Christmas is Coming. . .

Much to Brett's dismay I usually start thinking about Christmas around this time of the year, I've even been known to play holiday music while cleaning the house the whole year through, but I try to do it when nobody else is around. There is something soothing and happy about it, it makes me work better too.
Anyway, as I was contemplating the holiday (yes, while listening to Harry Connick Jr.'s Christmas album) I found this cute idea online for an advent calendar which I liked. You hang various children's socks for each day of December with numbered clothespins (a good use for those socks without mates), and each sock contains a note listing an activity for that day, or including a candy, a game, or a book to read as a family. You can include reading stories like The Tale of the Three Trees, or Twas the Night Before Christmas. You can plan a night of writing letters to Santa, decorating a gingerbread house, making cookies for neighbors, caroling at a nursing home, driving around to look at the lights, visiting temple square, or watching favorite holiday movies with popcorn and hot cocoa.
As this will be our first Christmas actually spent in our own home, I plan to start this new advent calendar, hopefully as a new tradition in our family to bring the spirit of the season into our home daily. If anyone has a tradition to share or an activity that is special to your family please share-25 nights are a lot to fill!!!

Summer Highlights

Getting away without kids for our anniversary. On the cable car in San Francisco

Anna's early birthday celebration.

Our big girl on her first "big kid bike"

Quinn, after refusing it a few times, realized how much he LOVES watermelon!

Our kids having a snuggle together-nothing makes a Mom happier!

Camping Out

This weekend we had our first family campout since moving back to Utah and it was terrific! After a day swimming at Bear Lake, we headed back up Logan Canyon and found a beautiful spot to set up our gigantic tent. Anna and Quinn enjoyed collecting firewood and picking their Momma every wildflower they could find, and we had tin foil dinners, roasted marshmallow Peeps, and cozied up around a toasty fire. It was so much fun to see the kids so excited and we hope this is the first of many outdoor family adventures this summer!

Baby Rupper

Here is the first peek at our Christmas present-everyone knows I can't resist opening and rewrapping gifts and an unborn baby is no different-I wanna see it as soon as possible!!! I had this ultrasound done last Tuesday, the baby's head is on the left side and looks to have gigantic eyeballs like it's Mom! Yes, it's the little alien creature in the middle of the black peanut shape-which is my uterus. Yep, that's my uterus-just wait until after the thing is delivered and I try to get you to see my actual uterus on the c-section video! They pull the whole thing out and hand clean it! Brett got it all on tape with Quinn's delivery and much to his embarrassment, I showed the footage to anyone who'd see it-it was pretty awesome! You'll have to visit me in person to see the video though, don't think I'd actually post it online!!!

Anyway, my official due date is December 25th-no joke-but my doctor said he'd try to get me delivered, home, and feeling decent in time to celebrate Christmas with my family. Which means I better start my holiday shopping now since I'll be too preoccupied to do any last minute trips to the store.

Well, this is all there is to share about the baby now. More updates to come. . .

Escalante National Monument

Over Memorial Day Weekend Brett and I met up with Jill, Dave, and Lindsay (Dave's really cute girlfriend) to backpack into Escalante. After our first trip to Coyote Gulch we were drawn back to the area and we weren't disappointed! We chose a different hike this time and although the dirt road drive down to our sweet spot was a brain jiggler, the hike was perfect and we found a great secluded spot to set up camp and spend the night.
Here Jill and I are showing off our sexy socks-and-sandals look. You can never look too good while camping and yeah, we looked good. Smelled great too!!!