A magical place!

We waited for my mom and john to come before taking our annual trip to Bronner's! It is such a magical place full of Christmas cheer!

Some fun Christmas trees...
A giant gingerbread house...

And the big man himself (we think Bronner's has the REAL Santa - where else would he be besides the largest Christmas store in the world??)

Miles was mesmerized by all the trains circling round the ceiling!

Grandpa and Naunie with the girls and their ornament choices - Sophie chose a bird again this year, and Nora chose a mermaid. Nora originally wanted a ballerina who was touching her head and spinning - but we could not find one who actually had her hand on top of her head (their were plenty who had their hands above their heads, but that wasn't good enough!) Luckily finding the mermaid was a perfect fit! We let Miles choose a car out of all their car ornaments - you can see it clutched in his hand while he's sitting on Santa's lap. He (of course!) loved it.

And my favorite picture from the night.

Dear family and friends –

Merry Christmas from Michigan! We are still here in the mitten state – and still loving it! Brian is working hard on his doctorate degree and is on course to graduate fall of 2010! We will probably be here until summer or fall of 2011. It is going by quickly and we are so blessed to have a wonderful ward full of great friends. We really enjoy Michigan – it’s a beautiful place to live. In the summer we love to visit all the different lakes and parks that are close by and it is absolutely gorgeous here in the fall! And the winters aren’t as bad as most people think they are! We will be sad to leave here when the time comes, but we really hope to be closer to our families someday. Brian is almost finished up with all of his classes and then will be focusing on his dissertation. Somehow he’s been able to balance attending school, teaching classes, fulfilling his church callings, and still being a great husband and father. We are lucky to have him. I love being at home with the kids and am still serving as the Young Women’s president in our ward – both of which give me plenty to do! We feel very blessed for all that we have.

Sophie is in the first grade. She likes school – once we get her there! She is growing up quickly and is a joy to have in our home. She loves to be the big sister and to craft or create anything. She especially loves to draw and write stories and songs. She is the only member of our church in her school class, and comes home with lots of questions for us! She has a tender heart and hates thinking that she is in trouble at all. I get to help in her class once a week and it is so fun to see her interact with all of her classmates. She is a sweet girl and we can’t believe how much she is growing up.

Nora is content to be home with me and is not looking forward to kindergarten yet – because she does not want to get any shots! She is full of imagination and loves to play and pretend. She also loves to craft and do pre-school activities with me at home. She reminds me every day that we need to do her pre-school work. She is a sensitive girl who needs lots of loves from all of us to remind her that life as the middle child is still good! She is a sweetheart and so fun to have by my side all day long!

Miles is just such fun. He makes us laugh every day and is such a happy little guy. He loves anything with wheels and can often be found at his train table or lining his cars up in a row. He has a great laugh and a smile that can melt your heart – which often gets him out of quite a bit of trouble. He loves watching football and basketball with his dad and can hardly stand to be away from Brian when Brian is home. Every time Brian gets home from school Miles greets him like it’s been a year or more since he’s seen him last! Miles brings a lot of joy into our home.

Again this year we feel blessed beyond measure, and we are looking forward to the adventures we will have in the coming year!

More than anything this season we feel so grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ. We are grateful for the knowledge we have that our family can be together forever because of Him. We know that He lives! That he was born in a stable in Bethlehem and that He later suffered and died for each of us, paying the price for our sins so we could return back to Him. May your Christmas be filled with His spirit and love.

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Brian, Lexie, Sophie, Nora & Miles

Boys outing

Brian and Miles went out today to run some errands. A trip to Goodwill and Miles came home with this new truck for .99! We love to watch him line up all his cars in it and drive it around.

Winter is here...

We were lucky this year and the snow held off until just last week. But it seems to be making up for lost time because it is FREEZING COLD. Seriously. Growing up in Idaho and Northern Utah we are used to cold winters - the main difference between those winters and Michigan winters is the WIND. The wind here is so terribly cold. But that didn't stop Nora from playing outside for over an hour. This girl loves playing in the snow!
And just for fun here is some photo documentation of one of Miles' very favorite things to do. Get into the bathroom and put lotion all over his noggin. Then he comes walking out with this irresistible smile on his face like he's trying not to laugh and walks up to me all casual like to see if I notice. It's happened more than a few times... let's just say his head is super moisturized!

And here is his look after the lotion gets all rubbed in. Maybe he is trying to tell me he wants me to spike his hair like I used to?

like this?

August 2008
If you haven't tried this scrumptious doughnut recipe - here it is again! I made these for our ward Christmas party. They were so yummy. You must try them (this is a doubled batch).

Oh, and one more thing. Just in case you weren't convinced of my erratic and fickle behavior - I took Miles out of the toddler bed and into the crib! He was doing a great job staying in bed when it was time but he was kicking the wall over and over again during the night, and rolling out of the bed in his sleep - which of course would wake me up every time. So to make my life easier I put him in the crib. Luckily, he had been sleeping in the pack 'n play since birth until we moved him to the toddler bed, so putting him in the crib wasn't like a step back to him - in fact he thinks the crib is pretty cool. And I totally agree.

Priorities

The other night Brian and I had both stayed up too late - he studying (of course!) and me cleaning (of course!). I had just gotten ready for bed and was heading down the hall to our room when he called me from the kitchen, "Honey - wait! I have to show you something on the computer!" Thinking it must be something important, since he knew I was tired and moments from bed I walked into the kitchen. I sat down and this is what my dear husband just HAD to show me:

Okay, so I do think it's a great video and I love the muppets, but I am pretty sure the only (adult) person who will actually sit and watch the whole thing will be Brian's older brother Christopher!

Cold Play

We got our first snow of the season today! Nora was in her snow stuff by 8am ready to go play in it! There wasn't much but she gathered a bunch in a bucket and carried it around with her while we ran errands. When we got home and Miles was napping we dumped her snow onto a cookie sheet and she made a sledding hill for a tiny sled ornament we have. Then it turned into an "ice sculpture". With a spray bottle of water & food coloring she finished the sculpture and it is now in our freezer
- and probably will be all winter!
Fun times with my sweet girl. She has such a great imagination.

Holiday happenings!

We kicked off the holidays here by going to a downtown parade and watching fireworks at the capital. It was fun - not nearly as cold as the previous 2 years. Something funny - Miles hated the fireworks! I never would have guessed that, but everytime they went off he was not happy about it. He didn't cry but just looked very concerned and clung to Brian. Silly boy.

We spent Thanksgiving with all our great neighbors here. Between us all there were 10 adults and 11 kids! The Overson's were kind enough to invite us all to their place. The kids had fun playing together, doing crafts, running around and watching Mickey's Christmas Carol. We were over there from about 12 - 6:30 and the kids all did so good getting along.

Miles in his Indian headdress - carrying a train with him of course.

The kids all ran around making indian war cry's and saying "HOW!"

Here is the "big kids" table

This picture cracks me up because of the look on Sophie's face - and Nora and Maddie raising their hands. I would love to know what question she just asked them.

The kids made gumdrop turkeys - at least Nora did. Everyone else decided to make buildings and other various things. But I was totally impressed with Nora's turkey!

Spencer and Sophie

Some of the dad's and babies.
(Ryan, Brian with Eleanor and Miles, Timmy with Jasmine)
It's no wonder new people who move into our ward have a hard time knowing what kids belong to what families. We are always shuffling them around!

Cute Ann - our wonderful hostess!

The next morning I got up at 6 and hit the black Friday sales. I wasn't going to wait out in the cold this year but still wanted to get there semi - early. I went to Target and Wal-Mart and when I got back we got ready and went out to get our tree! We went to Tannenbaum's again this year and although it was f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g we still had a fun time.

On our way out to the tree fields.

Saying hello to their reindeer.

The girls got pretty tired walking around the place in the cold looking for the perfect (cheap but cute) tree. We finally found it right back at the beginning where we started. A very sweet lady overheard Brian asking one of the worker's where the "budget trees" were located and came over and gave us 20 bucks to help pay for our tree. We tried to refuse but she insisted and I hated to hurt her feelings for doing such a kind thing. And we were very grateful.

Here it is - the perfect tree! I picked it out and it took a little to convince Sophie - she was imagining a much bigger one. But she decided it would fit nicely in our living room window.

Holding the tree after it got all wrapped up for us.

Hot cocoa and doughnuts by the fire complete the trip!

Yep - it fits perfectly!

Mmmm..

How about some BREAD to go with that BUTTER??

Note: Don't let your child who will happily eat butter by the spoonful put her own butter on a slice of bread...

Miles Boy

I misplaced our video camera for a while -
but I found it!

So here are a few videos of Miles I took yesterday.

Even though dealing with hitting/biting/pushing & hair pulling is not my favorite - I absolutely LOVE this age. When he is being good - he is such fun!

What we are doing lately

Playing in leaves with friends:

Enjoying the warm weather at the park!

Anticipating the garbage man's arrival

 listening to the i-pod over breakfast

 watching squirrels in  our yard

... and a belated picture of the girls' pumpkins!

Sophie's on the left and Nora's on the right. They drew the faces on with Sharpies and then we helped them with the carving.  Every time Miles see's a pumpkin he says, "HOWEEEEN!" So cute.

Rascal Boy

Miles has been spending quite a bit of time here lately:

for numerous offenses (hair pulling, biting, pushing, hitting, throwing...)

Luckily for him, he is so darn cute that he's quickly forgiven-

at least by his mama - I'm not so sure about a few of the kids he's tormented.