Merry Christmas

We are looking forward to Christmas in a few days!  Christmas is getting more and more fun each year that our kids start to understand better.  It is fun to hear the excitement for Santa, but I'm also love to hear Brynlee recite the Christmas story and begin to understand the significance of that night in Bethlehem.  We've been able to do a few fun things we want to share:

 Brynlee had her first dance recital.  It was adorable!  She loves going to dance every week.  The girls both love to dance.  I wish I could have had a camera on both of them so you could see Ellie doing all the actions as well.  We listen to the One Direction song "What Makes You Beautiful" about eleventy million times a day.  Ellie especially loves to dance to that song. Obnoxious does not adequately describe it, but it is hard to say no when Ellie is saying, "Wanna dance, peeese!"

 This is Brynlee's good friend that she says she is going to marry.  Kaden is a good boy and puts up with Brynlee constantly wanting to dance with him.

 Sorry for the picture overload.  The other cute girl in the picture is Kaden's sister and Brynlee's sweet friend Kylie.  Their cute baby sister Kenzie and Ellie get a long well too. :)

My cousin Kellie's daughter also danced at the recital that night.  She is an awesome dancer!  So fun we could watch her dance too!

 The girls got to see Santa at our ward Christmas party.  Brynlee requested a boy and a girl barbie and a Belle dress-up dress.  Ellie was nice and let us take her picture. 

 We went to a Christmas even in St Charles where there are lots of characters related to Christmas dressed up that you can visit with and collect their little trading cards.  (As you can see the picture with Mrs. Claus) We were able to go with my cousin and her family and had a great time!

The girls are growing fast!  Ellie is speaking more and more.  My favorite thing she says is "Welcome mama."  She doesn't say thank you very often any more, just 'welcome'.  She also requests oranges several times a day.  She is getting so particular about things.  She doesn't like her orange broken in pieces.  She likes it handed to her whole.  She doesn't like using a sippy cup and insists on eating her cereal, yogurt, whatever herself.  No more spoon feeding her.  It has made life much messier for me!  She loves to sing and dance and do whatever Brynlee is doing.  She also loves to climb on the table and get into the trash can.  You can tell she keeps me busy.

Brynlee is rocking at reading.  I love that she reads to Ellie and can keep her entertained.  She needs very little help these days.  I met a lady from the elementary school she would be going to and they told me that they make no exceptions for birthdays past the deadline (which her's is) which means she won't start kindergarten for another year and a half.  I'm glad to have her home with me, but I'm a little bummed because I don't think it is in her best interest.  Oh well, I guess we'll see what happens. I started teaching her piano and she is catching on well. 

They are cutie pies and we feel lucky to be their parents!  They keep us busy and we hope we are doing all the right things!  We will miss being with family this year for Christmas.  We are excited to not be traveling though and are excited for gifts that would not fit in a suitcase!  Merry Christmas to all of you!  Thanks for checking in on us :)

Fall Flavors

So, I have a confession about a new addiction that is making it ridiculously hard to blog.  I've been working on family history and I love it!  I keep having to tell myself that it is important to keep personal records too and my mother reminds me that she checks this daily and I tend to disappoint! Here's what we have been up to...

Brynlee has been doing plenty of playing!  She is in a dance class and loves it.  We also do a weekly playgroup with these two cute girls.  Our ward also does a weekly playgroup that we try to make it to, I babysit some of Brynlee's friends every Tuesday night (and sometimes more often), and we seem to play with friends at least one more time during the week.  We are never short on things to do!  It is fun to be busy!  I'm amazed at what a leader Brynlee is.  She orchestrates all the play when she is with friends.  She comes up with the craziest stories and scenerios.  She is working on not being bossy and making sure that everyone is having a good time.  She has been playing with a little boy, Kaden.  She says that after their missions, she is going to marry him in the temple.  I'm glad it will be a few years before we have to worry about that :).

Ellie is such a little dolly.  She loves to call Papa on her phone.  She is starting to talk more.  Her words are not always clear, but it's funny how we are starting to understand her jibberish.

 We went to Grant's Farm with our friend Paige a couple weekends ago.  The girls enjoyed feeding and brushing (and riding) the goats and seeing/feeding some other animals. 

 The girls enjoyed getting dressed up for Halloween.  Ellie got pretty good at saying 'trick or treat' and of course Brynlee enjoyed collecting gobs of candy.  They were pretty cute.

 Love this girl!

 In other not so current events, we enjoyed a hot air balloon 'Night Glow' with our friend Paige.  The girls loved it and the fireworks afterwards. 

 Ellie and Brynlee both adore Paige. 

 Brynlee turned 4!  She requested a Pinkalicious cake and party.  I was brave/ignorant and threw her a party.  It was crazy and I don't know if I'll do it again.  I think we were pretty ill prepared for what we were getting ourselves into, but Brynlee had a fabulous time which is all that matters.



We recently had family pictures taken.  If you havent seen them, check them out here: 

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151130618642496.441782.729942495&type=1&l=6f44c721ac

Otherwise, it's life as usual.  The girls are getting big too fast and time is flying! 

St Louis!

We have had a great summer!  Lots of swimming and the girls and I did lots of traveling.  We were able to visit both Colorado and Utah and see lots of family. We met Mark's fiance, Whitney  She is great and we are so excited to have her in our family.

It was fun to see all of my family except Luke who is on his mission in Brazil, and Jordan wasn't able to come.  We are all getting so OLD!

Lovin Gramie and Papa's pool!

All the 'Louise' name sakes.  I was horrible at taking pictures while we were in Utah!  Please share sisters!!

Swimming at the Bohn's with Aunt Natalie!  Brynlee has become quite the swimmer!  She was so proud that she dived off the diving board and swam all the way to the other end of the pool (quite a distance!).  She loves swimming on her back the most.  Water wings are a thing of the past :)  We loved having Natalie here!

We survived our move thanks to my wonderful parents and siblings and we are now St Louis residents!  I am LOVING our new home and living in the city.   Our townhome is almost three times the size of our last apartment and even has a fenced in area in the back.  I love my kitchen and all my cupboard space and especially all of our storage space in the basement.  It scares me a little to watch the local news because of all of the crime here, but I feel like we live in a pretty safe neighborhood.  Jordan and I took turns going to the temple last Saturday and it only took me 8 minutes to get there!  Thrilled! 

As you might imagine, these girls were quite helpful (I mean destructive) during our move.

On Ellie's birthday, we went to see the famous St Louis Arch.  It's pretty huge!

Jordan has been working out :)

Residency is still residency for Jordan, but I feel like maybe we see hime a little more often...maybe.  So far he hasn't had to be gone more than the last year especially because he doesn't have to go in as often when he is on call. He did spend some time out of town this last month at a military base and I'm glad that is over.  I think he is a little sad about it though since it provided some great surgical experiences (even a total ankle!).

The girls and I have been staying busy exploring the city and playing!  There are so many fun things to do up here and most of them are free. We bought a membership to the children's museum (Magic House) and they love playing there.  They are growing so much!  Ellie turned '1' just after our move.  We had cake with my parents and cousin, Kellie, and her family.  She is walking pretty consistently now.  She loves singing "Popcorn Popping," "Little Bunny Foo Foo," and lots of other primary action songs.  She is saying more words like, "thank you," "amen," "bubbles," "all done," and "ni-night." She loves reading books and playing with Brynlee's tea set.  We  have a few sesame street books, but she saw Elmo on TV for the first time the other day.  She was so excited.  I can't believe how many times she said, "Elmo!"  Now when we see pictures of him anywhere she get so excited.  She's adorable but definitely likes to have things her way.

She looks so thrilled in all of her bday pictures!

How old are you Ellie?

Brynlee is looking forward to turning 4! She is also getting excited for the primary program at church.  She continues to get better at reading and writing.  She completely amazed us a couple nights ago when we let her read during our scripture study.  She did awesome even on some big words.  We were blown away.  She kills me sometimes with the way she speaks too.  The other day in the car she said, "Mom, there sure are a lot of hotels in this area."  The same day a car sped by and she said, "He isn't sustaining the law, is he?"  Yesterday, I sent her to her room upstairs and she said, "If I go up to my room, I'll be all alone and I'm not ok with that situation!"  She really is 3 going on 23.  She is quick to remind everyone though that she is almost 4 years old. 

All in all, life is good.  As much as I hate to move, it has been good to get to know so many great people whereever we live.  We miss so many friends and family!  Keep in touch.... or better yet, come see us!