Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Brigham the Magician

For the Gringo's Christmas party this year we decided to bring in a magician. He did magic tricks for an hour and dazzled us all. We had a great time. Here is video of Brigham helping with the act. Forgive my annoying laughter and shaking of the camera. I will never claim to be a professional. Here is part of the Gringo's clan enjoying the show.

Ricks Elves

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Trees

I was hoping that putting up the Christmas decorations would get me in the spirit of Christmas but so far no luck so I thought we would go check out the trees at the college, and go to the Planetarium show about the Christmas star. That should get us in the Christmas spirit right!?! I am the last to say that I am ready for some snow! I think that will be the key to making it feel more like Christmas. For now, I guess all of my tactics will just have to do. We will decorate a gingerbread house for FHE and I am banking on that to get me a little closer. For now Bah hum bug!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving this year was with my Mom's side of the family. Since we were gathering as a larger group we decided to hold it at Gringos. It turned out very nice and it was fun seeing the family again. Gigi and Shaylee meeting for the first time. Rico, Scott, Brandon and Logan eating the grub. Mom, Dad, Aunt Evelyn and Mark(y)--we used to call him Marky as kids so I have a hard time not saying that now that he is an adult. Aunt Pat's Family and Gigi Kelli, Shane, Shaylee and my kids with Aunt Gail's family in the background.

Water is Blind

We had a Thanksgiving dinner Sunday with Scott's family and Grandma Ricks was filling Brigham's glass with water. He looked into his glass and said "water is blind" and Grandma and I both looked at him and asked why and he said "because you can't see it" I guess that makes perfect sense to a three year old. I got a kick out of it.

3 Year Old Dilemas

Brigham came to me today with a big dilema. "I can't draw" he says with a very defeated tone. So I proceed to tell him I would teach him how to draw. His picture of choice was a person with a backpack on so I showed him how if you use shapes and lines and put them together it will create a person. He makes an attempt (see the scribbles)comes back, not too happy once again. We go over the concept again. This time we draw Briggy with his underwear on since that is all I see anymore (I can't keep clothes on the kid). He does not like that I drew the undies but oh well. A few hours pass and Briggy finally gets a picture he is proud of. (I did help him a little but it didn't seem to phase him) He drew the shoe laces all by himself. Good Job Briggy!

I am officially counting down my days until the Celine Dion Concert next Friday in SLC. Last year at the company Christmas party a few of us were talking about how fun it would be to have a girls weekend and go. Darci bought tickets a few days later and Ashley, Kassie, Darci and I are lucky to get to go. Darci and Kassie just had babies so we decided to bring our husbands along so they could babysit. (How thoughtful are we). I am still leaving my kids home (with supervision) so that we can get some Christmas shopping done without having to hide toys under a coat when the kids are with us.

Halloween

Here are the pictures of our Halloween fun. We started out the day at Haylee's classroom party. We made fun skeleton cupcakes to bring for all of the kids the night before. All of the kids in Haylee's class looked so cute! We decided to make life easy and go to the ward trunk-or-treat and then just visit the Grandparents and call it a day. Luckily we didn't have any other lavish plans because Brigham ended up throwing up at my parents house (sorry Mom). We went straight home and I spent the rest of the evening, all through the night dealing with Brigham and Haylee throwing up all night. Scott left on a campout to go hunting today so I was stuck with trying to be with both of them at once. It is hard to cuddle two kids who want their mommy. I would spend a little time with one wait til the other wined and go be with them and played musical kids all day. Needless to say, I am exhausted and still get to put a few hours of work in yet tonight. Ugh! Hope everyone else had a better Halloween. P.S.-Over eating on candy was not a factor in their being sick. The poor kids haven't even touched their buckets yet. I will keep my fingers crossed that the rest of us don't end up sick.

Birthday Pics

Here are pictures from Brigham's big day. He had a lot of fun. I took the day off from work so I could spend it with B. We made his cake together and he was thrilled that he didn't have to fight with his sisters over who got to crack the egg etc. Even better, he got to lick the entire bowl all by himself. Here is the finished product. He was so proud of his Spiderman cake. He also got a Batman toy that has all sorts of gadgets, a transformer that is lame and doesn't really transform, and a cool Spiderman dart hand gadget from Uncle J, Aunt Michelle and Brock. He has to fight his sisters to use that toy. Here is Brigham showing off his new Hulk hands and jammies from Grandma and Grandpa McGarry. He has been doing the "hulk smash" for me all day. It is pretty entertaining. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRIGGY!

MR. B TURNS 3!

Briggy turned 3 today so I thought I would create a slide of some of his "younger" years. We are grateful to have Brigham in our life. He is so much fun and has me wrapped around his little finger. Stay tuned...I will post pics of his his actual birthday soon.

Black Eye

Haylee got into a brutal battle with the bunk bed. Here are the results. She has been very sensitive about her looks. She usually loves attention, but this attention is not something she enjoys. Way too girly to like to show off battle wounds.

Part-Time=More-Time?

So going part-time at work was supposed to create more time for me and the kids. I have found it completely opposite. I have been more busy the last few months than ever before. First of all, work hasn't been part-time. Every person they hired to replace me in the office has been fired or quit. This has created an interesting scenario with trying to work part-time with full time duties from home. uhg! I have also taken on a lot more projects thinking they wouldn't be too big of a deal. Here are my latest projects. I am happy they are all over with and I guess I shouldn't complain that I have found time to accomplish them. This is a mini-enrichment activity I took on. We made 10 FHE lessons to put in a binder. The project seemed easy at first but turned into a lot more work than expected. Oh well, there was a good turn out and it came together in the end. This is a blanket I made Scott. He has been using the same one for 15 years now and it is starting to fall apart. We didn't tie this one but just sewed through it. I am still not sure if it is any easier to sew vs tie the quilt. Not planning on doing any comparisons any time soon. I made salsa over the weekend with my Mom and sister. It was a first for all of us but it turned out super yummy and I am happy we did it. Now I have good canned salsa at my fingertips anytime I need it. Yum Yum

Back to Utah

We went to Utah over conference weekend along with my Parents, Brandon, Logan and Michelle's family. We were one big happy family staying at Kliss' house. We had a birthday party for my niece Shaylee and did a lot of shopping. Here are some highlights of the trip. We missed you Ashlee but I am sure your carpet looks great! Thank you Francis family for being such great hosts as usual. We are quite the crew to take on all at once.

Weekend of Shopping

This past weekend I was lucky enough to head to Utah with some friends, Katie Phillips and Melissa Thomson. We went down specifically to shop without kids. Our wonderful husbands braved being at home with them Friday night and Saturday day so that we could make our great escape. We left around 6 on Friday evening and spent the night at Melissa's in-laws house. Cathy was such a great host and we had so much fun staying up late and talking. It has been awhile since I have been up until 2 a.m. chit chatting with a friend. It was like a true slumber party. The next morning we hit Ikea and spent half the day there and then hit Tai Pan Trading. I am so excited about my new decor, I have posted pics below of some of my favorite finds. Katie and Melissa found some great things too. I can't wait to see how everything turned out in their houses. We were so excited about our shopping experience that we even had a guy stop us in Tai Pan and comment on "how cute" we looked together walking around with our carts and stopping to talk about everything we were seeing. We were slightly imberassed after that. It is a pity we don't get out enough to not look like it is Christmas morning when we finally get to shop. Oh well. We had a blast. Thank you husbands for letting us desert you for some much needed girl time. This is a wall in my bedroom after I put the black vinyl flowers on it. $19.99 at Ikea, I absolutely love them! The previous sticks I had in my bucket were being broken slowly each day and were starting to look pretty sad. Although I had to carry these sticks for several hours through Ikea, they were worth the hassle and look much nicer in that space. I should have taken a before shot but I guess you just get to imagine them instead. This is a wall in the basement. I think I am going to buy one more sticker set to extend the branches more but eventually I will hang picture frames over it so the tree will be the background on the wall. It will be really cool when it is done.

9 Years!

I can't believe how fast time has flown. Yesterday we celebrated our 9th anniversary. Here are some reasons why I still love this guy:

*He cooks all day at work and is still willing to cook for us when he gets home.

*His Mom taught him to treat me like a princess and he always has!

*He has an amazing knowledge of the gospel and holds the priesthood.

*He took me to the temple to be married and can still bring me back to this day.

*If something is broke, he will figure out how to fix it. We call him the king of Jimmy Rigging.

*He is really tall so he can reach all the things that I can't.

*He is a great Dad and likes to play with his kids.

*He goes grocery shopping with me and will run errands for me.

*He has a great sense of humor.

*He helps me decorate even if it means balancing on one leg straddling the tv stand, or moving items a titch to the right and then no actually right back where it just was.

I love you Scott. Thank you for putting up with me all of these years.

I Was Made For Lovin' You Baby

For some reason my kids love this song. We get requests for it all the time. When it is on, this is what we get to hear which cracks me up every time. Sorry about the footage, I was doing my best to turn around in my seat to video.

Cress Creek Hike

We decided there isn't a lot of time left to take advantage of the outdoors. On Sunday we went on a little hike at Cress Creek (not far from Heise). We had discovered a few things along the way and had a lot of fun.

Our first discovery...a lizard. The kids (notice the view) Me and the girls. Our second discovery, an apple tree. Can you find Scott in the tree? He is wearing camo so it is a little hard. Enjoying the apples. Thanks Dad!

Dance

Dance has officially begun. Ashtyn took dance when she was 3 but I ended up relying on Scott to take them to dance a lot because of work. He did not enjoy it so I really haven't pushed it the last few years knowing I wouldn't be able to take them myself. Now that I am part-time I had no excuses and signed them up. They take lessons at Dance Unlimited and so far so good. Here are their first day outfits. I love to watch each girl in class. They all seem to light up when they are dancing. I think it may have something to do with the clothes they get to wear.

Kids are Funny...

This is the cool dude I get to hang out with all day. Lately he prefers not to wear a shirt and to walk around in these sweet cowboy boots. It makes me giggle every time I see him. Wouldn't it be fun to be a kid again? Haylee has been working on rolling her tongue for several days now. This was something she just had to master. Today has been a proud day. She finally figured it out and has been in a great mood all day because of this. Thank you tongue! Congrats Haylee! This was last Friday after only three days of school. We let the girls hand out in our bedroom to watch a movie since it was the weekend. This is what we found. Lets just say they didn't watch the movie...school apparently wore them out this week.