December

December was full of fun family activities, parties, gifts, and celebrating our Savior's birth.  This year was lots of fun.  Jaeley is just at the right age when she understands the magic of Christmas.  We had a fun time teaching her that the real reason for Christmas is to celebrate our Savior's birth.  We also had a fun time doing fun festive activities with the kids.  This year we also had a special visitor come to our house for the month.  Santa sent us a very special elf named Sparkle.  Sparkle would watch us all day to make sure we were being good.   Jaeley loved Sparkle and was sad when he had to go home to the North Pole.  She still prays for him that he will be safe and that he will have a good time with his family.


Ward Christmas Party

Our Ward's party theme was Christmas morning.  We all went in our pajamas and had breakfast at the church.  Each primary kid brought their blankets and pillows to listen to Christmas stories and received a stocking with goodies and toys.  Jaeley thought that this was really neat.  We had a really good time.

Zoo Lights

Every year since we moved to Salt Lake I have wanted to go to zoo lights and since it is our last year here we decided to go.  The zoo puts up lots of fun Christmas lights.  They have special animal lights that they decorate with.  We had a really fun time going with friends. 

Santa Came to the Village

We saw Santa Claus a lot in December, he even came to the Village, and since he was so close he thought that we would go see him again. By now Jaeley thought that he should have had what she wanted memorized.

Temple Square

We have made it a tradition to go to Temple Square and see the lights.  Jaeley loves to see the temple and we all had a really good time, even Brayden enjoyed it.

Christmas Eve/Christmas Morning

This year we spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning at our house.  We decided to have Christmas with just our little family.  I loved it!!!  It was so fun to be with just our little family, I think it made it more special.  We did a lot of fun things on Christmas Eve.  We started out by making gingerbread houses.  Rhett is a pro, I on the hand stink really bad.  I started over twice and then just gave up and helped Jaeley with hers.  Then we went sledding (it snowed on Christmas Eve, perfect!!). Then we had a nice dinner, and after that we read a Christmas story and let the kids open one present.  It was so much fun.   Christmas morning was so much fun, but poor Jaeley had to wait until Brayden woke up to open presents.  At first Jaeley was really sad because she had asked Santa for a bike but she didn't think that she got one but Santa tricked her and wrapped it instead of putting it together.  After we opened presents we ate breakfast, played for a while and then headed down to Beaver to visit family.

Christmas Holiday in Beaver

While we were in Beaver we attended lots of parties with family.  It was really fun to catch up with family that we haven't seen for a while.  Rhett of course got to go hunting and fishing.  We went sledding again and just played played and played.  It was so much fun.  I love Christmas time.  I love the feeling that I have, I love seeing family, and I love being able to celebrate Christ's birth.

I can't forget about Brayden.  He turned 10 months and is beginning to walk.  He is such a special boy and has such a special spirit.  We love him and are thankful everyday that our Heavenly Father sent him to our family.

November

Playing in the snow

       We had a huge snow storm hit Salt Lake City, the biggest one that I think I have ever seen in my life.  We had so much fun playing, building snowmen, and sledding.

 This was just the first day of the snow

 I built a huge snowman for Jaeley and just as I was putting on the head and fixing it she came over and pushed it over.  I didn't even get a chance to take a picture of it. Don't worry, I got her back by pushing her over.  This is our snowman after Jaeley pushed it over.

 She wanted another snowman so I was nice and helped her build a baby one.

These next pictures are taken after the storm had passed.  There was so much snow.  The pictures don't do it justice.  We had so much fun playing in it.

Brayden turned 9 months
          Brayden turned nine months.  His big milestone was that he got his first tooth.

Here he is finally letting me get a picture of his cute little tooth.

Elk Hunt

     Rhett got to go on a fun elk hunt with his brothers and dad.  They did a lot of hiking and were very tired every night when they got home, but all there hard work payed off.  

Rhett's little hunter

     Over Thanksgiving Rhett let me sleep in and woke up with Brayden.  While I was sleeping he decided to take Brayden on his first hunting trip.  The two of them when coyote hunting and of course, they got one.  That means that both my kids have killed a coyote with their dad, but every time I go hunting with Rhett nothing happens.

 

 

Thanksgiving

      We went to Beaver for Thanksgiving.  We had lots of fun spending time with family, like we always do when we go to Beaver.  Wednesday we had Thanksgiving with my family and then Thursday we spent Thanksgiving with Rhett's family.  That night my sister's and I went to Black Friday.  It was only our second time going but we had a lot of fun.  I think we might make it a tradition.

 

 Grandma Nell, and Grandma Paula

 

Santa came to one of the stores in Beaver over Thanksgiving so Jaeley was able to tell him what she wanted for christmas.

 

Random pictures from November

October 2012

October has been really warm so we have been able to play outside quite a bit.  Here are some pictures of us just playing and having fun outside.

Jaeley and her friend Haylee

General Conference

We invited Grandma and Grandpa Smith to come up and visit us over General Conference.  Rhett and I were able to go to one of the sessions and then Rhett and Rog went to the Priesthood session.  We had so much fun with them going to the zoo and swimming.  We love it when we have visitors. 

Jaeley at the zoo.  We were excited because we got to see the baby giraffe.

U of U game

Rhett and I were able to go with some friends so the U of U game against USC.  We had a lot of fun watching and cheering on our team.

Vivint Carnival

Laurie and Ladd invited us to go to the annual Vivint carnival.  Bostyn and Jaeley had so much fun riding all the rides and playing with each other.  Rhett and I were even able to go on a couple of rides.

Halloween

I know I say this every year, but I am going to say it again.  I love all the holidays so much more now that I have kids.  Jaeley is getting to be the perfect age to enjoy the holidays.  We had so many fun Halloween parties this year making Jaeley think it was Halloween everyday.  It was so warm on Halloween and I was geared up to go out all night with Jaeley, but after a couple blocks of houses Jaeley decided that she had enough candy and wanted to go home.  She is such a silly girl.

 Rhett, Jaeley, and Brayden carved pumpkins while I made pumpkin chocolate cookies to start out our Halloween holiday.  The only problem was that it was so warm this year that our pumpkin got really moldy and stinky so I had to throw it away a couple of days before Halloween.

Village Party

These next couple pictures are from our Ward Halloween party.  It was a lot of fun full of yummy food and fun games for the kids, followed by a trunk or treat.  This year Jaeley was a fairy and Brayden was a spider.

Here is our friend Halloween party.  We were able to have it outside.  Again we ate yummy food and then went trick-or-treating in the neighborhoods next to the village.

Hunting 

Whenever we go to Beaver Rhett can't wait to hit the hills to go coyote hunting.  He is a really good hunter and enjoys every second of it.

Rhett has also spent a lot of time interviewing for residency programs.  This is such an exciting time for us.  He interviewed in Texas and in Indiana and will be interviewing in Ogden, Provo, Idaho, and Colorado.  We won't know where we will be next year until March, but will be happy anywhere we go.

Brayden turned 8 months

Brayden's milestone at 8 months are:

-He began to crawl (Oct 6)

-Started to stand up against furniture (Between Oct 6 and Oct 14)

-Learned that he can stand in his crib and yell at me until I come and get him

Four Generation Picture

While in Beaver we decided to take a four generation picture with my grandma. 

I just like this picture so I had to add it.