The month of December

The month of December according to my phone.

 We went to the Chinese Lantern Festival with my aunt and uncle. It was very interesting and pretty cool. This is a castle made completely out of plates, cups, and silverware. Pretty crazy.

 This is the ice storm we got in early December that closed the city down for 6 days.

 Little Brynlee watching the kids and dad play outside in the snow.

 After a long day of playing in the snow, Macie came inside to lay down and warm up and Camden wanted to lay with her. Here they are "sleeping" together.

 I got a phone call from Addie's school one day saying that she had a "fever" of 99.3 and that I needed to come and pick her up and that she wouldn't be allowed to come to school the next day either because they have to be fever free for 24 hours. She wasn't even sick. I mean, she a had a little cold, but nothing that should keep a child home from school. She was totally fine and normal and really had no "fever". So the next day we went to the children's museum and played with  my "sick" little girl.

 For Christmas Macie wants this doll bed. Geoff and I said to ourselves, "we can make that for around $10." So we did. The one on the left is the picture of the bed in the magazine. The one on the right is the one we made for her. We chose to do it in her favorite colors and a fabric that matched her personality. It is perfect and I am so excited to see her reaction!!

 My brother and his wife came into town for Christmas. We went to Downtown Ft. Worth with them to check out the decorations and see the Santa toy land that they had all set up. It was fun. Here are the kids by some of the décor.

 Our reindeer Nelsie that comes to visit us each year. This was her last day here and she decided to zipline it from the toy room to the kitchen.

This sweet little girl was all worn out after church one Sunday. She fell fast asleep in the 5 minute drive home from church. Love this girl.

Christmas Eve/Day

Christmas Eve 2014 was a fun day. Beau, Mindy and Ari were here. Along with Grandma and Grandpa Bradley. We spent the day together hanging out, playing games, doing a puzzle, and making gingerbread houses.

Here are some of the gingerbread houses. Addie's house, Macie's house, and Grandma and Beau working on their houses. I made a new frosting this year that changed our gingerbread house making forever. It was amazingly think and worked like a charm. No ones house fell apart and everything was sticking together like magic. It definitely made it a lot more fun and basically stress free.

 Here are all of the kids sleeping on Christmas Eve. Camden 2, Addie 5, Macie 7, Brynlee 1.

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 Here is the Living Room Christmas Morning after Santa came. Brynlee got a rocking horse, Camden got a train set, Macie got Lego friends, and Addie got a Barbie house.

Here are the kids waiting to come downstairs to see what Santa brought.

Macie got the American Girl doll she wanted and the bed she wanted as well. She was just a little excited!!

 Addie got the doll she wanted as well. She doesn't look to excited in the pictures, but she was!!

 Camden got a TON of cars. This kid LOVES cars!! He is in heaven!!

 Here is sweet little Bryn opening up one of her presents. I love how expressive her face is. She is so happy and excited about everything.

Geoff got cowboy boots for Christmas. He LOVES them!! And wears them all of the time. And I must say that he looks pretty good in them.  Texas is wearing off on us ya'll.



A Snow Day

In the beginning of December there was a huge snow/ice storm that hit North Texas. It hit on a Friday. School was cancelled on Friday. Nobody drove anywhere on Saturday. Church was cancelled on Sunday. School was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday. It was not until Wednesday that life returned to normal. When there was no speck of ice or snow left on the ground. In the pictures below, you can see how much snow we got.....

 Here is Camden "enjoying" his first snow experience. He did not the cold. His hands were freezing, he wanted his gloves off and to be able to stay outside, but couldn't figure out why his hands were so cold when he would do that. He was not very happy. (and please ignore the pink shoes and red flower snowsuit....I just pulled them out of storage for him to wear.)

 Here is our sweet Brynlee. She actually did ok with it all. She liked being outside, but also enjoyed being inside just watching them play.

 The older 2 girls played outside with the neighbors for the next 5 days. It was wonderful!!!!! Reminded me of my childhood when that is all that we would do in the winter. They loved and enjoyed every.single.minute of this snow!! Here is Addie going down the driveway on our sled.

And Macie looking at the icicles on the tress and trying to make a few snowballs. It was a really fun few days where we got a brief glimpse of snow and were able to really enjoy it!!

The month of November

 The month of November according to my phone..

 Macie had crazy hair day at school. This is how we chose to do it this year. (Notice Camden's "cheese" face in the background. I love that kid!)

 A night of swimming at the rec center. Taking a break for a minute with all of our towel wrapped kids.

 The girls in their poodle skirts for 50's day. Love these girls so much!

 This guy is into a phase of lining things up. It keeps him very busy and he gets REALLY mad if anyone messes it up while he is working on it. It is a hard job for an almost 2 year old to do.

 Brynlee is working on her escape artist skills and getting her own food these days. Apparently I am not feeding her fast enough.

 In November we went to Great wolf lodge. We got a great deal and surprised the kids. The girls we SOOO excited. This is half of the car on the way home. The other half was also sleeping, I just couldn't bend that far for a pic.

 I was playing with the kids outside one day and we had the chalk out. Camden decided to color Bryn's face instead of the sidewalk. This little girl just laughed her way through it all. She is so cute and wonderfully happy.

 I was feeding Brynlee lunch one day and went to grab her something else to eat and while I was getting it ready she was crying. Camden said "oh,oh, Bynn Bynn Cying" and ran over and started feeding her for me. So.stinkin.cute!!!!

 Here are all of the kids in their Christmas outfits for church. I seriously feel so blessed to be the mom of these sweet kids.

 Little Brynlee on her birthday. My big 1 year old.

 It was thanksgiving break and the kids were out of school. It was my cleaning day, so I was changing laundry, washing sheets, cleaning bathrooms, etc. I walked into my room at one point and this is how I found the kids. They did it all on their own.

For Thanksgiving this year, our friends from dental school, The Welch's came into town to visit. It was so wonderful!! It was like having family here. We love this family so much and are so happy that we now live within an 8 hour drive of each other. The kids got along so great and it was such an amazing weekend. Here are all of the kids lined up: Cole, Macie, Jake, Addie, Camden. (The 2 baby girls were in their strollers).

Brynlee's 1st Birthday!!

We celebrated Brynlee's 1st birthday a few days ago. It was so much fun! This little girl has been such a joy and wonderful addition to our family. She is a very happy little thing, giving smiles to anyone who will look at her. She is also very tender hearted and cries anytime you look at her wrong or anytime you tell her no, and it is the saddest little cry. She just comes up to you and wants to be held. So sweet and melts my heart every time. She loves her brother tons and they play nicely together most of the time. He likes to grab her toys sometimes, and it is pretty funny how feisty and mad Brynlee gets. When he takes a toy from her she swats her hands around trying to defend herself  and screams like crazy.

She isn't walking yet, just crawling. She does like to pull herself onto things though. She LOVES to eat anything and everything. She is a very chunky little thing.

A few words she says are: Hi, Bye, Mom, Dad, Thank you, uh-oh, nana, night night, and she loves to blow kisses.

She is truly a joy and I can't believe that she is already 1!! I never thought we would make it through the first year!! We did it and looking back, it was hard, but not that bad. I actually think that this next year will be harder because now they can play off of each other and get into trouble together.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!!

 Opening presents. She sure loved the paper!!

Opening the big present. The big kids were just as excited and wanted to check it out more than little Bryn did. They totally crowded her out of it. Luckily she didn't care to much.

 Here she is with her cake. She was a funny one. We thought that she would be all about making a mess with the cake and eating it all up, but out of all of our kids, she was the one who didn't want to touch it at all and didn't want a single bite of it either. We were totally shocked. I even put her hand in it to help her out and she just started to cry. Apparently she doesn't like cake. What a funny little girl.

The month of October

The month of October according to my phone.

 Addie had to decorate a pumpkin for school, so we decided to whip up some microwave puffy paints to decorate the pumpkin with.

 Going for walk and this guy grabs a stroller and some sunglasses. Cheeseball.

 Getting ready for a bath and her shirt got stuck on her head. She thought it was pretty funny.

 Geoff and I went to a 70's themed murder mystery party. It was a blast!

 Camden was trying to climb up the slide and couldn't do it , so Macie decided to help him.

 For Halloween the girls were cats, Camden was Spiderman, and Brynlee just dressed in a Halloween shirt. The kids had a lot of fun trick or treating this year.

 Addie hijacked my phone and this is the result.

 Camden still emptying out cupboards. This time he is setting up a picnic.

The girls get to dress up in 50's clothes for the 50th day of school, so I decided to whip them up some poodle skirts to wear.

Cookies and carving

For family night before Halloween we decorated sugar cookies and took them to a few of the neighbors. We also carved and painted the pumpkins. It was a busy night, but lots of fun. I always enjoy watching the kids clean out the pumpkin. It is so fun to watch them squirm.

 Carving, painting, and cleaning out the pumpkin.

Decorating the sugar cookies. The kids sure enjoyed it and each made some pretty creative cookies. Poor Brynlee was sad that she wasn't old enough to help.