Post Christmas-New Years in Denver

The day after Christmas we jumped in the car and headed out to Denver to spend post Christmas-New Year's with the all the Brinks! This had been planned for a couple of years and we were excited to all be together!

The drive over was uneventful with clear roads and since we packed a lunch we made it in less then 8 hours! It was fun to arrive and see everyone and to find out that TJ's sister Alison and her hubby Phil are expecting their first baby! YAY!!!!!

Here's a rundown of the week!

On Natalie's birthday we went bowling! It was so much fun to see the little kids be so excited when the pins fell down and to see the bigger kids enjoy some friendly competition. Our nephew Daniel was particularly hilarious as he'd never been bowling before! He would scream, jump, clap his hands and giggle with excitement every time a pin would fall down.

Brady and his buddy, Uncle Matt! Brady loves Uncle Matt and told me that they are good buddies! Brady also told us that a good name for a bowling alley would be "Balls verses Pins". I thought that he was right!

Taylor looking so impressed!

LouLou and Reecey! I could not get Reecey to look at the camera...silly girl!

Me and Teej, looking spazzy as usual!

Uncle and Nephew...Josh and Jack

After bowling the kids went to the park. It was sooooooooooo nice in Denver I forgot it was even December!

As you can see Reece wore herself right out!

That night we had dinner at Red Robin...of course we did!

Natalie with her birthday sundae! YUM!

Then we went back to LouLou's and Papa's for presents and cake!

While we were in Denver it FINALLY turned to Winter. We got a hit with a big snowstorm. Apparently it was the first time this winter that it snowed in the city and the local news station was calling it 'LAST BLAST 2010'. Answer me this...why does every big snow event have to have a name. Pretty silly if you ask me! Anyways, it started snowing in the middle of the day so we sent the kids outside to play. Daniel had seen snow but had never seen snow fall so he was especially delighted....and, of course, hilarious!

As we were sitting in the family room watching the snow fall, Lindsay told Jackson she wanted him to go roll around in it without a shirt. He was reluctant until offers of money started coming! In all he earned $6.05 for rolling around in the snow, shirtless!

Josh also rolled in the snow but I was videoing him, not taking any still shots!

This is just a random picture of Miss Savannah. She always pulls one leg out of her leg hole in her jammies. Silly girl!!!!

Another random picture of Josh dressed up like a nerd. As Lindsay said, this came way too natural for him!

Cute, silly girls. Do we like that my 3 year old is drinking Dr. Pepper?

So onto New Years Eve! I LOVE just hanging out on New Years Eve, eating good food, hanging with my kids, watching Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve, playing games and watching our traditional episode of 'Friends.' This year was super fun because we taught the older kids how to play our favorite card game, Nertz. For those who don't know what Nertz is, I describe it as a cross between Solitaire and Speed! Its way fun, super intense, and a bit complicated but the kids picked up on it pretty quickly and had a great time playing!!!

Cute Madison tried soooooooooooooo hard to make it until midnight, but just couldn't keep her eyes open!

As always we had a GREAT time in Denver and as always the time went much too fast! Now here we are back into real life...school, work, homework, carpools, sports, etc. But I guess if we just partied all the time, we wouldn't have much to look forward to, huh?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!

Christmas 2010

This Christmas we had the chance to spend it with just our family. Not that I don't love being with extended family, but it was so fun to make memories with just TJ, the kids and I! It really was a perfect, magical, Christmas!

We started Christmas Eve day by a yummy breakfast at Mimi's Cafe! We had done this the only other time we ever had Christmas with just us and so we decided to do it again! Mimi's omelets, pancakes, muffins, O.J. and last but certainly not least HOT CHOCOLATE! I swear Mimi's has THE best hot chocolate EVER!

On Christmas Eve we invited our friends, the Collins, over for some soup and other Christmas Eve festivities! They also have a Christmas Eve jammie tradition so it was fun for all the kids and teens to get to open 1 present on Christmas Eve. Before they left for the night we shared our traditional "Teach the Children" story with them.

Bad lighting...sorry

Brady putting an ornament on the tree as we read Teach the Children

Reecey's turn

After the Collins' left we got a surprise visit from Kirsten who brought all the kids a present! So sweet! Thanks Kiki!

After Kirsten left we watched the cartoon version of Grinch (another tradition) and then read the accounts of the Christmas Story from the Bible. Then we sent the kids off to camp out on the floor in our bedroom so we could make sure none of them snuck out to try to catch Santa!!!!

Christmas morning arrived with all the magic and excitement that we hope for!

The kids anxiously waiting to be allowed out to see the loot that Santa brought!

Lined up youngest to oldest--another tradition!

This little Blue's Clue's book ended up in Jackson's stocking because as a little boy he had us read it to him so much that he had it memorized! We have him 'reading' it to us on video and it is so cute it is physically painful for me to watch! Anyways, over the years and more kids the original Good Night Blue book got destroyed and thrown away so TJ and I bought him a new one and put it in his stocking...along with everything that Santa had already put in it.

Reecey with her Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder

TJ with his new electric guitar and amp! Now he can start a band!

J.B. opening a new hoodie. It doesn't take much to please this kid, but we did surprise him with a cell phone and you should've seen his face! He wasn't sure if it was real and if it for him. I had written his phone number on the box and so I asked him what was written on the box. He read back the number to me and I said, that's your number! He then jumped up and tackled me with a huge bear hug and then ran over and tackled his father with a big bear hug! It was fun! And its a good thing he's got unlimited texting because he's gotten non-stop texts since he sent out his phone number to all our family and the few friends of his who also have phones! The teenage years should be fun!

I'm not even sure what she's opening here but the expression on her face is priceless!

Reecey doing her puzzle

Brady scored this year with the Lego's. He and TJ are making his lego Millenium Falcon here!

All of Brady's creations! He built all day long!

After presents we ate our traditional Scotch Stew for breakfast and also added Cinnamon Spice pancakes to our Christmas morning breakfast repetoire! Then after a day of playing with new presents we went to see Gulliver's Travels that night, came home and packed our suitcases for Denver.

It seriously was such an awesome Christmas! I am so thankful for my wonderful hubby and fantastic kids who are really really really fun to hang out with! I am one blessed girl!

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Every year at the kids school the 3rd grade classes perform a Christmas play. Usually its A Christmas Carol but this year they mixed it up a bit and did The Night Before Christmas.

They started working on it back in November and Natalie auditioned for a speaking part! She got the role of Dancer the Reindeer and she did awesome! She had her lines memorized in about a day and had so much fun practicing them for me and telling me all about the days' rehearsals. She's quite the performer and informed me that she's interested in being in more plays. Now if only I could get her to sing in front of people again!

This is Dancer pulling some major attitude and telling Rosie the Reindeer that Dancer and her reindeer friends are Santa's favorites!

This is Natalie's bestie, Maddy, singing! She did so so so good and was so brave to sing a solo in front of so many people!

Curtain Call!

November in a Nutshell

To begin, I realize that Halloween is in October but I figured it was close enough so here is a quick run down of our November, with a little bit of October too...

We carved Pumpkins!

We dressed up for Halloween!

For an explanation of JB's costume click here!

And a HUGE shout out to Silas for his handywork on the mask! It was awesome!

We watched football! Lots and lots of football!

Jackson's team had a great season but sadly they lost in the semi-final game! It was a tough day but we did learn that losing in the semi's isn't as painful and disappointing as losing in the championship game, which is what happened last year! Jackson had a really great year playing Tight End and a little Q.B. In fact in one game he threw a touchdown pass and then the very next series he caught a touchdown pass! After the game he told me that pretty soon he'll be throwing touchdown passes to himself! He also started playing Basketball! He's doing really well and soon I'll post pictures of that!

After football ended we were able to remember what a quiet Saturday meant. Our first Saturday without a game we took the kids to see Megamind! Since then we've spent our Saturday's getting organized. Its been nice to have that time since we had a major bedroom shift in our house. We set up the bunk beds in Jackson's room and moved Brady down with him. We moved Jackson into a Queen sized bed, much needed since the kid is already 5 ft 5, and then I turned Brady's old room into an office space for me! Its been sooooooooooo nice to have my own little area where I can work and pay bills and store most of my crap! TJ originally said I didn't need an entire room to myself but I think even he would agree that its been a great change! He got new office furniture and we got new sofa's too (well new to us..my parents gave us some of their furniture from their house in Canada) so we've stayed busy around the house!

We spent Thanksgiving at home, just us! I didn't take any pictures (duh!) but we had an AWESOME day. It was so nice to just relax and watch football. I even got a nap in since I had been up early with Lindsay and Jackson to go run a 5k in the FREEZING COLD! I was so proud of Jackson because he ran every step of the way and we actually finished in less then 30 minutes! He was awesome! We had a YUMMY Thanksgiving Feast and then the Smith's came over later that night for some TV time! We also saw Tangled over Thanksgiving Weekend! It was so cute and I love this time of year for movies!!!!

To round out a great month, Natalie came home with the news that she was chosen as Student of the Month for her 3rd grade class!!!!! I'm so proud of my Nanny. She is growing up too fast but she is growing up to be a responsible, kind, fun, spunky girl! She gets straight A's in school and is successfully navigating the drama of 3rd grade friendships. She'll start basketball in January with her daddy as the coach (hopefully!).

All in all November was a great month, but boy oh boy did it fly by!!!! Now we're onto December and the fun and joy of the holidays! I'll be sure to break out my camera more often this month and post more regularly too!