Merry Christmas

I cannot believe Christmas Eve has allready come. Wow what a fast December. We had a fun time this month, going to parties and seeing many friends and family. A couple of the neat things we did this month were to go to a live Nativity, and to sing in the Ward Christmas Program. We found out about a Baptist Church in Layton that acted out the entire "Journey to Bethlehem". It was so neat. The hard part was waiting in line for 2 hours, but once it was our turn, it was well worth it. They took groups of 50 people at a time through the journey. We had a family from Nazareth and they lead us the whole way. 1st we visited the carpenter shop, only to for them to tell us that Joseph and Mary had allready left. There were Roman soliders all along the way, dressed up and with real horses, who stop us many times and made us show our pretend passports so we could freely go through to Bethlehem. We saw the 3 wise men and thier gifts, and their real pet llamas. Next were the shepards, an angle appeared to them while we were watching. Then we moved onto other travelors, who shared their fire with us, so we could warm up. This whole time we are walking through trees and bushes with torches to light the way. When we made it to Bethlehem the Soliders stopped us outside the gate to again check that we were free to go. THen they stamped our passport and we entered the town of Bethlehem. They had it all set up with people selling things like bread, and herbs and they were even roasting a real pig over the fire. They gave Brinlee a fake loaf of bread that she was able to give to the begger in the town. She loved that. Then we were led to the Inn, where they said they had no room, but they had sent Joseph and Mary to the Stable. We walked there where we saw Joseph and Mary with the Baby Jesus and they spoke and sang Silent Night and Oh Come All Ye faithful. There was a real donkey and sheep. It was so neat. IT was a great way to remember the true meaning of Christmas and it really helped our kids understand as we acted it out. They gave us yummy hot chocolat at the end to warm us up.

This past Sunday Budd directed our christmas musical program in sacrament meeting. He got put in as choir director a few months ago. He did an amazing job, expecially since we didnt start practicing for it until Dec 7th. Everyone really enjoyed it. He has brought our choir to a whole new level, and it is fun and educational. Budd and i sang "Oh come all ye faithful" in an accapella quartet and it turned out very nicely, even thought my heart was pounding and i had to skip a note to take a breath so i didnt pass out. Budd also did a mens acccapella quarted of "Abide with Me". That was amazing, my favorite of the program We also played recorders, Budd, Shun and I, for the first verse of "That Easter Morn" We sang another 4-5 songs with the whole choir and a couple with the congregation. The primary children also say 2 songs. It just turned out lovely. It has been such a great experience for Budd and he has been teaching me so much about singing and the recorder and we are enjoying doing those things together now.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!!!!

Thanksgiving and More Events

We have had an eventful past few weeks. Thanksgiving was so much fun as we were able to celebrate with Kate's family the Saturday before and then able to fly to Arizona to be with Budd's family for 4 days. We had a lot of fun seeing everyone, especially Budd's family that we only see 2 times a year. The kids loved playing with their cousins. We had a lot of fun in the warm weather in AZ as we were able to play at the park and outside. The highlight for Brinlee was going with all her girl cousins to a place called "Glitter Box" where they all got their hair done like a princess, and they put a lot of glitter on it making it sparkle. I still can see the glitter on her scalp. She was dancing around and having so much fun. All the girls looked so darling. I would have some great pics to put up here, but we had another technical problem with our computer and so we had to reformat again and the disk that we saved everthing on seamed to not work, so we lost those photos. I was so excited to post them and to send them to all the cousins. I am so sorry we lost them. I have learned that I can't put off blogging, I have got to get my pic up as soon as possible in case things like this happen. I was a wreak about it but have decided that all i can do now it write about these memories so we can remember the fun we had.
Spencers highlight was playing with the swords with his cousins. He still talks about how he wants a power sword like Brayden. Luckily the sword he played with and loved, we had allready gotten him for christmas. Spencer is really an active guy and so into swords and Star Wars and tries to do kung fu moves like Kung fu Panda. It is so funny, until someone gets hurt of course, but he has been good about not hitting people. It was so funny, the other day he was playing with a round cork hot pad that I have. I was not sure how he found it but figured it was something he couldnt really hurt. Well, a few minutes later I saw that is was broken in half. He has somehow bent it and broke it. I went up to him and said, " why did you break this?" He looked up at me innocently and said "Because i am the Dragon warrior, Mom." He was so serious about it. I tried to teach him that we dont have to break things to be the Dragon warrior. But we still seam to have something broken every day. The fun of boys.

The week after thanksgiving we had Budds company party. It was so much fun. The had it at a new event center in South Jordan called "Noah's Place" They rented out the whole building, and had activities in every room. They had dinner and a DJ, doing contests and giving out prizes every half hour, and later they had dancing. There were photos with Santa, where they printed out the photo right there and gave it to us. They had 6 different crafts for kids to do, christmas movies in many rooms, wii games on big screens, pool tables, bingo, and they were giong to have ice skating, but it was outside and the weather had been too warm. It was so neat. We met some of Budd's co-workers and we realized what a great company Budd is working for. They are so family oriented. We feel so blessed to have found this company. Budd is really enjoying the job.
Here is Budd and the kids jammin at the party.


On saturday the 6th I did an Art birthday party during the day. We talked all about Van Gogh and did Starry Night. There were more than 15 kids and they had alot of fun. Here are some pics of the great work they did.
That night we had our ward Christmas party. We had a dinner and program which we were a big part of. Brinlee sang with the primary, and Budd is the choir director and we did a couple fun numbers with the choir. Then Budd, Shun and I played "Angles we have heard on High" on our recorders. The gym was loud and did not have good accousitics so you could not hear very well, but it was fun. Here is Brinlee with the primary

Walking in Leaves

We wanted to spend the last good day of fall outside and enjoying the leaves so someone told us about the Farmington Trail that goes by the side of Lagoon. It was beautiful and perfect for enjoying the leaves. We took alot of fun pics of the kids.
Brinlee loves to pose and here she is with some attitude. She is loving her preschool and is learning some spanish. She is always telling me what the Spanish word is for things i say. She is starting to sound out words and actually read her first little book all by herself this week. Even thought the only words in the book were, "I , See and Sam," I was so proud of her. She has been calling me "Mother" all the time lately. I am not sure where she learned to say that instead of Mom, but it is cute.
Spencer is our true boy and an active one. He is also so sweet. We try to read scriptures and say prayers every night before bed, but some nights we forget and put the kids to bed by just saying prayers. So last night Spencer said,"but Mom we didnt read scriptures" so I started to recite a scripture for him, but he said,"no, we need the book" so I got the Book of Mormon out and read a verse that he recited after me and he was much happier. Then we said prayers, I gave him a kiss and said goodnight. A few minutes later he was calling for me. I went into his room and he said,"But Mom we didnt bless you to get better" I said,"why do I need to get better, am I sick?" He relplied that he just wanted to, so I let him pray for me and said goodnight again. Then a few minutes later he again called for me. I went in to see what was the matter and he said, "but we didnt pray for me to get better." So I helped him say a prayer again and made sure we prayed that he was safe and would sleep well. It was so cute of him. Although he doesnt really understand what to say, he know that he wants to bless people. We truly learn from our sweet children.

Fall leaves

I love the fall leaves and it has been so much fun watching so many fall in our backyard this year. It is so pretty. Here is a pic of our yard. It just doesnt do the real color and beauty justice. I love the fall.

More pics

Budds full costume, if you look close you can see the eye liner. Nice!

i thought this was a sweet shot of Spence with the sword looking like it is glowing.

Here are the kids after trick or treating and needing to go to bed but still playing.

Finally Halloween Pics

We had a really fun Halloween. The kids are both old enough to enjoy it this year. They loved running up to each door and yelling " trick or treat" It was fun watching them. We wanted to cordinate as a family this year, but didnt end up pulling it together, so Brinlee decided to be a fairy and our friends were able to help us get a costume on good discount. She loved it of course. Spencer was a ninja guy. We used the awesome Japanese clothing that we got from the Japanese boy living with us and he looked great. His favorite part was the sword. Budd pulled together a great pirate costume with things he had and his goucho (brazilian cowboy) boots and belt from his mission. I was a just a farmer, since I had Lasik the day before and couldnt wear any make up or anything. I got Lasik as a gift from my Mom and it was neat that i got it the day before Halloween and I was still able to do everything with the kids. I was even able to drive the next day and we went to a Halloween parade at Toys R Us with Brinlee's friends. My eyes are doing great and i am so happy about it. I keep thinking i need to take my contacts out or something. It is amazing. Thank you so much Mom!!
Needless to say, we had a great Halloween. The kids are still hyper from it all.

The Creative Family

I saw this book on another blog and it looks really neat.
Here are the blogs that talk about it.
http://sewliberated.typepad.com/sew_liberated/2008/04/post.html
http://petitelefant.blogspot.com/2008_10_01_archive.html on 10.23.08
both of these blogs look like they have fun ideas.
Hope you can Enjoy