Brenna, Brenna Birthday Girl

Brenna has been waiting to have a birthday and turn 4 for about 6 months now. The day finally came!

She continues to hold on to green as her favorite color, so Russ and I decorated the house all in green after she went to bed Monday night. 

Russ took her out for breakfast donuts in the morning.

Then we let her open 1 gift. Kaylee and Ashlyn gave her a Snow White doll.
We all wore green shirts in her honor.

She picked Cici's Pizza for her birthday dinner.

She requested a "Green B" birthday cake this year.

We ordered this playhouse a week in advance, but there were some shipping issues and it barely arrived in time (as in, the box was sitting in our doorstep when we returned from the restaurant.) It will eventually be an outside toy, but we set it up inside for now, while it's still pretty chilly.

This gift was probably more for me than for Brenna, but we got her some vinyl wall stickers to decorate her room.
I think it turned out really cute.

We LOVE our beautiful Brenna!!!

Delaware!

Several months ago Russ found out he was going back to Delaware on a business trip to do a 2-day training session in Newark. So, we decided McKell and I should accompany him! Travelling with him while he's doing business is the way to go - we used a company car to drive to the airport in Austin, and the company paid for the parking, rental car, Russ's flight, etc. Sweet! I had enough Southwest points to buy my flight, so we hardly paid anything out of pocket. 

We did pay for Russ's mom to fly in and stay with the 3 older girls. They had fun! (but I think she would prefer to stick with being Nana, rather than Nana-Mom). Because she was coming just a few weeks after Christmas, she decided to bring all our gifts with her instead of mailing them earlier. Christmas, take 2 - awesome! 

She brought each of the girls a darling purse filled with brushes, tissues, hair ties, etc.
Does this Nana know what a girl wants, or what?!

And cuddly-loving McKell got (appropriately) a horsey.

So, Nana arrived Tuesday night, and Russ, McKell and I took off Wednesday morning. Everything went smoothly with our travel (except picking up our rental car in PHL - boo to Hertz!). We drove to Newark to visit some dear friends, then stopped by the church to see our former bishop. After that it was off to Dover (about an hour from Newark) where we had arranged to stay with our friends Barrett and Amy Edwards.

Thursday morning Russ got up early to drive back to Newark to teach his class. McKell and I laid low in Dover, playing and visiting with Amy and her kiddos. We have no stairs at our house, so McKell spent lots of time going up and down and up and down and up and down.

Russ and McKell with Barrett and Hannah (who is just about a month younger than M).

Friday morning Russ went back up to teach, and Amy and I headed up to Newark as well to visit some wonderful friends. I miss the friends we left behind in DE, so it was lovely to see them again and catch up on the past few years.

Friday night we went out to a restaurant (which was also paid for by Russ's employer - yeah!)

We went to bed late Friday night, and got up very early the next morning to head back home. So, a quick trip, but a wonderful one. 

January Miscellaneous

When Brenna walked away for a minute, this little thief climbed up and swiped her pizza.

Brenna was SOOOO excited to go to Sunbeams.
She loved making this crown and wouldn't take it off until bedtime.

Silly little girl makes the funniest faces.

Found these 3 huddled together in my closet playing with an old cell phone.
I love it when they all play together.

Ashlyn started a gymnastics class this month. She is loving it and doing very well.

I don't even try to keep the books on her shelf anymore.

Who knew a doll house could be a perfect storage place for 2 little girls?

McKell loves anything and everything cozy.
She insisted on bringing both blankets to the breakfast table.

Better Late Than Never

It's OK to blog about Christmas day, even when it was a month ago, right? Here goes. Mostly pictures.

Ashlyn's enormous umbrella (Santa may have ordered it online and not really thought about its size).

Kaylee's reaction when she opened her gift of getting her ears pierced.

McKell chillin' in Kaylee's new beanbag chair.

Opening the family gift of a tablet (thanks Foleys and Kellers!).

Brenna cooking up a storm with the kitchen Santa brought for her and McKell
(isn't she adorable in that chef's hat and apron?!)

Ready for Christmas dinner. I was very happy with the way our holdiay Jell-O mold turned out.

Playing new games.

And here are the girls in their new Christmas dresses. (4 girls in 4 different sizes makes matching them all impossible. So I don't even try any more.)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve 2013 was WAY better than Christmas Eve 2012. Last year on Christmas Eve Kaylee woke us up at like 4:00 in the morning to tell us Brenna had thrown up in her bed. The rest of that day was filled with more of the same. Brenna felt awful and was super whiny. She just wanted me to hold her all day, but that wasn't possible, since McKell was only 4 months old and still very mommy-dependent. It was pretty miserable for everyone.

So, this year we were really hoping for an improvement. :)

During the day we baked cupcakes, cleaned up the house, and finished (ahem, Russ) our last-minute shopping. 

I like to save our big, nice holiday dinner for Christmas day, rather than Christmas Eve, because there always seems to be a lot of things keeping us busy on Christmas Eve, and the following day is much more relaxed. So, our family Christmas Eve dinner tradition is . . . cold cereal! Everyone gets to pick whatever cereal they want. The kids love it.

After dinner we changed into our costumes and did our re-enactment of The Nativity. Being the only male in our family, Russ is pretty much destined to be Joseph from now until the kids are too old to act out the story any more. 

Ashlyn - wiseman, Russ - Joseph, McKell - angel, Kaylee - Mary, Brenna - shepherd

Just a nice shot of our 4 pretty girls with the tree.

We always got Christmas Eve pajamas when I was growing up, and I love doing the same with my kids. McKell isn't ever interested in posing for pictures, but you can sort of see her behind the other girls (her jammies match Brenna's).

And here's what the room looked like after the "big buy" had visited. :) So fun! I couldn't wait for the morning!!!

And here's the roll of wrapping paper we hung from the entry to the hallway where the kids' rooms are. Gotta keep prying eyes away from the goods during the night. :)

Christmas Treats

Here are some of the fun holiday treats we experimented with this year:

I was in charge of the goodies for Santa Claus to hand out to the kids at our ward Christmas party. Someone else suggested these bags of "Reindeer Noses", and I thought they turned out really cute.

The Monday before Christmas we did brownie Christmas trees for our family night treat. Yummy!

I saw these snowman cupcakes online and LOVED them. They turned out OK, but I probably wouldn't do them again. It's sort of a nightmare trying to get the candy corns and frosting eyes to stay on the powdered sugar donut. 

These reindeer cupcakes were another online find, and I really liked the way these turned out. They were fairly simple to assemble and stayed together well.

December

I'm really behind on my posts, so here are pictures from, like, everything leading up to Christmas. :)

We were very careful about the placement of our ornaments this year (putting anything fragile out of McKell's reach), and I think we survived the season without any casualties. 

We attended a community event in the park that included a sledding hill. Who knew you could go sledding in Texas?!

Brenna was VERY excited to perform some holiday songs with her preschool class.

McKell loves purses and jewelry and all things girly.

And she's getting really tall. This is a problem.

She climbs on the table all the time now. Which is another problem.

But she's really cute. And I really like her.

Here's Ashlyn sitting on Santa's lap at our Ward Christmas Party. Surprisingly, she couldn't think of anything to say when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas.

Kaylee asked Santa for a dog. Keep dreaming.

Brenna declined to sit on Santa's lap, but let him know she wanted an iPad for Christmas (which she did NOT get, by the way. We did get new tablet as a family gift though). 

This was Ashlyn's last Sunday with her FAVORITE primary teacher, Sister Zollinger. She's going to be a really tough act to follow.

McKell and I got to join Brenna for her preschool Christmas party on the 20th.

Her cupcake had some REALLY green frosting on it.

I don't know what this face is, but it's pretty funny.

Here's Brenna outside her classroom with the self-elf she decorated.

Here's Kaylee playing a marshmallow game with her friend Miranda at their class Christmas party. 

A few days before Christmas Ashlyn spent some time making gingerbread puppets and coming up with an *entertaining* little show for all of us to watch. :)