Zoo lights

One of our favorite traditions is the Zoo lights at the Hogle Zoo. We get super bundled up and walk around the zoo to see all of the fun Christmas lights. It is not Kyle's favorite, but I insist every year because the kids LOVE it so much. Y

You could definitely tell Carson was so excited to be there and loved it all. I have NEVER seen him so picture happy. He wanted a picture by everything. Normally I have to fight him to get one good picture.

McKay even got to come out on the fun adventure! Yeah, a whole family activity! We bundled him up and stuffed him in the stroller.

Brynn was pretty content to just sit in the back of the stroller with a blanket on and be pushed around to look at the lights. She's the smart one!

We also rode the carousel, it is a must every time we go to the zoo.

Carson picked our family picture spot this year, he wanted to get a picture by the dragon. It is one of his favorite lights every year.

We had a lot of fun and we loved seeing all the new lights they put up this year. We'll see you again next year zoo lights!

McKay is a calendar model!

A few months ago the Network for Mckay's syndrome announced they were going to be putting a fundraiser together for the network. They wanted to compile a calendar for people to buy as a way to donate to the network. I would be lying if I ddin't say how wonderful this network of people has been. Becasue the syndrome is so new and rare Doctor's don't know a lot aobut it. Especially in Utah, there are no other kids in Utah with the syndrome McKay has. The closest I have found is California. So I rely heavily on the people in this network to help with quetions and when I need anwsers to medical quetions.
If you would like to buy one of the calendars here is the link, McKay has a large picture in July.

If you would like to donate to directly to the network you can do that as well, here is the link to do that.  Your money would go towards this "OUR GOAL is to establish a disease registry to collect data about those affected by M-CM so that we can greatly expand the scope of what is known about this syndrome."

I appreciate all of those that are always asking about McKay, asking how he is doing, and how he is developing. I will be posting an update soon, it's just has a lot of info, so I have been putting it off. Thanks!

Polar Express

 We were originally going to go on the Polar Express this year with my family. But since my parents left early on their mission we kind of scrapped the idea. The Ford's thought it would be a good idea for the family to go this year. We have been once before but the kids were pretty young. So I was anxious to try it again once they were older. The Ford's were nice enough to treat us all. Kyle's sister Heather was super sick so she was not able to come, so Kelli offered the ticket to us to give to Cohen, Carson's best friend. The boys had a blast!

 Brynnley and I sat  together for most of the ride, she was a little scared at first of what was going on. I loved having some time to spend with her. McKay was not able to come since he can not come out in public, so we had to leave him home. I think it would have been a little much for him anyways, but we still really missed him.

 During the ride we all enjoyed some yummy chocolate chip cookies and some hot chocolate in fancy Polar Express mugs. My kids are not huge hot chocolate fans, so Kyle and I tried to down 4 cups of hot cocoa. We also were able to "enjoy" some high school choirs that came through to sing carols. We got "up" to the North Pole and the kids were so excited to see Santa and the pretty trees covered in lights. Santa came onto our car first, but it took him a little while to get back to us. I was surprised to see Carson run right up to him when it was his turn. Cohen and Carson went together, Santa asked what they wanted and they both said "Pokemon."

 Brynn did not want to see Santa or talk to him. She looked at him from a distance and took the gift he gave her of a Christmas bell.

 We had a lot of fun with the family and it was a great time. On the way back we sang carols on the train car. The boys were really getting into all the songs, loved it!

After the train ride we went into town to grab some dinner. We went to the Dairy Keen. The kids loved looking at all the trains and the good food. They had to get a picture on the train on the way out.
We had a blast, and I am so grateful to the Ford's for taking us. I am so glad Cohen could some with us too, the boys had a blast together and I loved seeing them so happy. You truly can see the magic of Christmas through kids eyes.

Lights at Thanksgiving Point

 The Lights at Thanksgiving Point are a definite yearly tradition for our family. My kids love piling in the car, taking their seat belts off and looking at all the lights.

 They ooh and ahh over all the lights. Everyone had their favorites that they look forward to each year. Carson's favorite is the jumping reindeer, and Brynn's favorite is the big Santa at the end that says "ho ho ho".

 I love driving through and seeing all the lights, they even added some new ones this year. McKay was super excited to get out of his seat and have a great view of the lights. He kept squishing his face up to the window to see everything.

 Afterwards we stopped and saw the reindeer and the ice sculptures. Brynn stayed in the car (she was afraid Santa was out there). So Kyle, Grandma and I went with Carson. The ice sculptures were super cool, I want one for my front porch!

The day I have been waiting for since the girl ultrasound...

I can still remember the ultrasound we had for Brynnley. I of course just wanted a healthy baby. I saw the pro's to having another boy, and I saw the pro's to having a girl. But i was so excited when the Ultrasound tech said "It's a girl." Immediately my head was filled with pink, ballet slippers, and all the girly stuff. I have been waiting until Brynn was old enough to take her to the Nutcracker.
I can still remember the first time I went to the Nutcracker. I remember going with my mom and we sat in the balcony. I don't remember much other than the dance with Madam Ginger and the Mademoiselles. I remember telling my mom specifically i wanted to do that some day. (I was lucky enough to do that exact thing a few years later.)

Brynn was so excited to go to the "Cracker" ballet, she would tell everyone she was going to the "Cracker" ballet. She got to wear her new Christmas outfit to go too. She loved the first half and was fascinated with it all. My favorite was when the Mouse king died and the whole theater was silent and Brynn yells out "What's happening..." she also loved the snow queen and kept saying how beautiful she was. She liked the 2nd half but started to get a little bored in the end. She told me she loved it and wants to go again next year. I had so much fun going with her and we were really glad Grandma Ford could come (and provide Brynn with some boredom snacks). We were walking out to the car and Kelli asked her if she wanted to do that some day, and she said "yes, but I want to be the pretty girl who sits up on there with the crown and watches." That's Clara the lead of the ballet... at least she has a good dream!
(Please disregard the picture of me, we moved all morning and I was going on about 5 hours of sleep, changed into nice clothes even though i was sweaty and this is what I got. I was not looking my best.)

Jingle jam & Spotlight

 Carson had his Jingle Jam performance last week at school. Of course the Kindergarteners were the last to perform for all the grades. But it made it a lot easier to get some good pictures and video of him. I loved the two songs that they sang. Carson loved it all and sang all the songs very well.

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He also was the spotlight at school the week before that. They also celebrated his "half" birthday at the same time. He got to read through his All about me poster and tell all of his classmates his favorite things. He also brought a treat, he chose mini Hershey's bars for everyone. It was fun to go to his class and tell them AWESOME he is!

Brynn's first Dance recital

 I have dreamed of watching my little girl get up and perform on the stage for her first dance recital. I am pretty sure I will always be a dancer at heart. If Brynn doesn't want to be a dancer, I am totally okay with that. I am a firm believer you shouldn't push kids into things they don't want to do. But I am happy knowing, that if she decided she didn't want to do dance anymore at least I got to see one fabulous recital.
Brynn was so excited for her recital. She would ask every day if today was the day she got to go to her recital.
We borrowed some curlers from Grandma Ford and made sure it was extra curly for her performance. I can still remember standing in my Mom's bathroom with her doing my hair for ballet. I think Brynn looked adorable, and I loved her cute elf costume.
We got to the school where here performance was and everyone got seats while I took her back to the dressing room. It was a little chaotic in the dressing room, and super loud and I could tell Brynn was a little overwhelmed. Then she saw one of the dancers dressed like Santa Clause and got super scared. (She is not a fan of the jolly man in person). I sat with her for a while but she never left my side. Pretty soon she started crying. She was first to perform so I walked her to the stage all the while she was crying and saying she didn't want to go out. I knew she would be so disappointed after if she didn't dance, and she had been talking all about it for weeks.
Luckily she has a fabulous teacher and she took her to her spot and got her calmed down. I quickly went to my seat, hoping she wouldn't notice I had slipped out.
I am happy to say she danced her heart out and smiled the whole time!

 She told me when I picked her up after the performance she had so much fun dancing and taking a "bowen" what she called a bow.

 

She was beyond thrilled to get flowers. A true girl. She got some flowers and a tangled balloon from Grandma and Grandpa and some flowers from Mommy and Daddy. She carried her flowers around everywhere she went and didn't want to leave them in the car when we went to dinner.

She did so well and I loved watching her perform up on stage, she looked so adorable.

Here is the video for Grandma Randall and Grandpa Randall who missed her first dance recital

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Letters to Santa

 My kids got the "Big toys R Us" toy book in November and started circling right away. Luckily we had two so they each had their own. Over half of the books were circled, so we had a discussion about asking for just what we really wanted. So I let them circle and cross out for a few weeks before we wrote our letters to Santa.
Here are our letters...

 I was so proud of Carson writing his own, as you can tell we are working on the handwriting...

 After we wrote our letters we addressed our letter, put our stamp on and the kids ran it out to the mailbox.
No one was more surprised than me when we got this return letter from Santa a few days later.

Not from me, our sweet mail lady did it. Can you believe it? I was so shocked. The return address even had the North Pole and a reindeer stamp. It meant so much to me, it was a small gesture by someone, but I have never ever seen someone do this. I'm a little sad we moved from such a fabulous mail lady...

O Christmas Tree

 We had to wait longer than usual to get our Christmas tree because Kyle was gone to Ohio for a week on business right after Thanksgiving. The kids were super anxious to go pick it out and get it decorated. We went with a smaller tree, because we were pretty sure we would only have it for a couple of weeks because of the move. The kids were super excited about putting the ornaments on, we couldn't get them unwrapped fast enough.
I love pulling out the ornaments and seeing all of the fun memories. Both Kyle's and my Mom got an ornament for every year. Each funky and old ornament brings back a flood of memories. Kyle always puts my ugliest 2nd grade homemade, with perm hair picture ornament on the top front. It is so ugly, but makes us laugh every year.

There was of course fighting about the star, so Kyle held both kids up to do it together.
We were just going to take the tree down at our house and not worry about moving it to the Ford's. But I was taking the ornaments off and putting them away and Brynn asked what I was doing. I told her I was taking the tree down. She was so sad and said " But Santa will be so sad..." So we packed the ornaments, and hauled the tree to the Fords and redecorated it again. What is better than putting the ornaments on twice?

Thanksgiving in Fairview

 Our Thanksgiving was wonderful! It didn't go quite as planned but it was still wonderful. My sister called me the night before and said all of her kids were sick. So I picked up the food she was suppose to take and dropped off some that I was taking for her family. I felt so bad for her and her family, but I think they were able to scrape together a decent Thanksgiving. I spent all day Wednesday baking and cooking. I loved every minute of it!
We went Thanksgiving morning after Kyle played in his yearly Turkey Bowl (I am happy to report he didn't break anything this year, but his hand did get stepped on by someone in cleats. Ouch!) The kids played and we got the rest of the food ready.

 The food was all super yummy! I love Thanksgiving. I love the good food, I love being able to spend time with family, and I love having a day to think of all the things you are Thankful for!
That night we changed modes and started to get ready for Christmas. My parents left the Monday after Thanksgiving for their mission so we combined two holidays into one weekend. My mom had bought these cute ornaments for the kids to paint that night, they loved them. We also got up a small Christmas tree to put the presents under.

 The next morning we opened stockings and had a nice big Christmas morning breakfast with Quiche, cinnamon rolls, and fruit. After breakfast we opened presents from Grandma and Grandpa. The kids LOVED their presents. Carson got a Lego Pirates of the Caribbean for the Wii, Brynn got a Princess camera that she is OBSESSED with, McKay got a sound shape sorter and a train. We spent the rest of the day playing with toys, eating yummy food, and visiting. (Kyle and Dave also took an adventurous 4 wheeler ride, they almost got lost....)

It was wonderful weekend. We all missed my sister's family and it wasn't quite the same with out them. My kids missed having their cousins to play with as well. It was a great holiday!

On the Move

It's a bittersweet day... We are moving. It was kind of quick decision. We are going to be renting out our home for the next year, in hopes the market will be better in our neighborhood in a year. We are going to be moving in with Kyle's parents. We both agree this move will be for the best, it will be very helpful in lots of differnt ways. It is a big change and it is going to be a big adjustment. We are hoping to move out the week in between Christmas and New years (yikes, I know!).
I am sad to leave this house. I get emotional just thinking about it. It was our first house and a lot of firsts happened here. Carson turned one just after we moved here and all of his milestones happened here. He is pretty sad about leaving the neighborhood and not getting to ride the bus. We will be keeping the kids in the schools that they are in for this year, we don't want to disrupt schedules too much. All of Brynnley's firsts happened in this house. We brought our fragile little baby Mckay home in this house, and for the last two winters it has been his plastic bubble.
It's not secret that I am not a fan of change, even good change. I just don't like change. So I am trying to put my insecurities about change aside and embrace the good decision we have made. This will be really good for our family and I am excited about that.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

The old man turned 31 this year! Can you believe it! We went to Texas Roadhouse with a bunch of friends for dinner. It was a packed night and they kind of had to split us into two tables. But we had a great time. The food was delicious and there was great company! It wouldn't be a birthday at Texas Roadhouse with out a little ride in the saddle. Kyle looks THRILLED don't you think!

Afterwards most of the group decided to head home. We decided since we had a babysitter and we had not had a date night in forever to take advantage of it. So one of the other couples from the group joined us and we headed to Boondocks after dinner. No matter how old you are, arcade games are always fun.

We had a lot of fun with our friends and it was a fun night!

Happy Birthday to the best husband and father ever! I am so lucky to have you in my life. I truly would be lost without  my best friend by my side.