Catching Up......

I have not been very motivated to keep up on this blog lately. I guess we don't live very exciting lives around here! But I can say that I am now 36 weeks....and COUNTING!! Yea! This pregnancy actually has gone by VERY fast. We just finished painting the nursery yesterday. My girls have been begging to put the crib up. Especially Halle...she has asked at least 4 or 5 times a day when we get to get the crib ready. She even thought that she would help me with the painting when I ran to the store and left Nate in charge. I had just finished priming Halle's BRIGHT pink walls and the girls were in the tub. I thought about telling them NOT to go in there because I had left a roller covered in plastic until I got back to finish another coat. Then I thought, "No, I better not tell them, it might spark a little idea in Halle's head. Well while I was at the store Nate called and told me that I was probably going to have to paint the ceiling again and I KNEW what had happened. Halle had got out of the tub and decided she was going to climb on the ladder and help with the ceiling. Which I was not going to paint because it has just been done when we moved in a year ago and it looked great! Nate got a picture of her up on the ladder painting the ceiling with the roller. I was going to put it on here because it is pretty funny now...but it shows her bare bum and I don't know who is looking at this blog! I can laugh about it now but that day I didn't find it very amusing!
So last night they planned to do it for family night! It was so cute to watch them get so excited to get everything out and ready. Halle has arranged all the drawers and got some diapers out and stacked them neatly in the diaper stacker. She is going to be a HUGE help. Brinley is excited, but I think she gets a little nervous when she thinks about her place in this whole situation. She cried when we first told her and she has made little comments every since about us not loving her as much when he comes. But the other night she did tell me that she can't wait to help me get him in his pajamas and ready for bed. As I was laying in bed talking to her to other night she told me that when the baby comes, I am not going to tuck her in anymore! Oh my sensitive little Brinley! I worry about her. We put them in the same room and they share a bed now. I have had to lay in there until one of them goes to sleep, and she told me that as soon as this baby comes, I won't do that anymore. She is very good with other babies and just loves them. I know once it comes she will think it is Great! Her teacher at school showed them a picture of her new little granddaughter and she was so excited to come home and tell me all about her! So hopefully she will feel the same about our new addition!
As for names, we are still trying to find one that we can both agree on. We are naming him after Nate's grandpa, so the middle name has to be Arlow. I have always loved Aidan, but Nate isn't so set on the name. We both like Jaxon, and Nate really wants Boston or Cole. So if anyone has any great suggestions..I am taking them! I need some opinions and soon! Boy names have been very hard for me to love. I had about 10 girls names already chosen. We have a list of about 10-15 names, but none that I am totally set on!
Well that has been all that we have been doing lately. Here are a few pictures because I know that a post without pictures is not fun!

Halle dressed up ready to cook!

Brinley and Halle LOVE to look at hair blogs. We found a hair blog with a hair do for Valentines day and they both begged to have their hair done this way. It is supposed to be a heart! I did Brinley's this way to, I just forgot to take a picture! Oops!

Nothing much to say about this picture, I just thought it was cute of her and I had a lot of Halle already!

When my family was all here we took the kids sledding and to Hardware Ranch! They had so much fun...but I don't know who had more fun them or us laughing at Johnny's snow suit! He got in in High School and he still PROUDLY wears it!

HARDWARE RANCH- The kids had fun seeing all the elk. All the kids had to have a turn on Cam's shoulders. They LOVE their Uncles, especially the all the teasing they get from them!

Sorry about all the pictures. Maybe my next post will be some without all the snow and something to do with Spring or this baby. Wish me Luck!

New Years Day!

I am so far behind on pictures so just a little warning: Lost of pictures to come and lots more to follow! I am trying to get caught up! New years day we went to the Gateway and I think the kids saw just about every kids movie and the Clark Planetarium....thanks to Cindy and her free tickets. They had a lot of fun but by the end they were begging to not see any more movies! It was a fun little vacation and so fun to see the cousins that we don't get to see too often, even though my kids did not make it to bed before 11:30 every night. Oh well, it was worth it in the end!

Halle and Lily (They have so much fun together! Halle misses Lily everyday since she moved! They used to go to preschool together!)

Grandma Hyde digging through her purse...handing out money so that everyone got a turn to drop some money into the bowl!

Then later we took the older cousins to see the 3D Nascar movie. Liza and Cariel showing off their cool glasses. These girls are so much fun and so good to my kids. My kids absolutely LOVE them. They want nothing to do with me when they are around. I would adopt them if their mom would let me!

New Years Eve...

For the last few new years eves we have gone to Salt Lake and stayed a few nights with Nate's family. Usually all the cousins come and my kids have a lot of fun! This year we went and saw the lights at Temple Square on New Years Eve since we never got there during the Christmas holiday.

Temple Square

Halle actually let me take her picture and she smiled! (Rare occurrence)

Most of the cousins bundled up to look at the lights!

Then we went to the Joseph Smith Memorial and the kids played in the kids area while we just sat and got warm! These are just a few of the pictures we took with the cousins!

CHRISTMAS

I can't believe that Christmas has already come and gone already. I always get so sad when it is over. I don't want to have to send Brinley back to school, it has been so fun having her home with us. Halle has especially loved having the company. The only good thing about Christmas being over this year is that I am that much closer to my due date! I really can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone. It really does seem like it has flown by this time! Anyways...We had a good Christmas. We started off Christmas eve with our tradition of the girls opening Christmas pajamas. They were excited to get some new jammies! Then we headed off the Nate's sisters annual Christmas Eve party in the afternoon. She usually has it in the evening, but since a lot of Nate's family wanted to get home early she moved it to the afternoon. Actually it worked out great so we could make it to both of our family parties. It is always stressful trying to get to both parties and deciding which one we will go to first. I think next year we will start rotating so we aren't so stressed!

Brinley and Halle in Christmas Pajamas

The girls were so excited Christmas eve to go to bed! Luckily they went right to sleep so Santa could come early enough! Brinley came into our room at 4:30 and wanted to get up and open presents. We told her that she had to go back to bed until 7:00. I had been up sick most of the night and I just wanted to get some sleep. So she stayed in my bed and talked for another hour, (Nate ended up going into her bed) and she finally feel asleep at about 5:30 after asking every 5 minutes if it was time. Then about 6:45, I rolled over and QUIETLY said her name and she jumped up and asked if it was time to get up. We called Cam and Justin and they were on their way to watch them open their gifts. Grandma Merrell also came down to see them. They were so excited when they saw their presents. Brinley is so dramatic. She would squeal after each present and say it was what she wanted. She is a very easy child to please. Halle was excited, but she didn't have the same reaction as Brinley. It was so fun to see! They got American Girl dolls and Santa had left them sitting out. They were thrilled and they have taken them everywhere we have gone ever since! My mom gave them each some pajamas to match their dolls and that is all they want to wear!

Halle and Brinley wearing their pajamas that match their dolls

Brinley opened a movie that had a sticker from Toys R Us on it. She said to me..."Mom, Santa doesn't make all the toys, this one came from Toys R Us!" It was pretty funny! She is a very observant little girl!

Halle's typical response to opening a present

Christmas morning was spent opening presents, going to my Grandma's breakfast, and visiting all our families here. We all had a great Christmas. Sometimes it is hard having both families in town but then on Christmas I realize that it is kind of nice that we don't have to travel and we can stay in town! I have so many things to be thankful for this year! I have realized how blessed I am, as I look around me. I didn't ever get a Christmas card sent out this year. It just seemed a little more chaotic for some reason, but I hope that you all had a great Christmas! It was fun receive all your cards and catching up on your busy lives as well!

Christmas Happenings...

I always love having my kids home for Christmas break. I feel like sometimes we are so busy with school that we don't get to spend a lot of time together. So I decided that we would do some fun things for Christmas and I let them choose what they wanted to do today. Yesterday we drove around and looked at at the Christmas lights. Then today they wanted to...

Build a snowman..

Make snow angels....

Play in the snow

Make sugar cookies

Then for family night we drove out to the lights at Willard Bay with our friends. They got to see Santa and even Halle sat on his lap and she even talked to him! We also got to go on a wagon ride! It was quite an eventful day....I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Christmas dresses and concerts!

I can't believe that it is Christmas already! It has flown by this year! I am so behind on posting my pictures so I thought that I would update with a few pictures of what we have been up to. Here are my girls in there Christmas dresses. They were a little upset that they were not exactly the same this year.

Halle

Brinley

Brinley also had her TaVaci concert last weekend. She did so good we are so proud of her! She seems to know the songs really well and then she gets a little nervous when she gets on stage. She doesn't dare take her eyes off her teacher in case she misses an action! She still loves singing and we hear the songs she learns all day long! :) But it is still fun to see her perform! Brinley doesn't look too happy here. This was after the concert and she was ready to be done and take her costume off!

Halloween!!!

Okay so I know that it is now December and I am just posting my Halloween pictures! I do have a good explanation for it. Our computer was down and then we could not get it going again so we had to buy another computer. Well it happened to be a good thing because Nate's brother, FINALLY talked him into getting high-speed Internet!!!!!!!!! Well actually our new computer wasn't hooked up for dial-up so he didn't have a choice. Let's just say I can actually upload some pictures without getting a load of laundry done in between and I can upload more then one picture at a time! So just a little warning there is a lot of pictures to come and more to follow.
Our Halloween was good. Brinley was Hannah Montana and Halle was a witch. Brinley was a little sick. She had to come home from because she felt like she was going to throw up. So we took her home and I kept wondering if maybe she wasn't really sick because her cousins were here. Anyways, I had to go back for her classes Halloween part because I am the room mother for her class. She wanted to come so I let her because she said she was feeling better. We were in different groups and all of a sudden her teacher came and told us to trade her spots. Brinley had thrown up all over. Poor Girl! She really wasn't feeling well!
We went trick or treating with Jen and her kids and all Brinley wanted to do was go home. I really knew she didn't feel well when she didn't care to get any candy! Which was fine with me because I just threw away our candy from last year a few weeks ago.

Brinley at her Halloween parade. Doesn't she look happy?!?

Halle and Brinley insisting they pull a funny face!