Baby Kate

 On January 4th, Jodi delivered Kate Ryan, she looks exactly like her big sister Presley.  Luckily, Jodi had an amazing c-section and recovery compared to the trauma she had with Presley and the doctor was able to cut out SIX inches of the scar tissue left from her uterus infection she got last time.

 You can't really see from this picture but Carson has two separate black eyes on his left eye.   He was throwing his plastic dart gun in the air and it hit and scratched under his eye for the first mark.  Then a couple of days later, we were sitting on the floor of the dinning room where their castle is and he fell and hit the counter high chair on the outside corner of his eye.  By the time we went to church, they both looked pretty bad.

 Kade loves looking at and holding the baby, he can't wait for his little brother to come out and play.  He always says, "hi baby" to me belly and gives it kisses.

 Since my mom was here for 2 weeks and Chyler was working even more than normal on a few big jobs, we spent a lot of time over at Jodi's.  The boys were loving playing with all the girl stuff that we don't have at our house, including dressing up in her play princess dresses.



Christmas 2011

 For our ward Christmas party, Chyler's Elders Quorum was in charge of an activity in one of the rooms and what did he decide to do?  Yep, make bean shooting guns.  Who makes guns for a Christmas party?  To make it Christmas, he printed off Christmas coloring pages that the kids could color and then shoot at the picture with the gun and he painted the guns Christmas colors.  As silly as it was, everyone loved it.  And he did targets for the older people and then gave the guns to the winners.  Here are the boys coloring their pictures.

My 2nd cousin, Lettie (named after my wonderful Grandma), from North Carolina decided to get sealed to her husband here is Vegas so my uncle could do the sealing.  We were so happy because it brought cousins into town that we don't get to see often.  This is us with Adrianne and her husband, Mario. 

 This is the FIRST Christmas that we have spent at home all day, Chyler really wanted to not worry about traveling with the kids and all the presents.  I was really scared to not be with my family, namely my parents, but we had a ton of fun.  For Christmas Eve, we had Jason and Jodi's families over and JaNae brought Christmas bingo and prizes and then we exchanged our cousin gifts after we had a wonderful dinner.

 Since Christmas was on Sunday this year and we have church at 9 am, we snuck the boys out of the house and didn't open presents till after church.  We thought we got away with it but Carson started talking in Sacrament meeting about the bike that was at home that Santa made in his workshop.  We were surprised that he didn't mention it when he saw but he was still excited when we got home so we didn't mind.

 Our stockings.

Every year I plan to make stockings for us but I haven't found one I love yet.

 Here are a couple of the opening pictures

 Carson loves puzzles so we get him new ones all the time

 We bought Lego Star Wars sets for all 3 for the cousins we had and Carson wanted them for himself so bad.  When we would ask what he wanted Santa to bring him, he would say nothing because he already had the Lego Star Wars.  We would always explain that those weren't for him but he wasn't getting in.

 I bought this car mat from Ikea a few months before Christmas and totally forgot to wrap it.  After we were done opening presents, I remembered it and sent Chyler out to the garage to get it. 

 Jodi and Patrick came over for Christmas dinner too, Chyler made his amazing steaks and we had twice baked potatoes, jello salad, cream corn, rolls, and Martinelli's.  It was delish!

 The boys would not work with us but Patrick thought these pictures are better than smiling ones so I threw it in there. 

 We now have a window...

and trim around the hut.  We finished the whole loft on New Year's Eve but I haven't taken another picture of it yet.

Thanksgiving

My parents called and informed me that they didn't have plans yet so they were coming to my house for Thanksgiving.  So along with my parents, we had Trina's family, Jodi's family, and Alan's family come and Chyler's dad and wife, step-sister and her son, and brother and his girlfriend.  This was the first time since before Alan's mission he has spent Thanksgiving with the family since he works retail.  We had a lot of fun.

Carson, Bri and Kade playing in Carson's new room

Tyler and Kaden

Cole, Carson, Ryder and Kade in the background

Here is my early Christmas present.  Yep, I got a bed, I finally feel like a grown up!!  I wasn't planning on buying a black bed but I loved the design and it was such a great deal at the discount center that I couldn't pass it up.  I have been on the hunt for a bedspread since October and I can't find one I love.

Reno and Lake Tahoe

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, Chyler's grandpa called and said that he was getting married the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Since Chyler was really close to his grandparents growing up, he really wanted to go. We were planning to take Carson to Disneyland but I guess that will have to wait.

Here is the picture that their friend/photographer took

They just had the wedding in their living room and had some friends over

He asked Chyler to be the best man and Grandpa was so excited to have us there and introduce Chyler to everyone. They all knew who he was, so apparently he talks about Chyler a lot.

This is how Kade stands when he is getting ready to run. He spreads his legs, leans back on one leg, then says, "set, go" and takes off running, it is so funny. And as I mentioned in the last post about Kade taking his clothes off all the time, he started taking off his pants in the middle of the wedding. I was so embarrassed.

Since the wedding was in the middle of the day and then everyone was visiting, the boys didn't get a nap. Carson curled up on the chair and passed out and Kade fell asleep in our arms.

Grandpa Neil actually lives at Pyramid Lake about 30 mins outside of Reno so we stayed at Circus Circus Reno for the first 2 nights then went and stayed at Neil's house on Sunday and Monday after all the festivities were over.

On Saturday night after the wedding, we went down to play all the games and then had dinner at a BBQ restaurant they have there.

Carson wanted to take a picture and I was surprised at how well he did.

On Monday, Grandpa Neil drove us out to Lake Tahoe because he knew how much I wanted to see it. We stopped at Carson City along the way and saw the capital building.

4 generations minus 1

First glimpse of the lake

Chyler and I love stopping at little local restaurants when we travel, this was Big Daddy's burgers I believe and it was pretty good.

Everyone says that Carson is so Chyler and in this picture, they even have the same expression. I thought it was funny.

Kade was just having a ball

After we got lunch, we drove around till we could get to the actual lake. It was freezing but we wanted to get out and look.

There were these huge pine cones that the boys wanted to look at

I was really sad that this picture came out so dark but I didn't realize it till after we left

Taking a look at a snowman someone had built.