent pretty much the rest of the time at my parents house.

Grandma & Baby Myla





Lauryn couldn't get enough of this sled! All of the cousins took turns dragging her around the house and she was loving it!


We had a hard time keeping Lauryn out of the presents she just could wait to rip into that paper!

Christmas Eve Playing out the nativity story.
We then sang Christmas songs, set out cookies for Santa , and hurried off to bed.

MERRY CHRISTMAS MORNING!
The kids didn't wake up until about 7:00 the next morning, which was extremely difficult for me because I strongly believe it still needs to be dark outside when you open presents, but I couldn't risk grumpy kids, so I waited patiently, and Lauryn sure was excited!

This kid loves her hats!!


Cute little bike from Grandpa Geno!

Say "CHEESE"!

Brylie and Summer baking. These two have a love, hate relationship and you can probably tell which one Bry is feeling at the moment...

but they make up quickly! :)





NEW YEARS EVE

games with grandma

and movie time!
(There are 12 kids stuffed on that bed, not sure how comfy it would be,
but quite a party.)

Lisa couldn't wait to put her kids to bed so she could finally get her hands on their new Wii game.

Here she is practicing to be the next American Idol. "You go Lis!"

Sledding, Sand Dunes, Bon Fire, & 5 Gallons of Hot Chocolate.
What could be more fun than that?!

New Years Resolution #1- Catch Up!!!

Sadly my motto lately has seem to be "better late than never" (resolution #2 is to get a better motto for myself) but until then here I am mid January trying to catch up for October/November. Seeing how I'm so behind I just wanted to do a quick recap of the fun times we had during these months....

My brother-in-law Jason coaches football for Cedar High and Brylie loved going to the games, I couldn't believe how excited she was about them, even when the weather became freezing!!! She insisted on wearing her football shirt to every single game and joined right in cheering and playing with the boys.


Drake Family 5th Annual Pumpkin Festival

Good food, family, and fun!

All the cousins painting pumpkins



Halloween Party & Brylie turns 3!

The girls had a Dance Magic Halloween party, and they were so excited for the chance to wear their Turkish belly dancer outfits Aunt Jessica had just brought back for them from Turkey. They jingled everywhere they went. :)


After the Halloween party we had a little birthday party for Brylie with the family

the party continued all night when the cousin got to sleep over and eat popcorn in the living room. (now that is a special treat! :)



Carving pumpkins with dad




My nephew was baptised on Halloween day so the whole family was in town, and I can never pass up a chance to have another party. We had our very own Halloween carnival at my house.



TRICK OR TREAT!







Shawn's sister Callie had her baby right before Halloween, Damian Gene, Brylie thought such a tiny little person was pretty neat.

Brylie got her dance costume, and now believes she's a natural performer.



Brylie decided it was a great idea to start dressing herself. I promise my daughter really does own cute clothes, but you would never know because I cannot talk her into anything and she truly believes skirts are for every day, even if there is snow outside. (What do ya do???)


In November we made our first visit to see Santa Clause!
As you can see it went over fantastically....

here I am dragging Brylie over to see Santa,

here is Brylie pissed that I made her sit on his lap.

Lauryn had a similar reaction, but I had to get a least one picture!

'Tis the Season to be Jolly!

And I AM!!!
But when I think of jolly, it includes round & happy and unfortunately both apply after the way I have been binging on all the delicious holiday treats, but I've been enjoying myself while doing it, and there's always the new year right?!! :)

Anyways before I go off to celebrate with the fam, I wanted to post a few of the fun times we have been having this holiday season.


This was Brylie's first year going with the boys to cut down the Christmas tree, I think she froze her tooshie off and made Shawn carry her through the snow most of the time but thought she was pretty cool to go with the big boys, and continues to say "mom I got to go, cause I'm big, but Lauryn's too little. "

They did come home with a beauty though! Much bigger than usual and we did not have near enough ornaments to fill it, but Lauryn had a great time playing in the few we did have.




Brylie preformed her Suzy Snowflake dance at the Christmas Festival, and in my opinion was the cutest little snowflake up there! I thought she would be much to shy to preform on stage, but she seems to love it and is so excited when she tells me, "Mom, they clapped for me!"


This is Brylie with her cousin Summer who is only 7 months older and they are the best of friends!

What is a Christmas party without Princess's!! Here they are with Cinderella.

Bry & Summer found their favorite tree and of course it is pink!


Because I am a holiday fanatic as well, we tried to fit in as many Christmas movies as possible, and saw a lot of Barbie singing Christmas carols.

The girls are at such a fun age, and get almost as excited about Christmas as I do. Lauryn walks around the house saying "HO, HO, HO, & Fa, la, la, la, la" while Brylie reminds her not to pout or she will be on the naughty list with Swiper. We of course have been trying to teach Brylie that Christmas is more than just Santa, but she continues to tell me, "Mom, Christmas is when Santa Clause brings us presents, but....Jesus gets to blow out all of the candles!" (I hope she's getting it. :) All in all, we have had a wonderful holiday, and it's a little bitter sweet that Christmas eve is already here. I'm sad to see it come to an end, but cannot wait to see the girls faces on Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas to all...And to all a good night! :)

What am I missing???

So Saturday night was date night. No not a typical thing, but we had two movie tickets which had to be used before the end of the year and also had to take advantage of my wonderful generous sister before she left for the holidays. ;) thanks Lis.

Anyways I somewhat tricked Shawn into taking me to New Moon, because although ALL of my friends went without me, I still had not seen it, and had to see Jacob for myself. :)

So I get that it would be a hard story to make, but every one who loved the books, seemed to love the movies. So I have to ask what am I missing? I truly LOVED the books but I can't help but laugh at the corniness of the movies. I mean running through fields of flowers.....
Don't get me wrong I have always had a soft spot for Jacob, and immensely enjoyed looking at him without a shirt for two hours, but other than that found the movie kind of long and silly. I will say it was much better than the first one... I just wondered if people were seeing something I didn't or maybe I just need to get back in touch with my love for the twilight's. :) It has been a while since I read the books.

The threat that worked.

I was thrilled to say goodbye to the "terrible two's" only to find out we were entering the stage of the "terrifying threes." Brylie is a really good girl, 90% of the time, but she has a mind of her own and is always trying to prove a point. Lately it has been a fit just to show she is not going to budge if it's not her idea. Naturally, as any good mother would do, when these fits occur I resort to threats...

The first being Jesus. "Brylie, please be nice to your sister. It makes Jesus really sad when we're not nice, we need to make him happy."
Sadly this one had little effect, really didn't seem to phase her much at all. I mean she doesn't usually like making people sad but at the same time it wasn't going to be enough to change her mind at that moment.

So next I tried Santa. "Brylie, it is not okay to act like that; Santa Clause does not bring toys to naughty little girls, you need to be nice if you want any toys for Christmas. Do you want Daddy to call Santa and tell him how your acting??"
This threat worked slightly better, she thought it over seriously and behaved for at least a few hours before stating "That's okay mom, I already have toys, I not need Santa to bring me anymore."

Ahhhhh....What's a mother to do??

The one and only threat I have found that worked for my Brylie, was one she created for herself. She saw the commercial for Princess & The Frog weeks ago, and decided along with her cousin Summer that they were going to go see it as soon as it came out. Brylie has been talking about it ever since and tells everyone we run into. I'm going to see Princess and The Frog . I of course immediately jumped on this opportunity to try to create far less battles in our home. And....ta da...it worked!!!!

Brylie: "I'm not getting dressed!"
Me: "So you don't want to see Princess & the Frog?
Instantly dressed! :)
Can I mention how easy today has been. My sister must have mentioned that today was the opening day ... Brylie woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast, cleaned up her toys, and put herself back down for a nap.
Thank you Princess & The Frog, my only major dilemma is...what will I use now that she has seen the movie???

ANYHOW, ENJOY BRY. YOU EARNED IT!! :)



Lauryn thought it was really neat to sit in her own big kid chair for about...10 minutes after that we spent the rest of the movie chasing her. (I think next time we'll leave her at home with daddy.)