Utah, December 2012

I seriously can't believe how disgraceful I've been using my camera since I've been pregnant.  Not sure exactly what the pregnancy had to do with it, but I can trace my picture-taking absence to then.  These are all from my mom's camera, so all I have are Oldham pics.  Next time, I vow to do better and get some with the Johnson's, too. :)

Grandma snuggles.

Brynn discovered a new favorite toy - an ipad.  The other day we saw one for sale in a store and she said, "Oh, an ipad!  Can I have it?"  Yeah, right!

Snow play!  Being the good adventurous mom that I am I stepped out the door for a minute to snap the pictures and went back inside.  This is probably about the coldest I've ever been in Utah.  At first, I thought I was just being wimpy after acclimating to AZ, but then when I actually started checking temperatures I realized it wasn't just me.  Most days it was only getting up to just a couple of degrees.

I was surprised by what a good sport Buddy was.  He's a very particular and persnickety boy who really likes to be comfortable.  He's only played in the snow a few times in his life, but during most of those times he has started whining and crying after just a few minutes. 

Gabe had two favorite things at G&G's house:  crawling up and down the stairs (not sure why, there are stairs at our house, too)

and Grandpa's guitars!  Loves, loves, loves music.

A couple months before this, he also realized how much he loves books.  He'll sit for as long as I'll read.  With Bryce, I couldn't get him to sit still long enough for a book.  He'd get mad and squirm and throw the book - he was just too busy.  But Gabe does quite a bit of sign language and his sign for book is way too adorable to resist.  He's always sucking me in for a book.

Here's Corey being a good uncle and playing along.  They put on a circus for us!

At Great Grandma Oldham's house.  Here's the whole family!  A small clan, but a lot of love!

I let the little guy's hair grow out again.  I would have cut it earlier, but I really wanted my mom to be able to see how curly it's gotten in the back.  Secretly, I'm hoping this baby girl coming will have the exact same  hair just so I can see what it does if I never have to cut it.

Brynn asked for the camera and came back with this picture on it.  I asked why and she talked about how it used to be Great Grandpa's chair and started asking questions about if it's where he died.  It was sad, but I'm glad she remembers him, and I'm glad she's sensitive to his absence.  She misses him.  So do I.

Auntie Helen.

Snuggling with Great Grandma.  I thought being there at nap time would be a problem, but mostly I think it just made him even more snuggly than usual (is that possible?).

Christmas Eve

Here are the pictures from our traditional nativity scene.  

Angel Brynn (appropriate) and Joseph Bryce.

And here I am for my fourth year making a great Marty (either about to have a baby, or just having had one).

Daddy as a shepherd.

And the cutest little Wise Man I ever did see.

Riding into Bethlehem on donkey Eeyore.

Ok, so part of the reason my blogging is so behind and just plain bad is because we are transitioning two new computers.  We got our new home computer for Christmas and I've been a total dunce with it, and Marty got a new work laptop which has had 6 months of gigantic issues.  They finally just quit trying to fix it and got him a new one.  Anyway, between us loading pictures to four different computers at various times, I have completely lost my Christmas morning pictures.  If I find them later, maybe I'll post them.  If not, c'est la  vie.  I will say that we really had a wonderful Christmas at our house this year.  It's the first year that it's ever just been our little family at home.  We've either been in UT (which we love) or had Utahns visiting us (which we love) but it was nice to have it to ourselves for a year.  It was quiet and laid back.  The kids played with their new toys.  I used my foot massager from Marty.  We skyped with family.  We had a yummy ham dinner with pumpkin-pecan pie and didn't leave for UT until two or three days later, so Christmas wasn't spent in a frenzied, cleaning, laundry-doing, packing rush.  We had also felt the pay-off of trying to be a little more Christ-centered this December and Christmas eve and Christmas day had such a nice, spiritual feeling to them.  I really love having a family.  Really, really love it.  I love being a mom and steering my family in the direction I want it to go.  

Christmas parade

Brynn absolutely loves parades.  What little kid doesn't?  She's asked me before if I thought she could ever be in a parade, and the opportunity came up!  Here in Queen Creek it's completely impossible to have summer parades (in 118 degrees?  no, thank you).  So we have a Christmas parade every year the first weekend of December and it's been such a fun tradition to go to it.  Brynn's dance company had a float in the parade with a cute little Grinch theme.  So Brynn got to wear her pajamas...

and get a very silly hairdo!  Yes, there is a cup somewhere in that mess.

I was a little surprised by Brynn.  Normally, she has no fear, performing comes naturally, and so does making friends.  But when I was ready to leave her at her float and find the boys, she had a little panic attack and clung to me.  It turns out she was afraid of the Grinch.  I asked a couple of the older girls to watch out for her and I guess they became besties.  It was a hard parent moment though - it was so hard to leave her there knowing she was nervous and upset!

As usual, here's Bryce letting Gabe torture him because it's worth the Gabe's giggles.  He is such a sweet older brother.

And here she comes!

Now she is begging me to let her join 4H so she can ride a horse in the parade next year.  I told her I'm not sure that's exactly how it works...

Brynn's 6th birthday

Brynn turned six three days before Christmas.  Being the sweetheart that she is, she let Bryce help her open all of her presents.

 

Bryce was disappointed again and again.  There was literally nothing there for him to enjoy.

This year was a nutcracker themed birthday.  She's been taking ballet lessons for the last year and loves it and is so into all things ballet.  Plus she's been really into the nutcracker for a couple Christmases now.  I'm happy she's taken to ballet because it means we get to listen to beautiful music by the best of the best - Tchaikovski (among others)!  Here's her nutcracker ballerina barbie.

And a new leotard and tutu - hers was getting way too small.

Ready for the Nutcracker birthday party!

One of Marty's sweet students came to teach the kids some steps to the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy."  Emmie - a beautiful girl inside and out. 

The girls completely fell in love with her.  Even thought we told the girls her name, they called her "the princess" the whole day and would shriek "the princess is coming outside!" and "the princess is going to swing with us!"

Snowy coconut cupcakes.

 

Gabe was a fan.

We made princess stones to dance on.

The table was decorated really cute before the chaos ensued, but I kind of missed it.  I knew at the time I was completely crazy to dump flaky, sparkly fake snow all over the table, but it was fine.  Two weeks worth of sweeping, and no big deal. :)

Tuckered out from a long day of squealing six-year-olds.

 

Gabe's 1st birthday

Gabe turned ONE just a few days after Thanksgiving.  So here is Thanksgiving - three pictures to show for it, shameful.

 

Greg and Nickelle came out and stayed with us and it was so nice to be able to spend time with my new SIL and get to know her better.

And here is Gabe's big day!   This walking toy from G&G was a big hit.  The funny thing is, he had a hard time actually playing with any of his new toys because his older siblings were so "helpful" in showing him just how fun the new toy was.  Seriously, it was impossible to get these kids to give him some space with his new stuff.

Also in the mail from G&G was a little box of presents and goodies...

...which he thoroughly enjoyed.

From Mom and Dad he got a CD player for his room.  We really feel that he has this great love of good music, and he looooves to go to sleep with a nice CD playing.  But I got sick of hauling my CD player up and down the stairs when I wanted it, so he got a cheap one of his own!  (Yes, I still use CDs, commence taunting...)

And a new carseat!  The one we used for the other two kids expired, so he got lucky!

Why are the boxes always more entertaining than the gifts?

I felt a little guilty that I was teaching piano on his birthday until PAST his bedtime.  Marty kept him up for me and made him one of his spectacular pineapple-upside-down dutch oven cakes.  He was tired, but loved it!

That weekend we took him to Organ Stop Pizza.  It's this pizza place with a giant organ in the middle and stops that go off all over the building; upstairs, downstairs, cats popping out of the walls, bubbles coming down while the organist plays "Under the Sea," lights flashing everywhere, etc.  We've taken all our babies there at some point (they are so taken with all those flashing lights!) and we thought our dancing, music-loving baby Gabe would like it best of all.

Nope.  He was terrified.  Hated every bit of the first few songs.  At the time, it was kind of sad and disappointing.  But now, I can't help but laugh at this picture! 

He finally calmed down enough to eat some pizza, but seemed pretty leery a lot of the night.  I do think he ended up dancing a little towards the end.

The rest of us still had a great time!  And it was fun that they already had their Christmas decorations out and were playing Christmas music.