Christmas at the Bryners'

We spent the Christmas Holiday with Christian and Liz Bryner (Bry's oldest brother) and their six children. Anna is 13, Paul is 11, James is 9, the Twins--Garrett and Pierce are 6, and Alexandra is 3. It was so much fun being with a young family during Christmas. I feel like the majority of the fun of Christmas comes from the excitement of young children. We had a blast at their house!

Christmas Eve we did a family dinner with the Bryner side family. The Hoyts were there, along with Jeremy and Julie Montgomery, and Grandma and Grandpa Bryner. We did a big, delicious dinner and then did a Nativity (with Cami starring as baby Jesus sitting up in the manger and sucking on the wisemens' gifts), and a White Elephant gift exchange. Here are some pics of Christmas Eve:

Christmas Day--I heard the pitter patter of little feet at 6 a.m. in the morning running up and down the hall. I looked out to see Pierce and Garrett had discovered that Santa did, in fact, come and leave them some great gifts! Their family has a lot more discipline than ours because the other kids promptly told them to go back downstairs for another hour. (We used to get up at 4 am and sleep by the tree after Santa came until the parents got up).  These kids were GOOOOOD this year!! Just look at this tree! (reminds me of having 6 kids together like we used to in GA and the piles of presents under the tree!)

 Santa even came for our little Bryner family!!

 Cami's first Christmas!! She got a new bike/walker. She's pumped about it! Mostly she played with the wrapping paper that morning and watched all her cousins tear into their presents!

It was a great first Christmas for Cami and a great first Christmas with Christian and Liz's family! Merry Christmas to you all! We wish we could've been with all our family for Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Nothing says Christmas like a trip to Temple Square to see the lights! Merry Christmas!

 

That's Not My Name...Part 3!!

So, my little nephew Tavin and niece Kirra LOVED the song "That's not my name" that came out in 2009. My sis-in-law Melissa caught them singing to it and dancing to it on camera:

http://brettandmelissajones.blogspot.com/2009/07/thats-not-my-name.html

and then there was more singing/dancing:

http://brettandmelissajones.blogspot.com/2009/10/thats-not-my-namepart-2.html

It's become a family video favorite and for Thanksgiving this year we played "Just Dance 2" on the Wii (which I'm hoping to get for Christmas :) and the whole family joined in when we did "that's not my name". I have to say the BEST DANCING AWARD goes to my uncle Mike Jones (in the green hat)!! This is for you, Tavin and Kirra!! We missed you for Thanksgiving!!

Our little Honey Bee

Visiting Dad for the Office Trick-or-Treat
That's a cute bee!

We went up to Rexburg to go Trick-or-Treating with Cami's cousins

Paisley and Cami= BFF :) (Paisley doesn't seem too interested yet)

..and I don't know how I talked Bryan into this, but we were the "Beekeepers". Probably our first and last time dressing up for Halloween! :) (or at least for Bryan)

Favorite Recent Pics

Here are some of my favorite pictures of Cami over the last couple of months. She is the best!

Typical attire before our daily stroll. Typical smile too :)

She has kind of a funny look on her face here ;). She loves this jumper!
Bundled up to watch the HS football game and to see cousin Alyssa get crowned Homecoming Queen! Go Alyssa!!
Sucking on toys with cousin Paisley.

With her friend, Ty Ludlow at our Halloween Party

She loves a good swing :)

Our little chunky baby! :)

Grabbing for the camera

Playing before meal time

Biting her bottom lip. She has two teeth now on the bottom!

Summery

So, I haven't posted in forever so we're doing a quick "summery" of all that happened this summer! Months 4 through 6 just flew by! Cami has grown by leaps and bounds lately. Here's what we've been up to:

4th of July in New Mexico is always a blast! Cami slept right through all the fireworks shows, but she didn't miss meeting her Uncle Brandon and Uncle Brett who came from Florida and Texas to meet her...and spend time with the rest of the Jones Family :)
She met her cousin Kaitlyn who was born about a month and a half before her. Cami weighs more and is taller than her, along with all her other cousins who are older than her!

Picnics in the Park have been fun for her. She loves to sit up now and is a super star at it! She also loved feeling the grass and was very curious.

Our little girl isn't so little! For her 6 month appt she weighed a whopping 19 lbs 4 oz. which is over 100% for her age group. Her height was also off the charts. Needless to say, she's in 12 month old clothing!

I lost my Mammaw this summer due to a lot of different illnesses that hit her all at once. Bryan, Cami and I flew out to Knoxville, Tennessee to attend her funeral. It was sad to lose my grandma, but good to see all our family together in one place as we celebrated her life.
Cami did great on the plane ride and was the little sunshine during all the sadness of the funeral. She smiled really big at everyone who came to say hello to her and really lightened the mood. She met my Pappaw (below), who is her great grandpa, or great Pappaw as they would say in the South! The only thing she didn't love here was the humidity!! 95 degrees plus 90 % humidity is not fun for anyone!

It was great to see all of my brothers and sisters at the funeral. Here's a family pic (Brady style) of all the Jones kids in order from youngest to oldest. Good looking bunch! :)

Cami loves to hold onto her feet when she's on her back. All we see in the crib when we come to pick her up are two little feet sticking up in the air!

We also sent two grandparents on a LDS mission this summer. Bryan's parents, Bryce and Cristie, were called to the Alpine German speaking mission which covers all of Austria, Southern Germany, and parts of Switzerland. We met them at the airport to say goodbye as they left for Austria, where they are now serving. The next time Cami sees them she will be 2 years old! Crazy!

Cami did a lot of swimming this summer too. We went as often as possible the last few months of summer. She loved to sit in the floaty boat and then proceeded to lick every toy on the boat the whole time we were in the water. She fell asleep on me twice as we were swimming around in the water!

Cami also met another cousin, Kenzie, who was born on July 10th. She's the youngest of 4 girls that were born from December to July. She'll have plenty of buddies to play with when we're with family!

She played hard this summer! I was making dinner one night and looked over at her playing on her blanket to find her passed out on the ground!

Here's a picture with all the Jones side cousins this summer! This is the best picture we could get with all the kids! Hilarious!

We did a lot of traveling this summer to Price and back (A LOT!), to Scofield to visit Grandma and Grandpa Bryner before they left on the mission, to New Mexico to see my family, to Tennessee for the funeral. Cami is a great little traveler. She falls asleep like this pretty much every time I stick her in the car.

She's been keeping up with her correspondences this summer too! She loves to type on our computers.

She's eating lots of baby foods too now. She hates veggies and acts like she's going to throw up and dry heaves after each bite of any veggie. We'll just have to keep giving it a try. She's fine with cereals and fruits and even sweet potatoes. Peas? Carrots? Squash? Disgusting!

Cami just seems to be growing so fast now. She does new things each day and is learning super quickly. It was a fun and fast summer!