Flash flood

Watch out! Here comes a serious downpour of pictures and a flood of memories. I have a lot of catching up to do. Starting in chronological order...

My Grandparents are downsizing and moving from Overton, NV to just blocks away from the St. George temple. In November they called and asked if my boys might be interested in a set of bunk beds from their basement. Boy howdy would they! Andrew graduated from the crib to the bottom bunk and has only fallen off a few times. James thankfully has not fallen off the top, and we're relieved to find out, can climb down the ladder and make it to the bathroom in the night without major incident.

Though I have no pictures, Thanksgiving was delectable, delicious, delightful. We stayed in the area and joined my parents, Brett & Lori, and Barrett & Kendra's families for the big occasion. Grandma Bushman traveled up for all the festivities as well and made it extra special.

That weekend we trekked to the mountains to cut down our Christmas tree with Barrett & Kendra's crew & my dad. We got, in my opinion, the perfect tree, but really paid a price for it. There was much more snow than we anticipated and it was like 25 degrees. We couldn't drive the vehicles back to where the good trees were so parked and hiked a ways. The kids were done about 20 minutes into the hike so Kendra & I sent the brethren on while we tried to entertain the troops. They were frozen to the core and miserable. At one point I think we were all crying (except Nelson who slept through it all). Kendra and I decided we would be better off back in the trucks so dragged, carried, prodded all 7 kids down the mountain only to realize the trucks were locked and the keys were in pockets wandering around looking for trees. Well, we all survived and for sure made a memory. That is not an experience my boys will soon forget.

I let the boys have a go at decorating the tree before we put them to bed and I pulled out the nice ornaments.

Andrew had a favorite limb. Here's a close up shot of it. I counted 7 ornaments clustered there.

December was a magical month...the goodies, the decorations, the service, the parties. Since it was my parents first Christmas back from Kenya it was kind of a big deal and all my family (except one brother) were able to make it back sometime during the holiday. Thus, we had quite the cast for our live nativity Christmas Eve.

A group shot of most of the act

James was a shepherd

Andrew a cow

And Nelson had the honor of being baby Jesus

Enthusiastic does not even begin to describe how hyped up the kids were for Christmas morning. They awoke at their regular time, we all ventured downstairs, stockings, breakfast...open presents!

Here's the big boys with their twinner race car suitcases

And Nelson with a few gifts of his own

We blessed Nelson that Sunday, December 27th since so much family was in the area. With great regret I confess we completely forgot to take pictures of him in his blessing outfit. (How horrible is that. We probably have like 30 pictures of the other two on their blessing day.) But here's a picture of him just a week later. At least he's lying on a white blanket.

By the time New Years rolled around we were a little partied out and under the weather so we just had a "pajama party" with the boys. We had finger foods, popped popcorn, watched a movie, played Lucky Duck, then counted down the hour so we could blow our noise makers and throw confetti (who cares if it was only 8 o'clock). Happy New Year!

Now because I failed to get the kids in anywhere for a professional shot this year, here's their home glamour shots with some stats.

James age 4

Favorite foods: corn & pizza

Favorite color: pink (yikes!)

Best friend: Andrew & Owen

Favorite past times: Coloring, cutting, gluing,

making roads in the sand box, running, helping Dad in the garage or yard

Future aspiration: ride his bike without training wheels

Andrew age 2

Favorite foods: chocolate milk, blueberries, yogurt

Favorite color: changes daily

Best friend: James

Favorite past times: rrrrring as he drives a car, looking at his reflection in

the sliding glass door at the dinner table, doing everything himself

Future aspiration: using the potty (at least I hope so)

Nelson age 4 months

Favorite food: milk

Favorite color: maybe mustard yellow

Best friend: anyone who will give him some face time

Favorite past times: drooling, sitting in the Bumbo, waving his arms and legs

Future aspirations: roll, crawl, walk, talk