October - January

Here I am again, more than a little behind on updating the blog. This year I am going to try to be a more faithful blogger; meaning updating at least once a week. :) We have had a busy and fabulous last few months of the year! Here it is in a nutshell.

October first and foremost was Brandon’s birthday month. Each year he claims a birthday month rather than a birthday day because, well, really I think he thinks he is just that special. :) It is actually a running joke and we have a lot of fun with it. This year I tried to give Brandon a real birthday month by gifting him something each day. I would say it was a success and he really enjoyed it. I know I enjoyed it! Although I told him not to expect a birthday month again!

Throughout the month I would always blame the gift giving on the birthday month fairy. So on Brandon’s actual birthday we had a small get together. When we were there suddenly appeared a pink gift with my name on it. Apparently the “birthday fairy” had gotten me a gift; A NEW CAMERA. I was really surprised…which is a big deal for Brandon. The camera is a Nikon D-40 with a lens that goes from 18- 200 mm. I am trying to learn more about all of the features and I plan to take a class at Bakers in a month or so.

Watching him sky dive was one of my personal favorites!

Then in November we had Katherine’s first birthday. I made her a worm cake to dig into and then I made butterfly cupcakes for all of the guests to eat. I did this to represent what Katherine is now (a little worm) and what I hope she becomes (a butterfly). She keeps mommy on her toes but I won’t give up. Daddy does a great job helping with her discipline too. She enjoyed her cake a lot after I helped her taste the first bite.

After that we were wisked right into the holidays. Thanksgiving celebrations were lots of fun. We always have lots of holiday celebrations to attend since all of our family is local. This is a great blessing but makes for busy holiday seasons. We tried to schedule days specifically for resting. I think that was wise and certainly enjoyed.

When we had Thanksgiving at my parents we were eating our big meal around 2:30 which is the kids nap time. We thought if the girls ate earlier we could actually sit down together and enjoy each others company. We had planned on giving the girls what we were eating but it wasn’t quite ready so we made them peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was so cute when they came out and sat at their little table. My mom had place settings for everyone and the girls were so excited. Jasmine said with excitement, glee and complete satisfaction in her voice, “is this our thanksgiving dinner?” We said “yes it is” to which she replied, “Happy Thanksgiving”!

We put up our Christmas tree a few days after Thanksgiving. Lizzy helped us and had a great time! We have a little stuffed animals, similar to a beanie baby, of Rudolph and Santa. Elizabeth thought Rudolph was a dog, understandably so. But when she pulled out Santa the excitement level in her voice rose as she exclaimed “NOAH!!!” It was so funny. We tried to explain to her that is was Santa Clause but she would not believe us and not once during the entire Christmas season did she refer to the little Santa as Santa. It always remained Noah.

Our Christmas celebrations were so much fun. We celebrated a week early with my parents because my sister and her family were going to be out of town.

The Christmas Eve service at the church was cancelled because of the Christmas blizzard. Yes, we have finally had a white Christmas! It was rather strange with 3 foot mountains of snow up against buildings and walls but yet grass still showing in the yards. We stayed the night at Brandon’s parents house because we spend Christmas day with them and if we had stayed the night at home we couldn’t have got there in the morning. There were definitely memories made!

Brandon and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary on New Years Eve. We had a great time together downtown. We stayed in the same hotel we stayed at on our wedding night. It is on the same street as the ball so we walked down just a few minutes before the New Year to watch it and the fireworks display. As soon as the New Year came in there were a group of guys that got into an all out fist fight. They were just a few people away from us. It was crazy. Fortunately it didn’t last long and we were able to enjoy most of the fireworks display uninterrupted. Which was amazing by the way!

Now we are getting back into the swing of things. One thing Brandon and I are doing is what we call media night. Each Tuesday night he comes home and after dinner we sort pictures, edit pictures, capture home videos, make videos, update the blog, etc. This will hopefully keep our media under control.

Well I think that is quite enough rambling for this post. See if I keep up with the blog you get more interesting stories and less rambling.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010!