Portraits

My grandparents are good sports with our photography, letting us take over their upstairs while we have indoor photo shoots. Brent has been working on portraits recently and Grandma and Grandpa were such kind sports. These pictures could end up being treasures for my family. I'm so glad he took them. I love the way Brent edited this first one.

I couldn't decide which one I liked better of Grandpa so you get to see them both:

Then Grandpa had to leave for a bit and Grandma was willing and happy to have her picture taken. This was surprising (for anyone who knows my grandma you'll know why) and surprising even more was her big smiles for the pictures. This one was, by far, my favorite. It really captures who she is.

Then Chico asked Brent to take his picture. He is such a cutie.

Gone are the days of a normal smile. This is what he does whenever we ask him to smile for the camera. It's so funny.

A fun Family Christmas Party

Griz looked pretty much just too dang adorable that night and we couldn't stop taking pictures of him. I couldn't narrow it down, so here are four of them.

The girls sang and danced for us. They did an awesome job and look so cute in this picture.

Grandma Ellen and Grandpa Simon gave the kids all striped shirts.

And we took pictures of them all. I had my long lens on and didn't feel like getting them all to look at me because Christa and Ellen were doing that. My child has had his finger up his nose quite consistently lately. (pretty embarrassing during tithing settlement, Bishop was nice about it though) ANYWAY, here's the whole group:

And here are the youngests (the kids in the front weren't focused in this picture) I liked this one a lot, they're all so cute together.

Cute picture of the boys wrestling. And bonus, Chico's finger isn't up his nose!

My Crazy Idea

I had this vision of my mind of a big snowy field with beautiful pine trees everywhere as being a pretty backdrop for a family picture. I enlisted my parents who were willing to come to get above the yucky inversion and drive up the canyon in search of such a scene.

We found one that kinda fit my idea but not really.  The boys were so cold and it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. But it made for a fun Holiday card (yeah, I didn't get it done by Christmas so it was a New Years card instead)

No one has commented on the scrapbookey pine trees on the actual picture. We thought it would be funny but maybe not? What was all y'all's reactions to it? Be honest, did you even notice them?

Thanks for your help Mom and Dad!

Annual IKEA Christmas Trip

We headed to IKEA to get our Swedish food supplies after Brent got off work. Of course the boys slept on the way there and were grumpy when we got there. We were hungry so we ate first and this is pretty much how the meal went:







Oh well. :)


Then we got caught in the store's trap and wound our way through the maze, being sorely tempted to buy several things. They're so tricky!!! But luckily we made it to the swedish foods area with our hands empty so that we could buy what we ACTUALLY came there for. Farmer Cheese (best cheese for cracker bread), and lingonberry sylt (a must in our home). They've sure changed things in the food market and not really for the better. Except for the new addition of lingonberry soft serve frozen yogurt. That was surprisingly yummy! We sure enjoyed that Farmer Cheese this Christmas Season. Nothing reminds me of our trip to Sweden more than Farmer Cheese on Cracker Bread!

Gingerbread Houses

After Brent's finals were over the fun began! Unfortunately we don't have tons of pictures that we did as just a little family because usually we were busy with the kids and didn't pull out the camera or forgot to bring it.

This is one of the first activities we did. The Gingerbread houses turned out pretty well! Thanks to Brent being patient with the boys and helping them while I made my own house. They turned out great!

cute

Chico amazes me with the skillfull and creative things he does. Lately he is really into tying knots. over and over and over again on the same string.  The intricacy is amazing. Brent was amazed when he came home and discovered Chico had made a perfect half hitch.  I guess being in Scouts his whole life has rubbed off ;)  Anyway, this was the first of many experiments with rope that he has done lately.  It's on our bunny's cage. Let me tell ya, that was hard to get off!

I came into the front room one day and found our Nativity had been re-arranged and added to....

Sure do love my boy. And then just the other day he put the baby Jesus right into Mary's arms, so sweet. (we won't mention how many times it's been thrown on the ground and I just looked back there and noticed baby Jesus is currently on the roof of the stable....)

Meeting Santa

We went with my parent's to their neighborhood Christmas party. Santa AND Mrs. Claus were coming. Chico seemed excited.

Grizwald wasn't so sure about all the hullabaloo.

I was trying to prep Chico for Santa and asked him if he wanted to sit on his lap. He said no, so we decided to write his Christmas list and just hand it to him. Chico seemed okay with that.

Grizwald freaked.

Chico wouldn't even walk up there to give them the letter.

Didn't want to even look at him.

But my dad read the letter to him and tried his hardest.  

Chico peeking a look...

Overall he didn't enjoy the experience but I don't think he was traumatized or anything. He's talked about it since then.  Maybe next year. :)