Christmas and our 5 year Anniversary

I have gotten behind on our blog so I have lots of pictures to share now:


It's our tradition to have our family Christmas picture taken by a fireplace. This is our first year borrowing someone else's fireplace for the picture.

Here's Brigham showing his Christmas spirit!

Our annual visit to the Ogden Christmas village.

Briggy's favorite house in the village had a train that went around a track when you pushed a button.

Sarah Jane and Briggy at Pa and Nannie's house for Christmas.

Brigham woke up first on Christmas morning, went through everyone's stockings and played with his new dragon castle before he woke us up. Here's Briggy in front of the dragon castle he's been telling everyone that Santa is bringing him.



We love that Brigham is really nice when it comes to sharing.

Matt and I left the kids with Pa and Nannie to celebrate our fifth anniversary up in Logan. We had so much fun! We had a date, stayed at the Anniversary Inn, went to the Pepperidge Farm cookie factory outlet and left with loads of delicious bags of defective cookies and french bread. We also went to the Logan temple for our first time. We loved every second of our exciting romantic getaway!
We are amazed by how much our lives have changed in just 5 years!

Being One is so Fun!

We celebrated Sarah's first birthday a couple weeks ago! It was a little sad for me because she is growing up from being my helpless little baby and into a curious little explorer. She loves things that dispenses stuff one at a time. Kleenex, baby wipes and sandwich bags are some things I have to remember to keep out of her reach. She has earned the nickname "little raccoon" for her obsession with garbage can diving lately. You could imagine all the gross things that have been pulled out of our garbage can and sometimes they go into the mouth.... yuck! We always have to keep that baby within our sight. Nothing is like asking Matt where did Sarah go and him saying "I thought you were watching her" and then I exclaim "I thought you were watching her" and then of course we find her getting into trouble somewhere in the house. For Sarah, being one is all about exploring in hopes that someone left the diaper wipes on the ground again, or there will be some delicious leftovers in the garbage can, or making the exciting discovery that when she presses all the buttons on the computer at once, she can get the computer to beep. I guess she gets to have more fun being one than mommy does!

Sarah and her birthday balloons.

All bundled up.

Playing outside in the snow for the first time! I love how huge that coat is on her, I bet we can get two winters out of that one!

Getting ready for Christmas time!

Baby see, baby do...

She's a good climber!

I don't have the counter space for that!

Wheeler Creek Hike

We took advantage of the nice weather today to take a hike up in Ogden Canyon. The leaves have changed to red and yellow so everything looked glorious! We were in the shadow of the canyon for most of the hike which made my toes feel chilly in my sandals. Brigham enjoyed looking over the edge of the steep embankment at the cold rushing stream below which kept me and Matt nervous and ready to spring into action for a lot of the hike. Whoever wasn't holding Sarah got to guard the edge of the path from Brigham who obviously had no fear of the cliff. Despite having to be on guard, it felt really good to get some fresh air with the kids. The air smelt so fresh you could smell the dirt! We really enjoyed the scenery and hearing the rushing stream below. Like most our hikes we take as a family, we left this hike unfinished, to be continued because our pace is snail like with Brigham who rather play in the dirt than walk. So if circumstances allow, hopefully we will get to enjoy another attempt at this hike before winter comes!

King of the rock.

Matt & Brig

The beautiful leaves and me while Brig searches for spiders under the rocks.

Pretty Sarah and the flowers Brigham picked for her. The scratch on her face came from Brigham the night before :(

Matt and Brigham by the stream. Brig yells SMILE when I tell him to instead of smiling...

All wiped out!

Punkinaze IV

We made our annual trip to the Punkinaze! I can't believe last year I was still pregnant with Sarah Jane when we went there! Brigham loved the hay slides, he ran the whole time to make sure he got lots of turns down it. Sarah was indifferent to the whole hay slide experience; we couldn't tell if she loved it or hated it. I know we all had lots of fun getting lost together in the corn maze and we celebrated with pumpkin ice cream when we made it out- and we didn't even cheat this year too!

Matt & Brigham: Where are we?

Brigham makes a handsome little ghost!

Sarah with two fists full of corn.

Matt and Sarah having a slide.

Me and Sarah.

Brigham at the top.

Brigham enjoying the ride down.

There's always a smile at the end!

N. Ogden Fire Open House

October is National Fire Prevention month, so a lot of fire departments are having activities open to the public. North Ogden seemed to have the most exciting activities tonight, so that's where we decided to go. Like every little kid Brigham was so excited to see the fire engines. Brigham was able to walk inside a fire engine, spray a fire hose, and ride in a fire engine and an ambulance where they turned on the lights and the noise. Those firefighters have a neat job, and we all had lots of fun!

What a long day!

Today we decided to go to the Utah State Fair in Salt Lake City to have some fun. We took the UTA Frontrunner down there, which I thought Brigham would appreciate and we would get to avoid expensive parking. Brigham was thrilled with riding on the train as expected, but some things went not quite as planned, particularly on the way back from the fair with the 8 block walk to the train stop back felt more like 20 blocks and we had to carry 40 pounds of an exhausted 3 yr-old under a scorching sun. By the time we made it to the train station we had a 50 min. wait until the train left and I splurged on the best $3 bottled water of my life!

We did have an unexpected good surprise when we had to pass by Leatherbys on our walk to the fair. Leatherbys has really creamy, rich, bad-for-you, enormous sundaes. It was an easy lunchtime decision.
When we made it to the fair there was a lot for us to see and do and it used up Brigham's energy surprisingly fast. And that was when our miserable journey back began. At least Leatherbys made the trip worth it to me!

More mileage on the Car!

We've been enjoying our summertime! I've been so busy I've neglected the blog for a few weeks and I have to take note of the fun things we've been up to!
We went to the Manti pageant June 25th with Grandma and Grandpa Larsen and cousin Ethan. Brigham keeps on reminding us practically everyday since that he wants to go back. I agree with him, I love the Manti pageant and the spirit there. I even enjoy the drive when we get away from the city and you can look out the car window and see all the glorious open space. It made me sigh about a trillion times and drove Matt crazy. I told Matt when we move from the Wasatch front I'll quit the sighing but for right now I'll have to sigh away *sigh*
On the way down, we stopped by the big red barn in South Santiquin for ice cream- which you are not allowed to pass by if I am in the car! Even though the power was out from the storms that day, we were able to eat some drippy delicious ice cream. They have some unique flavors- peanut butter and jelly, pumpkin pie, lemon custard, etc. Matt usually chooses one or two of the unique flavors and I choose the ice cream with the most chocolate content.
We did the Chester challenge, where you hold your breath through the town of Chester, I tried unsuccessfully and Matt prevailed. If I was driving, I would have made it. We also got to pass though my favorite one stoplight town of Ephraim- Go Mighty Badgers! In Manti, we ate at the famous stakehouse turkey dinner! We ended up getting a take-home box stuffed full of turkey to go which made it about the best day ever of my life right there!
The pageant was amazing and though I've seen it many times before, it always reminds me of the sacrifices of those before us and that families can be together forever. I'm excited to go again next time like Brigham!


Last week Matt took Brigham to the Splash pad and Sarah started pulling herself up to stand using the couch. I took a picture of her second time ever doing it, she didn't last long enough to get a picture of the first! She had the biggest smile on her face on her first time- you could tell she was so proud of herself! It's already been about a week since and she is an expert at pulling herself up now!

Brigham taking aim at the splashpad.

I love the focus on Sarah's face!

Hurray!

Now I get to see this every morning!

We went to Moon Lake with Grandpa and Grandma Larsen this past weekend. Grandma and Grandpa go every year with Grandpa's co-workers. It was a lot of fun and I finally got to break in my new tent I got 2 1/2 years ago for Christmas! Brig got to go fishing for his first time. He loved sleeping in a sleeping bag and in a tent for his first time too!

Sarah Bear breaking out of the tent!

Sarah Jane and Daddy!

I love that face!

The fishing was good!

Daddy and Brig.

Yesterday we went to the open house at the new Oquirrh Mountain temple with the kids for FHE. It was a longer drive than expected so it was difficult to keep Sarah (hungry) and Brigham (wanting to stretch his legs) from making a scene inside the temple. In the end we all enjoyed sitting by the water fountain after the tour was over!