Traditions

I love Christmas time! I grew up with a lot of traditions- most of them we still do in our family. It is fun to grow older and have more appreciation for traditions and to be able to start a few of our own. I am excited for the future when I can have these traditions be a part of my childrens lives.

Christmas eve at Nana and Papa's- This tradition has been in place for as long as I remember. We all go over there to be with our cousins, aunts, uncles and Nana and Papa. This year will be a bit different without Nana. And Papa is out in California for the holidays so we wont have either one of them. Growing up, Nana and the girls would cook all week in preparation Christmas Eve. Nana made her homemade wassail and we put plates of goodies together to take to the families we went caroling to. There is always a bit of singing around the piano as well.

Caroling on Christmas Eve- This is a tradition that I hope we never stop. Each family chooses two other families to go caroling to on Christmas Eve. We have about 3 families that we have gone to every year since I can remember. They love it! And since out family is so musically talented- why not share it with others.

Hide from Santa- After the family get together and caroling, we go back home to my Mom's house to get ready for Santa to come. My family has always done Christmas on Christmas Eve. I think it started because my parents divorced when i was young and this way- we never missed either Christmas.
We read stories about Christmas and then open our stockings- (we draw names and stuff each others stockings). Soon, we hear bells outside of my house. The kids all run to the bathroom and shut the door while Santa unloads all the presents. We listen to Santa talk about how good we had all been and how tired he was from flying around the world. When he is gone- we run back out to see what he left us! Then we one by one open our gifts which usually lasts late into the night.

Now that I am married, Brett and I go to the Smith party on Christmas Eve for a short time. They have some wonderful traditions also. They do a dinner and the kids do a nativity scene and a talent show. We like to try to be there as long before we leave to catch the caroling with my family. Christmas Day is always spent over at the Smith's house.

Traditions are a wonderful thing and I am very grateful for them and for all the memories I have had through my life at Christmas time.

Maddex Jaxon Wilcox

My Step Brother and Sister in law had their 4th little one yesterday. He is so so cute! He looks just like the other 2 boys. I am so happy to have another nephew. He weighed in at 6 pounds 15 ounces. Very darling.

the big 26

Yesterday was Brett's 26th birthday. Yes- he is getting old! I attempted to make a cake... apparently I am not good at it... it broke into about 5 pieces when I took it out of the pan... but I frosted it all up and it turned out fine and it tasted good.

We both had the day off so it was fun to get to spend the day together.
Happy Birthday Sweetie! I love you!We put up our Christmas tree and nativity and lights outside!! Our tree is a small one- since we have nowhere to put a big one. I am very excited for Christmas and even more excited for Brett to Graduate and not have school anymore and I get to see him more!

The pictures are from my phone- so they are not the best but I got my camera back today!! I missed her so!

vacation pictures

Colorado was very fun. I had such a great time with my family.
Brett and I took Brooke and Tori to the Zoo. They loved it and so did I!
Brett's cousin Justin got married on Saturday night in Boulder, CO. It was really pretty and we had a good time even though it was an open bar and got a bit rowdy. We got some cute family pictures. It was hard to say goodbye to the my St. Louis nieces. They are so cute and it was so fun to get to spend some time with them.

It is good to be home. We ended up leaving straight from the reception and driving all night Saturday. We got home around 5:30 in the morning...
So It was a great trip!


As I said.. my camera is in the shop getting fixed so I had my moms.... it did some weird stuff to my pictures... Some of them turned out really bright... I will have to fix them in Photoshop before I develop them.... but here they are for now.. sorry some of them are not the best.

Thankful...

So we do have internet up here in Estes Park Colorado. However- I do not have a way to put pictures up so I will add those later. The week has been fun so far. We got here in Sunday and the rest of the family got here on Monday and some on Tuesday. It has been fun to get to spend time with family, especially my nieces and nephew. They are getting so big ad so fun to play with.
Yesterday we had a big breakfast with all the family. Brett's cousin Justin and hsi fiance drove up from Denver to have breakfast with us too. Then we played games. Then Brett and I went to Downtown Estes Park.. It is a cute street with cute local shops. We had a good time walking down there for a while.

Today is thanksgiving. I am very grateful for family at this time of year. I am missing my family today. I really have been so blessed in my life. I am the most grateful for my husband Brett, I dont know where I would have ended up without him. He is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am grateful to have great friends, a place to live and a job I like.

Happy thanksgiving everyone! I hope your day is amazing!

E-X-C-I-T-E-D!!

Tomorrow is the day we take off on our week long adventure to Colorado. I don't know that I have spent one night in Colorado let alone a week. Plus it will most likely snow the whole week... But the HOORAY part of all of it is that Brett's entire (minus Nate of course) immediate family will be gathered and living together! It hardly happens. All 5 of my nieces and 1 nephew to play with for a whole week.... I am pretty excited.

We are packing tonight and I will be headed up to Odgen tonight to spend the weekend with my sisters and see New Moon while Brett drives to Idaho for work.... I'm glad it worked out that I can have a sleepover wekkend with my sisters while Macy is in town.

I usually like to update my blog while on vacation but I dont know what the internet situation will be like. we will see. I may be able to update sunday about my sisters weekend.... But look forward to an awesome, snowie, thanksgivingie, familyish post when I get back.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!!!

Death of our camera.... for now

Sad News... My poor camera has died on us. The lid to the battery compartment broke in half as well as our lens protector. We bought it 2 1/2 years ago. We debated back and forth about buying the extended warranty on it which was extra $100 dollars on top of an already very expensive camera but seeing how accident prone I am and my bad luck with cell phones, we did it and now we are so happy we did. It is currently being brought back to life by the good people of Best Buy at no cost to us...
The sad part of this is that we wont get it back till the 27th of November... and we are leaving on Sunday to go to Colorado for vacation with the Smith family... Luckily my mom has agreed to let me take hers. But I will be missing mine greatly.
Macy is coming down this week to spend some time with us. She is staying in Montana for Thanksgiving this year. On Saturday we have bought tickets to go see New Moon with my mom, Alyssa and Kellen, Macy, Aunt Daphne, Camille and Becca. It should be fun! Brett is not too excited but oh well right? I'm dragging him there anyway. From there we will stay at Alyssa and Kellen's house Saturday Night. Brett has to drive to Idaho for work on Sunday so I will hang out with Lyss- then we will take off for Colorado Monday morning from Ogden. My mom is taking care of my dogs while we are gone... i will miss them!

Boo

Brett and I and my sister Alyssa and her husband went to Lagoon for Frightmares. It was really fun. It was pretty nice weather and I have never been to Frightmares so it was different to have to wear a jacket at Lagoon. I really liked it. There were 3 haunted houses that we went through. One was really cool, one was totally stupid and the other was pretty scary. It was totally empty so we rode a ton of rides... I guess people dont like to go to Lagoon in cold weather! We got there when it opened and no one was there so we rode 12 rides in the first hour...

We went to this hypnotist show and I got called on stage to be hypnotized. Brett didn't get very good pictures... sorry. It was by far the weirdest experience I have had in a long time. It is really hard to explain what happened or what I felt and why I did the things I did which included slow dancing with a mop and playing the drums on my booty in front of a huge audience. But I remember it all and for some reason I wanted to do those things and there was purpose to doing them. The guy told us the stage was a 100 ft building and then jumped off. I actually started crying when he jumped and was amazed when he "bounced" on the ground and came back up. Strange...

We were quite boring for Halloween this year. Brett had to drive a car to Phoenix for work on the night of our ward Halloween party and I didn't want to go alone so I skipped it. That was the only reason to get costumes together. Maybe next year will be more exciting.

Pumpkin carving and a trip to Hee Haw's Farm

Last weekend we went down to Kaylynn's house to get a couple of pumpkins... it was a bit early to carve them so we waited till this weekend. I had been sick on Thursday and Friday but carving pumpkins was still fun. (Thanks Kaylynn for the pumpkins! they are awesome and the little ones are so cute!)I decided to just do stars... it will look pretty cool with a light in it...
Brett did a Roclistic Pumpkin....
And here is my itty bitty one...


On Saturday night, I was feeling better so we decided to have date night and go to Hee Haw's farm. We went last year and it was so fun- we had to go again. There was a lot of really fun activities to do.. we did not do the corn maze-- i wasnt sure if I was up to that much walking.

There was a corn box... which was cool and I made Brett sit in it and then covered him with corn.. he is such a good sport..




We went inside this little kid hauted house... it was a big blow up house that had 'things' hanging from the ceiling and out of the walls...

Here is the big slide.. you had to put your legs into a potatoe sack and the slide kinda hurt my butt...

Leroy is this giant pig that we made friends with last year... he was asleep and I touched his nose.

This guy that was there was carving this into a pumpkin... it was so cool. He had all kinds of tools that he was using...

Then we went on a hayride through the pumpkin patch and around the corn and the sunset was beautiful..
So It was really fun!
HAPPY FALL TO ALL!

Swingin' on a Rainbow

So there are a few things I can update on...
Yesterday I saw the biggest brightest rainbow I have seen in a long time. I saw it our my window and I even went out in the pouring rain to take this picture.


Brett shaved his mustache... well.. what he could grow of one. Haha. I tried not to give him too much crap about it- I think it made him feel all grown up that he could actually grow one. I didnt really get a picture of it but you can kindof see it in this picture. His hair isnt too long that he needs to get it cut.. or he would have used that excuse to make me cut it.


He has a job interview tomorrow so he had to shave it all off. Yes we are officially job hunting. Brett is graduating in December! Yeah! It makes me pretty happy! So who knows where and what we will end up doing.... But hopefully our plans will be finalized by November sometime.


More Baby News!! My brother Gordon and sister in law Leona and expecting thier first baby. Those two will make fantastic parents. They got married in August and that baby is one lucky boy or girl!


And last of all.. as you all already saw... I gave myself a blog facelift... and I love it!

Montana trip

So Brett, Alyssa, Kellen and I all went to Montana for the weekend to see Macy. We left on Thursday around 3 and got there about midnight. A huge storm had started by the time we got there. We checked in to our hotel and went to bed to wake up to this. .... its pretty yeah but it was also OCTOBER 9th!!!Macy's team had games on Friday and Saturday nights which we went to. Macy is a Red Shirt this year. She had a concussion at the start of the season and by the time she was ready to play she had missed a lot of games and her and her coach thought it was best if she red shirt the season. So she didnt play but we watched her team. They lost both nights- the first night they went to 5 and barely lost to a good undefeated team and the second night they got slaughtered by a really bad team. They are a pretty inconsistant team but Macy did good warming up... haha

Macy didnt have a ton of time to spend with us because of team stuff and school stuff but we did get to see her cute apartment and hang out there on Saturday. The boys just sat in the front room watching football all morning.

We left early on Sunday morning around 10 and got home about 6. I feel like I need a weekend to recover from the trip already. I was feeling sick all weekend so that part wasnt fun but I am really glad we went. It was a good time and it will be the last time I see Mace before Christmas since I will be out of town for Thanksgiving. Sad :(

The many lengths of hair

Brett really likes his hair short.... i say it is purely for the reason that it is easier.... lazy bum! I happen to like it long (#5 length). #6 is a bit too long... plus we were in mexico and it was so curly fromt he humidity. I buzzed it really really short a couple of months ago. It is getting a bit longer finally. for some lost bet or something that i cant remember, I am not cutting his hair until February. So what is your opinion? #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6