Christmas

Just a disclaimer: there are A LOT of pictures below. Christmas, New Year's, and a two-week trip to see family. What else can I say?

SEA WORLD!!!! My parents' big gift to us was a trip to nearby Sea World! It was amazing. The kids loved it and did well all day even with no naps.
Luke was so hilarious with these ducks. He loved them! And he's been doing this crazy super-cheesy grin lately and it makes me laugh every time.

Watching the Shamu show with my parents.

Rachel and my sister.

The great Shamu!

With an otter???

Emma got to sleep by the Christmas tree with her Aunt Ali. She was so stoked! Apparently they took turns telling stories about school, friends, injuries, and getting in trouble. What a great bonding night!

Christmas Eve consisted of decorating cookies, a big dinner of grilled steaks, caroling, acting out the Nativity, and opening one present (new pj's, of course!).


Mary and Joseph. It was so nice to see my darling little nephew, Paul. His dad (my brother) and mom just moved to Texas.


Christmas morning!

Reading his new fire truck book with Papa

The girls' big gift from my parents was American Girl dolls! Emma got Felicity and Rachel got Kit. They are so cute. The dolls are very much loved and sleep with their proud owners every night.

Our only family picture the whole trip. I'm glad my aunt suggested taking it!

Cameron dusted off his trombone from high school band and entertained the kids with it one morning. Luke especially loved it.

We love Krispy Kreme! We headed out with kids still in jammies to eat some delicious fattening HOT doughnuts! So good.

The weather wasn't especially warm too often, but it was mild enough most days that you could be outside with a jacket. We went to the nearby park several times to play.

One of my favorite nights was our trip to downtown San Antonio. We looked at the Alamo and all the downtown holiday decorations, including walking the Riverwalk. It was such a fun, festive atmosphere with all the lights, the water, the people, and the live music.

Granby and Luke enjoying some ice cream after dinner.

My GREAT family. It's been almost two years since we've all been together.

The four grandkids. In five more months there will be two more!

Gorgeous downtown tree

New Year's Eve was so much fun with the kids. We put Luke to bed and the girls got to stay up and play games with the big people. We played the flour game--has anyone ever played this? You hide a nickel in a pile of flour and take turns slicing the flour carefully. Whoever collapses the pile gets to search (with no hands!!!) for the nickel and get it with their teeth. Very funny and messy!
And we did some dancing!


The night ended with some fireworks and pot-banging outside, then tucking in the girls and watching Dan in Real Life--love that show!
It was so great to spend the holidays with my family! I hope it's not too long before we can do it again. I love going "home" so much. I still call it home even though I've had a home of my own for a long time (which I love too). There's just a wonderful spirit there (thanks in huge part to my sweet wonderful mom) and it's always hard to leave. It makes me want to make my own home as wonderful as the one I came from.

Announcing.....

We're having another one of these adorable creatures in just 5 1/2 short months. Estimated due date: June 16, 2011.
We can't wait!
We told the kids the news on Christmas Day by giving them several hints, such as "It drinks a lot of milk" and "It crawls all over the place." The girls were convinced we were giving them a cat for Christmas and that it was hiding somewhere in the house. It was so funny! At least they weren't disappointed when we told them it was a baby, not a cat they were getting. They couldn't be more excited! Can't believe I'll have FOUR kids!

Santa

Our annual visit with Santa. He is the best!
Wasn't sure if Luke would do it, but he did great.

Luke's Christmas wish: a candy cane. That's all he wants for Christmas. He asked Santa for it and boom--instant gratification! He was so happy.

Emma's Christmas wish: a jingle bell, a rocking horse, and for her clubhouse (on our outdoor swingset) to be finished.
Rachel's Christmas wish: a hair styling set and a pink laptop.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

This brought me to tears. AMAZING!

From Sand to Snow

We returned from a trip to St. George at 1am last night. Grandpa Bergin warned us about a storm that was coming, so we quickly packed and left at 9:15pm last night instead of driving home today. We woke up this morning to six inches of snow on the ground, so we're glad we left when we did.

While in St. George, we attended the live Nativity at Tuacahn that featured a real camel, horses, sheep, and goats. The kids loved it although the temperatures were frigid. We also toured Brigham Young's winter home and wondered why all the door knobs were so close to the ground. Apparently, almost everyone was 5 feet 6 inches or shorter back then. We also saw firsthand how fabric was woven from cotton that used to be grown in the area. Emma even picked some cotton from the plants growing on the grounds, although she got in trouble for it. Later, in Snow Canyon State Park, Emma picked an armful of what looked like wild rhubarb and asked if we could make a pie out of it. Dad quickly stowed the plants in the cooler hoping that no park ranger had seen what was likely an illegal harvest. We never made the pie and aren't even certain if the stuff was rhubarb.

In Snow Canyon, we took a short hike to a small slot canyon. Luke was tickled and thought the whole place was a giant sand box. Rachel drew pictures in the sand, and her impish giggles echoed up and down the canyon walls. Brooke and I marveled that such a beautiful place was so close to the road -- a perfect spot for our small children.

Halloween

Better late than never, right? Here are pics from our spooky, soggy night. It rained buckets here thus cutting our trick-or-treating short. Luckily, the kids had plenty of candy from trick-or-treating the day before at Dad's work. We were eager to go home, put on our warm PJ's, snuggle together and hand out candy. Something fun that we did BEFORE trick-or-treating that would make a great tradition: eating out at Wendy's with my grandparents. I'm so mad I didn't take a picture! We were all dressed up in our costumes, including me and Ben, and the comments and great looks from others in the restaurant really made it fun. They really should have given us free food for looking so darn good. :) And I didn't have to scramble to cook and clean up dinner so we could head out trick-or-treating! A win-win.

My little Jessie


My sweet princess


My ferocious lizard/dinosaur--what do you think it is??? This costume was borrowed from a good friend, because I ran out of steam to make a cowboy costume for Luke. I felt kinda bad about that, but he is only two and he didn't care a bit.


Family picture. Can you tell what Ben and I are?

(Salt and pepper)