Happy 3rd Birthday Braelyn Rachel!!!

On December 1st Braelyn turned 3. I can't believe my baby is already 3! Luckily I was off from clinic and class that day so we had an awesome day celebrating her birthday. The night before we had put up some streamers and balloons because Braelyn is all about the party atmosphere. When she woke up that morning we told her Happy Birthday. She jumped out of bed and said "Oh I am so excited, I am so excited!" Then when she saw her decorations she got even more excited.
We kicked off the day with taking her to the Donut Stop to eat some donuts. They were delicious :) After we picked up Dal from school we had free tickets to go to the movie theater to see Arthur Christmas. Braelyn is not the best about sitting through movies at theaters so we were a little worried but since it was free we decided to go for it. Luckily we had the entire theater to ourselves. So when she started to lose interest and wasn't super quiet anymore and wanted to walk up and down the aisles-it was okay because the entire theater was ours :) It was a fun movie and we enjoyed it.

Braelyn loved trying to blow up balloons

Ready to head out the door to the movies
Another part of B-Rae's birthday party was some family Wii time. We played Mario Super Sluggers and a game of bowling. She really got into them and she was a really good pitcher on Mario baseball.

Here is a little video clip of us playing Wii (take note of B's awesome spin pitch:)


Braelyn is really into birthday hats so we made sure they were part of the party (some of those blow things too :)

Dal did a great job helping with the birthday cake

Braelyn had fun opening her presents

One of her presents was a really cool & big puzzle we got at Ross. She loves puzzles and I was very impressed with this one. Ross has some great stuff sometimes!

She also loved her birthday cake and blowing out the candles (She chose pizza for her birthday dinner which was really yummy too)

Braely Rae got a new dress and boots for her birthday so she was excited to try them on, and of course we had to do a little photo shoot too :)

I just love that girl so much. She is so cute and funny. She is so thoughtful and concerned about everyone, especially if anyone gets hurt or is sick. She is also so nurturing and loving with her baby and any baby she sees. Whenever she sees a real baby she says "Oh that baby is so cute!" and then she falls to the ground or tips over being overcome with the cuteness :) She also says some of the funniest things sometimes. Like when she doesn't get what she wants, or if I don't do something the ways she wanted me to she says "Mom, it makes me so frusturated when you don't listen to me." It's so funny the way she says it. One of my favorites is when she tells me, or Jake or Dal that we are her best friends and that she loves us so much.
We love you Braelyn and are so grateful that you are part of our family!

So Grateful

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. We didn't go anywhere and it was just our little family and it was so wonderful and relaxing. Jake made us a delicious Thanksgiving feast. We ate. We relaxed. We played games. We had fun as a family. I didn't think about school at all and just enjoyed the break. It was such a nice little vacation.

Over the weekend I had time to reflect on the many blessings that I have in my life and how grateful I am for them. To name just a few...

• I am grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I am grateful that we have the His restored gospel and that we are blessed enough to be members of His church.
  
• I am grateful to know the purpose of our lives and what we are ultimately working toward, and that the rest are just details.
• I am grateful to have modern revelation, a living prophet and apostles, and the guidance and direction that we receive from them.
• I am grateful for temples and the peace and Spirit that can be felt there and that through them we can be eternal families.
• I am grateful for an amazing husband who has worked so hard despite a lot of pain to always be there for me and to be the best daddy ever to our two kids.
• I am grateful for my two wonderful children. They are so full of life and energy and are such special spirits. I feel blessed to have them.
• I am grateful for mine and Jake's extended families. We have so many fun and wonderful family members who we wish we got to see more often.
• I am grateful for the opportunity that I have had to further my education and the help that I've been given to do well.
• I am grateful for the scholarships that I've received to help with tuition and gas reimbursement for my clinical travels.
  
• I am grateful to only have two weeks left for the semester, to get a nice long Christmas break, and then to have only one semester left of Radiation Therapy school.
• I am grateful that after a couple of interviews and and some waiting patiently the Huntsman Cancer Hospital has decided to bring me on as a student to become further specialized as a Medical Dosimetrist. (We are so excited!!!)
• I am grateful for opportunities to serve in the church. I was just released as the nursery leader (woohoo! :) and called to be 2nd counselor in the Young Womens (which I am really excited about!)
• I am grateful to be looking at a cute little Christmas tree with lights with now:) I love Christmas decorations!

I have so many amazing blessings in my life! Tonight Jake and I were reading an article on lds.org about gratitude and I loved some of the quotes so I think I'll share...

“In some quiet way, the expression and feelings of gratitude have a wonderful cleansing or healing nature. Gratitude brings warmth to the giver and the receiver alike,” Elder Robert D. Hales of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said.

“Gratitude, expressed to our Heavenly Father in prayer for what we have, brings a calming peace,” he said, “a peace which allows us to not canker our souls for what we don’t have. Gratitude brings a peace that helps us overcome the pain of adversity and failure. Gratitude on a daily basis means we express appreciation for what we have now without qualification for what we had in the past or desire in the future.”

Dal's Testimony

Here is Dal sharing his testimony about the scriptures. This is what he got to do for the primary program. He came up with what he wanted to say himself. We had to shorten it a little because he had a whole lot to say about the scriptures, including "If you go to the store and you see a Book of Mormon there you should buy one", and he talked about the Nephites wearing a lot of strong armor and the Lamanites only wearing little pants :) Stuff like that. He does some actions and is a little crazy on the video but when he did it in church he did awesome. We were so proud of him!

Halloween

For Halloween this year Braelyn was a bat with a cute hat (she wanted to wear a hat like mine :) and Dal was a green bounty hunter. The week of Halloween we took the kids to the ward Trunk-or Treat and the night of we took them trick-or-treating on a couple streets. They had a lot of fun! Dal also had a Halloween party at school and got to go trick-or-treating at a nursing home.

On a side note: A couple weeks ago we had put the kids to bed (or at least we thought they were in bed) and then they come out to show us the beautiful artwork they had done on Braelyn's legs. She did a pretty good job almost covering her legs. They explained that she wanted to look like she had boots on, like Woody :) Crazy kids!

Braelyn Rachel "Flying"

Braelyn has been telling us for months that she wants to fly "on her own" like the birds. Well, this was about as close to flying as we could get her! She loved it!!

This zip line was at the pumpkin farm that we went to. The previous 3 posts (Pumpkin farm, Star Wars Party & Palo Duro Canyon) are some of the fun things that we got to do while my parents were in town visiting us. It was so fun to have them here! The kids cried when we took them to the airport. We love them and miss them! Thanks Mom & Dad for such a great time!

A Super Fun Pumpkin Farm

Love this pic! We spent an evening at a local pumpkin farm with lots of fun activities to do. We had a total blast!

Hayride with Grandma & Grandpa

There was this really cool slide going through a mountain of dirt. Dal & Grandpa went together (you can only see my Dad's shoes but he's behind Dal-when he laid back they went really fast and Dal loved it :)

A cool corn kernel sand box

A fun little ride being pulled by 4-wheelers

They had a really fun little obstacle course

B-Rae loved roping the calf

They also had an awesome, huge, built into the ground trampoline thing. It was so fun!

Star Wars Party

Because both of our kids have December birthdays and are near holidays we decided that it would be a fun tradition to have some kind of a summer party for them. This year we chose to have a Star Wars party because Dal loves star wars (clone wars) and Braelyn loves anything that Dal loves :) Instead of having it in the summer we decided to wait until my parents came to visit us so that they could be a part of it too.

It was a surprise party. Dal knew we were going to have it but he didn't know when. So the night before we hung up a bunch of star wars pictures (gotta love free prints :) Some of the pictures included Dal...thanks to my sister-in-law Elizabeth's & Jake's photo editing skills.

When Dal woke up and saw the pictures everywhere he was so excited. We went and got donuts so that our little Jedi's could have energy. We also went & played at Jump n' Jive (a place with big blow up slides and castles) so that the kids could work on their Jedi moves.

Jake planned a scavenger hunt style adventure for Dalyn & Braelyn. The kids followed around some clues and part of it included a bubble machine and the kids "lightsabers". We fit the bubbles in by saying that some 'clankers' (Droids) had developed a new weapon - carbonite dispensed in bubbles - that would trap you if you got caught by the bubble. So the Padawans had to fight off the bubbles with their lightsabers in order to avoid being caught & frozen in blue carbonite (convincing since Captain Rex & his troopers had already been caught... convenient since Dalyn had to save them by pouring the white solution (whip cream) over the carbonite (jello) and eating it (why not eat through carbonite, Jedis have strong teeth right?! :)

After Dal saved Captain Rex we returned home and had some Yoda Soda (lemon-lime soda with lime sherbert in it) For dinner we had Padawan Pizza. The kids opened a couple fun presents.

My parents even wore some cool Star Wars shirts to the party (I meant to get a picture of them in their shirts)

The party was a success

Dal said it was the best day of his life :)

Palo Duro Canyon

Palo Duro Canyon is a 120 mile canyon & state park. We had a lot of fun driving and hiking around it to check it out.
(Deep in the canyon they've found dinosaur fossils, rhinoceros, elephants, horses, and camels from like 10,000 yrs ago and also caveman & Indian remnants - interesting!! )

This was a little shade hut where you could rest from your hike. It was pretty warm out.

This red rock or clay was really soft and crumbly. There were also other layers of different cool kinds of rocks. A geologist would love this place!

Grandma & Braelyn decided to explore some of the steeper terrain :)

It was so fun to have my parents in town!