Family Mosaic

I had a poster made of this for Robin for Christmas. It's pretty cool. If you want to make one for yourself, download the software at this website:
http://www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/

Christmas Tragedy

Olivia was screaming for help this afternoon. I ran into her room only to find Vince's lifeless body stuck in one of Garrett's toys. We think he climbed inside and Olivia killed him trying to get him out. We were all very sad. We had a little graveside ceremony in the snow behind the fence in the backyard. This picture is the last picture we have of him. Olivia took it with her new digital camera.

Merry Christmas!

Olivia got this doodle pet from Betsy's family. It goes great with another doll she has.We got Jennifer the Dragonology board game. She loves those dragons.

This is me trying to figure out what all these little green peices go to.
I figured out what the green peice things go to -- a whole bunch of other peice things that marbles roll down. Super fun!

Olivia got scrapbook supplies from Emily.

Garrett got a cool Magnetix monster toy from Grandma Doolittle.
Here Garrett is wearing his new Christmas outfit and his Texas Ranger star from Thomas.
Garrett showing off his army guys and Olivia running to get another present.
With Grandma Brunner's money, we got Olivia a Fairytopia Barbie (Jennifer's going to add a bit of paint to make her more modest.)

Christmas Visit

We had a really nice time with a bunch of people from my side of the family. We had 17 people sleeping at our house at some point. Considering all the people, the visit went really well. I'm posting a picture of Olivia's Christmas program. There was a goober child standing right in front of her that ruined most of the pictures.
We will have a bunch more photos soon after we get the film from our non-digital camera developed. Merry Christmas everybody!

We Wish You An Elfy Christmas

Robin's sister Emily sent us this cool website. To hear a special message from our kids, click the links:

Here's Olivia's.
Here's Garrett's.

Merry Christmas!

Temple Square

On Friday night, we went out with Jennifer, her friends Rowena, Nicolai, and Fatima, and 3 of their friends from West Virginia. We went to a Mexican restaraunt called the Red Iguana and then walked around Temple Square to see the lights. It was pretty cold, but not as cold as years passed. The people we went with weren't LDS and asked a few questions about the church. The lights looked pretty and it was really crowded. Our kids were really well behaved all night.

Olivia's School Picture

I finally got around to scanning Olivia's school picture. She's super cute, but we wish the photographer would have helped somewhat with pulling her hair back into the ponytail we sent her to school with.

Garrett

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Potty Training Put on Hold

We tried really hard over Thanksgiving to potty train Garrett. The only problem, Garrett didn't want to be trained so we decided to take a break and start again later. We only had 1 success in 5 days. Maybe after Christmas when we have a few more days to just be at home we will try again. Hopefully he will be trained before his 3rd birthday in January.

Olivia's Turkey Story

Once there was a turkey, Vince, and it was really big. But sometimes his feathers would keep falling off. He didn't care. The turkey was nice to all the other turkeys that he met. He likes meeting new friends. Yep, that 's true. But the turkey had a feather problem. One day his feather was stuck under a rock. The Children came over. The children helped that turkey. They picked up the rock and the turkey got out. The turkey was really happy. The turkey knew he had to get away from the children because he thought they would catch him and eat for Thanksgiving day. He ran for the farm where there were other turkeys. He was safe.

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Ours was especially happy since neither of us had work yesterday. Robin and her friend Kindra got together yesterday to make pies. Today, we all went to Grandma and Grandpa Brunner's house. They had the turkey already to eat and after rearranging a few pieces of furniture, we sat down to eat. We had a nice meal--the kids didn't eat anything but they played very well. We brought rolls, green jello salad, two pumpkin pies, two bottles of sparkling apple cider, a strawberry cheesecake pie, and an apple crisp. Afterwards, we all watched Fievel Goes West (which was actually pretty funny). It had been years since I'd seen it and it seemed to keep everyone's attention.My favorite part was when they pan from the sign that read "Now leaving the Badlands" to the sign that read "Now entering the Worselands". After the movie, we headed back home where Garrett actually peed on the potty for the first time ever. I'm headed back over to Grandpa's tomorrow morning to help install a lift into their garage.

Day 1 potty training

Jeremy and I decided that since we had a couple of days off for Thanksgiving we would work with Garrett to be potty trained. 6 pairs of of underwear, 6 pairs of pants, 6 laundry washes and still not one success. He hasn't gone 1 time in the potty. We have tried taking him in every hour and bribing him with treats. Tomorrow is another day.

Fun Days

In the picture of Garrett he is showing off doing tricks with his Sally Car. We also want you to notice his lovely outfit. He dressed himself (with a little help from Jeremy. )

We also wanted to say that we picked up Grandma Doolittle from the airport on Saturday. We were excited to see her. If you will notice Olivia is holding a brown bear. In kindergarten they get a chance to take home "Buddy Bear" then we get to journal what we do with him.

Jennifer's Birthday

We had a little party for Jennifer last night. She turned 25! She got a card, life insurance, and money from Violet; a flower and a card from Olivia; some swim goggles from Fatima (Jennifer's friend); and a box of 11 puzzles from us. Robin made a dinosaur cake (she said a dragon cake was too hard) and we made calzones for dinner. After cake and presents we played Apples to Apples. It was a fun little party.

The Real Halloween

Here are two pictures of the costumes the kids went out in on Halloween Night.

Olivia's Birthday, part 2

We had Olivia's party on Friday, October 27th. She is now six years old (I can't believe that she is six and in Kindergarten and learning to read) She had a choice of a traditional little party with 5 friends coming to the house and playing games and having cake or going to do something special with just one friend. She choose to do something special with one friend. She decided that she wanted to go swimming. We invited Taylor Bellows and her little brother , Landan (For Garrett She said) to go to the Legacy Pool. So after school we went to the pool that Jenn is now a lifeguard at to go swimming. (Too bad she couldn't get us in for free). We swim for an hour an half and then came home and ate pizza, and cake then opened presents. She got lots of fun things. From Emily she got the cute sweater she is wearing. From Grandma and Granpa Brunner she got a kit to make necklaces, From Grandma and Granpa Doolittle she got a Sara Fina Cat and Doodle Doll. From Mom and Dad she got a new packback with art supplies in it. From Garrett she got a cool pen. Garrett was all smiles as he gave it to her. And from Mom, Dad, and Jenn she got a Russian Dwarf Hamster. She loved it!! She thougth this was a great birthday. She has been giving us hugs and kisses for 3 days now telling us how much she has loved her wonderful birthday. Thank you all for giving her such wonderful things. She really does love them all.

a

Olivia's Birthday

Ward Halloween Party

Olivia dressed up as Sleeping Beauty again. We bought her a new tiara. We borrowed a Woody costume for Garrett to wear. You can tell by the picture how well that worked. People thought he was dressed up as Lightning McQueen. We let them believe it.
Jennifer made our costumes for us. Robin is Madusa. A bunch of people at the ward party said they were going to steal her costume idea next year. I was a pirate. The hook is actually from Robin's kitchen mixer. All kinds of kids wanted to hit me with their lightsabers and swords. The party was nice I guess. They had a few games that weren't very well organized with some of the cheapest Oriental Trading prizes I have ever seen. There was a potluck soup/chili dinner and Truck or Treating. We left the same amount of candy we arrived with. The kids had a blast. The best part is we get to do it all over again on Tuesday. Jennifer was working at the pool during this time -- she got to hide behind a corner and jump out and scare kids.

UEA Weekend

Olivia's Story

Olivia was given a calendar on it and on the calendar there is a short homework assignment each day that she is supposed to do. One of the assignments was to draw a picture of a pumpkin, a bat, and a moon. Then on another day she was supposed to tell a story about a pumpkin. I combined the two things. I had her draw her picture and then afterwards tell me a story about her picture. Here is her story:

There was a pumpkin, bat and moon. It was really dark. There was a spider who was really scary and didn't make a sound. A long came a witch who turned the bat into a rabbit. She turned the pumpkin into a spider. Then she turned the spider into an ant. A long came a mom who was dressed as a witch. The real witch turned her into a ghost. Here comes the dad, the witch turned him into grass. Along came the children and the witch didn't turn them into nothing because the children ran.

"Rats," said the witch.

A good fairy came and made the witch run away. The good fairy turned the pumpkin, bat, spider, mom and dad the way they were before. Then they went back to where they lived so they can live.

Jen's Here

Robin's sister Jennifer is in town visiting. She's spent one night at our house and most of the rest of the time with her friend Rowena. Yesterday she and Rowena asked if we wanted to drive up American Fork Canyon with them. We said, "Sure!" We first stopped at the Tibble Reservoir. Everyone had fun skipping rocks. We stayed there a bit and then took a dirt road up to Silver Lake. We liked Tibble better. Silver Lake looked like it was half empty (some might say it looked half full). We did have fun stomping through the creek beds and hopping from rock to rock. Olivia got her feet wet and we decided it was time to go. Later that night Rowena invited us to swim at her community swimming pool. It's basically a hot springs. The water was really warm even though the air was freezing. We stayed until 8pm and then came home. It was a pretty good day. Today, they are coming to our house for dinner.

They never cease to amaze me

Sometimes when I walk in on Olivia and Garrett playing together I am amazed and how well they get along and just how smart and creative they are. We caught them doing this a couple of days ago.

Car trouble

So, my engine light has been going on and off for the past few months. I had the guys at Checker Auto Parts check the system and they said my shift solenoid was stuck open. The didn't have the part and suggested we take it to the dealership. We figured we should probably do that before the car dies completely so we took it to the dealership. Well, I get a call this morning from the dealership saying that the transmission is on its last legs and needs to be replaced. Cost? $3,400. The car is only worth a little more than that and we really don't have that kind of money laying around. I've called another repair shop to get an estimate and we're waiting on that, but Robin and I are seriously bummed out.

Cruising All Around

Now that Olivia can ride her own bike pretty well, she and Garrett like to go on longer bike rides. She usually just goes back and forth between a couple of our neighbors' houses, but yesterday Robin and I took turns taking her on longer trips.

Surprise! I'm not dumb!