Catching up

I have neglected the blog.

Here are some updates.

Here is a picture of Abby standing outside the fort of all forts. She and Briton slept in it two nights in a row. (And they did, in fact, sleep.) It was light-tight, cozy and full of animals, pillows and blankets.

After 3 days, I needed my living room back, but it was fun to see them have so much fun with it!

Winter?

Like the rest of the country, winter hid from us from us for quite a while. The last week has been cold and snowy, but we certainly took advantage of some nice warm-ish days to get some fresh air. Here was a day we took advantage of a free zoo day (can't wait to use our zoo pass this summer - thanks mom and dad).

Utah - South

After the cabin, we drove south to warmth to spend the remainder of our time with the Wessmans. The kids loved playing with grandma, grandpa, Lara and Natalie.

Lara cut Briton's hair (and mine too!). It was very needed and quite the feat being that he does not let me touch his hair!

We got to go to the community pool and had a great time swimming, sliding and playing.

After a few days of fun play, we traveled to Las Vegas. We spent the afternoon there together. The next morning we flew back home.

Utah - North

We spent 2 weeks in Utah during January.

It feels so good to be home with all our family. I miss them and we consider ourselves very blessed to be able to travel home to see them regularly.

I got to spend my birthday there. My birthday indulgence was the lunch buffet at the Garden Cafe in the Grand America. It is so good. Mike and I used to eat there every year for our anniversary. We highly recommend it (and the price is extremely reasonable)!

We were excited to plan our trip around this:

It was so great to be able to attend Isaac's baptism. We love him and appreciate that he is such a good cousin to our kiddos.

We were able to visit great-grandparents and really enjoyed being with them.

My parents took the kids to the aquarium. The new otters along with the penguins, sharks and other old-timers were great.

We visited Hope's grave.

We got to go to the cabin! My parents, Kaley, Cory and Deja were also there and we had a great time - swinging, watching movies, sledding and eating!

We went to the Church History Museum with Bekah, Lance and Carter. It was so fun to watch the kids play and have fun together.

This may sound silly, but one of the best things about the trip was that I made a list of restaurants I wanted to go to and we hit them all. It may sound silly, but it made me happy:

• Red Iguana
• Cafe Rio
• Sweet Tomatoes (perhaps the only restaurant that we have eaten at every time we've traveled back to Utah)
• In 'n' Out
• The Garden @ the Grand America
• Papa Murphy's Pizza

The Ford Museum

During Christmas break, we went to the Ford Museum. Here are a few random pictures (yes, Abby and Briton are dressed as a hot dog) of the kiddos. We have a pass (thanks, Dave and Kaye)! If any of you come to Michigan this year, we will take you there. It is very cool and we hear the Greenfield Village is even better. (Our pass gets us in there also.)

Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas!

We opened our Christmas pajamas on Saturday evening. (Thanks, grandma!) Sunday morning we enjoyed a breakfast of fruit, cinnamon rolls and orange rolls. We enjoyed church and came home to some lunch. We didn't start opening gifts until around 1 pm (after putting jammies back on, of course) and enjoyed a relaxed time together, including a fun visit to the neighbors. Here is a highlight for each of the children:

Abby - She has wanted a unicorn pillow pet ever since the week after Christmas last year. Her reaction to seeing it was priceless. Abby loves anything cozy and this certainly fits the bill!

Briton - Briton asked for a variety of things but one of the first things he asked for was a backpack. He loves Thomas the Train so Santa brought him a Thomas backpack. I was a bit concerned that he might wonder where all the other things he'd asked for were, but he was (and still is) thrilled with the backpack. He has loaded and unloaded it countless times!

Hannah - Our cute little one still doesn't get the present idea, but she was pleased as punch to walk around and figure out what the rest of us were up to. She received some clothes, a doll cradle and doll, some winter accessories and more.

Of course, with all the presents, toys and stuff the kids got, here is what has received the most attention over the last couple days:

The missionaries helped them cut doors into the boxes and they have loaded them up with blankets, pillows, stuffed animals, toys, etc. It has been really cute to watch. Last night the kids asked to sleep in their "cozy places". I was skeptical about how much sleeping would actually take place, but they surprised me...and even slept in a bit. (Mike suggested that next year we hang out at the entrance of Walmart and ask people with big boxes if we can give them $5 for the boxes instead of all the other gifts.)

(PS These are from the new beds the kids received.)

Some Pre-Christmas

I have not blogged for a while. Before I make a Christmas post, here are some of our other December comings and goings. More than comings and goings we've had "stayings". December has been a relatively low key month for us and we have (intentionally) kept it pretty calm.

The pictures are in reverse chronological order...

Abby had her preschool Christmas program and we were happy to all be able to attend.

We celebrated Mike's birthday.

One of our favorite December traditions is the Peacock Road Tree Farm. I have posted about this the past 2 years. We enjoy taking the train to the North Pole to visit Santa in his cottage and roast marshmallows and drink hot cocoa. This year we ran into some friends while we were there and enjoyed visiting with them. We also took the horse wagon to see Santa because the train was full. It was a fun change.

Briton is involved with Michigan's Early On program for his speech services. We have loved all the support they've provided to him and to us. (We're sad that when he turns 3 in February he'll transition out of Early On.) Last year, we missed the Early On Christmas party because of our new baby so we were excited to attend this year as a family. The girls got sick so it just ended up being Mike and Briton that attended. Mike raved about the party for days afterward! They had such a good time and the organizers were nice enough to send goodie bags (complete with cookies and decorating supplies) home for Abby and Hannah. We have some great videos of Briton playing the games - throwing puff balls at blow up reindeer to knock them down. He was, ahem, a bit over-anxious to hit the reindeer. Maybe I'll get some of the videos uploaded:)

November 30th was the first real snow storm out here. It was a doozy. We got 8-10 inches of snow and the schools were closed for a day:) So much fun! Lots of playing, sledding, shoveling...

And, here are the kids in the tub with mountains of bubbles.

Happy birthday, Hannah!

Today we celebrated Hannah's 1st birthday. The real birthday is Sunday, but with Brian and Amy in town for Thanksgiving we wanted to make sure to include them in the festivities.

This afternoon we visited the local Christmas tree farm and picked out a beautiful tree. The weather was beautiful! (Incidentally, last year's trip to the tree farm was the day before Hannah was born and was very cold.)

Here we are with the winning tree:

She did not fully grasp the present opening...

...but the cake eating was quite the hit.

We loved that the minute we put the cake on her tray, she pulled the candle out, paid no attention to it and went for the frosting. We blew it out when she went for the "pinch it out" technique.

Hannah is the most patient baby in the world. She is adorable. She loves to be involved with her brother and sister. We think she is great!