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.