Happy Birthday Sister

Happy Birthday Megs! My sister turned 25 on January 8th and so we threw a little fiesta! We attempted to make one of us girls' favorite salads served at Bajio's, a place we ate at in Rexburg a lot. With all the yummy toppings that included at least 10 different things all piled in our home made tortilla bowls, we topped it off with a cilantro lime dressing. We also served Brazilian limeades!! Above is the cake I made meg. It was an almond cake, with raspberry cream cheese filling (6 layers) and a butter cream frosting on the outside. Since I decided not to do a fondant on the outside this time we (Braden and I) decorated with some fun fake flowers and ribbon.

Brian picked out these sweeet candles!

My mom even has Fiesta plates made by my Grandma...something with our family and mexican food....we even make our own plates. LOL

So Megan and I were attempting to take a nice sister photo...but we couldn't get Megan to be serious....not sure why.

Almost got it...

There we go.

All the kids being silly.

Yeah a pic of Brian and I...since we never seem to take those anymore.

Meg and her girls

We all had fun playing together!!!

Christmas 2010

Setting up the tree
We could not get Emmitt to smile. This kid has the greatest smile off camera, then you put a camera in front of him and he gets so serious. Braden on the other hand is a little ham and always yells at the top of his lounges "cheeesssse" course we can't get him to not move when saying it. Well for a timer photo at the end of church this is the best we got.

Braden's ginerbread house.

Braden was SO excited to dress up like a sheperd boy, he was pretty cute. The pillow cases Grandma made came in handy for his costume too.

Christmas morning!!!!

Mom look at my stocking there is a snowman in it!

We had my parents and David over Christmas Eve so they could be here the next morning. I got to visit Kevin that evening while my mom cooked up a dish from Spain. In Brian's family they learn about and eat food from a different country on Christmas Eve. This year it was Spain. My wonderful friend Nicole, who served a mission there gave us some good recipes!! Pretty much they eat a lot of sea food, which was great for me....she said plates and plates of shrimp. So we embrassed this idea. I was pretty lame in the picture department this year for Christmas. Time to pull out my camera and start being a photographer again. One of my goals for the new year. SO all we have are a few shots of the boys in the morning. And a miserable attempt at a timer family photo inside with no help from our big windows that bring in natural light...it was too dark for their assistance. For Christmas this year we were grateful to be together as a family...living together in the house, in the same state.

Thanksgiving 2010

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents house. My mom made a lovely feast that I got to help a little with, I am pretty sure I made the sweet potatoes/yams which ever...oh and I peeled potatoes. Since we just moved she just had us over and so I didn't really get to bring anything. Since it was Meg's year to be with Lance's family it was just us, my parents, brother David, and Grandma and Grandpa. Braden had so much fun playing with Great Grandpa. Who thinks he is still young enough to play trains on the floor. They were instant best pals.

Emmitt loved little Suzie Bear and Braden and Papa played with the nerf guns.

The Forgotten Carols

For my mom's birthday she wanted to take the entire family to The Forgotten Carols. So she purchased A LOT of tickets, while only six of us ended up going from our family, my mom was able to give the other tickets away to some friends and we even found a couple on the streets of Seattle wondering what was going on so my dad offered the tickets to them....Merry Christmas he said. What fun! It was great to see this is Seattle since it had become a tradition in Idaho to see it the week of Thanksgiving. Always a good reminder of what Christmas is all about.

We MOVED...

So back on November 20, 2010 we completed loading the uhaul, packed all the kids up and we moved to Lacey, WA. Just in time to miss a major snow storm that hit Twin Falls we made it to Lacey about 11 hours later.
I am now attempting to catch up on the past two months since we've been in Washington, now that I have internet! Since my only internet was my phone I wasn't able to post.
First a BIG thanks to my sister and brother David for their help in getting us moved here. And to my parents who showed up at our new home that night around 9pm with a warm yummy dinner and hands to help us get our beds moved in. The rest waited until the next day. Since Brian was really sick and had been for the past month we didn't quite have the will power to unload that night especailly since Brian drove the all 11 hours in that uHaul with David as his wing man and Megan drove the van while I tended to the four kids (2 two years olds, and 2 5 month olds). If I remember right the kids were sick too...such fun!
We managed the next few days to get most everything put away before Thanksgiving.