Christmas 2010 finally!

Well it has taken me awhile to recover enough from Christmas to blog about it.

Here is a picture of the Girls in their Christmas Dresses, I can't believe I got one with them all smiling and looking at the camera!

This next photo pretty much sums up our Christmas!

It is blurry and not the greatest. Somehow in the chaos of the morning, my settings got all mixed up, and all of the photos came out blurry. You think I would have noticed when taking them but that is the kind of morning we had. Shaun and I were both exhausted from the hospital experience he had the night before, and then to top things off, the first thing Sydnie did after waking up, was to throw up everywhere. The poor thing was really sick and didn't want to have much to do with opening her presents. But after seeing Kaylee and Brianne open a few she perked up a bit and decided to open some. Luckily one of the first things she opened was her pillow pet, she loved it and immediately laid down on it and started opening the rest of her presents. This picture makes me laugh because like I said it sums up our Christmas pretty well: there is Sydnie laying down opening her presents, the puke bucket in the bottom right corner, and my invalid husband in the background. All things considered we actually had a great Christmas. Believe me things could have been a lot worse and almost was!

We got a lot of snow over the holidays, and we had to deal with it both going to Idaho to see family and coming back. But at least it was good for something: Snowmen and sledding and the girls did plenty of that over the holiday.

Here is a cute photo of the girls making a snowman. I used a new technique I learned called "tilt shift" this really isn't the best photo to use it on but it sort of worked. You blur the top and bottom of the photo to make the things in the middle look miniature. It sort of worked. At least it worked enough to make me want to go out and take a picture that this was meant for and do some more experimenting.

As far as the rest of our holiday we had fun just hanging out around our house and relaxing. Shaun had the whole week off of work and it was nice to have some time together as a family. We also spent a few days in Idaho visiting family. We had a great Christmas party at my parents house. Once again my dad made great handmade items for all of the kids, this year was a fun little jewelry box made out of a single piece of wood. The girls love their boxes and have already put them to good use. The next night was spent at the Huls. We had fun unwrapping our "favorite things" gifts and then had great fun watching everyone dance to our new wii game, Just Dance 2.

P.S. I just updated my photoblog. I have some pretty fun photo's this time that you might want to see.

Two Birthdays!

I am so far behind with my blogging. I am planning on getting caught up in the next week so be prepared to get a bunch of post from me this week. I thought I would start with the Birthdays. We have two in our family right before Christmas. First is Brianne's then the next day is Shaun's.

Brianne had a great birthday. The Saturday before her birthday she had a friends Birthday party. She chose to go swimming for her birthday. So after cake and presents 5 of her neighborhood friends went swimming at the local indoor pool.

Here is Brianne ready to blow out her candles at her Birthday party:

A few days later we celebrated her real Birthday, she turned 7 this last year. We just got invited to the 8 is great meeting this Sunday. I can't believe she is almost old enough to be baptised. (well not for another year, but just going to that meeting reminds me it is getting close.)

Here is Brianne opening up here presents:

Is she all done? Nope there is another surprise dad is bringing up from the basement. What could it be?

Wow! She was surprised I don't think she had any idea she was getting this, just look at her face!

A new bike! Sorry this picture was out of focus not the greatest but the only one I got with her and her new bike.

Happy Birthday Brianne! We love you!

Shaun's Birthday

The next day was Shaun's Birthday and quite a story. It's also the reason I am so behind on my posts. My plan was to post about Brianne's Birthday and his Birthday on his birthday so I would be all caught up for the Christmas posts to come. Here is what happened instead:

Shaun called me early the morning of his Birthday. He has to be to work early and I usually get up early to exercise. He said he was going into emergency room to get some antibiotics for a cold. I wondered why he couldn't just wait and go to an Urgent care later in the day, he said he had time now and didn't want to wait. Well after the fact I think he wishes he did wait. Shaun told the emergency room doctors that he had a bad cold and that he though it was settling in his chest and he was having trouble breathing and even felt a little dizzy. With Shaun's family history of heart troubles the doctors immediately jumped to heart attack. They did a million test and found high levels of an enzyme that only is in your blood stream if there has been damage to the heart.

Well Shaun was in denial and the doctors were very poor at explaining things and we were left wondering what we should do. Should we do all the test they were calling for and miss out on Birthday plans and Possibly even Christmas (Christmas Eve was the very next day.) Or could things wait until after Christmas. After a lot of frustration on our part because of the doctors poor communication we finally decided to go ahead with all the tests. He had an ecocardiogram, x-rays of his chest (to check for blood clots) and finally on Christmas Eve they decided to do an angiogram. The whole family was really upset I had to calm the girls down from crying several times that day. Not only were they worried about their daddy being okay they were also worried about him not being able to be there for Christmas morning. Sydnie kept saying "Daddy's heart is broken!"

Well things ended up turning out okay. We were blessed and all of the test came back negative for a heart attack. He did have to stay in the hospital almost the whole day on Christmas eve. We got home from the hospital around 9:30 that night. Just in time to read the Christmas story out of the Bible and open Christmas P.J's. But we were all happy because it could have been a lot worse.

So Happy Birthday Shaun! It probably will go down in the record books as being the worst Birthday ever, but we are just glad to have a husband and a Dad who's "heart is not broken". We love you!

Odds and Ends

So I just realized it has been awhile since I have posted. I thought I would catch up before the Christmas photos start rolling in.

Starting with Thanksgiving, we had a fun Thanksgiving, everyone came to Utah and we had dinner at my brothers house. The weather was bad so we didn't know if anyone was going to make it. Luckily, they were all able to get through the storm. I didn't take many pictures just one. Sydnie loves babies and she couldn't get enough of her little cousin Chloe. She loved to hold her any chance she got.

We had our ward Christmas Party last Saturday. The girls all had their turn sitting on Santa's Lap

Kaylee's turn:

Brianne's Turn:

And Sydnies turn:

Sydnie did not want anything to do with Santa. We managed to keep her on his lap long enough to snap this picture.

And last of all I had to add this silly photo. Lu Lu loves to lay in my lap when I am editing photos at the computer. I was busy cleaning the house and doing the dishes, when I turned around and saw Lu Lu sitting here:

I'm not sure if she was just patiently waiting for me to come back so she could sit in my lap or if the computer seemed like a nice warm spot to take a nap. Silly dog.

Sydnie...

Here is a cute little picture I took of her for one of my challenges. By the way I recently updated my photo blog. So click on the link on the sidebar to check it out.


So, I just had to take a minute and write a few things down about my cute little Sydnie. I love this little girl so much. She has been a sweet little addition to our family, she has been such an easy going happy little girl right from the start. She is so easy to love. There isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't make me smile or laugh, what a blessing that is to have in your life! I don't know maybe I am feeling this way about her because I finally got her completely potty trained.

Here are some cute little things she says or does lately(I've already shared these with most of you but I wanted to write them down so I would remember them):

She was sitting and watching a show with me, and it was a little bit cold in our house. She didn't want to share her blanket, so I said, "Sydnie will you go get me a blanket?" She looked at me and replied, "I'm not the mommy". I guess only mommies do things for people. She did end up getting me a blanket, although it was one of her crib blankets, and so small it only covered up my arms. That will teach me to ask a 3 year old for help.

Lately she has figured out that if she can get me to laugh or smile her punishment is a lot less severe. So whenever she knows she has done something wrong, she always starts by saying, "Is it funny mom?" which is almost always going to at least get a half smile out of me. She usually then adds, "I don't need a spanking mom." then adds a very fake laugh. Most of the time she says this before I even know she has done anything wrong. I can't quite decide if she is not being very smart by telling me in before I find out, after all I might not have even known she had done something wrong. Or if she is really smart, by telling me first, and softening the blow by preparing me that I'm about to walk into a disaster.

At any rate she is generous with her hugs and kisses and "I love you's". And she pretty much has me wrapped around her little finger. I love you Sydnie!

Reflections 2010

We were excited when we found out Kaylee won first place in the PTA sponsored art contest. She shared first place with 2 of her best friends Tanna and Abi. All three of their pictures move on to the district level.

The theme this year was called "Together we can". Kaylee painted a picture of her and her friends cleaning up, planting trees and doing things to make our world more beautiful. Even the animals in her picture were helping.

They had all the winners come up and display their work. Here is Kaylee showing off her artwork:

Kaylee got a ribbon a medal and a trophy for her entry. I was a little disappointed by this. I felt they should have spread the awards out among more of the children. Kaylee would have been more than happy with her trophy, she didn't need a ribbon and a medal to go with it. I think they would have been appreciated more by someone else.

Kaylee getting her awards:

Happy Halloween!

We had a great Halloween. I have been super busy with getting things ready for my craft show, so it has taken me awhile to post these pictures. The girls looked super cute. I had to take these pictures under our front porch because it was raining. We were a little worried it wouldn't stop for trick or treating. We had to do the trunk or treat inside the church because of the rain. Luckily it stopped just in time to get a little trick or treating in. The girls had fun, Brianne and Sydnie got cold pretty quickly, but Kaylee was tough and stayed out a little longer, she had made plans with her friends to go to a few houses all by themselves. Its hard to think she is getting that old!

Kaylee the Rocker!!!

Brianne the rocker!!! This was as close to a smile as I could get, I guess she was going for the tough look.

And Sydnie our little fairy princess!

Oh I almost forgot, I updated my photoblog. Go check it out, the link is on my sidebar.

Pumpkin Carving

I thought I better break up these Halloween posts, or I would have way too many pictures for one post. We had fun carving pumpkins as a family last night. Shaun really outdid himself this year, but that left me to tackle the other three pumpkins by myself.

Kaylee getting her pumpkin ready.

Sydnie was a trooper she cleaned out almost all of her pumpkin herself.


Brianne with the pumpkins before we started carving


Kaylee insisted on carving her pumpkin by herself this year. She did a good job, but made her mom really nervous.


Shaun's Creation, it is the terminator. I think he did a great job!

Here are the rest, I helped carve Briannes on the far left, and Sydnies in the middle, Kaylee's is on the far right.

All lit up!!!

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween, can't wait to take pictures of my girls in their costumes, and see all of your pictures!