Merry Christmas!

Once again, I'm behind!  Its pretty sad that my last post was from Halloween...and it was catching up from earlier that month.  Speaking of Halloween...look how cute Brynlee was!  I honestly dread blogging.  Blogger could really improve on its user friendliness, or maybe just functionability (if that's a word).

Not a whole lot has been happening since our last post.  Our girls are growing and we're continuing to get used to Missouri and our life here.  We missed being 'home' this Thanksgiving, but we were glad to get to spend Thanksgiving Day with our friends the Bassetts and their family.  We were so glad to have my cousin Kellie and family come on Saturday and get to have some turkey with them!  I know I've said it several times, but it is so GREAT to have some family close by.  We love them! 

Ellie is getting more and more fun all the time.  She is rolling and babbles so cute.  We love her cute smiles and giggles.  She has found her feet and thinks they are the best toys ever!  She is really quite a sqwaker and a squealer.  She wakes up squealing in the morning and sometimes in the middle of the night.  It's pretty darn cute.  We are so excited for the rest of the family to meet her soon. Brynlee loves her too.  She can most certainly be overwhelming to her, but she is good at getting her to smile and laugh. 

We are loving the Christmas season as usual.  It has been fun for Brynlee to rediscover Christmas things.  We enjoyed decorating the tree and taking her to see Santa.  The City Hall here has a cool little set up on week nights to go see Santa.  It is well decorated and there is a cool small train that runs under the bridge to where Santa is.  Brynlee told him that she wanted a purple guitar and had to run back later to add that she wants dress up stuff, makeup, a barbie, and fairy stuff too.  I'm a little nervous because I heard Santa ran out of purple paint for guitars. I find it funny she wants a guitar, but she says she wants one like uncle Luke's.  She is picking up all sorts of Christmas songs.  She surprised me singing Roger Whitaker the other day....she knows the good stuff ;).  The girls and I have had fun decorating cookies and cupcakes and shopping together.

So I was pretty excited about these cupcakes....Rachelle will tell you that I pretty much bake and babysit these days (at least it seems like that's what I'm doing every time she calls).  I have to give credit to Confessions of a Cookbook Queen (her's were much cuter).  I miss being in the NICU, but I love being home with my girls...and baking is a good creative outlet on occasion.  It's making it hard to finish getting off the baby weight though! 

Brynlee is getting excited to be a Sunbeam in a few weeks! She also had her first dentist appointment last week and did awesome.  They told her that they were going to make her teeth sparkle like a princess and the first thing she did when we came in the door was run to the bathroom to see her sparklely teeth.  She continues to crack us up with the things she says.

It's work as usual for Jordan.  He just took his last board exam.  We appreciate all of your fasting and prayers for him.  Things are improving a little.  Glad the stache was only temporary!

We are oh so excited for our trips to see family in the coming weeks.  I'm so glad we get to go to both Colorado and Utah.  Can't wait!!

Colorado

Rachelle is home!  Luke took the Provo way to Brazil, and we miss him already. We had an awesome trip to Colorado a few weeks ago.   All of my siblings except Mark who is still on his mission were at my parents house for the weekend.  I'm so glad we were able to be there.

We were lucky to have a great babysitter (thanks Nat!) so that we could go to the temple with all the family that had arrived so far.  Our trips have been scarce since we had Ellie so we were so grateful for the opportunity and had a wonderful time.

 Gramie was so nice and had a little birthday party for Brynlee and Aliyah.  They were spoiled rotten with some cute wood dolls and a book.  Brynlee loves them both.

Jordan was able to bless Ellie during sacrament meeting before Rachelle and Luke spoke for there pre and post mission talks.  The blessing was beautiful and the talks were awesome.  I have an awesome family and I love them all!  It was awesome to have Jordan's sisters Melissa and ShaRee there!  We miss his siblings and their families so much!  It makes me so glad for the time we spent in Utah.  It was also nice of Jordan's dad and his wife to be there for the blessing as well. 

We loved seeing Amy and Gunnar too :)

It was also great for Brynlee to get to know her Great-Grandma and Grandpa Winkel and we were glad to have Grandpa, cousin Manuel, and cousin Dan in the circle with Jordan, my brothers, and mine and Jordan's dads.

 Brynlee, Ellie, and I got to spend an extra week.  Jordan had to get back to work.  We enjoyed being there to finish getting Luke ready to go.  It was so sad, but we are so proud of him. 

It was so fun to get to hang out with my sisters and parents. Brynlee has added a new aunt to her favorite list.  I LOVE having Chelle home.  We are getting so excited for Mark to come home in just a few weeks.  I got to do my first solo + 2 kids plane trip.  It was interesting, especially since I got paired with the guy sitting next to me and the attendants kept treating us like a family...awkward.  The girls did really well and I have to brag that I got two checked bags, an umbrella stroller, a carseat, two carry-on bags and two little girls (not in the stroller or carseat) from baggage claim to passenger pick-up in one trip.  I'm sure I looked completely ridiculous.

Missouri continues to be an adventure!  I sometimes still wonder why this is where we ended up, but I'm confident we are where we are supposed to be.  I recently got called to Young Womens and I'm thrilled about it!  I'm still toying with the idea of picking up some part-time work.  I love just being able to focus on my girls.  The longer I go without working the scarier it is to go back. It is weird to think that we will be packing up once again in 8 months to move to St. Louis.  We have been so blessed that I have no room to complain...unfortunately I still do!  I'm so grateful for the great friends we've made here.

During our trip our camera decided to die so we only have our phones for cameras until I can come up with a good deal for a new camera.  That's my excuse for a lack of new pictures.  Brynlee has gotten dressed up for Halloween a few times.  She is Cinderella (mostly because I'm cheap...or poor is more like it ;)) so we made good use of her dress-up dress she got for her birthday.  She does make a lovely Cinderella and has gotten pretty good and the whole trick-or-treat thing.  Jordan really wanted to dress up this year and I do really think it would be fun.  We toyed around with a lot of ideas, but it was taking way to much time and our ideas were out of our budget (dang budget)....so alas we are halloween hum-bugs.  Oh well. 

Oh, and it looks like we will have new tenants for our silly house in Iowa!  The mysterious odor appears to be gone.  This deserves a smiley :)

Brynlee had been saying some pretty funny things lately.  I need to be better at writing them down.  Here's a few I remember.
 "For the record Mom, I didn't get into Gramie's makeup." 
 "When Daddy saw you he was really impressed and he made you get married in the temple." 
"Last night, when I was a mom, I went for a run and my tears went lipity, lipity" (don't ask me what this means...I just thought it was funny). 
When my mom was trying to get her to go to the bathroom before bed she was refusing.  My mom asked why she wouldn't go and she said, "It's complicated." 
She has also been singing primary songs constantly.  She is too much fun.  Ellie is continuing to grow and be so sweet.  She even slept through the night for me last night which I was clearly thrilled about.  She has such a sweet smile and giggle and I love to hear her coo.

I'm already getting so excited for the holidays!  This is the warmest fall we have ever experienced.  I really love it.  It has made for some awesome afternoon/evenings at the park.  I'm rambling now...have a happy Halloween!

Growin Girls

I have to start by saying how much I love General Conference!  I have been looking forward to this one perhaps more than I usually do and it has exceeded my expectations in being a spiritual uplift and a great reminder of what is really important.  It baffles me how wonderful and perfect the gospel is and how much peace and happiness come from abiding by the teachings of Jesus Christ. 

Brynlee

It is so weird to me that Brynlee is three.  I can't believe how quick the time has gone!  It's interesting to me though how often I have to remind myself that she's only three.  That is because she can be a real stinker... :)she amazes me with her vocabulary and how quickly she learns things.  She will often play with kids at the playground near our house and they will think she is older because of the conversation she has with them.  Then she'll do something really three year oldish and they look at us funny.  We have to tell them that, yep, she's three! 

She was sad that a few of her friends are going to preschool and she wanted to go "so bad!"  We got her a little workbook and have been doing some little lessons at home.  She loves it.  She would do it all day if she could.  It's funny looking back how surprised I've been when she has hit milestones throughout her life, like the first time she smiled, or when she started playing peek-a-boo with me, and now I'm still surprised when she picks up a pencil how well she can trace letters and how she tells me scripture stories we taught her weeks ago in family home evening. 

She is also teaching me how much my example really does matter and how much I have to watch what I say.  The hardest challenge with this is teaching her that she is not a mother or in charge of anyone but herself.  She likes to say things (in a very matter of fact bossy voice) like, "You can't do that because I told you already you can't do that and if you do you're going to get hurt...and I told you not to."  Today she told Jordan, "You can't hit Dr. _____ at work because if you do that you'll get it big trouble."  (Isn't that the truth!)  Jordan and I will have conversations about work when he comes home and now she's gotten to where she asks, before the conversation starts, "So what did you and Dr. ____ do today?"  She loves to ask, "how was your day?" or "how was your run?" or your shower or whatever you're doing.  She is also quite the helper with Ellie and even empties the silverware from the dishwasher for me.  Love that!

She is awfully cute though and frequently talks about her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins by name and says how much she misses them.  We do wish we lived closer, but are grateful for good friends here.  For Bryn's birthday we had cake and ice cream with our friends the Allreds and the Bassetts.  We played at the park afterward and the girls had a great time. 

So, I was pretty darn excited about this cake! I really haven't attempted any kind of fancy cake before.  I consider myself lucky if I have a plain cake without crumbs in the frosting. My awesome sister-in-law talked me into trying marshmallow fondant and it was so fun.  My friend Katie helped me put it together (and take care of my neglected children) and steady-handed foot and ankle surgeon, Dr. Allred, was the one to write her name on the cake.  I'm excited to do it again!

I have this amazing cousin, Kellie, that lives about an hour north of us.  We love her family!  Their son Ethan had a birthday the day after Brynlee and they were so nice to have us up for dinner and to celebrate birthdays.  They were way too good to us and particularly Brynlee.  It was fun to hang out with them and her husband, Casey's, family. 

We also were able to go to an apple orchard in IL with Katie, Lainey, and the cute twiners.  It was actually Lainey's preschool fieldtrip, but we were happy to tag a long and escape town for a day.

We also went to the Homecoming parade which Brynlee thought was the best thing ever.  I think this is the first parade she's been to that she could be a real active candy snatcher.  She could be heard screaming, "Wahoo" over and over. 



Ellie

Ellie is busy growing like a weed.  I can't believe that she is almost two months old.  That time has really flown.  She is a sweet baby and occasionally gives me long stretches of sleep in the night which I so appreciate.  It is fun to watch her become more and more aware of herself and her surroundings.  She reminds me a lot of how Brynlee was in temperment. 

She gave me a sweet birthday present by giving me the first great big ear to ear smile.  She has been smiling more and more since then and figuring out how to hold up that heavy head for short periods of time.  I'm looking forward to finding out how much she weighs...I not sure how she compares to Bryn that way, but I'm pretty sure those cheeks are unique to her.

I think Brynlee and Ellie still look pretty similar at this point.  The one in the brown is Brynlee.

    

               

We are blessing her next weekend during the sacrament meeting Rachelle reports her mission and Luke speaks prior to his leaving on his mission. It will be a fun family gathering.  We so appreciate those of Jordan's family that are sacrificing to be there for the blessing.  Can't wait to see everyone!