Merry Christmas from the Johnson Family!

Good day

It came and went pretty fast - but it was wonderful! I have a three year old!!!!


We tied each of her presents to a string, so she had to follow the string to find them in odd places. (That's a tradition from Marty's family)

Dancing in her Belle dress. We tried to decorate the upstairs in bright colors and with lots of pink crepe paper, avoiding a Christmas theme. I am determined to make her not hate her December birthday. She loves her new clothes from Uncle Greg! It was so fun to have him here for her bday.

The morning was spent eating chocolate chip pancakes (as always) and playing with new toys (mostly art-themed).

We went to Chuck-E-Cheese's!

DDR with Greg.

A couple weeks ago we asked her what kind of cake she wanted. I wondered why I was even bothering to ask, knowing ahead of time it would have something to do with princesses. But she surprised us and said she wanted "a snowman cake that tastes like strawberries." Ok, that's easy!

She said she wanted to eat the scarf, but ended up mostly attacking the snow (marshmallows).

When she realized she just couldn't gobble it all down fast enough,

she opted for this route.

We were all pretty pooped by the end of the night.

Happy Birthday, Brynn-cess!

You are our happy, giggly, affectionate, loving, sympathetic, patient, emotional, smart, dainty, dancing, princess-loving girly-girl, ever ready to give a hug and already playing the damsel in distress. We are so proud of the good girl you are trying to be and the ways you have grown this year. We love you to the moon and back!!!

Goodbye Two

(Warning: Excessive Blubbering)

Tomorrow my little sweetie is turning three. I think I am almost more excited for her birthday than I am for Christmas. For three years now she has been my little buddy - loving and patient, especially these last few months as she's been dethroned by a somewhat attention-hogging little brother and had that poor little broken ankle. I'm really excited to devote a whole day to her tomorrow to tell her how much I love her and how much I appreciate her. We have done everything together and enjoyed every minute of it.

Well...maybe not the temper tantrums and the potty training. When I first found out I was expecting her I think I immediately started worrying about taking care of a two-year-old. I really hadn't been around kids all that much and it seemed like all I heard about two was that it was a nightmare. Now I know I've kind of gotten off easy with Brynn. She is calm and sweet and tries so hard to be good. But even with the horrible potty training experiences and exhausting tantrums, I have LOOOOOVED having a two-year-old! She is constant entertainment, constant laughs, and constant snuggles.

I am really going to miss having a two-year-old. I know I'll have others, but Brynn will never be two again. However, I am totally determined take my very wise friend Jana's counsel and "not spend time wishing she was older or younger, but just loving the phase that she is in right now."

Anyway, enough blubbering. Here is the sweetheart in action right now. On Wednesday Bryce was really sick with a high fever. I don't know what it was, just something that was going around I guess. But Brynn took such good care of her little brother! These are some of my new favorite mommy moments.

She spent a lot of the day making sure he had his binky,

and holding his hand,

And snuggling him to sleep. Awwwwwwe!I let her snuggle because I figured she would definitely come down with it, might as well get it over with. But amazingly, she is still totally healthy!

Nevermind...

Forget about the whole "I hope Bryce waits until after Christmas to crawl" thing I said a couple of days ago.

And last night I had one of those wretched mommy hours that I have found myself laughing about all day today. I got Bryce a big bowl of rice cereal, gave him two bites, and Brynn had a potty emergency...which I didn't get to in time so it turned into more of an accident.

While I'm cleaning up upstairs and trying in vain to get her to finish up, I think to myself, "Hm, Bryce sure has been happy in the high chair all by himself. Especially since he was so hungry and I only gave him a couple bites. And he hates the high chair...," and so on. So I ran downstairs to find that I had rushed to Brynn so quickly that I stupidly left a full bowl of rice cereal right there for him to play with.

I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry. I had just spent the last 45 minutes bathing them and getting them all dressed cute and Christmas-y for the ward Christmas party, which was starting in just a few minutes. Plus I had no help from Marty, because he had gone to the party early since he was playing the part of a certain jolly Christmas-time figure. So I ran Bryce upstairs with a new bowl of food and fed him in the bath to avoid another disaster. Because technically I hadn't finished up with Brynn's mess that started this whole thing (gross, I know).

So if any moms are reading this, you know what happened next. He proved me wrong about my brilliant plan to eliminate another mess and pooped in the bath. So I scooped him up out of his bathtub, took him to mine, and gave him his third bath in an hour. By this time, the party had started and we were back to square one. Actually it was more like square negative 100, considering my two undressed children, messes all over the entire house that really shouldn't wait to be cleaned, my toddler beating on her brother for attention while I was trying to put myself back together.

We went to Burger King instead. And I took the long way, because that's the only way I could think to strap them both down for a half hour without getting in trouble with the CPS.

A very long time ago...

...We planted a garden. I am now remembering the "law of the harvest," aka "patience is a virtue," or "good things come to those who wait," etc.

But, we are faithfully taking care of it and I can't wait for fresh peas, carrots, spinich and lettuce. And in the meantime, we are using our fresh herbs. In December. Have I mentioned that I love Arizona?

As you can see, Brynn is a big help. And this is how Bryce helps. Since he has to have Mommy or Sister in his very constant sight, he keeps us entertained outside on the blanket.

Oh, and by the way, Happy Thanksgiving!

We had so much fun this year. Marty and I have always said that November is so beautiful in Arizona that we are not leaving it for Thanksgiving and we would love to see our families as often as they can possibly come...but this is the one holiday where people are gonna have to come to us! So anyway, my parents flew out and I finally got to have Thanksgiving dinner outside! It's something I'm been wanting to make a tradition for a while and just haven't done it yet.

It was a good day. :)

Confession time: Something I like to do when I am in a bad mood is take Brynn to Ross and let her try on dresses. I know, and I don't want to hear it!!! Honestly though, she LOVES it! They have great music to dance to playing in the dressing room. So Brynn puts on a dress and dances around for a while, which is my FAVORITE thing to watch Brynn do. And then she'll say, "Ok, new dress, want that one." And she dances in another dress. And usually picks a favorite, which we don't buy. But since Grandma was in town, Brynn might have talked her into buying one. Or two. :) Sigh, I'm creating a monster.

Awe, no I'm not, look at that sweet face!

The Utahns spent plenty of time in the sun, of course. How bad do you want to pinch those cheeks?

One day I left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa and I got to visit Marty's seminary classes. I love to take a day and team teach with him but with two kids it's been getting a little more complicated and I just didn't get a lesson prepared. So we just sung together instead and I drove back and forth between the school and our house between singing. Which included lunch at Taco Bell which is an Oldham/Johnson tradition. There is really fun music there that Brynn dances too also. Man, I'm really going to have to post a video of her dancing!

This is definitely the most fun I have ever had decorating a Christmas tree. The rumors are true, Christmas with kids is SO MUCH FUN!!!! Brynn has this Beauty and the Beast Christmas movie where they sing a song about Christmas while decorating the tree. We opened one box and took out one ornament and Brynn knew exactly what to do. She started singing the "Belle Christmas song" and hanging ornaments, and now THIS is what our tree looks like.

I suppose we won't worry about having a perfect tree with perfectly spaced ornaments for a while. Especially since she is forever rearranging them.

And speaking of arranging the Christmas decorations, I finally broke down and started taking pictures of her little Nativity set that she is constantly arranging. This is my particular favorite, with the lamb and the donkey kissing the baby Jesus.

We had lots of fun again at the Queen Creek Christmas parade.

Yesterday, the kids found my sun glasses.

And Brynn was surprisingly gentle when she was putting them on Bryce.

And look!!! Two teeth!!! Boy, am I happy to see those finally emerge after such a long and miserable attempt at cutting them.

Bryce so far has been good with the Christmas tree. He tugs on it occasionally, but hasn't managed to tip it over while laying on his tummy. However, he is scooting like crazy and taken a couple...what do you call it, crawling steps? Anyway, he is so close to crawling, I am just crossing my fingers that he'll wait until after Christmas to start crawling for real. He is a pretty strong little guy (big guy, actually) and I absolutely think he could tip over the Christmas tree if he put his mind to it.

Well, since I am tiring of apologizing on every post that I have not been posting often, I'll just say right now that there is a good chance I won't post until after the holidays. So, we'll just take this opportunity right now to say:

Merry Christmas!

A little neglectful

I've forgotten to post a couple of updates on my family, so here are just a few things.

Marty really wanted me to post this. It is a video taken at the airport right after I got back from Alaska. It was a happy reunion for all of us, but especially for Brynn and Bryce. I had no idea how much these two would miss each other.

Also, Brynn got her cast off! Marty was the one who took her to the appointment which was a little bit disastrous, but I had the scary experience of getting a cast removed as a kid so that's pretty much what we were expecting. What we weren't expecting was the big barrette that Brynn had shoved down her cast and her skin started to grow around. Yeah, I was really happy to miss that one. But she's doing great!

Bryce is 6 months old! He is slimming down a little with his weight in the 70th percentile and his height in the 80th. And he is now officially bigger than Brynn was at one year.

He started solid foods, too! We started him on squash, and of course being part Oldham he LOVED it! Not so fond of peas though. Here's a video I took this morning.

And speaking of squash, I didn't forget! I will be sure to get my annual squash post with new recipes up here soon. I know you just can't wait, Jana. :)

Our couple of Halloweens

This year for Halloween we had a sweet little Care Bear! Brynn wore my old costume from when I was three. Ya know, back in '87 when the Care Bears were still popular. And for our third strait Halloween we had a little chick! He hated his costume though. Interesting how even a six-month-old can glare you down.Here we are at our ward Trunk-Or-Treat on Friday night. Marty was a Gaucho (a Brazilian cowboy) and I put on a big white sheet and went as a....
...Mattress.

And here is Brynn enjoying some Halloween candy.

So here is the story of Brynn's second Halloween costume. At the trunk-or-treat she saw a whole bunch of Cinderella's and was in complete awe. She wouldn't leave them alone. Well, a few weeks ago our neighbors had a garage sale with a gazillion Halloween costumes they had gotten from their Uncle's costume store that had gone out of business. We bought her a Cinderella, Rose, Snow White, and Belle costume for three dollars each that we were planning to give her for Christmas. If you know Brynn at all, you know how OBSESSED she is with the princesses.

So for the actual Halloween she was Cinderella! I wish I could have filmed all of her getting ready and seeing the costume for the first time. She kept running away with only one shoe on and saying, "Princess Cinderella Brynn got married in the temple!" Then she would run up to Daddy and say, "Dance So This is Love?" And they would dance. It was so much fun!

Trying to keep brother happy for the camera.

Trick-or-treating was so much fun. Somehow Brynn got a little mixed up and she would say "Trick-or-treat-treat!" Then when I tried to correct her, Marty told me not to because it sounded so cute. Holidays are so much fun with little kids!

Here she is eating her candy and watching Cinderella on Marty's laptop (while he watched a thousand different sports games on the TV!).