Miss Ivy

January second Ivy turned three. Ivy is a VERY smart girl! If you ask her what day her birthday is she will very clearly say "January second." Sometime I think she is too smart for her own good! The birthday girl

Ashley planned a really cute tea party for Ivy's birthday.

That face says....I know it's all about me and I love it.....Don't you think?

Ezra got all dressed up for the party

The table

Best buds

Happy Birthday Ivy!

We LOVE you!!!

Happy New Year!

1/1/11

In My Dad's family New Year's day is a big deal. My grandma makes lots of "game food" meatballs, nachos etc. Also up for grabs is all the rest of the holiday treats. It's a day of watching football and eating treats. I'm not big on football but I like tasty food so it works for me:)

These photos aren't the best...they are from my phone. It's better than nothing!Lucy ready for a toast!

(No there isn't anything in the glass)

Lucy & Grandma-Great
Ezra had a great time playing with an old fisher Price train.....I think it's at least as old as my Dad! I guess that's not saying too much because he's super young;)...right Dad?Here's hoping for a wonderful new year!

2011 here we come!!!

December 28, 2010

Six years ago today these two people got married..... little did they know they would have a house and three babies under three.........

......little did they know!

They promised to love each other........

and they still do!!!

A VERY special blessing day

Blessing two babies in one day is pretty awesome......

But blessing THREE in one day is really awesome!

We blessed Levi & Lucy the same day as my cousin Carleen's Baby Elias. It was wonderful to have most of our family there, as they were in town for the holidays. We blessed the babies at my Aunt Georgeanne and Uncle Rand's beautiful home. Not only were they gracious enough to let us use their home my Aunt also put together a wonderful meal. THANK YOU!!!

Carleen & Elias

Not only is Carleen my cousin, she is also one of my dearest friends. I have so many wonderful memories of special times together and I am thankful to add this special day to that list. Elias has had many surgeries since his birth. I am so thankful he has been so strong through it all! He is a special, sweet and handsome boy!!!

I Love you both...oh, and you too Jon:)

Ryan's parents
Dennis and Diana

Ryan's Mom

Gail

Grandma-Great
My Dad's Mom, Colleen

She crocheted the babies beautiful blankets!

My Aunt had the idea to Skype with my family during the blessing...I never would have thought of that. She got permission and we did it. Thanks again Aunt Georgeanne!

It was great to "have my family there"!!! They couldn't hear all of it but they got part of it:) It's was nice to feel like they were there, kind of!

Mommy & Lucy

I made Lucy's headband and Ryan added sleeves to her dress.

Lucy & Daddy

Levi & Mommy

Levi wore the same outfit Ezra wore when he was blessed.

Daddy & Levi

Who's that good looking couple?

Oh wait it's us:)

Our family

Thank you everyone who came....and thank you to those of you who wanted to be there but couldn't.

I'm TWO!

December 25, 2010

Our (semi) Sweet Ezra boy is TWO!

Ryan has been calling him two for awhile as he has been acting *two*......why must they go through this *two* business?

That being said we are blessed to have this little guy in our family!

My sweet boy

Christmas was such a long day! Ryan was at work all day and looking forward to celebrating Ezra's birthday when he got home, but as you can tell, this little guy was pooped! We snapped this photo and took a sweet little video of me holding him. It was one of those heart warming mom moments. I held him and reflected on his birth and just enjoyed my SWEET baby boy. He was out cold when all of a sudden he woke up. He was wide awake and ready to go. The babies were asleep so we were able to spend some time just the three of us. I was really nice! We sang happy birthday and he blew out the candles. He liked it so much that we repeated this about twelve times! It was cute. We would light the candles and he would start singing to himself. Sometimes he would just sing part of the song before he would blow out the candles and other times he would sing the whole thing. He always clapped for himself at the end.

What a big boy!

Enjoying his cake!
So this cake is sugar free (a little bit of honey was used to sweeten) and gluten free. Do you want to know what it's made of?.....
BLACK BEANS!
It was very moist and pretty darn tasty. Next time I make it I'm going to make a few changes that will hopefully make it even better.
Ezra is wearing his Lightning Mc Queen pjs and using his Lightening Mc Queen bowl, he LOVES them! Thank you Grandad Great!!!

Dear Ezra,

You are such a wonderful boy! You are smart, happy and handsome. There is no way for me to truly express how much I love you and how impressed I am by you. You have great verbal skills! You speak so well, clearly and in sentences. Because of this I sometime forget that you are only two and get frustrated when you act *two*. You Love to sing. Some of your songs you've learned at church, some from me and the others you make up on your own. You LOVE to eat! You aren't a big eater at dinner but you beg me for food the rest of the day. Some of your favorite foods are...peanut butter and honey sandwiches, egg salad, rice, fruit, cornbread, biscuits, pancakes and *ice cream* (frozen bananas and strawberries), pretzels and raisins. You are a great big brother. You are always giving your "Levi boy and Lucy girl" love. You like to go to church and see your nursery teacher. You always say "I love my Sister Hall!" (your teacher) You talk about Jesus and about the temple. Unfortunately you currently think the hotels on the strip are temples. You know about the temple hopefully we can teach you where the real ones are:) You still love your Singing Time DVDs. Mommy and Daddy got our family the box set for Christmas so now we can watch them more. You are learning more and more everyday! I love you so much!!! I feel so blessed to be your mom! Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

I love you,

Mommy

Christmas Day

As you know my Mom, Dad and three youngest siblings live in Australia, leaving behind Myself and my three other siblings. Ryan was working so I had my sibling over on Christmas. All of my siblings work at night so Christmas Eve, after they got off work at 1:30, 2:00 and 3:00 am, they came over to stay the night.

Ivy in her new pjs

This picture is from Christmas Eve as we watch Ivy at night while Ashley works.

The children nestled all snug in their beds.....

Floor
Brennan

Or couch

Aaron

Ashley

Mom & Dad

The "twins"

My mom said they looked alike and needed a picture. I would say they were looking fairly similar that day.

My Grandad and Aunt Frieda came over to visit and skype with my family.

Aunt Frieda & Lucy

Mom & Andrew

Playing a song for the Aussies

Grandad trying out the didg

It was weird being the "Mom". What I mean is during the holidays my mom was the one up early cooking food and doing all that kind of stuff. Ashley and I got together a couple days before Christmas and made our traditional Hungarian nut cookies and a few other goodies. Christmas morning I made sausage casserole (another tradition) It was a hit! We had fun "hanging out" with the Aussies on their Boxing day (the day after Christmas is a holiday in Austrila called boxing day). We miss them but it was nice to at least see them!

In the afternoon we headed over to my Aunt Georgeanne and Uncle Rand's home. My Dad's whole side of the family was there excluding my parents and youngest siblings and my cousins Brent and Zach. Brent is currently serving a mission in Brazil and Zach in Mexico. Some of the family was able to speak with Brent and Zach and we were all able to Skype with my family.

We had a simple dinner of lasagna, rolls, veggies and salad. We had all been eating so much rich food and no one really wants to be in the kitchen all day so it was perfect! I made some toffee, which was loved by all especially My Uncle Rand:).....He was bragging to my Dad on Skype (just a little brotherly love).

It was nice to get everyone together as we don't see each other very often as we get busy and or live far away. We were very excited to meet Jon and Carleen's new baby boy Elias! We were also excited to hear the news of a new baby coming this August to Chad and Alli.

Merry Christmas to all....

and to all a good night!

Our Christmas, your Christmas Eve

This year, once again, we did our Christmas celebrating on Christmas Eve because Ryan works on Christmas day. We spent our day relaxing and spending time together.


We didn't do too much in the way of gifts because we don't really need a lot of stuff.
This is actually a gift Ezra got for his first birthday. I put it away and he got it for Christmas.
Thanks Chad and Alli :)

Ezra L.O.V.E.S. juice boxes

*Side story.......We were at a party and the kids had all finished eating and left their half eaten food and drinks. Ezra went around and finished off everyone's juice.*

Daddy did a great job making the kids stockings! That's right, I said DADDY!!! My husband is the BEST! They weren't done until Christmas eve so I didn't have time to stitch there names. Maybe I'll have it done by next Christmas.

The babies got teething toys from Santa and these cute little stuffed animals from G&G Petersen, they play music and vibrate.

We had a wonderful Christmas and hope you did too.

SANTA....maybe not

December 23, 2010

I dressed the kids up and feed them well in hopes for a good picture with Santa. As we were making our way into The Bass pro shop a women stopped and asked us if we were going to see Santa (there is no other reason to have kids so dressed up to go to The Bass pro shop) We told her yes and she informed us that she waited TWO and a half hours to see Santa! I went to see how long the line was, hoping that it might be shorter. As I walked in it didn't look so bad. But as I walked and walked and walked through the store to get to the end of the line I realized we would not be taking pictures with Santa. The line could easily have been a four hour line by that point. No thank you!!! Thankfully Ezra loves The Bass pro shop so we had a fun outing, even though we didn't get to see Santa. Maybe next year we will go the day after Thanksgiving:)

Ezra wants this for Christmas......oh, maybe that was on Daddy's wish list not Ezra's.


Ezra loves the fish