Cicely, Max, and Maddie

Brady's sister, Cicely and her kids Max and Madison came to visit last weekend from Las Vegas. Ammon loves playing with Maddie who is two months younger. Max also had a great time playing outside and playing our monster truck game on the wii. This time we managed to build a great snowman. Just the day before Cicely came we didn't have much snow because it had all melted, but we finally got 6 inches in one night. Now instead of spring in January we have winter again.

Sledding in the cold

Ronny and his family came for a suprise visit December 30th, and they stayed until January 2nd. We had so much fun with them, and we finally got to meet his fiance, Krista and the rest of the girls. I decided that Ronny is having the girls in the family and we are taking care of the boy population. We spent time playing in the snow at my parents house, and we tried to build a snowman but the snow wasn't wet enough. It was really fun though because the kids have never seen snow before (they live in warm Laughlin, Nevada) and Isabella was having the time of her life with Ammon. She is just 6 months younger than Ammon and already taller and has bigger feet than he does. Zenock just liked running around with the rest of the kids. I think it was a great way to celebrate the New Year.

New Year's Eve

Ammon, Zenock, and Isabella Brady's niece watching Magic School Bus.

Brady's stepmom Dee, our neighbors Julie and Kevin Robinson.

Brady's brother, Ronny and his fiance Krista, Krista's daughter Celeste.

This cutie is Gabriella, Ronny and Krista's daughter. She is the sweetest thing!

Pictures

I finally downloaded my camera, so here is a bunch of pictures I have been meaning to post. This first set is of the gingerbread house I made for the museum. Santa's sleigh fell off the roof and he landed in an ingloo. The snowman you will notice is wearing a witch's hat, and the small santa's are sleding on a paper hill with ritz crackers. It was a fun experience, but it was way more work than I am willing to do for a while.

I am trying to copy and past an email my dad sent me this morning, but it's not working. So I will just have to describe it. There were a bunch of pictures of animals, mostly cats, with captions like: I am so glad I'm not an only child. Have you ever seen porcupine babies? It gives a hole new meaning to labor pains. Anyway, for just about every picture Zenock said, "Oh, cute!" It was really funny. He says some of the cutest things sometimes. I think my favorite is when he runs around the house when he wakes up shouting, "Breakfast Time!!" but it comes out efass time. It kind of makes up for the frequent two-year-old tantrums...which leads me to another story.

It's funny and dumb now, but at the time I was pretty upset. All day Tuesday Zenock was having fits about the dumbest things. He wouldn't eat lunch and got upset when I wouldn't let him have a treat. He then thought it was naptime and had a fit when I said it was too early to take a nap. Then he was grumpy when he woke up...and after dinner came the biggest tantrum because Brady wouldn't let him have a bottle before bed since he didn't eat his peas. Well, I had had enough whining and crying so I kicked the kitchen cabinet to get his attention. And then my foot started hurting. The next moring I had a very hard time walking so when Brady got home from work he took me to the doctor. I had very first broken bone xray...and my foot isn't broken, just bruised inside pretty bad. So some advise to parents with toddlers...don't go kicking stuff when you are mad because it doesn't do any good anyway. I feel so dumb for even throwing a tantrum of my own, but at least my foot is starting to feel a little better.

New Photo

This is something I found on pyzam.com. They have some awesome stuff for blogs. One of these days I'll get one of these to put on the car window.

Lots of talking

One upside this past week has been watching Zenock and Ammon interact. Zenock now says too many words to count, and he is getting really good at speaking in simple sentences. Around christmas time he said as much as 10 new words in a day. I love to watch them play with each other, and it is really fun to watch them when they sing songs. Zenock loves to sing Book of Mormon Stories and I am a Child of God.

A downside to this week has been that our family has once again been plagued with the flu. This is the second time this winter and it's aweful. We had to leave church early because I started to feel symptoms during Sacrament meeting. Zenock started last Sunday evening, and Brady started Thursday, so now it's my turn. I hope Ammon stays well because having sick kids isn't fun for anyone. I am glad, though, that Brady is home this week (since his boss took some time off he got to have a vacation as well). We should both be pretty productive this week with our homework and getting our bathroom finished too. If the weather stays nice like last week we can probably take down our christmas lights outside. I love winter, but I am ready for warmer weather...being cold all the time isn't very fun anymore.

Advice??

We have been having a terrible time getting Zenock to eat his food. It seems the only thing he never complains about eating is rice krispies, cheese, and water. Brady and I are really frustrated right now because we have tried everything. Bribery used to work, but not anymore. And to make it worse, when he gets really worked up he starts coughing and gagging, so then he throws up. If there is anything you all can think of to help him not be so dang picky I would certainly welcome suggestions. Thankfully Ammon eats really well!

Just catchin' up

It's been a short couple of weeks. Brady and I are already back into another quarter of school, but thankfully it is almost my last one. The funny thing is that we are both taking a diversity class, but geared for our individual programs, so although it may be the same material, it is designed for completely different professional settings. I am already looking forward to March when school will be over.

Tomorrow I am picking up my gingerbread house from the museum, so hopefully I will remember to take a picture of it to show you my first attempt at this Christmas tradition. I think that next year I will buy one of those premade boxed houses because it is just too much of a pain to measure and cut and piece together a house from scratch. But for my first time, I think I did okay. When we went to the display for family home evening several weeks ago we saw some awesome gingerbread designs. Ammon's favorite was the merry-go-round with animals on it. My favorite was the one with two stories and windows all around so that we could peek in to see all the things going on inside the house. It was fully decked out with a tree, living room, kitchen, and some other things I can't remember right now. If I had the forethought and time to plan something like that I think it would be a fun and challanging undertaking.

Next week Brady gets to go out of town with my dad to Larimie, Wyoming to order parts for a big job at one of the church buildings there. He will be gone from Sunday afternoon until probably Wednesday. I am not looking forward to the time apart, but it will be a good opportunity for him to help my dad finish the job much faster (and hopefully he will get a lot of homework done during the 8 hour drive). Then when all the parts come in, they will go back to fix whatever isn't working right in February. He will be gone for a whole week that time.