Christmas 2019

Hailey's first Christmas. :) It was a good one and hopefully we succeeded at making it memorable for our kids. :) Again, we are suckers for traditions and our kids are starting to recognize that these are things we do every year. They are actually excited and look forward to them which makes it so fun! We've been decorating sugar cookies on Christmas Eve to leave out for Santa every year for a few years now. We also have been opening one gift before bed which they know is a set of new pajamas. Then, Scott reads the Polar Express to them and then we read the nativity for our scripture reading before bed. We enjoy these traditions and this year was no exception. :) It was a little difficult this year to participate in all our activities. Hailey is still quite needy and refuses to nap or even go down at night without me holding her so my arms are usually full nowadays. Scott is amazing though and helped kids with cookie decorating, read to them and played Santa after they went to bed while I watched from the couch, holding little miss Hailey while she slept. (spoiled you say? maybe, but she's the boss for now... :P )

 

 

 

Christmas was wonderful. We opened stockings and presents. Kids loved the added touch of the tv showing a fireplace fire under their stockings. :) We enjoyed opening presents and then headed up to open a couple more from our cousins and family upstairs. We played all morning and then headed down to Ken's to celebrate with his brothers. Such a fun day spent with family and the spirit of giving to remind us of the greatest gift of all - the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Merry Christmas!

 

Merry Christmas to All!

Festival of Lights

We love our traditions! :) Every Christmas season we love to see the Festival of Lights down in Spanish Fork. Before heading to the lights though, we always get dinner at Barry's. We love Barry's and have been going there since Scott and I were dating. Then after eating we drive slowly through the pretty lights, letting the kids wander around the car to look at them all and eat chocolate chip cookies that Scott made beforehand. It's a fun tradition that we love and this year was just as fun. My photos aren't great, but the memories are. :)

Two Month Hailey

1. Hailey is two months old!

2. She weighs 11 pounds 11 ounces and is in the 66th percentile.

3. She's 23 and a half inches long as in the 92nd percentile. She's growing so great!

4. Hailey latched on right away and has been nursing pretty well since birth. She nurses for comfort as well as for hunger so she nurses pretty often, hence her nice weight stats. :)

5. Either I've gotten lazy or my babies have gotten needier. She won't sleep well unless I'm holding her or she's laying next to me.  For nights we had bought a little co sleeper bed to put her in, but she prefers to be tucked in right next to me so she can nurse all night long. She's starting to sleep for longer chunks of time though, so we'll have to try putting her in it again. During the day I'll get her to sleep but as soon as I put her down she'll wake up 5-15 minutes later. :P

6. She's got a full head of hair similar to Claire and Caleb. She does not however follow their pattern of liking a pacifier. We've tried a couple different kinds and she will get super mad when I try to give her the paci option. She wants me and nothing else.

7. She is also similar to Everett and Seth in the fact that she's not a big spitter. It's a bit of a relief to me when I don't have to worry about her spitting up large amounts all the time soiling her clothes in just another way. :p

8. Hailey seems to be pretty partial to me. It's been a bit frustrating for both Scott and I. She'll be sound asleep and I'll hand her off to him or someone else to hold, and she seems to know. She'll wake up and cry the same as if I laid her down. We know it'll pass eventually and she'll love to play with Scott probably more than playing with me, but at the moment, she only wants me.

9. We're all adjusting to having Hailey in our lives and in our family. Claire and Everett are busy with school and not as interested, but super helpful when I ask for things. Claire has seemed more grown up lately trying to learn all she can, to be able to babysit eventually.  Seth is always giving her hugs and kisses and getting right up in her face with his funny faces. The change has probably affected Caleb the most. It's been a little rough for him not being the baby anymore. He laughed at her faces at first and said she was cute, but lately he goes between trying to ignore she's there and climbing into my lap anyway (on top of her) or yelling at me to put her down or give her back to daddy. Hopefully, as she grows she'll be more fun and they'll be good friends. :)

10. We love having another little girl around. It's crazy thinking we're a family of SEVEN. Sounds like such a big family, I have no idea how our parents survived! We are so happy to have Hailey in our lives. :)

Reflections Contest

Every year Claire's school has a Reflections Contest. The theme this year was "Look Within". Claire decided she wanted to participate and so she made a 2D artwork of flowers made out of tissue and colored with marker drawn on while it was wet so it spread out in a unique and beautiful way. She wrote a little explanation of how her picture described the theme. It says...

"Everybody is different and beautiful in their own way, like flowers, they're all different but all beautiful. "

She won first place for 2D artwork at her school. They gave her an award and a gift card to Target. She was then invited to an award ceremony where finalists from all the schools in the district were recognized and awarded up on stage. It was pretty neat, and we were excited for her. :)

And she's already talking about what she wants to do next year for the contest. :)

Gingerbread Houses

We love these village kits from Walmart. It makes making gingerbread houses a little easier. :) Kids enjoyed the project and Caleb just snagged the candy whenever he thought we weren't looking. ;)

 

Family Pictures 2019

I love having updated family photos of our growing family. However, having a baby in the fall makes family photo planning time a little difficult so we decided to do something a little different this year. We simplified and set up a tripod in front of our garage door to take a quick photo of us all that I could photoshop into a different setting. :P It was a little chilly but not too bad so I just took the kids out one at a time to get a few single shots of them to update our wall photos. Anyway, here are the favorites and the before and afters. :)

 

Thanksgiving

It was a snowy Thanksgiving this year. It snowed most of the day. Scott still went to play football in it while we played inside and watched movies. :) Scott came home and made most of our Thanksgiving dinner this year. We joined with my parents and sister Lindy upstairs and it was great! My sister Lia and her family came over and joined us for dessert and a Christmas movie and games. Hailey slept for a good little bit which allowed me to eat dinner but she tends to get a bit fussy around a lot of people. She was a bit clingy and already seems to have stranger anxiety. :P It was a nice day though and I'm reminded about all the things I have that I'm so thankful for. I am extremely blessed. :)

Hailey's Blessing Day

My sister Lia makes beautiful blessing dresses and just like Claire's baptism dress she's able to make blessing dresses from wedding dresses. Not knowing we were going to have another girl and since she used my wedding dress for Claire's baptism dress I didn't plan on her being able to make a blessing dress for Hailey as well. She surprised me though and told me that she had enough leftover material that she could make a blessing dress! We talked about the design and she put together this beautiful dress in just a couple weeks. It turned out so beautiful and it's even more special because it was made from my wedding dress as well. :)

The day of her baby blessing went pretty well. We had family visiting and it was also the day of the Primary program so we made sure to get to church a bit early to save seats. Also, because it was the primary program we weren't able to bless her during sacrament meeting where it traditionally takes place but instead waited until after meetings to bless her with just our family. The chapel was being used and so we fit quite nicely in the Primary room. Hailey had a good nap during the second hour of church and so when I had to change her to get ready she was not happy one bit. She cried and screamed throughout the whole blessing. :( Caleb was a bit fussy too which made everything just a bit hectic. :P We were able to come back to relax and visit with family and eat sandwiches and celebrate our baby girl's special day. It was so nice to see and visit with everyone. :)

 

May the Bryson Force Be With You

Our kids chose a Star Wars theme for Halloween this year. Claire as Rey, Everett as Luke Skywalker, Seth wanted to be Chewbacca, Caleb made a perfect Yoda and Hailey made a cute R2D2. And then Scott and I had to go as princess Leia and Han Solo. :) Having a baby only 2 weeks before Halloween made costume planning a little harder for me this year. I usually enjoy making and putting costumes together but this year we mostly borrowed and bought costumes. I did make Hailey's onesie before she was born and cut up a shirt for Scott's vest, and I sewed a robe together for Everett but most everything else was already made.

Our ward put together a Fall Festival this year with games and trunk or treating. We walked around playing games, eating treats and then went trick or treating around to the classrooms cuz it was so cold outside.

The next morning we all went to the school to watch Claire and Everett show off their costumes at their costume parade.  

We took our usual photos that afternoon. It was so so cold so we had to be quick and kids played inside while I took individual photos of each of them. Hailey wasn't loving the photo op but she was a cute little R2. :P

Because we had gotten candy from most of our neighbors the night before at the ward festival and because it was so cold we decided to try something new this year. We went trick or treating at the mall. It was a new experience for us. It was really crowded (probably because of the weather) and it was slow walking through and many of the stores had run out of candy but we made it around and kids had fun. Caleb was completely worn out by the end. We got pizza on the way home and watched a Halloween movie and relaxed pretty early in the evening compared to past years. It was nice. :)

And our 2019 Halloween Poster :P