Christmas Day 2008

Brynn and Abby woke up bright and early, but thankfully not too bright or too early. Aaron slept in until we woke him at 10:30, we opted to let him sleep as long as possible since it would be a BIG next couple of days for all of us. It was cute to see the girls peruse through everyone's gifts from Santa.

Abby was very pleased with her gift from mom and dad...a new Care-Bear blankie. Joseph and I stayed up until 3 a.m. tying the quilt, but it would have been 5 a.m. if Sara and Grandma hadn't helped us get started. Thanks ladies! Grandma Rowene did the binding while we packed our bags to go home. This gift was truly a whole family effort and her favorite gift of Christmas.

I think Brynn was looking to see if any of the piles had what she REALLY wanted in them. After seeing what Santa left, she said, "Are there any more presents." You see, what she REALLY wanted was something she had had her eye on for the last few weeks. When I saw it I said, "We are absolutely not buying that!" Joseph told me, 'We absolutely are buying it!" Brynn asked Santa for it, but Joseph told Santa that he wanted to take the credit for getting her what she really wanted. Santa agreed to let her dad and mom take the credit and we took care of the thing Brynn wanted the most this Christmas....we put the present in a Target bag before we wrapped it to throw her off, because she knew it didn't come from Target. I must admit, it was delightsome to see her face and her excitement when she discovered what was inside.....

A soft and furry brown coat that she saw at Marshall's and fell in love with! I must confess that, while I thought the coat was hideous at first, it has grown on me. J oseph and my mom convinced me that I shouldn't crimp her style.

I don't think she removed the coat for the rest of the weekend, except to bathe, and of course at the reception when we told her she had to give her new dress equal showing time.

When Aaron did finally wake up, he was all smiles, even with dried, cracked lips. (That darn dry Utah climate). We could have given him a single book for Christmas and he would have been thrilled.

He proudly donned this back pack from Joe's mom all morning. It was mini and super cute! I spent the morning trying to undo all of the crazy packaging jobs they do now days.

Joseph is always a wonderful gift-giver. This year he did some nice "things" for me and I was/am very grateful for his thoughtfulness, but the best gift of all came as a complete surprise. He always writes a letter for gift-giving holidays. This year he did another sweet letter and wrapped it up nicely for me to open. I read the letter that expressed his love and appreciation...specifically his appreciation for my conservative style and my determination to pay off debt.

I read the letter and told him thanks, but I didn't realize there was more. He then told me to look under the tissue paper. As I lifted it my jaw dropped and I started to cry as I hurried to him for a hug. We hugged and cried together. We set a goal last year to have the private loan debt from law school paid off in the first half of 2009. We made some significant progress last year, but we weren't quite sure if we would really be able to do it. Well under the tissue paper was a check to pay off significantly more of that debt. We 're going to meet that goal after all! It has been so unifying to work hard and sacrifice together to reach it. He knows me so well, a gift of paying off our private loans is one of the best gifts he could give. Our hearts were/are full of gratitude to our Heavenly Father for rewarding our efforts.

Of course, my brother Wade lightened up the moment by saying, "Gee Clark, you shouldn't have..."

It was a great and busy day filled with lots of family, and the evening kicked off the wedding celebrations of the weekend!

Christmas Eve 2008

It was fun to rejoin our families this year for our traditional Christmas Eve festivities. While we enjoyed doing them on our own last year, it was great to have an excuse to be there this year. We've decided that traveling at Christmas time with 4 children is tricky. Last year my parents came into town to stay with us over Christmas. It was great. Truth be told, I am a lot happier and a lot less grumpy at my own house than I am while I stay at someone else's. I think it's having control over my circumstances type of thing....not that I'm proud of it, it's just the truth.

Anyhoo, we started out in the morning at Joseph's Mom's house with our LIVE nativity and soup and snacks bar. We stayed inside this year because of all the newborn babies. I was thankful for that, but we did miss being with the animals and having someone ride by on a horse as the Roman Soldier.

Joseph's mom has a never-ending bin of nativity clothes for everyone to wear...and every year she pleads with the children (and adults) to do a reverent sort of re-enactment. It's as reverent as you can expect with 30+ grandchildren and 20+ adults present. (I loved President Eyring's Christmas devotional message this year and hearing about his family's attempt to have the perfectly reverent nativity.)

Grandma Shawny with her festive apron and our festive baby Isaac!

After the nativity and our lunch the dad's took the little kids outside to play in the snow and to be towed by the four-wheeler in a long chain of sleds across the property. Grandma Shawny lives on 3 1/2 acres, so there was plenty of space and snow to have lots of fun!

The kids loved it...and they didn't even mind that they didn't have the warmest of winter clothes. Joseph wanted to go and buy some snow clothes for the trip, but I didn't want to spend the money for a week's worth of snow play. They had to wear thick jackets and snow pants from 2 seasons ago when we did live where it snowed.

Aaron was wiped out from the events of the day.

That evening we headed back to my parent's home where my mom had prepared our Christmas dinner. I told her before we came that she should nix the traditions for this year. Things were so stressful at their house the few days leading up to Christmas (because of the wedding). It was crazy and out of control. She insisted that she should do it all....I don't know whether to call her crazy or amazing. She ran around all day doing preparations for the wedding, which was the day after Christmas...and then came home to make a turkey dinner, with potatoes, veggies, homemade rolls, etc., and then woke up the next morning and made our traditional homemade Quiche and cinnamon roll breakfast. I have to hand it to her though, she did use pre-made crusts to simplify things a tad bit. The stress in the house was driving us all crazy, but by the time Christmas Eve and morning came, things were much better. Christmas night and the day of the wedding the craziness struck again, but it wasn't as bad as before.

This has nothing to do with Christmas, but after we acted out the nativity at my parent's house, everyone was in the spirit of dressing up. My mom hated seeing Aaron in the girl's princess dress-ups, so she insisted they go find the police officer and fire fighter costumes. Aaron was in heaven and very proud of his get-up!

The kids opened up their first present of Christmas and were thrilled to get matching pajamas for themselves and their dolls (and cars :)).

Then off to bed, so Santa Claus could make his visit!

There's no place like HOME for the holidays!

While we call California home for right now, our hearts are also invested deeply in Utah because we have so many wonderful family members there. We are so happy we were able to spend the season with so many that we love so much!

We packed a whole lot into this trip to Utah. Sledding... shopping...a birthday party for Abby... playing with cousins...The Nutcracker Ballet...a shower for Emily...more sledding and playing in the snow...more playing with cousins....church with Grandma and Grandpa....visits with friends... lots of last minute wedding preparations...Christmas Eve party at the Lee's...Christmas Eve dinner at the Vest's...a Christmas wedding dinner with the Vest's and Covey's...a temple wedding and celebration....early morning hikes for Joe with his brothers...many late night visits with siblings...early mornings to get everyone bathed and showered...going to the movies...guys nights...a baby blessing and a brunch.....oh and how could I forget....CHRISTMAS!!! It was a jam packed 10 days and we returned with our suitcases equally packed with lots of love and Christmas surprises!

I flew into Utah a couple of days before Joseph and brought with me most of the suitcases, not to mention 4 kids with car seats. When my dad picked us up at the airport, I took Aaron and Isaac to him and the girls came with me to retrieve our baggage. Everything was done with a very calculated effort in the planning of this trip, from the list of items to bring, to the weighing of each bag, right down to the pass off of the kids to get the luggage off of the conveyor. The girls both rolled a suitcase while I pushed the luggage cart stacked 7 feet tall. My dad said he thought he was picking up the U.S. Bob Sled team...we had so much stuff. But what would you expect with so many events packed into a 10 day trip. I pulled out my list and crossed off the 12 pieces of baggage to make sure we had it all, we stuffed ourselves in to the Pilot and made the trip to Utah County. In planning for this trip, there were many times I thought it would be much simpler to drive to Utah, but traveling through a snowy Donner's Pass by myself with 4 children, including a frequent nursing newborn didn't seem like the safest idea, so we organized everything, packed tightly and we flew.
The kids were thrilled about the snow and jumped right into it the second we got there. I even thought it was pretty...until the next day when my mom and I were driving during a snow storm in Salt Lake...it was then that I had had enough.

Brynn taught Aaron how to go sledding for the first time. Grandpa picked up these special sleds that go right under your toosh, they're easy to store and have no hard or pokey parts to injure other sledders.

Grandma and Grandpa's hill makes for great sledding grounds.

Isaac enjoyed the spirit of the season indooors, staring at the lights on the Christmas tree.

We managed to throw a little last minute party for Abby on her birthday. Thank goodness for lots of cousins closeby! Abby woke up on her birthday morning and after a few hours said, "Mom, my birthday wasn't what I expected it to be." Luckily with her little party and quite a few phone calls with birthday wishes, she was pretty pleased by the end of the day.

Abby graduated from the American Girl Itty Bitty Twins to her new Emily doll. She affectionately told me that I could have her blonde twin (whom she named Mancy) because I have blonde hair.
Abby made a list of the things she wanted to do on her birthday and dictated them to Brynn. They took the list to Grandma's house and throughout the course of the week, we crossed off nearly all of the items on the list...

*make a gingerbread house

*decorate Christmas cookies

*ice skate on a pond

*go sledding

*pinata

*play "Pretty Pretty Princess"

*show Baby Isaac

*Show Anniversary Care-Bear (her present from Brynn)

*eat cake

Laguna Beach

In early December we flew to Laguna Beach for Joseph's work Christmas Party. We flew Mom into Sacramento to watch the older kids, but Isaac came with us. It was a nice vacation and we are very grateful to my mom for being willing to babysit when she had so much to do to prepare for the wedding at home. I didn't realize just how much she had going on until I flew to Utah for Christmas and took part in the busy-ness of that event. Let's just say things were pretty tense our first few days in Utah (and that's putting it nicely). Neither of us are fun to be around when we are stressed....but the wedding was beautiful and all of her hard work and insanity paid off!

The Montage always looks beautiful, but during the holidays it's especially magical.

A man from the concierge desk took these pictures, I just love when they tell you it looks perfect after the shot without even looking at the screen...? Excuse me, but I consider a perfect picture to atleast have our eyes open! Hopefully the pictures from the professional photographer turned out better (but then somehow we missed the memo on where to get those pictures... we still haven't seen the photo from last year???)

We enjoyed a nice date together, and Isaac enjoyed the big, soft, fluffy bed...

...the warm bath, with thick, soft towels....

Joseph enjoyed swimming in the ocean, while Isaac and I slept. When I was about to be discharged after giving birth to Isaac, my midwife told me she wished part of the insurance plan was to send the couple and the newborn to a five-star resort for a few days to recover and get acquatined with one another. Well, I didn't get it then, but it was fun to have it a few weeks later. It was a nice break before our busy Christmas holiday.

Isaac is 6 weeks old!

Isaac turned 6 weeks old last week. He celebrated by flying with us to Laguna Beach. I'll share pictures of our trip later, but here are a few cute shots of him today.

In a couple of days we'll be heading to Utah to celebrate with this great couple! We can't wait!

Brynn's Latest Books

Brynn's been really into making books lately. Here are her latest editions.

My Familys Talents~By Brynn

Hi! Do you want to listen to my familys talents? OK

My Mom is good at art cooking.

My Dad is good at hikeing.

I am good at dancing.

My sister is good at swimming.

My brother is good at haveing fun.

And my baby brother is good at smiling.

The New Presadent

The presadent looked on the adress book and called Brock Obama and John McCain.

So they went to the salooshan. (solution)

They stopped at the place.

They gave a talk and said, "We will be trying to be the presadent."

Then they started on their journey.

A few more munths later Brock Obama won!

The Reptile Book

Ather and Illistrater by Brynn Lee

disclaimer - not all text is accurate :)

Hi do you want to know what a reptile is? Do you? Do you?

Some people like crocadile hunter people like to make a show about reptiles.

It's an annimal that has skails like fish.

Or a snake

See what I mean? snake fish lizard

You always should know this. A reptile is cold bloodid.

You know some reptiles live in zoo's or Africa or maby saint geordg or the desert.

Some reptiles like to be at places that have water.

Some reptiles make hoomans diy. (humans die)

Some reptiles eat other reptiles.

In the old days in the old old oldest days there were dinosaurs.

Reptiles are relly relly wild!