The Gulbrandsens

Friends

2012-01-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

This post is a long one in coming. We love friends!! We have had so much fun spending time with friends the last few months. Left to right we have Jaron, Brooklyn, Brielle, Ariah, Gavin and Macy. Many times I have had 6 kids total at our house and we have had a blast! My friend Michelle and I both work from home so we switch kids a lot and it has saved my life!
I'm so sad this picture is blurry because I love it!

We spent a few days going to the playground and I remembered my camera this time!

Look at those cute friends!

My friend Kasha and I also love to trade and this is Brooklyn, Brielle and Eli. We sure love her too!

Here is another picture of them eating Popsicles. Ariah, Brooklyn, Gavin, Lia, Brielle and Macy.

Cute Halloween picture.

More leave pictures with Brielle and Lia. Lia and Brielle get along so well! They play for hours without hardly a fight or argument. It is amazing.

What a great summer and fall we had with friends!

November Leaves

2012-01-04T20:06:00.000-08:00

I love getting pictures of my kids with the leaves but the sun was just not right which created a lot of shadows.

I love getting shots of them throwing the leaves in the air as well.

Lia came over to play and we all had a ball raking and throwing leaves.

The temperature is about the same as it was then and it is now January. Definitely pros and cons to the warm weather. Unfortunately there is no snow which could hinder our economy quite a bit. Hopefully it will come soon!

October Leaves/Bridal Veil Falls

2012-01-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

Look at that beautiful girl with that beautiful background!
This one is pretty cute too!

We wanted a good picture of the girls together but that didn't happen. Oh well.

Me and my girls against some beautiful trees.

Me and my honey. I love fall (too bad I'm posting these in January). Oh well. I am confident this year I will be better with my blog!

Brielle's birthday 2011

2011-12-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Oh these are backwards. I always forget I have to do it backwards. Oh well. Here are all of Brielle's presents. She was lucky enough to have a family birthday party and a friend party.

Here are the friends just about to have cake and ice cream.
We only have two kids not looking in this picture which I think is a HUGE success. We have from left to right: Brielle, Lia Stubbs, Brooklyn, Emma Mouritsen, Gavin Mccullough, Lauren Clark, Ariah Warner, Eliot Farmer and Macy Mccullough.

Brielle with her incredible cake that my friend Brenda Clegg made. It was incredible and sooo yummy! What a beautiful 4-year-old I have!! We colored Tinkerbell, played follow the fairy (follow the leader) and had a treasure hunt. We had a great time.

This is from her family party that we had on Sunday. She got that cute Rapunzel shirt from her incredible primary teachers.

Too bad I didn't get more pictures of the family that came to the party. I get so caught up in everything going on and I forget to take pictures. I can't believe my baby is 4. She is such a sweet wonderful girl. I love her so much and I'm so thankful she survived all she had to go through so she could bring joy to my life each and every day.

Halloween 2011

2011-12-05T09:33:00.001-08:00

Happy extremely late Halloween from the prettiest 4-year-old Snow White.
The skeleton is my pumpkin and the bat is Mike's.

This skeleton head is Randall's and the star keeper is Shimayne's. We always have so much fun decorating our pumpkins with Shimayne and Randall and they always turn out so good (in my opinion).

We had two Snow White's this year and I think they are pretty darn cute.

(I already did this post once. Hopefully it will work this time!)

Short post

2011-11-17T21:16:00.000-08:00

I did a whole Halloween post and saved it but then I got an error and it never posted. Oh well. This will have to do. I just ran a 5k without stopping!! YAY!!! It wasn't my fastest time ever but I never walked, which is HUGE for me. That's all.

New pictures

2011-10-15T17:37:00.001-07:00

I know I'm so far behind on this blog but Mike's dad took these at Mike's brother's wedding and I thought they turned out pretty good so I wanted to share. I sure love my girls in those dresses. Oh I am so lucky to have them. Which is your favorite? First or second?

This was at the actual ceremony where the girls could not be, so it was just Mike and I.

Hopefully I will get a caught up soon!

Yellowstone

2011-08-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

My brother's family decided to go to Yellowstone this year and invited us to come with them. We had such a great time. I LOVE YELLOWSTONE! I think it is so beautiful and love to see the different hot springs and geysers. I thought June would be a nice time to go where it would not be too hot or cold. Well I was wrong. It was FREEZING! There was snow in most parts of the park and most people were in coats and gloves and scarves. Here is my dad, mom, Brielle, me, Brooklyn and Shimayne next to the lower falls which is my favorite waterfall. It is so powerful and majestic!

I love this picture of the snow going right down to the water.

Isn't this blue beautiful?

This is one of my favorite pictures of Brooklyn! She was actually so much better on this trip than I thought she was going to be, until the ride home from West Yellowstone where she cried for 4 out of the 6 hours.

This is inside the Yellowstone Inn. My brother Chris on the left with Hudson, Brigham, Annie and Brielle. I love their family so much and we had such a great time. I wish it could have been longer!!

This is one of my favorites. It is called Morning Glory Pool. The colors are amazing, though not as vivid as I remember and on the sign it said that since people throw stuff in there all the time so it is destroying it. So sad...

Another beautiful hot springs. I just accidentally deleted a picture right here which was of some buffalo on our trail. They say to stay 75 feet away and so a whole bunch of us got stuck on a trail going back to the Yellowstone Inn because the buffalo were right by the trail and on it once in a while. It was kind of a funny predicament.

I just love the colors in this water. Just a quick side note, Brielle when asked what her shirt said told her cousin it said "Kiss me I'm reddish." So that is an inside joke in our family now.

Here is Brielle in front of Mammoth Hot Springs which is also really beautiful

There were not a lot of flowers since it was snowing on us most of the time but I thought this one was so pretty.

This pictures of a black bear comes with a great story. We just had a glimpse of a bear where a whole lot of people had pulled over to take pictures and were blocking the road and such. I had just mentioned that I wanted to be the first ones to see a bear so we are not blocking anyone else in the road and we are not fighting to get a good picture. Not 20 minutes later, this was exactly what happened! I was very excited. There was a stream separating us so it was not scary at all.

Here is the cabin we stayed in. It was about 45 minutes outside of West Yellowstone. We drove a lot on this trip but it was so fun. Thanks Chris and Lisa for making this possible!

Happy Anniversary!

2011-08-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Man it has been a long time since I posted. I think today is a good day to do it! We got married 9 years ago today and I remember almost every detail. It was a very HOT August day. I remember getting to the temple about 10 minutes late and seeing the NERVOUS look on Mike's face (He never gets nervous). My nerves instantly dissipated and I couldn't stop smiling thinking about his face. We got married at 8:20 in the morning and I was the 8th bride out of who knows how many for the day. I remember feeling very excited that I got to spend eternity with this man who loved me so much. We had many family members and a few friends there. I remember we were over an hour late for our luncheon because our photographer would not stop taking pictures. I remember I wore white tennis shoes with ribbon laces so I didn't have to walk around in uncomfortable shoes the whole day. I remember my Grandpa Stoddard could no be there because he was not feeling well that day. I remember my younger sister not being endowed yet and how I yearned to have her in the temple with all of my other siblings and me. I remember going to Costco because we needed to get a few things for our honeymoon. I remember getting to the Anniversary Inn (the Lighthouse Room) and falling asleep on the floor playing Phase 10 at 5:00 pm because I had only gotten about 1/2 hour of sleep the previous night. I remember thinking how I had planned and thought about this day my whole life and I could not believe it was actually happening. I remember wishing my parents a happy anniversary because we got married on their 33rd anniversary in the same temple. It was a beautiful day and I am so grateful that I listened to the Spirit who told me Mike was the one I should marry and now we have two beautiful daughters who we love more than anything in this world! Here are 9 things I love about Mike in no particular order:

1. He makes me laugh.

2. He works hard at his job so we can have a nice house, food and clothing.

3. He is a great dad and loves his girls so much.

4. He is one of the most forgiving people I know.

5. He is genuinely a nice guy, which is one of the things that first attracted me to him.

6. He is nice to people, even if they may not deserve it. He always looks for the good in people.

7. He loves me and buys me things all the time.

8. He has a beautiful voice, which I could listen to ALL DAY LONG.

9. He is loyal and I know I can trust him always.

I love you Mike!

P.S. Happy Anniversary to my beautiful parents who I love so much!!

Perfect Video

2011-05-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

You may not all think this video is perfect but I sure do. I love everything about it. I love Brielle's singing at the beginning and her feeding Brooklyn and them both waving to me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Brooklyn from birth to now

2011-04-21T07:14:00.000-07:00

Wow - I cannot believe she is already 1 year old. I of course meant to do this post right on our birthdays or that weekend but it has been a month and that is about how often I actually sit down and blog. Here she is the day after her birthday weighing 7 lbs 4 oz. She was 3 pounds heavier than Brielle so I thought she was HUGE! I have a good friend who would disagree otherwise since she had a 10 pound baby.

1 month - Here is Brooklyn at about five weeks sitting next to her new cousin Jaron (who I cut out of the picture; sorry Shell). What a chunk she is. She cried a lot as a baby and didn't sleep well at nights. 2 months - Here is her blessing day which was one of the greatest and worst days of my life. It was a beautiful day until about 6:00 pm when Brielle had her fingers slammed in the door leading to the garage and we spent the next couple of hours at the hospital and the next few months trying to get it healed. What an ordeal. Thankfully Brooklyn's blessing was wonderful and she was good in her dress with no blowouts! We had so many family and friends come. We are so blessed to have such great support nearby.

3 months - She starts smiling and babbling, saying mama here and there. Still not sleeping through the night and screams really, really, really loud a lot of the time.

4 months - Brielle realizes she can make Brooklyn smile. This by all standards is a terrible picture but it gives me such a happy memory I had to put it in. Brielle had not been so nice to Brooklyn when she was a baby (well still has a hard time) but I loved that she made her sister smile in this picture. It makes my heart swell when they play nicely together.

5 months - One of my favs. She has the biggest smile and the most beautiful eyes/eye lashes. I could just eat her up and did nibble on her cheeks everyday. I love those cheeks!

6 months - Starting to be a happier baby. She still cries A LOT but now she can roll so she can get to things faster and that makes everyone happy. We started her on baby food and she didn't want anything to do with it so we started putting rice cereal in bottles to help her sleep better at night. I think it helped a little bit.

7 months - Halloween! Brielle had this same monkey outfit for her 1st real Halloween and I love it just as much on Brooklyn. They make such adorable monkeys.

8 months - Brielle loved hats at this time in her life so she decided to put one on Brooklyn. Pretty cute don't you think? Brooklyn gets her first two teeth (not side by side oddly enough) and starts scooting forward. Still not sleeping all the way through the night.

9 months - the day this photo was taken Brooklyn decides to start crawling. I didn't have a single photo of her this month but I loved this one of her and her dad. She has decided she likes baby food and will finally eat it. She also would smack her lips right before she started nursing which I thought was so cute. Brooklyn also says hmmm....hmmm....hmmm..while eating. She finally sleeps all the way through the night three days after I moved her out of my room. I should have done that six months ago. Oh well. I know better for next time.

10 months - She has two more teeth for a total of four. Three on the bottom (thankfully the one came in between the first two on the bottom) and one on top (on the left side, not in the middle). Still love those big blue eyes and huge smile. I am a much happier mama now that I'm sleeping through the night which makes for happier kids!

This picture makes me laugh every time. We were at the cabin with family/friends and I think she was eating Cheetos? Maybe cheese puffs. Anyway I love this picture and I hope it made you smile as well. She loves to walk along things and goes around in a circle from the Love Sac to couch to couch in our house.

Brooklyn turns 1! YAY!! She doesn't have much hair but now weighs around 18 pounds. She can say Mama, Dada, Hi, Owww, Hello and Go. She took her first steps unassisted five days after her birthday and has never looked back. She loves walking and practically running whenever she can. She has been given many nicknames by both her sister and father and is rarely called Brooklyn but can be known as Bougia, Puggy wuggy, Sheshi, Ku-lu, Ku-tu, Pola bear, Sis, Brook and many other names that Brielle deems fit to bestow upon her. We are so thankful to have Brooklyn in our family. She has been a tough baby but I'm pretty sure that means she will be a great teenager right? We love you Brooklyn! Happy birthday angel!

Other March pictures

2011-04-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

This is now my desktop because I love this picture so much of my mom and Brielle. This was taken at Ariah's birthday party.

Here is Brooklyn's cake that she destroyed, I mean ate. Did you know that sprinkles go bad? Well apparently after 8 years they do. I put these colored sprinkles on hers and the other cake and they were disgusting so then I borrowed some blue ones and redid the flowers. It was much better with sprinkles that had not expired. Note to self: Try the sprinkles before you put them on the cake...

Here is the finished product.

I loved this picture of Mike and Brielle. Two of the people I love most in this world.

Birthdays

2011-04-17T17:31:00.001-07:00

Brooklyn had her 1st birthday last month and we had a great day celebrating our birthdays. She did exactly what I thought she would with her cake.

She ate her marshmallows first. Then got a little messy and threw it on the ground. Just like all her other food.

Here is her cute cousin Jaron who just celebrated his first birthday last week. He was a happy boy at the party and I loved this picture.

Here is another cousin, Ariah, who also looked really cute. I had to photoshop out the TV in the background because she just looked so

adorable. I don't think I got any great pictures of Brooklyn with all her presents but we had quite the day of celebrating with Ariah's party in the morning, Brooklyn's in the afternoon and mine in the evening. We love March birthdays in our family!!

Brielle eating - for those who wanted to see it again!

2011-04-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn eating

2011-04-07T08:14:00.000-07:00

I love when I see similarities between Brielle and Brooklyn. This is one of them. She loves her food, just like Brielle, although I would say she is more picky by far.

Sleeping

2011-03-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you remember my posts on Brielle's funny sleeping positions a couple of years ago. Well this is what happened when I got tired of trying to get Brooklyn to go to sleep and just let her cry it out one day. zzzz...sleeping against the Pack and Play (which she slept in for about a month until we transitioned to a crib).

This one is a little harder to see but she is basically kneeling down asleep against the side of it.
Here is the one of Brielle asleep against the side of her crib when she was around the same age. It makes her look like she has a mohawk by her position. She did have a lot more hair than Brooklyn does, for sure.

I love my sleeping angels.

Brielle's Fashion

2011-03-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

Brielle definitely got my fashion sense.

Not so good unfortunately but I let her dress herself these days and these the outfits she came up with. In the above one, she has on Brooklyn's pants and a Halloween shirt.
The below one was my favorite. It was the end of December/first of January and she has on 4th of July shorts, a nice shirt and a princess hat.

That's my girl!

Best friends (and cousins), Ariah and Brielle

2011-03-06T21:37:00.000-08:00

I love this picture. I realize you can't tell very well but they are in one of those bench storage seats where you can sit on it and then open and store toys or whatever in it. These two have so much fun together and love each other fiercely. It makes me smile and so very happy.

Mike has a mustache

2011-03-06T21:12:00.001-08:00

What do you think? Do you love it?

Yeah neither did I. Luckily it only lasted about 1 hour. Phew!

Christmas

2011-01-19T03:14:00.000-08:00

While we were in Illinois we had a small Christmas with my side of the family. It was fun to see all the kids opening presents and enjoying them. Chris and Lisa gave Mike and I this beautiful picture of the Salt Lake Temple where we were married and etched in the clouds a Christus and also our names, date and temple we were sealed in. What a great gift! Oh and Brooklyn is eating my shirt.

We were in charge of our Weight Family Christmas Party and did Polar Express theme. It was a lot of work because we had Cafe Rio for dinner (homemade) but it turned out really cute and I think everyone had a good time. Brielle was so excited to sit on Santa's lap and get a present.

Brooklyn didn't mind being on Santa's lap either. We had a great Christmas morning at home and then went up to Mike's dad's house for dinner. Brielle got a lot of books for Christmas and many other fun things, including a new trampoline which we will set up once it stops snowing.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays and stopped to think about our Savior and the life he led and gave for us.

Siblings

2011-01-17T06:50:00.000-08:00

I LOVE MY FAMILY. I cannot get enough of them. I really love being around them and it is so hard to leave when it comes time to part. I'm lucky to live very near my sisters and we get together often but I only see my brothers maybe once a year. My siblings are beautiful, smart, funny and talented in many ways. I am so thankful to have been raised in such an incredible family with incredible parents and incredible siblings. I have had the opportunity to get to know my siblings very closely at different times of my life and feel really close to each one. Shimayne (my oldest sister on the left) and I have been close my whole life. She was very excited to get a sister after two boys. Now we live 5 minutes from each other and get together most weeks for FHE or playing games. I love her so much. She is so talented in music, singing and playing the piano. She is incredible with my children and they love her so much. Chris, 2nd from left, lives in Minnesota and is a urologist. We were never really close growing up, nor were we close after he got off his mission, but once he met his wife Lisa, and she and I got along really well, did we start to get close. After he was married and graduated from USU, he moved to SLC to go to the U for medical school. I lived in SLC at the time going to LDS Business College and had the opportunity to go over to their apartment a lot to hang out and babysit and I LOVED it. He is so smart. He is a great speaker and I love hearing him talk and tell stories. He is a lot like my Uncle Ron who is one of the most amazing men I know. I miss having Chris and his family live near by. Donovan, middle, of course lives in Illinois and he and I got really close when Shimayne and Chris left on their missions. We stayed up late numerous nights talking and I remember one of the hardest days of my life was when Donovan flew to the Dominican Republic for his mission. I missed him terribly. Donovan is one of the most selfless people I know. He is an incredible father to his children and is a peacemaker. I wish they lived closer too. I love him and am grateful for his influence in my life.
Shelleen, my younger sister, and I did not get along AT ALL growing up. I remember my mom trying everything she could think of to get us to stop fighting, all to no avail. We have very different personalities and had a hard time figuring each other out. We fought a lot. When she finally moved out of my room, once my older siblings moved out, we finally figured out how to get along. Then we started sharing clothes and kind of liking each other. Finally we learned to love each other and we are best friends now. She lives just 45 minutes away and we generally will see each other once a week. After she got married, they moved to Nebraska and that was really hard for me. I'm so glad they moved back and that her kids decide to come to this world as soon as I am pregnant with mine. Some days I don't know what I would do without her. She was always a tom boy growing up and now she is so domestic and doing so many crafty things at home. I have to admit I'm a little jealous of her skills. She is beautiful and so quick witted. I wished I had her wit. She is so fun to be around and I love her.

Sorry this is a long post - just a lot of reflection today. My parents are amazing. My dad has worked so hard for us. He was a teacher and so of course had to have another job. He risked his life everyday being a driver's ed teacher. He worked generally from 6 in the morning until 6 at night and then a lot of Saturday mornings. He then fulfilled many church responsibilities on Sundays so I didn't see him much on those days either. There are not many men in this world who love their wives as much as my dad loves my mom. He would do anything for her and it was a great example to me of the kind of man I wanted to marry. My dad can fix anything and he saved us so much money fixing things that most people would have to call a repair man for. My dad loves the outdoors and I have gone to many places inside and outside of Utah thanks to him. I love my dad very much. My mom is probably the most selfless person I know and one of the most Christ-like. She is so calm, sweet, loving, thoughtful, compassionate and just amazing in every way. I feel like my mom and I have always been close. I hope with all my heart I have the same relationship with my daughters. I can never say enough about how much I love my mom and how much she does for every single person around her. Every one who knows her says how caring and selfless she is. She constantly has people over for dinner and takes dinner to those to who need it. She always seems to know what I need either emotionally or physically and provides for it. Whenever I don't feel well, I want my mom because she knows how to make me better. Brielle loves her and always wants to be around her. I don't blame her. I do too! I love my mom so much and hope to be just like her! There is my family and I LOVE THEM.

Illinois

2011-01-15T06:28:00.000-08:00

My family, including my parents and siblings and their families, all went to Illinois for my brother and his family's big weekend. We started off with taking pictures Saturday morning.
We could not get Brooklyn to smile for the real photographer but I can get her to smile if I am taking it. I love this one of Brooklyn with her dad.

Here is my entire immediate family with their families. It was not such a great spot to take the picture and the other place we tried didn't work out, but we were all together and we had a great weekend together.

Then at 1:30 pm, my brother Donovan received his doctorate degree in History. He has worked really hard getting his degree as well as being a great dad to five kids. He is amazing!! Way to go Donovan!!!

At 5:00 on Saturday evening Donovan's oldest son, Trey, was baptized. I tried to get a picture with this post in the right area but could not. Anyway, it was great.

Then on Sunday morning Donovan's daughter, Eden, was blessed. It was such a fun weekend. Donovan and Teah had worked really hard to make it all nice and flow easy and it really did. It was so fun to have all my siblings together. I love them so much and love to be around them and their spouses. We have a lot of fun together. We came home on Monday, so the trip was short and sweet. Thankfully we had my parents on the flights we were on and it made all the difference in the world with our kids. Thanks mom and dad!

November

2011-01-13T06:43:00.000-08:00

Thankful - There were so many posts on blogs and Facebook about being thankful and I'm so grateful to each of you for reminding me of things that I am grateful for. I attended a funeral on January 8th of my aunts brother who died at a massive heart attack at the young age of 47. He left behind a beautiful wife and three children with the youngest only 9 and the oldest 19. It really hit me hard how fragile life is. He went to church and started having pain, collapsed, was rushed to the hospital and was pronounced dead not long after. Do we take the time to let our loved ones know how much we love them every day? Even just on our way to church? I hope I am better and loving more and nagging less. I am so grateful for my family, especially my husband and children. They are my life and unfortunately I am short on patience way more than I should be. Look at these faces? I am so blessed to have them and I hope I can be as good of a mom to them as my mom is to me. I am so thankful to have wonderful parents who love each other and love me. One of the few pictures I have both girls smiling. They were having fun trying on hats. I wish I could get them to smile like this when they are dressed up and have a cute background. Someday...

These are dresses that Mike got for the girls from Sears. I love them. They look so cute.
My kids have the funniest sleeping positions. Do yours too? If you haven't seen my other post on Brielle's sleeping positions, you should go back and look. She is hilarious. This one made me laugh with the pillow on her head.

Apparently Brooklyn can sleep anywhere. She has fallen asleep on the floor sitting up, in her chair just after eating and in Mike's arms sitting up when we were trying to get family pictures taken.

How did I get so lucky?

Halloween - I know I'm too late, but I'm doing it anyway

2011-01-11T06:00:00.000-08:00

Brielle was Cinderella (although I forgot the black thing that goes around her neck). She loved being a princess and she looked so cute and so excited about it.

Brooklyn was our cute girl monkey. She is pretty darn adorable.
I posted this one for my sister, Shimayne. She loves Brooklyn's face in this one. Me too. It makes me laugh.

Here are our pumpkins this year. We got a lot of compliments. We love carving them with our family. What a great tradition. From left to right is mine (Haunted castle), Mike's (wolf howling), Phil, Mike's brother (pirate skull), Randall (happy face) and Shimayne's (Devilish Diva).

I love Halloween and putting up decorations for it. Brielle really enjoyed it this year as well. Even though it was a rainy day, we still had a great time and got in some trick or treating between down pours.

Brielle's birthday

2011-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

For Brielle's birthday, it was a Friday and so both Mike and I took it off and just spent the day with her. It was so fun. We took her to Pirate Island which she loves. Shell, Ariah and Jaron came with us. It was fun. After that we took her to Jump On It which is another favorite place.
This is a fun little machine. It takes them on an amusement park ride. Brielle and Ariah love it

The day after her birthday was when we had a Pirate Princess Party. I attempted a treasure chest cake and failed miserably. Oh well. If I try it in the future, I know some things to change.

Brielle loved her pirate princess party. She loves both of them, so we just combined them. I think some of my family thought we were weird, but Brielle had fun! I cannot believe she is 3 already. Where does the time go?

She ran off with quite a loot this year. We had many family members and friends that came and celebrated with us, although many couldn't stay for long, we appreciated them coming.

Oh how I love Brielle. She is the joy of my life. She is so funny and makes me laugh everyday. She says things that are far beyond her 3 years of age and I forget many times that she is just a little kid, until she does something that a 3-year-old does which drives me crazy. She is leaning to be softer with Brooklyn and now likes that she can actually play with her and give her toys to play with. She loves to look at books and most of the time will not go to bed when I put her in bed but looks at books for the next hour or so. She always sleeps with a little lamp on at night and completely melts down if we turn it off, so we leave it on all the time. She loves puzzles and baby dolls. Brielle loves to go anywhere away from home. She often will cry when we are headed home after playing at a playground or at someone else's house and say how she doesn't want to go home. I hope that changes in the future. We love our Brielle so much. She is such a joy and so sweet to other kids around her, for the most part. She was so excited to go to primary that I told her she needed to not wear a diaper to primary because they don't like changing diapers (which is true right??!?!?) so she potty trained herself. It has been so nice. I'm so glad she finally decided to do it. She still does not have a lot of hair and it is kind of thin so it is hard to do things with it but I think she is beautiful and marvel everyday that I have been blessed with such a beautiful, fun, sweet angel daughter.

Catch up - Arches - Oct 2010

2011-01-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

I love Arches! I love everything about it except for the heat. So we decided to go down in October and it was perfect. We just did an out and back trip because the girls don't sleep well and we didn't want to spend money on a hotel night in which we would sleep worse, so we went down and back on a Saturday with Mike's family.

Here is Brielle with North Window. She did so great and loved hiking and seeing all the arches.
My girls and I at north and south window. Brooklyn who I was really worried about because she cries a lot also did fabulous. She loved being in the pack facing out.

Phil, Mike's brother, and Brielle looking out from Double Arch.

I think this is such a great picture. Mike and Brooklyn at Sand Dune Arch.

This is Brielle at Sand Dune Arch. Of course this was her favorite! We had a fabulous day and I classify it as an almost perfect day.

New Biggest Loser Competition

2010-12-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

So as you call know, I did a Biggest Loser Competition. I'm thinking of doing another one with Friends. Would any of you want to join? I think we would start on January 2nd, go for 12 weeks and the entry fee would be $15. The jackpot would go to the one who lost the most body percentage which I hope will be a good amount of money depending on who goes in with me on it! What do you think? Any questions or thoughts?

The Biggest Loser

2010-11-23T06:48:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh, I WON! I can't believe it. I'm so excited. It has been a long hard 12 weeks but I am so excited I pushed myself so hard. I still have a long ways to go to get down to my goal weight, but the gift certificate to Anniversary Inn (which was the prize) is going to be so worth it. I'm so excited to have a night or two out with my husband without my kids. I obviously have not done that since Brooklyn was born since I am still nursing. She is finally starting to sleep through the night though so I am stoked! Here are the stats:

Weight lost:
Sharene: 37.8 lbs
Ryan (BIL) 32.8 lbs
Randy (uncle) 40 lbs
Saundra (mom) 21.6 lbs
Shelleen (sister) 20.7 lbs
Meri (aunt) 20.0 lbs
John (dad) 24.5 lbs
Susie (cousin) 11.8 lbs
Mike (husband) 18.6 lbs
Randall (BIL) 5 lbs
Shimayne (sister) 1.5 lbs

Congratulations to all who participated in losing weight! It was so fun to be together and working together towards losing weight. My sister, Shelleen, headed this up with many motivational thoughts and quotes and I appreciate her so much. We are planning to start another one at the beginning of the year. Anyone want to join? We think it will be between $10 and $15 to join! Let me know. Thanks to everyone who has given me encouragement and compliments. I appreciate you all so much. I need it, especially since I am no where close to where I need to be. Here's to keeping the weight off during the holidays! Happy Thanksgiving!

My cute little ones

2010-10-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

I love this picture of Brooklyn falling asleep sitting up. Some days I think I could do that too with how little she sleeps at night.
Brooklyn - about 6 months old.

Brielle and her dad love to sail in their pirate ship (our car) to far off places (like the store) and like to talk like pirates...."ARRR We be pirates." She loves it and this is a do-rag that Mike has which Brielle likes to wear.

We went up to Idaho to visit Mike's grandparents and had a great time. Brooklyn absolutely loved Grandpa Glen! I am so mad I did not get pictures of Grandma and Grandpa with our kids...DUH!

This was at the Boise zoo. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for a great weekend!

Weight loss

2010-09-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

Some of my family members are doing a biggest loser competition and I LOVE competition. Something about it really motivates me. I have wanted to lose weight, like most women, but have found it hard with nursing, being a mom to two little kids and working both for a company and inside the home. There have been some women in my ward and family who have lost A LOT of weight lately and I know I can, it just seemed overwhelming. Well when my sister suggested doing this little fun competition I knew that now was a good time to try to get back down to my goal weight. I have put on the right my X factor (like some of my friends have done, thanks for the idea!) and I am excited I am actually losing. I have lost my first 10 lbs and can't wait to be looking and feeling much better in the next few months. Wish me luck!!

Laughing

2010-09-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

My brother and his family came out for a couple of weeks last month and it was so fun to see them. Luckily they had their video camera to capture these cute babies laughing.

Lake Powell

2010-09-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

My mom, kids and I had the opportunity to go to Lake Powell with my Uncle's family and some other extended family. We went for three days and it was sooooooo fun! I was so thankful to go at all even though Mike couldn't go with us. My mom was great and so helpful with my kids. We had a wonderful beach spot that we would go to each day and Brielle was in heaven. Brooklyn did pretty well as well. You can see her sleeping in the last picture. I loved this first one with the moon over the rocks.

She loved the beach and took a 2-3 hour nap each day.

There were rocks all around for the boys to climb. It was so fun.

Brooklyn took a good 2 hour nap that day on the beach. It was such a fun time. It was hard to come home. I thought about quitting my job so I could stay the whole week. Glad I didn't.

My sleeping angels

2010-09-05T06:23:00.000-07:00

Cake

2010-09-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

I made this cake for my cousin's baby's blessing. I thought it turned out cute. Obviously it was on the 4th of July.

4th of July

2010-09-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

So since the 4th of July was on the Sunday, the Stadium of Fire, which we went to courtesy of Mike's work, was on the 3rd and the Provo parade was on the 5th. Here are Brielle, Shimayne (my sister) and Randall (brother-in-law) at the parade route. Brielle loved the parade. It got pretty hot but we made it through most of it.

Here is Brooklyn when she was not screaming :)
Here it the view we had from the Stadium of Fire of the Provo Temple.

We hiked Stewart Falls the morning of the 3rd. Brielle did not take a nap and I was so worried about taking her to Stadium of Fire that night. Luckily she was so good. She did sleep for about 15 minutes during the first part of it and was absolutely thrilled when the fireworks started. My friend Kasha watched Brooklyn. There was no way she would have been happy during it. Thanks Kasha!

Mike's sister Racheal came with us. We had a good time. Carrie Underwood was amazing. She is so talented!

I love the 4th of July. It is probably my 3rd favorite holiday. My Grandma Weight used to pay for all of us to go to the Stadium of Fire. It has been fun going with Mike's work. I love it. It makes me remember my Grandma Weight and the many memories I have with my dad's side of the family on the 4th of July.

Waterfalls

2010-08-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

We have been to three different waterfalls this summer and Brielle has absolutely loved each of them. She talks about waterfalls constantly. Look at how adorable she is! She is getting so big I can't believe it. This was obviously in May/June after she had surgery on her finger. It is still wrapped up in the splint.

I think this is such a cute picture by the Provo River.
Mike and Brielle at the base of Bridal Veil Falls.

Brielle and I in the same spot.

Beautiful Bridal Veil Falls.

I love this waterfall and every time we go past it to go to my parents, Brielle looks for it and it is so excited when she sees it!

This is Stewart Falls. It is quite a hike with a toddler and a baby but so fun and so beautiful.

It is so much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

We first went with one of Mike's coworkers and then took my sister and her family. We had an interesting trip up and back including a couple of people falling and Ariah falling into the river and a kid crying most of the way up and back, but it was still fun.

This is a waterfall that Mike hiked with Brielle and his uncle's family up Big Cottonwood Canyon. It is pretty steep at first and I didn't dare try to hike it with Brooklyn. Below is Bryce (Mike's cousin) and Brielle.

Here is the pretty waterfall. I love waterfalls.

Here are Brielle, Racheal (Mike's sister) and Sarah (Mike's cousin). See how happy Brielle is? Obviously she was carried most of the way up. When they got back down, Brielle said that was fun going to the waterfall. Let's do it again!

Mason (Mike's cousin) and Brielle. I love her pose in this one.

Uncle Paul with Brielle. He carried her most of the way. He is awesome.

We have thoroughly enjoyed this summer. I am sad it is coming to an end. We had a lot of fun going to see many different waterfalls.

Lindon Pool

2010-08-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

My cousin Susie introduced me to this pool and I am in love with it. It is the Lindon Pool and it is perfect for kids. It is $5 for adults and free for my kids. Brielle loves it. It has this pirate part with ships and water slides perfect for kids, then a bigger waterslide, a little pool (1 foot deep), a normal pool, hot tub, a lazy river and a surfing pool. I love it all.

Rachael (Mike's sister) and Brielle. She was so good with Brielle and Brielle didn't wan tto leave her sight.
Brooklyn tried the pool for a while and then got cold, so she sat and warmed up and slept in her car seat.

Jaron's baby blessing - Catch up

2010-08-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, my sister Shell, has kids just after me. I get pregnant and then they decide it is time to come down to Earth. I love it! So her son Jaron was born 5 weeks after Brooklyn. He was blessed in June and we got some great pictures. I sure love him already. He is such a chill baby and just good. He harldy cries and it is so easy to get him to laugh. What a joy! I hope that he and Brooklyn are good friends just like me and my cousins! I love them.

Look at him! I love this picture. Bad angle but I love his smile. What a hunky chunk of a boy!
I love Brooklyn's smile. It makes me melt. It is much easier to get Brooklyn to smile than it was to get Brielle to smile, but Brooklyn does cry more than Brielle did, so we win some and lose some. What cute cousins!

Jump On It - May 2010

2010-08-22T18:13:00.001-07:00

I LOVE THIS PLACE. It is free for anyone 3 and under and Brielle loves it. There are trampolines and blow up things and since I don't participate in the jumping, we go for free. It is so fun and we have done it so many times in the last few months. Here are Brielle and Ariah going down the blow up slide.

My camera does not work so well with jumping so the pictures are blurry but I kind of caught her in the air. The best part is to jump with the balls of course!
I love Brielle's hair in this one.

This is what Brooklyn was doing while the girls were jumping. Look at those beautiful eyes!

I love the tongue sticking out in the pictures. Brielle used to do the same thing.

Prayer of a 2-year old

2010-07-22T08:20:00.000-07:00

Brielle: “Dear Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this day and for the food. Help it to nourish our bodies. Thank Thee for the drinks, mama’s drink, and daddy’s drink. Please help me to watch Little Einstein’s before I go to bed. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.” - I was laughing so hard I had to hide behind Brooklyn to say Amen.

We are starting the potty training process...AAHHH!!

2010-06-17T12:17:00.001-07:00

Any suggestions or things that worked well with your children?

New recipe

2010-06-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

I found this recipe on KSL Studio 5. I have made it a few times and loved it every time. I just made it for Shell's baby's blessing and many asked for the recipe so I thought I would post it on here. It is easy and very very yummy!

Root Beer Float Cake

Ingredients for cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
2 eggs
2 cups root beer
1 3 oz box instant vanilla pudding
1 tsp root beer extract

Mix above ingredients together in bowl. Pour into two rounded greased cake pans and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Let cake cool for 10 minutes and then remove onto wire rack to cool for an additional 30 minutes.

Frosting:
1 8 oz whipped topping, thawed
1 cube melted butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp root beer extract

Topping:
5 crushed root beer flavored candies (this is not necessary but makes the cake look good).

Mix frosting together and frost cake by spreading frosting onto bottom layer of cake. Add top of cake. Top with remaining frosting. Sprinkle crushed root beer candy on top for decoration. Store covered in refrigerator if not eating right away. Enjoy!

Simliarities?

2010-05-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

Can you tell which one is which?

Well this one gives it away since you can see Brielle on the right. I think you can tell they are sisters but do not look to much alike, to me anyway. The biggest difference is that Brielle was 5.5 months and Brooklyn is 2.5 months. I love these girls.

Brielle's surgery

2010-05-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

So after she had her fingers shut in the door the night of Brooklyn's blessing, I knew that something was still wrong with them. They didn't look right. The doctor just told me to leave the splint on for a few days and use antibiotics and she should be fine. Well my pediatrician told me that it didn't look quite right and looked at the x-ray report and said she did break her growth plate. I went and saw a hand specialist and he got more x-rays. He said that the nail bed looked out of place and possible the tendon was torn. He said the best thing was to do surgery so he could get in there and look at it, so she had surgery today. I couldn't let her eat or drink anything before the surgery. Of course they could not get her in first thing and ended up being late, so we didn't get into surgery until 1:30. She was starving and so thirsty. I felt so bad for her. The surgery ended up being pretty extensive, took 1 1/2 hours and her nail bed might be damaged for life. It has been really hard the last couple of days. I have cried a lot. Brielle only cried coming out of the anaesthesia. She is handling this much better than I am. She is such a sweet girl and automatically just switches to using her left hand. What an angel daughter I have. She will have to have this splint on for four weeks and then the doctor will remove the pin that he put in. Hopefully the tendon will reattach and the growth plate for both the nail and the bone are not too damaged permanently. I think this is definitely harder on me than Brielle. She is doing really well. Thank you for your prayers. We really appreciate them.

All about me.

2010-05-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

Red= I've done it. Green=I haven't done it yet, but hopefully will. Black= It will never happen or I hope it will never happen
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea (at Lake Powell, does that count?)
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice (oh how I wish!)
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance (knock on wood...)
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud (eww I hate the mud)
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching (I would love to)
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp (that makes me so sad, I don’t think I could handle it).
67. Bounced a check, Yes, unfortunately. How embarrassing.
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood stuff animal.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar (I HATE FISH with a passion. I have tried almost all kinds of fish and cannot handle the aftertaste of fish).
72. Pieced a quilt (I have helped my grandma tie quilts. I’m not sure what it means to piece a quilt).
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job (never…hopefully never will happen)
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone (again, knock on wood, but I did tear my ACL, lateral and medial meniscus playing volleyball. It was the first home game of my senior season. Unfortunately the ACL heals a lot slower than a broken bone and so I was out for the rest of the season!)
78. Been on a motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car (we leased one)
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible (by myself or with my family? I know we did as a family, but personally I have never gotten all the way through the old testament)
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (I think I would become a vegetarian).
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Own a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100.Visited India

Here are a couple of extra things, confessions.

- I feel extremely guilty every time I let Brielle watch TV, every time.
- I think I watch more sports than some guys (I watch every Jazz and BYU football game), and sometimes even more than that.
- I LOVE CHOCOLATE. I cannot have it while nursing again and so I eat every other sweet I can get my hands on just to make up for not being able to eat chocolate. It is awful.
- I leave my daughters (when really young) in their clothes/pajamas until they blow out or smell so bad from spit up that I need to change them. Sometimes it is just a few minutes after I change them and sometimes it is more than a day.
- I have never sworn, not once, in my entire life.
- I use to have a fairly decent voice (Mike and I would sing duets together) but when I was pregnant with my twin girls my voice lowered a lot. It has not come back all the way and it has been one of the hardest things I have had to deal with, not being able to sing the way I use to. I used to cry every Sunday singing the hymns because I couldn’t stand the way I sounded anymore.
- Since entering Relief Society almost 10 years ago (excluding my singles ward), I have probably attended Relief Society less than 6 months of Sundays combined. I have always been in Primary or Young Women’s.
- I have to do IVF to get pregnant.
- I thought I would never yell at my kids because I never remember my mom yelling at me, but find I raise my voice more than I would like.
- I sing and read to my daughters every day and usually a couple of times a day.
- We want to move up to the Salt Lake Valley again so Mike does not have such a long commute, especially with the road construction going on now.
- I don’t like the smell of rain (I know, I know. I just lost a lot of your respect on this one).
- I was married at age 19 and knew for years that I would be getting married at a young age.
- I love my daughters more than anything and I TRY never to take a single day for granted because I know they will be gone faster than I would like.

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

I want to wish a happy mother's day to you beautiful, smart, talented, spiritual and amazing women out there. Yes you (if you are a woman), each of you are so wonderful and I am so lucky to be surrounded by such incredible mothers. I especially am so grateful for my mother. She is one of the most incredible women in this world. She taught me so much about love and the gospel and being a mother. I am so thankful for my beautiful daughters who I love more than anything. I feel so blessed to be a mother. When I was little, all I wanted to be was a mother. I am grateful, so grateful, that the Lord has seen fit to bless me with these incredible girls to be an early mother to. Thanks to Bob and Shari for these adorable matching dresses. They fit perfectly and it made me so happy to put them in them for mother's day! Happy Mother's day!

Brooklyn's blessing day

2010-05-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, May 2nd, we blessed Brooklyn. We started off happy and ended in tears. It was a beautiful day (not because of the weather but the spirit) with a beautiful blessing. Many family and friends came. We are so grateful for their love and support. After sacrament meeting, we came back here for food. It was yummy and we surprisingly fit around 55 people in our house/garage to eat. It was a great time. The tears came at the end when I was going to deliver back some tables and chairs to people we had borrowed them from. I opened the garage door and let Brielle start going towards the car. I went and grabbed a table and started out the front door. Well because it was so windy, it blew through the house and slammed the door shut on Brielle's beautiful little fingers. I was so sad and she was crying hysterically. I took her to the doctor and then to the hospital and found it had fractured her middle finger. Mike went and got her antibiotics and we have been keeping her going on Tylenol. I just keep imaging it in my

head and wondering how I could have been so stupid. Thankfully, she is doing pretty well and is resilient. Overall it was a good day, just a sad ending.

This was the morning of her blessing.
Isn't this dress absolutely amazing? My mom got it for her at White Elegance and I cannot believe how much I love it. It was hard to take it off of her.

Here are some family members of Mike who came.

This is a four generations shot of my grandma, Brooklyn, me and my mom.

Here is our family of four now. Wow, time flies. I feel like I was just in high school last week. In fact I still dream about being in high school all the time.

Here are my Uncle Randy and Aunt Meri. I was sad that we did not get pictures with everyone. It just went too fast.

Here are my mom's parents. They are wonderful people and I

am so glad that they were there with us.

This is Mike's Uncle Paul and his family. We love them so much!

Brooklyn with a cute expression in her beautiful dress.

Daddy and Brooklyn.

My favorite younger sister and her family with Brooklyn

(and yes I do only have one younger sister but she is my favorite!)

Brooklyn was so good during the blessing and was wide awake just staring around.

My parents with Brooklyn

Brooklyn and her new cousin Jaron.

My beautiful daughters. How did I get to be so lucky to have such amazing daughters? I thank Heavenly Father every day for them. We missed you Chris and Lisa and your family and Donovan and Teah and your family. We know you would have been there if you could!

Finally, I put on some pictures!

2010-03-31T13:42:00.001-07:00

When Michelle had her baby I checked everyday to see if she had uploaded pictures of her beautiful baby. Then look at me, it takes me three weeks to do it! Sorry it has taken me so long to upload pictures of mine. I couldn't find my camera for a while. Then I got Brielle and Brooklyn in cute dresses and before I could get any pictures, Brooklyn threw up all over herself and her dress, so that plan was ruined. Today I just took some, without really cute clothes on, but I think they turned out okay.

Brielle being a 2-year-old

2010-03-17T15:52:00.000-07:00

Brielle and Brooklyn

2010-03-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn Noel Gulbrandsen is here!

2010-03-11T08:47:00.000-08:00

YAY!! She finally made her way into our family on my birthday, March 9, 2010, weighing 7 lbs 4 oz and 19.5 inches long and is perfect. I love these pictures. I just couldn't come to post one of myself yet. They are SOOOOOO bad, but I love this one of Mike, Brielle and Brooklyn. Brielle absolutely loves her baby sister so far and is being so sweet and soft with her. I cannot believe how much I have missed being around Brielle these last few days. She is such a sweet girl and makes me laugh.
Here are a couple of the people who have come so far. Sorry I have not gotten pictures of everyone. This is Mike's beautiful little cousin Sarah with Brooklyn.

This is my sweet cousin Susie and her mom, Aunt Meri, who are so thoughtful and sweet and brought Brooklyn and I some presents.

More pictures to come. Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and for all of the well wishes with our beautiful new daughter Brooklyn. We are doing really well. We love you all!

It is finally baby time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-09T06:13:00.000-08:00

So we are finally having our little girl. We are at the hospital now and Sharene is at about a 5. So far so good. The doctor came in about a half hour ago and broke her water. I guess the baby just wanted to wait and be a birthday present for her mom.

-Mike-

Day 3 napping place

2010-03-05T14:11:00.000-08:00

This is right in front of the door with the blanket covering her and Fedelina (her stuffed cat). I could barely open it enough to get this picture. Why did we get a big girl's bed again? Oh well, at least I'm entertained while I'm not having this baby yet! What a funny girl.

Perfect Prayer

2010-03-04T17:19:00.000-08:00

Brielle: Heavenly Father, We thank thee for this day. Thank thee for my mac and cheese. Bless baby sister to be healthy. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

Brought tears to my eyes.

New nap place

2010-03-04T14:04:00.000-08:00

Obviously her bed is not comfortable enough!

Naps

2010-03-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

Brielle has pretty much stopped taking naps. That is one reason we got her a big girl bed, because she was not taking naps anyway, so she might as well play in her room for her "nap time." For the last few days though she has been sick and so has actually taken a nap. The funny part is, she has taken naps in her closet which is where I found her after her nap yesterday. She gave me this look when I took her picture and I laughed SOOOOO hard. She is the master of dirty looks, since the day she was born. I love this picture. She had put on her hat which her Aunt Lisa had made, taken off her pants and put a blanket around her bottom half. She asked me if I liked her pretty dress after she woke up.

No baby yet....

2010-03-03T18:10:00.000-08:00

It says I have 0 days left which is true. My due date has come and gone and unfortunately she thinks she needs more time inside me. I know I post about my sisters a lot but I am so thankful for them. Today my younger sister came down with her little one. Brielle and I needed it so much. She needed someone to play with and I needed someone to talk to who also went past her due date. It was so fun. Thank you Shell and Ariah!

I promise I will let you all know when this baby comes, but as of right now, she has no desire to come. Hopefully she will soon....

Thank you Grandma Cherie for the new hat and scarf!!

2010-03-01T10:19:00.001-08:00

Less than 2 weeks to go.....getting very excited!

2010-02-18T15:40:00.001-08:00

From crib to bed

2010-02-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

So I love blogs so I can get advice. For all those moms who have already done this...what is the best method you have found for transitioning a toddler from her crib to a bed? How long does this usually take? I have been hoping that I could avoid it until after this baby was born, but I just watched Brielle climb out of her crib in about 5 seconds and I don't think I can wait much longer. Can I get your advice on what works and what doesn't work? I would really appreciate it!

Jumping jelly beans

2010-02-01T07:37:00.000-08:00

Brielle LOVES to jump. She pretty much hops most places she wants to go. It is so cute. So she learned she could jump from the couch to the love sac. She was getting pretty high so I tried to get some pictures of her in the air, and I actually did.

Music

2010-01-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

My good friend Amy did a post about her kids and some other kids they are friends with and I loved it. It brought tears to my eyes because these kids were singing a song that I taught them in primary and the Spirit is so strong when these kids sing! It made me think about Brielle and how much I love when she sings. She got a baby doll for her birthday that she has rarely played with. Well she received a cute set of things for her baby doll for Christmas from our good friends the Paynes including a little pack-n-play, a stroller, a bouncer and some other cute things. Well Brielle was putting her baby doll in the pack-n-play and I asked her if she wanted to sing a song to her baby doll. Without another thought she started singing I Am a Child of God to the doll. I almost started crying. It was the sweetest thing ever. I am so thankful for music and the role it can have in our lives. There is not much else that can bring tears to my eyes faster than children singing beautiful songs with their sweet voices. I am so thankful for my calling that I am able to hear children sing sweet primary songs each week. I am so lucky and I am so thankful for music!

Weight Family Christmas Party

2010-01-05T19:31:00.001-08:00

I didn't get any pictures of our family Stoddard party, but here are the pictures of the Weight party.

This is my dad and Brielle.

I think this is the first picture I have ever gotten of Brielle and Ariah smiling! WAHOO!!
Brielle with her very high pigtails!

Here is Ariah, Brielle's cute cousin.

My mom and Brielle.

Last picture of Weight party.

2010-01-05T19:30:00.000-08:00

I am not sure why I could not put this one with the others. Oh well. I love this picture!

Ward Christmas Party 2009

2010-01-05T18:59:00.001-08:00

I am on the activities committee for our ward and this year we decided to do the Polar Express for our ward. I thought it was such a great idea and I think it was really a lot of fun to do. It took a lot of work, but mainly because I brought in on myself, but I love doing Christmas things, so it was totally worth it.

Here is Brielle with Santa. We have been preparing her for weeks telling her that Santa was going to come and she would sit on his lap and not cry and then he would give her a present. Surprisingly she did fabulous all three times she talked to Santa this year! Yea for preparation and for Brielle!!!

Here is Brielle's good friend Molly. I absolutely love this picture. She is delighted to be sitting on Santa's lap.
Here is a picture of some of the snowflakes I made and hung from wall to wall.

Here are our cute table decorations. We had a cute tree in the middle and then candy down the middle!

Here are the tickets I made as invitations to look like the Polar Express tickets! I cut them all out (along with my sister's help) and I hope people enjoyed them. They were fun to do!

We had a cute train coming out of a tunnel. It was a joy trying to keep the kids off of it, but they did fairly well.

Here is our stage set up for when Santa came.

Santa's list of children's names. Our activities chairman is awesome! She wrote them all out! What a cute idea.

More snowflakes.

Here is our envelope to Santa.

Leaves

2009-11-19T15:16:00.000-08:00

I love the fall and was so upset when I never went up the canyon and took pictures with the leaves. We had a lot fall in our backyard and so I raked them up and we did an impromptu photo shoot. I love them!!

Brielle turned 2 - can you believe it?

2009-11-17T13:36:00.000-08:00

My baby is 2? Parents always say their kids grow up too fast and I cannot believe my little 4 lb 4 oz baby girl is 2 years old and wearing 2T clothing! She is the light of my life and I am so grateful for her. Especially on her birthday I am grateful for her but it is just a little hard thinking about her sweet twin sister who could not join us on earth. Just before her birthday, we found out that she will be having a sister! We are so excited. I didn't think she was going to have a sister and so we are thrilled that she will. She loves giving her baby sister hugs and kisses through mommy's tummy. Just the other day, she said Mama I want my baby sister to come out so I can hold her (of course it was not a perfect sentence, but pretty close). She is so sweet and will be such a great big sister. I love you Brielle and am so grateful that Heavenly Father allowed us to have the miracle of having you in our lives!

This toy is from our good friends the Gentiles who just moved to Ohio. We are going to miss them so much!

We had so many family and friends come and Brielle was so happy to have everyone there. She got some great presents!

Here is Ariah in one of Brielle's birthday present bags.

Brielle, Ariah and Grandma

2009-11-17T13:31:00.000-08:00

My sweet mom got Brielle and Ariah these matching outfits and I love them. I love that Ariah is like Brielle's twin. They are the same size so we can dress them like twins. It is so fun!

Yellowstone - September

2009-11-17T12:59:00.001-08:00

My parents made it possible for Mike and I to go to Yellowstone together without Brielle. We had a great time. Mike was sick but he tried so hard to not let it hinder our trip and I think we both really enjoyed ourselves overall. Of course we took hundreds of pictures but these were some of my favorites. If you have not been to Yellowstone, plan to go next year. It is so fun and so many beautiful places to see and go. I don't think the pictures need explaining.

Yea I found my camera, pictures to come...

2009-11-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

Carving pumpkins

2009-10-30T11:07:00.001-07:00

I love carving pumpkins. We have a tradition with my sister and her husband Randall to carve pumpkins every year together. Last year we had some great ones and this year we did too. Here they are from left to right:

1st one - Mike
2nd one - Sharene
3rd one - Shimayne
4th one - Randall

I think it is such a fun tradition and I hope Brielle likes it as much as I do!

Halloween

2009-10-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have not posted for a long time. I cannot find my camera! AHHH!! My husband and I went to Yellowstone in September and had a fabulous time while my parents watched Brielle. It was a nice getaway and we got some great pictures which I will post later.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year. I love decorating for it. I love the fall weather where I can start having hot chocolate and soup whenver I want. I LOVE IT! One of my favorite parts now is dressing up my little girl for Halloween. My sister-in-law Teah got this adorable Dorothy outfit for Brielle and I have been so excited to dress her up in it. She was even cuter than I imagined! Enjoy!

Our last couple of months

2009-09-06T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I'm not the kind of mom that likes to let Brielle eat by herself because it causes more of a mess to clean up. But this time I let her eat Mac and Cheese with ketchup (yes it came from my husband, ketchup on Mac and Cheese). Anyway she ate the whole bowl pretty much by herself. She looked just too cute afterward not to take a picture.

I loved this outfit and love that Brielle will smile on cue now for pictures!
Mike got this cute water ball for Brielle for summer. She has loved it. She is sitting in a garbage can lid with some water in it. She had so much fun playing in it.

We had cousins visit for a few weeks this summer. Here is her cousin Tennyson.

Here are Brielle, Ariah and Treytion playing with the ball. What a great investment.
Love these girls and their adorable swimming suits.

Well what can I say about the below pictures....yes they are from the 4th of July and it is September but I just downloaded these. I didn't get any really good ones, but we had a fun 4th of July with family and friends. Here is grandma, Brielle and Ariah.

Brielle with her cute camping chair. She didn't sit in it much but it is a cute chair!

Here is a lot of our group!

Happy 4th of July :)

My wonderful older sister

2009-08-31T08:28:00.000-07:00

So this picture is over a year old, but it is still one of my favorites. I blogged about my younger sister and now I need to blog about my older one. I love my older sister. We have always been close because there are two boys in between us so we had to stick together! She has always been so sweet to me and I remember her telling us stories when we were little and reading to us (Shell and I). We are so lucky to live about 5 minutes away from her and her husband right now. It is so fun. We get together almost every week for FHE and that has been so nice. She also babysits for me ALL the time and never lets me compensate her! Brielle absolutely loves her. I'm so thankful for you Shimayne! Thanks for being such an awesome older sister. I love you!!

My amazing younger sister

2009-08-11T07:12:00.000-07:00

This is my amazing younger sister, Shelleen. She is so talented in so many ways!

A couple of weeks ago, Shell came down to my house, did all my dishes, cleaned up my front room, mowed my lawn, got laundry done, helped take care of my little girl and made dinner for Mike and I! She is such an angel. She knows that I have a hard time when I am pregnant and so she came down to help us out. She knows how I feel because she has a really hard time when she is pregnant as well so I just wanted to tell her how much I love her and appreciate everything she does for me and my family. Thanks Shell!! You are the best and I'm so grateful you are my sister! I love you!

Saga of pregnancy and my sweet, sweet husband.

2009-08-10T07:05:00.000-07:00

So obviously I have not been feeling well lately. It makes me so happy when women feel really good when they are pregnant. I think it is so awesome when it happens, but unfortunately I am not one of those people. I feel sick 95% of the time and I have NO ambition to do ANYTHING. I can't think of anything to eat since NOTHING tastes good or sounds good. I have no energy to clean the house or do any work. I can barely get through the day taking care of Brielle. So how do you feed your kids when you cannot even think of a single thing to eat yourself that you can keep down? It is so hard for me to think of anything to feed her. Any ideas? How do you stop from feeling so incredibly lazy and so incompetent when you are pregnant? Of course I know that being pregnant is important and no one else can take care of this baby but me; however, I feel like other women can handle pregnancy so much better than I can and can actually do things when they are pregnant. How do you do it? How do you find ambition when you don't feel well?

My huband is so sweet. When he comes home, he cleans up and makes dinner for us. He is so loving and thoughtful and I cannot believe what a wonderful man I married. He knows I do not feel well and have no energy but still it has to be hard coming home after a long day to a dirty house with no dinner every night. I'm so sorry honey. We just celebrated our 7th anniversary the other day and it was so great to just be with him and have lunch and go to a movie. We have had 7 wonderful years. I am so blessed to be his wife. I am so lucky he takes such good care of us, especially when I'm pregnant and cannot seem to take care of myself. I love you Mike. Happy Anniversary!

Could it be?

2009-08-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

It's true, It's true. Here comes baby #2! I am pregnant with #2 and we could not be more excited! I did have to do in-vitro again but we are so happy it worked. I am about 10 weeks along and have a feeling this pregnancy is going to go much better than the last one!

Brielle

2009-07-14T16:37:00.000-07:00

I decided to do a post on telling what Brielle is doing now instead of just pictures. Brielle is almost 21 months and hit the terrible 2 stage about 2 months ago. She can talk a lot which I thought would mean we would not go through a terrible 2 stage because she can say about everything she wants. She can be the sweetest thing but sometimes, like just this second, she just hit me in the face. Any thoughts on controlling this? I put her in time out after she hits me once and I let her know that is wrong and she should not do that again or she will go in timeout and then generally she does not do it again. It is so sad to me when I am just playing with her and she turns around and hits me. What do I do? She also just started throwing things. She will throw things high up into the air and hit me or my computer or another person. It can be a little painful.

She can be so sweet and loving. The other day she grabbed me and gave me a big hug with her arms, not just her head leaning in, and held me for about 20 seconds. I absolutely melted!

She loves motorcycles. She gets so excited every time she sees one on the street. She loved going to the 4th of July parade and seeing the motorcycles that went past her.

She loves to draw but mostly it is with a pen that I have taken out the ink part so she can go free and do what she wants and I don't have to worry about her getting ink all over.

Brielle LOVES her grandma. She fell last week and cut her lip open on the corner of my nightstand. We spent a lot of the day in the ER. The WHOLE TIME she wanted her grandma. My mom was there with me and I couldn't have done it without her. Brielle was very upset anytime I was holding her. She wanted her grandma but she did want me NEAR her.

Brielle loves music and can sing most words to I am a Child of God, I Love to see the Temple, Families Can Be Together Forever, Don't Stop Believing and Teach me to Walk in the Light. I love to hear her sing. It makes me so happy.

Brielle is a great sleeper. She, most nights, will sleep for 12 hours and takes usually a 1.5 hour nap during the day.

She LOVES LOVES LOVES the water, anything to do with water. I will water the garden and she loves sticking her hands out so the water falls on them. She loves bath time and she loves going to the pool. It is definitely a struggle to get her away from water and much screaming is involved, on both her part and my part.

She does not usually walk but runs wherever she goes. She loves to go on walks and I think I may start abandoning the stroller. I just usually push the stroller and hold her hand. She is usually a very good sharer. If someone takes something she had, she will usually just find something else to play with.

She does NOT love to eat. It is a struggle getting her to eat very much of anything except macaroni and cheese (I know healthy right?). If she eats what I think is a good amount, she will throw it all up either right there on the tray or later in the day.

I almost forgot....she is one of the most obedient little girls I know. I'm sure she will not always be this obedient, but 90% of the time she will listen when I tell her to come to me or do something, like close a door or put one of her toys away. I feel so blessed to have such an obedient child!

We absolutely love her and think she is so cute and funny most of the time. We are so blessed to have her in our lives. She is a miracle baby and we are so lucky to have her in our family. I love you Brielle!

Grandma, Grandpa, Brielle and roses

2009-06-14T16:15:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures I took of our roses. I thought they turned out pretty good!!
We ate at the Italian place yesterday and then we took a couple of pictures. Yes we are standing in the middle of a parking lot which is the perfect place for a photo shoot, don't you think? This is Brielle kissing my mom. I thought it turned out sooo cute!!

My parents with Brielle.

My dad and Brielle.

Pretty in Pigtails

2009-06-13T20:47:00.000-07:00

This is our couch potato Brielle. She loves watching two things, Finding Nemo and the American Idols singing Don't Stop Believing. We try not to let her watch too much but it definitely happens when I'm trying to make dinner.

I can finally do Brielle's hair in pigtails and I love it. She looks so cute in them. She looks like a little girl instead of a baby. What a cutie!!
Pretty in pink.............

This picture makes me laugh because my older sister had the same face when she was about this age. Love it!

Brielle's first camping trip

2009-06-11T16:15:00.000-07:00

So we went on our first camping trip with Brielle. I was really worried about the sleeping part. We had an awesome tent which had a partition. I thought we would just dress her warm and put her in her pack and play like usual when we go anywhere. I was hoping it would work, but it didn't. She went right to sleep because it was so late. We got to bed around 11:30 and then around midnight Brielle woke up screaming. We let her cry for a while but then knew it would be waking up everyone else so we got her and brought her into our bed with us. We gave her milk and hoped she would just go back to sleep. Well with her being in our bed she thought it was playtime! She played for a good hour to hour and a half before she finally would take her bottle again and try to go to sleep. I kept her in our bed because it was cold and it started thundering and lightening. Every time she moved I would wake up. I probably got 2-3 hours of sleep that night. It was crazy. How do you go camping with a little one and get any sleep??

Here is the camper that Mike's dad brought. It was really nice. This is Celeste (Mike's step mom) and Brielle in front of the camper.

This is Brielle in her new camping chair Mike got. She loved it and looked so cute in it!

This was our view. It was so beautiful! We overall had a great time. Brielle loved being outside and she took a good nap so I took a nap as well. Overall it was a lot of fun but I'm just trying to figure out how to get her to sleep better at night. Maybe once she can sleep in a sleeping bag it will be better.

New OB/GYN

2009-06-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Hi All. I'm looking for a new OB/GYN to go to. I went to the Provo OB/GYN clinic before and I would not like to go back. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? If you love your doctor, I would really appreciate it if you would leave the name or clinic of your doctor either in the Utah Valley or in SLC so I can see if they work for me. Thank you so much!!

Easter 2009

2009-05-31T20:38:00.000-07:00

I know you are shocked I am posting twice in one month!! Wahoo. I know Easter was over a month ago, but I just got these pictures from Mike's camera and they turned out so cute. My baby is growing up.....

I think this one is one of my favorites. I don't like my arm in it, but she looks so cute!!

Dad's retirement party

2009-05-25T15:15:00.001-07:00

For those of you who are not related to me, this may be a very long boring post. So you can skip to the next one....for those of you who might be more interested, we threw a surprise retirement party for my dad. He has been teaching at Union High School for 35 years and is retiring next week. He has taught so many students and we wanted to show him how appreciated he is. We got a pretty good turn out. We would have loved more, but oh well. I did a book of family and students who wrote tributesto him. Now that he knows about it, if you did not write one and would like to, please e-mail me at sharenew@hotmail.com. My goal is to keep getting more people to write a thought, memory or thanks to him to add to his book. Please take a few minutes to write a tribute if you have not. Okay, here we go... The first few pictures are the set up.

We had tacos, taquitos and nachos as well as Spanish rice for the food.
We also had bowls of yummy fruit and some cookies for dessert.

We had a few tables set up to eat on.

Here is the incredible cake that Shell did. There is a little Tabasco sauce in the top left hand corner, a little trinket they got in Mexico on the bottom left corner, a drivers ed car on the right and a chess board in the middle. She also did the colors like the Mexican flag and had cute cougar paw prints on the side. She worked so hard and it looked incredible!! Great job Shell.

These next few pictures are a display table for him.

Here are my mom and dad right after he walked in and was surprised. My mom had even put a picture and article in the Standard (The newspaper in the Uintah Basin). She cut it out as soon as they got it, and so he still didn't know. It was a great surprise party!

My sister Shimayne was in charge of the decorations and I knew as soon as I saw everything she brought why I put her in charge. She did an INCREDIBLE job. They were absolutely perfect.

These are all of the classes that my dad has taught throughout the years. My mom had also done many posters of him doing various things. They were a big hit because many students got to see themselves in the different clubs he was over.

Spanish club....

Here are pictures of him throughout the years and then pictures of our family. My favorite was from January 2008 where there were 6 grandchildren to November 2008 where there were 10 grandchildren.

Chess club. My dad taught all of us to play chess. We love it.

Here are our good friends and my parent's neighbors, the Boggios.

The Weiss's, although that is not any of their last names now.

Shell and Ariah.

My dad, Brielle and Ariah.

Mom, Dad and the Davis's who used to be in our ward and are good friends of our family.

Mike in his wicked awesome sombrero.

The Todds. They were our next door neighbors for many years. We were very sad when they moved away. We love them very much!!

Here are our cute cousins: Aunt Meri, Amy and Susie.

Here is Brielle. She did fairly well for the whole ordeal.

Here again is Shell and her amazing cake.

Here is my dad and our good friend Charles (Chuck) Embleton. He was Donovan's best friend growing up and just part of the family. We love him. He was there at the beginning and stayed until the end and helped clean up. He is a good friend. He goes over and plays chess with my dad quite often. My dad loves that.

Overall the whole thing was a success. My whole family worked so hard, especially my mom, and I think the whole thing was a success and we all had a good time. We love you dad. Thanks for all of your hard work in teaching us not only in the classroom but also at home!!

New Pictures of Brielle and Ariah

2009-05-25T15:00:00.001-07:00

Here is Brielle and Ariah at my parents house playing with bubbles!

Here is my dad reading to Ariah and Brielle
Here are our cute girls (mine and my sisters) in the tub
Ariah and Brielle playing on grandma and grandpa's stairs

I love this one of Brielle. I think it is so cute!!

I love these girls. I know I have said it before, but I'm so grateful that Ariah (Brielle's cousin) came when she did so Brielle can have a 'twin' sister. I love her just like my own daughter! She is such a sweetheart and I love that she and Brielle get to spend so much time together!!

Brielle chasing a laser

2009-05-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

New Recipe on the side - check it out!

2009-04-25T17:27:00.001-07:00

This is the greatest sound in the world again...

2009-03-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

Brielle dancing with my mom's glasses on

2009-03-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

Ariah (Brielle's twin from a different mother and father) lying on Brielle's lap

2009-03-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

Brielle carrying Peas and Carrots

2009-03-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

Birthday and fun with no pictures

2009-03-12T07:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry this has no pictures. I'm terrible at taking pictures. Anyway I had a birthday this week and both Mike and I took the day off. It was sooooo nice! We had a great day just relaxing and spending it together. We went to The Cheesecake Factory (my favorite restaurant) and relaxed and played games. The best part was that for my birthday Mike gave me WII Fit!! YES!!!!! I'm so excited. I have had so much fun working out this week. What a great idea to have fun while you work out!?!? Here we gooo...500 pounds lighter in the next year is my goal!! There are many different things on there including yoga, strength training, balance games and cardio. It is a blast working and trying to beat your previous scores. I have to admit that I am terrible at the hoola hooping, but I'm working on it! Thanks Mike - I love it and I love you!!

Steel my Heart

2009-03-04T10:18:00.000-08:00

So my cousin does this thing called Steel my Heart. I have a cute little bracelet for Brielle and I think many of you moms would love it either for yourself or your little ones. I think I'm going to have a little party so you can see if you want anything. You can look and see if it is something you will be interested in. I'm thinking of doing it either on March 21st or 28th. For those of you who would be interested in coming, which Saturday woud be better?

http://nh.yoursmh.com/Home.m

Temple

2009-02-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

So I am currently looking for a friend/relative to go with me at least one day a month on the Saturday 7:00 am session. Is anyone interested in going with me this Saturday? I like to do it then so I can be home pretty close after Brielle gets up and I have the rest of the day to do what I want. Let me know if you are. If not, I understand, it is an early one on a Saturday morning!

Cuteness

2009-02-22T18:37:00.000-08:00

So a lot of my friends post cute things that their kids say and it is one of my favorite posts. I have never done that because Brielle doesn't use many phrases yet obviously.

I thought this was cute today though and had to post it. Mike had Brielle in Sunday school and he said that she was doing pretty good. Generally it is hard for us to make it through church since her nap time is usually between 11:30 and 12:30 and our church starts at 11. Anyway, he was holding her in Sunday school and she was sucking on a toy. All of a sudden she looks up at Mike and says "bye bye, bye bye." Mike asked her if she wanted to go night night and she said "night, night, bye, bye." I wish I could have been there. She is so much fun and saying so many things now. I think my favorite thing she says is applesauce. I will try to post a video of her saying that soon.

A long awaited update

2009-02-20T21:45:00.000-08:00

I started babysitting this adorable little boy a couple of times a week, named Carter. He and Brielle get along really well and it has been so fun. This is one of the best pictures. He loves pushing this toy and Brielle loves riding it so it works out very nicely. So cute!
I love Brielle wearing Mike's hat. I need to find a BYU one for her now!

I babysat my cousins for 6 days. We stayed at their house in Riverton and had a great time. This is a cute tiara/halo thing of her cousin Katie. I couldn't get Brielle to wear it long enough to get a good picture, but you get the idea.

This is my adorable niece Ariah. Her mom is pushing her down the hall on this said toy, and I love her face, but especially her hair.

This is my cousin Ammon. He and Brielle got along really well. I wish Brielle was looking at the camera, but I loved the hats on them.

I love this stage that Brielle is in. She is so funny, smiles constantly and talks all of the time. She says so many words and tries to make us laugh. She does not sass me and if she tries to walk away from me, it just makes me laugh because she is still really slow on the walking. I feel like the luckiest mom in the world to have this beautiful fun baby girl. She makes me happy and makes me feel complete. I don't know what I did to be so lucky to have her, but I'm glad that Heavenly Father considered me worthy to have this angel in my life. As for Mike and I, we just continue to work and do our church callings (Mike is the choir director and stake auditor and I am the primary choirster and on the activities committee). We are doing great and loving life!

Our little Christmas elf

2009-01-21T17:07:00.000-08:00

I thought I had posted this picture, but in looking back, I don't see it. I think it is so cute. Mike put her pants on her head and she loved it!

Some of the best pictures

2009-01-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

Mike was rubbing Brielle's hands over his goatee and she was laughing so hard. I love these pictures!

Christmas

2008-12-28T19:40:00.000-08:00

This is Mike's sister Rachael and Brielle. She and Celeste (Mike's step mom) watched Brielle so we could go snowmobiling with Mike's Dad. We had a great time and I came home to this. It was so awesome!
This is the sight Mike saw on one his snowmobiling excursions. Isn't it breathtaking?

This is on our excursion with Mike's dad.

Mike took this picture and then I said, oh honey turn around and take it.
This was the view from the other side. It was incredible!

We had a great time swimming in the indoor pool, playing WII, playing Ticket to Ride and snowmobiling. We had a fabulous Christmas. I hope all of you did too. What did you do that was fun?

More Christmas stuff

2008-12-28T19:33:00.000-08:00

1st good snowfall in Provo. I think we got over a foot. It was awesome!

Stoddard Family Party. Brielle did a little better but still didn't like Santa unless she was about 10 feet away. Before we went up, she kept saying Santa, Santa, Santa, Santa, over and over again. It was so funny!

This was the wig Mike got for Christmas at the Weight Family Party. It was a good laugh.

Here is Ariah on the right and Brielle on the left. Sorry it is kind of hard to see their faces. Brielle is screaming and Ariah is just looking at Santa. Don't they look adorable?