Brianna's New Adventure

Can you believe she's old enough for this???? There's nothing legal about it yet, because she hasn't gotten her permit. She's been out with her instructor twice already. I don't know what we'll do then the day comes!!!
For those of you that live close--you might want to stay off the road.

Family Pictures

So, my mom decided that she wanted to do family pictures before my brother Dan left for a mission in March. About a month ago when we talked about it before, I told her my high school friend could possibly do them--she has done photography for a while and does a really good job. (She also had a give away on her blog last year and I won a landscape picture that she had taken.)
My mom and I didn't talk about it again until a few days before Christmas. I told her that I would check with Jennie, but not to hold her breath. She wanted to take them with Pete and David still in town and before we all went back to school and work. My mom also wanted them to be taken outside. I called Jen that night and asked if be could take some family pictures the day after Christmas. She quickly agreed and we were set.
We decided to take them outside at a fun little park. Little did we know it would be the COLDEST day.
After lots of sadness about the cold and who had to stand by whom we finished the pictures in record time. Jennie just let me know that she had finished check them out at her cute blog here.

Bowling Trip

We took everyone bowling on Monday afternoon. We got there just in time, because after we started, the bowling alley got packed with all sorts of people.
I think Pete and Brian got the best scores, but Tom wasn't far behind. I did the worst, but like to think that after the first game I'd do better. Lucky for everyone else we only bowled one game or else I would have smashed all of them!
The boys love bowling...Charlie mostly loves the video games that are in the next room, but will bowl just to make everyone else happy. (Our camera is so slow that it takes forever to take the picture after you press the button, so I think they were originally looking at the camera for this one.)
For Charlie's happiness we played some video games after our game. Bree killed the dance-dance revolution game. If the said camera wouldn't have quit on me we would have pictures of everyone else playing games too. We had a great afternoon at Orchard Lanes!

Christmas Morning

We did really well this year with Christmas. Santa brought everything that the little boys asked for.
When we pulled the stockings out Charlie said, "we need to get the nails too." I was a little confused about what he wanted, but eventually I realized he waned us to hang the stockings up. So Brian found the nails and we worked on getting them in so we could hang the stocking appropriately. He was very pleased to say the least.
This year Brianna was the early bird. She and Tom woke up at 3:30 AM and were ready to go through the gifts. I rolled over and saw the lights on so I went to check who was awake and then we had to wake everyone else up. I for sure thought Pete would maintain his role of earliest riser, but Brianna beat him to it.
Check out the pictures to see the rest of the fun we had. (There's a lot, so be prepared.)

Reindeer Food

Tom got some magic reindeer food from one of his friends at school, so we had to make sure that Santa and his reindeer would see our house and stop.
Tom dumped some out around the front door.
Charlie then put some further out in the parking lot so they'd know were to stop.
Even David went out to help. He put on his night vision goggles so he'd be able to see where the food was sprinkled.
They had so much fun making sure the food was out and that we would have special visitors that night.

Christmas PJs

This might be one of my favorite traditions. This year I found some great jammies for the little boys and Brianna. I wanted to get Pete and Dave some that matched the little boys, but didn't think they would want to wear them. (It would have made a great picture though.)
I thought that I did a good job and everyone would be happy, but I made a mistake and had Pete open the wrong gift. He was a little disappointed with the gloves that he opened when all the others had pajamas.

Gingerbread House

We bought this cool gingerbread house because Charlie kept asking to get one. When we brought it home all three of them kept asking when we could put it together. Brian and I finally gave up so the three of them put it up the other night.
My sister helped by putting the walls together and start the decoration on the roof.
Tom and Brianna were all into putting it the candies on.

Charles was a completely different story. He was jazzed about doing it, but when it really came down to it he would rather play with the calculator than the gingerbread house.
Here's the final result. They (Brianna, Thomas, and Emily) did a really good job decorate.