Temple Square

For family home evening this week we decided to take adavantage of the nice warm weather and went to see the lights. It was so nice to have it not be freezing! I remember last year I had to go back to the car with Abi, because it was so cold and her little hands were freezing! Temple Square is such a great place, with a great spirit. Our girls love to go there and see the statue of Jesus and hear all the stories. They loved the manger, and of course seeing the temple! Abi is so into temples right now, I love it. Everywhere we go she says, "I see the temple!" Of course to her many beautiful buildings and churchs are temples too! My sister Heather and her cute family were able to meet us there for a little bit, it is so neat to see how kids love to learn about Jesus, I find it is not really even hard to teach children about Him. They want to know. Even Abi already knows who Jesus is and that he loves her. Hope all of you are enjoying the Christmas season! Next to do on my list, go to the Utes bowl game. That's Christmasy, right?

Christmas seems to truly be in the air! I am almost done with my Christmas shopping, hooray, and the kids could not be more excited. Abi loves Santa and loves that she gets to see him all over the place, wherever we are. She doesn't quite understand the presents yet, but I 'm sure she will! Sarah and Grace have already made Santa cards and presents that are under the tree and they are anxiously awaiting for Jamie and me to take them to do their Christmas shopping, hopefully that will be soon so I can truly be done! We went to the festival of trees this year, the girls loved it! And as an added bonus we got to see my cute neice, Hadley, perform. Which the girls of course also loved. Then yesterday we had our ward Christmas breakfast. It was Polar Express themed, the kids loved it! They got to wear their p.j.'s and Santa even made a special appearance. We had just been to a Utah gymnastics meet the night before, if you were wondering about the utah utes tattoo's! We've also seen Santa at the mall, and now we just need to make sure we hit the lights at temple square, the best part about living in Salt Lake in December! Hope you all are enjoying the season too!

Give Thanks!

We had such a good Thanksgiving. My sister was in town from Washington so my other sister offered to take pictures of the whole family. I then made her take a quick photo of us, thanks Heather! She has such a nice camera and takes such good pictures. I didn't really want to do a lot of family pictures this year, since I am prego and all. In this picture I don't really look pregnant, just like I've gained 30 pounds! But that's ok. Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. We went up to my mom's and had a delicious dinner, I think the best dinner yet! All the food was so yummy, and there were so many people! My family has gotten so big. Then we went to Jamie's parent's house. There we had round two of delicious meals. Jamie's brother is always such a good cook and loves to help prepare Thanksgiving dinner. This holiday just seems to get better every year, we truly are so blessed! I am so thankful for all of our family and friends, love you all!

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Halloween

This was another good Halloween for us, it seemed to last a really long time though! But that's ok. We had a fun activity at our ward where the girls got to play lots of games and decorate cookies. Then we got to go to my mom and dad's wards party. There the girls had so much fun. This was Abi's first real experience with trick or treating, rather trunk or treating. She couldn't believe that we just kept going from car to car and kept getting more candy! This Holiday was perfect for Abi. Then we went trick or treating, it was raining for part of the time, but the girls didn't seem to mind. No matter how heavy Abi's bag got she was not going to let Jamie or me carry (or as she probably imagined steal) her bag. Then on the actual day of Halloween we put on the costumes one last time, well except for Abi because I was tired of hand washing the costume! Then we went up to my mom's and the kids helped her make popcorn balls. I think I am now officially sick of candy, I have pretty much eaten all of the good candy out of my kids buckets so now they are left with the stuff I won't steal. Can anyone explain to me why I wouldn't eat an entire candy bar but have no problem eating fun size after fun size after fun size! Sarah wanted to be a witch, Abi got the hand me down from Sarah. It is an elephant, she didn't really like having the hat on so this is how the costume looked in most of the pictures. Grace wanted to be a tiger. When I first started looking for costumes for Grace all I could find was tiger costumes for toddlers. But finally I found one in her size!

Soccer

Soccer has begun! This is Sarah's first year playing soccer. She has been so patient watching Grace and now it is finally her turn too! She is so excited, even if her shirt fits like a nightgown.

Here is Grace getting ready for her first game. She is now playing with goalies this year, she is doing such a great job, we are so proud of her!

And here is their biggest cheerleader! She has been good to wait until after the games to go on the slides. It is hard every week when we have to walk by the slides to get to the soccer games.

Bees

So this summer we had a little bit of a bee problem. First it was Abi, I thought to myself when it happened, of course it is Abi. None of my kids have ever been stung by a bee, but of course poor Abi did! It also happened right before bedtime, so I was worried to put her to bed in case she was allergic, like her dad. So I went and got her some benadryl and watched her and she was fine. Her eye did swell, but other than that she was fine. I couldn't get a very good picture of her, but you might be able to see some swelling in her left eye. Then my sweet Sarah, I don't know if she was doing something to get stung or not because she got 3 bee stings in one week. It got so bad that she didn't want to go outside, she was too afraid of getting stung! One was on her hand, the other two were by her eyes. Needless to say we got some new bee traps/spray and had someone come spray! I guess I also took this picture after sarah had a pb&j, I'm such a good mom not to even clean the face!

Summer Fun

I have been awful at blogging, but now that I have 2 of my 3 in school somedays, maybe that will change? That remains to be seen. Here are some summer pics.

Firs of all, why do I ever put a shirt on her?
Grace showing me her big watermelon smile!

Sarah doing what her big sister does!

They thought this was so hilarious!

Sarah's 4th birthday

Sometimes I feel bad that Sarah is the middle child, because she is such a good and easy going little kid that sometimes I think she can be looked over. Anyone who knows Sarah though will comment to me about how happy and easy going she is. This is such a blessing in my life. She is always optimistic and positive. She has the sweetest heart. So a couple of years ago, in draper they built a water park. Cowabunga. We would sometimes drive by it and Sarah thought it looked wonderful. She would ask me time after time when she could go there. I would always respond with something like, sometime soon or I don't know. My kids are pretty cautious when it comes to things like this so I didn't really think they would go on anything there. Then Sarah asked at the end of last summer if we could go there for her birthday next year. I thought sure, why not? She probably won't even remember. So when her birthday started to come close I asked her what she wanted to do and all she wanted was COWABUNGA! I kept trying to plan a friend party for her, until I realized she didn't really care, she just wanted to go to cowabunga. Even on sunday when they sang to her at church she asked me is this the day that we go to cowabunga? So I was lame and forgot my camera when we went to cowabunga, but the girls did so good. Grandama watched Abi and Grace and Sarah took their cousins Rachel and Emily to cowabunga. They were a little hesitant at first, but then they loved it! It was a good choice by Sarah. Then, after much needed naps, we had dinner at a park and did presents and cake. I asked Sarah what she wanted to eat at the park, like sandwiches or fried chicken, hamburgers. She replied that she wanted peanut butter and jelly. So Jamie picked up some KFC and I brought supplies to make Sarah and peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This little girls cracks me up!

This is a picture of Sarah and Rachel and Emily and Grace at the park.
Here is Sarah after seeing her big surprise present.

This is Sarah waiting for her big surprise present! We had the bike behind the bathrooms at the park so Sarah had to put this on her head so we knew there wasn't any peaking!

Here's a group shot of us enjoying some cake.

Here is Sarah with Rachel. Sarah was so excited to have Rachel here for her party, it meant so much to her that she came down from Hyrum just to see her.

Sarah wonderful homemade, or Harmon's made, cake.

The beautiful 4 year old!

Another one of my favorite parts of Sarah turning 4 was that she kept saying that when she was 4 she wouldn't suck her thumb anymore. So the night of her birthday I asked her if she was ready to stop, she said no I think I'll wait till I'm 5!

One last picture of Grace and Sarah playing at the park.

Abi's 2!

I always feel so uninspired for the 2nd birthday. There is always so much excitement for the first birthday that I want to have all the family over and do a big party. For the 2nd one, I feel like my kids don't really need anything, they are too young to have a friend party, so on and so on. So for Sarah's we decided to have the grandparents meet us at a park and have some dinner and open presents there. It was perfect! So Abi got the repeat of that. This was truly perfect for Abi though because she absolutally loves the park. Even if we are in the car and we just drive by a park she will start screaming, SLIDE! At me. I am a horrible baker, and not creative, and lazy, and well I have so many excuses as to why I don't make cute birthday cakes like so many moms out there, but here is Abi's wonderful store bought cake!
Jamie helping Abi blow her candles out, she mostly just wanted to grab them.

Oh my sweet little woman!

She loves drinking out of big cups. She loves doing anything and everything she sees her big sisters doing.

Again Abi working the cup.

Could it be? A new post from Brittany?

So I know it has oh so very long since I have posted anything, and that just made it that much harder to start! I feel like I should post about Christmas, and Valentines day and our trip to disneyland, and easter, and Grace's birthday. Oh it just makes me so tired thinking about it! So I probably won't blog about all of those things but I will start with Grace's birthday.

Grace's 6th Birthday!

This was a cake that we picked up from Harmons Bakery. It had fresh strawberries and real whipped cream inside with a diary based frosting. I thought it was pretty good. Jamie loved it. Everytime he had some of the left overs he would say, honestly this cake is just amazing! Amazing or not, Grace liked it.

Grace has many friends, we are so lucky to have so many kids her age in our neighborhood. Grace also has many cousins her age so I had to tell her that we couldn't invite any school friends, just neighborhood kids and cousins. She was a little sad about this, but even with these restrictions I think we had about 20 kids. We had pizza and cake and ice cream, then we went to see The Princess and the Frog at the dollar theater. The kids were so good at the movie, I couldn't believe it! That was the easiest part of the party! Now getting to and from the theater was a little more difficult, but luckily my sister Heather and sister in law Jenni were nice enough to help shuttle the little ones!

This picture is so great because the kids would honestly not give Grace any space while opening her gifts. Jamie and I struggle with this part of the party sometimes, because our kids have so much, sometimes it feels like they don't need anything else! But it is fun to see how much the kids enjoy giving at birthday parties!

Here is a picture of my beautiful 6 year old! She is honestly growing into such a beautiful girl. She has lost her little toddler look and now is looking so grown up! I can't believe it. So here are six things I love about Grace

1. She is determined. This can sometimes be hard, but ultimately this will be a blessing in Grace's life.

2. She is smart. This is just a natural gift that she has been blessed with. She is very curious and already asks me questions almost on a daily basis that I can't answer.

3. She love taking care of her sisters. She truly takes on that big sister role well. She loves getting things they can't reach or teaching them how to something new.

4. Grace has a tender, tender heart. She feels all of her emotions very strong.

5. She is a wonderful artist. Not sure where she picked up this talent, neither Jamie or I are artistic. Grace definitely has a natural eye for drawing.

6. Grace is learning to conquer her fears. Grace can be a very cautious person, I fear she got this from me. But she is learning the joy and satisfaction of feeling fear, and doing it anyway! I am so proud of her and all that she has accomplished at such a young age!

Where is the motivation?

Oh wow I have not felt motivated at all lately to post anything! My life has been busy but boring. I am so ready for spring/summer! Abi has been doing great, no seizures since the ones in November. I am hopeful that she won't have anymore. Grace is loving Kindergarten and Sarah is loving everything, she is so easy going. She loves school, dance, and even primary because these are things that big kids do and she is one! I have been working a lot lately and that is my main excuse as to the no blogging. Hopefully this work schedule wont last too long, but it is nice to have some extra money! Also my camera broke christmas morning, luckily I got a few pictures before it broke. So I will need to get a new one soon, so I'll have some pics to post. Love all of you!