New Years Day Sledding Adventure!

We decided we want to start making some family traditions of our own on holidays--like ice skating on Christmas eve and sledding on New Year's Day. Well, we at least did the sledding one yesterday. We bought 2 $5.00 saucers from Lowe's and went to the front of our neighborhood to a soccer field that has a hill surrounding the edge. It's just the perfect size for pint-size sledders! Kelsie and Cami each went down about 2 times with their dads before the fun was over. (the video shows it all. It was more like torture from the sound of it.) Cami did alright actually! ...and mom wants to try it again this week!

This is Chad and Kelsie going down.

...She's not too sure how she liked it

I only got video of Cami coming down. No pictures but this one! (She reminds me of the little kid on "Christmas story" the way we have her bundled up! Poor kid! That's what she gets for being the first child...and living in cold Utah!)

Happy New Year!

And so it begins....

We're building a house in Farmington (Utah, not NM. Sorry dad!:) on the Lot that Bryan bought before we were married. We went up in mid December to see if anything was going on and here is what we found:

It's a big, muddy mess right now! (but it's OUR big, muddy mess :) So many choices still to make! We are excited to build a home and to settle down into a good community and neighborhood. (It should be good--our next door neighbor has a basketball court all ready to use!) These are just the footings. I think they've put down the foundation too. They'll start framing some time in the next week or so.

The builder is Building Dynamics based out of Sandy, UT. They've been in business for just over 30 years now. We decided on a 2 story plan (with no basement due to the high water table in the area), kind of a "farmhouse" style with a big front porch. It'll be fun to see how everything progresses over the next few months. We're scheduled to be in there at the beginning of March. We'll see how that goes with how wet this winter has already been!!

They say if you can survive building a house together that your marriage can survive anything.... :). We're excited for this opportunity. Happy 2011!

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)