Happy New Years!!!

We started the day today by cleaning junk out of our entire house and taking eight bags of stuff to Goodwill. We rewarded the kids for being so good by spending the rest of the day having fun. We had such a fun day bouncing in the bounce house, getting ice cream from the ice cream truck, and taking a walk to see the Christmas lights. It was so great to spend time together as a family.

We got Carson a popsicle from the ice cream truck and just felt bad leaving Brynnli out, so she ate half of my ice cream sandwich and LOVED it!! It was her first ever (Carson would have NEVER gotten half of the junk she has already eaten, but that's what you get for being the second kid). Where else can you play outside and eat ice cream in December?

The kids are really too cute together lately, tonight during our walk they were talking to eachother and laughing. I wish I could freeze them both at this age, they are sooo cute!!

I am still working on blogging the pictures from our amazing cruise over Christmas, they will be coming soon. I hope everyone has a great new years! Rick and I are celebrating our first new years together in four years!!!! What are we doing you ask? Watching a movie and pigging out on cheeseball, Martinellis, homemade fudge, and anything else we can stuff in:) The diet begins soon I guess.....

Letter to Santa

We went to Outdoor World/Bass Pro shops the other day and they had the cutest little Christmas setup. We had a blast with the kids and Carson got to mail his first ever letter to Santa in the mailbox there, it was really too cute. Santa wasn't there yet, since it was during the day, but the nice Elf lady let us take a picture in his seat:) Carson asked Santa for a train and a fire truck with a big ladder, I'm sure he will get both since he is such a sweet boy. I love this time of year!

And then there were three.....

We said goodbye to two old friends yesterday. Both have been a huge part of our dating and married lives and we were sad to see them go. The first to go was Charcoal Charlie, the car that Rick and his sister had at BYU and that Rick and I went on many dates in, brought Carson home from the hospital in (sniff), etc. He is a world traveler. But he stopped working about nine months ago, which led us to getting a new to us car, and he has been in retirement at Rick's parents house since then. We decided it was finally time to let him move on to his next adventure. We donated him to charity. We'll miss you Charlie!

And last night we said goodbye to another old friend, Rick's 1994 Ford Mustang that he bought the year before we got married (seven years ago). We inherited a new to us car from Rick's sister that gets better gas mileage and is more family friendly, and right around the same time Rick's car started having some medical problems. So we put him on Craig's list and two days later, last night, he moved on too. We will miss them both!

For anyone who is good at math and wondering where the fifth car factors in, it is Rick's old 66 mustang taking up space in our garage, which we will never sell because Rick someday plans to fix it up. I tried to get the guy who bought the mustang to buy it too but, alas, it is still here.:_

Boise continued....

The kids had fun together, but they also had a blast with the large number of adults around who all had fun playing with them. It was so cute to see them have so much fun with everyone.

Grandpa was so fun and introduced all three kids to this Circus video that they LOVED!! Not to mention flying the airplane with Carson, and holding Brynnli. She looks unhappy in this picture because she was sick. As we flew to Boise on the plane, both of our kid's noses began to run. I think we successfully infected at least three other people, sorry guys!!

Grandma got to watch the kids multiple times and had fun playing with them doing all kinds of things. Thank you for the help!Nicky taught Carson to "raise the roof" and to dance, which is hilarious.Ryan was so fun with the kids, my favorite was the last night we were there when him and Carson were running around saying "no, my baby". Carson was convinced he was pregnant at the time (poor kid) and Ryan was chasing him and teasing him, it was super cute.

Thanksgiving was SOOOO good. There is just nothing like having the food just the way your mom makes it. It had been a few years since I'd had my mom's thanksgiving and I was so thankful for that and to be there with all my family (minus Rick's side of the family of course).

Brynnli LOVED her first thanksgiving and had turkey, potatoes, rolls, and sweet potatoes. She was so cute and excited. She loves to eat!!

Can't go to Boise without a Costa Vida run, why have we not bought a franchise in Florida?

A mini-photo session while we hungout one afternoon... here's the original gang, brunettes in back (well dad used to be....) and blondies up front:)

Grandma and Grandpa bbsat while we went to the temple with Jenny and Chris, which was amazing and nice to only drive 20 minutes instead of 3 hours!!

The grandparents babysat again another night while all the kids (minus the real kids) went out on the town for bowling and appetizers/dessert on them. How nice that was, we had such an awesome time, my brother in law Chris bowled a turkey, which was very fitting for Thanksgiving.

I'm sure the people in the lane next to us thought we were drunk since we were dancing and acting like idiots the whole time, but it was sooo fun!!

What a fun trip!! Blogging it was quite a chore though, now I can move on to blogging about all the other fun Christmas stuff we're up to. We do miss our my family though and were so glad to get to spend so much quality time with them.

Cousins

The kids had a blast playing with their cousin Kate. We did feel a little sorry for her though, she was caught between Brynnli who was trying to follow her and play with her toys, and Carson who was mostly nice but also trying to take her toys. She was such a trooper about it though and overall the kids had a fun time playing together.

The kids had a blast playing on uncle Ryan's air mattress and successfuly popped it before we left, poor Ryan, he was such a trooper about losing his room for almost two weeks while we camped out there, thanks Ryan!!

A Belated Thanksgiving

We went to Boise to see my family for Thanksgiving and now that we have been home for almost a week, I decided I better blog a little so that I could start blogging Christmas stuff. We had a blast there and took soooo many pictures. We spent a suprising amount of time outside despite the cold weather.

The park by my parent's house was a a big hit, even if we had to majorly bundle up to go!

And of course, flying airplanes outside with Grandpa, Carson had a great time!

And Carson had a great time with his cousin Kate this trip, they were much cuter friends this time.