Our Angel

The nursery in our ward put on a little nativity yesterday at church. Ellie was an angel (thanks for letting us borrow the costume, Mom. Ellie was so excited to wear a costume at church). Here she is, being the angel Gabriel. Even angels gotta do it sometimes....

With her angel friend, Elise.

And, unrelated, this is certainly a present for dad:

Brown Family Christmas

We went to my family's Christmas party on Saturday. First, we had the most delicious and tender turkey I've ever had with all the yummy sides and desserts. We never lack for good food at a Brown family gathering. Then, we had our program, which consisted of piano numbers, stories, and songs. Here, Maren and I are ringing a bell. And I just look lovely. Tip for the future: never look down at a camera. Ellie chillin' with the cousins.

And the nativity, provided by my most excitable neices and nephews. Isn't the dimple on 'Mary' the cutest you've ever seen?

Maren enjoyed eating chocolate and going through everyone's gift bags.

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for a wonderful afternoon!

Temple Square

I have wonderful memories from my youth of my family's annual trip to Temple Square to see the lights. This is a tradition I'd like to continue with my own kids, and we made the trek on Friday evening. It was not the relaxing, cold but pleasant night out I had imagined, but I think we still managed to have a good time. Our adventure started when Maren got a little carsick as we pulled off the freeway. We cleaned her up, and then re-bundled her as best we could, but I still think she was cold and a bit miserable. Poor baby. To add to the chaos, Temple Square was PACKED. I was not in the mood to wait in line to hear the nativity story, or to take my kids to see the Christus. Next year, we'll be going on a Tuesday. The girls didn't care though...they loved looking at all the different nativities and seeing all the twinkling lights. And, it is a beautiful place.
Here is our little trooper, "mooing" like a cow.

A House of Gingerbread

The other night we put together a Gingerbread house (yes, we bought it, and it was so worth it). Ellie loved decorating it, for about 10 minutes anyway. Maren supervised her sister's work. Mommy confession: this is left over hair from the day before. Is it so bad that I only do my girl's hair about every other day? We were loving her 'mad scientist' look by the end of day 2.

After a break to get jammied, Maren started grabbing for the candy. We were thinking she wanted to eat it, but no, she wanted to put it on the house too! What a big girl!

And here is the finished masterpiece.

Dancing Queens

Last night we went to a Benefit Concert (for a family member of one of Nick's co-workers), and our girls were completely entertained. The band was good and Ellie and Maren were shakin' their 'thang' up on stage with the other groupies. Of course they had to have ring pops like the other little girls, which explains Ellie's blue lips. I thought Maren might last up there for a few minutes and then find her way back to mom and dad, but nope. She was up there, mesmerized for a good half hour or so. She was flirting with one of the guitarists, which was so so cute. I know the photos don't show it well, but we had a great time.

Oh, and isn't Nate's (Nick's brother) super-duper, ultra-bright headlamp awesome? He put it together all on his own. What a man.

Clean Floor

We teach them young. Pretty soon I won't have to clean the house at all. (ha ha, yeah right...)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Are you in need of some Christmas cheer? Well, here are some photos just for you. We were excited to put up our tree. Ellie is just so much fun at this age. She understands the concept of Santa. She was asking me how Santa comes to our house because we don't have a chimney and was even telling me that she's going to keep a look out for Rudolph's red nose and get up in the night so she could talk to Santa. Anyway, back to the tree... Ellie put on just about all of the ornaments by herself and had a great time. Maren was also excited to help, although dad had to hang them for her. Here are some of our happy Christmas decorations:

Last night was our ward's Christmas party, so the girls were decked out in holiday spirit.There was a visitor from the North Pole. Last year, Ellie was nervous about this bearded fellow, but this year she was excited to climb on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas (the Princess and the Frog - gotta love the persuasion of commercials). It was a fun evening.

Thanksgiving

Earlier this week I was talking to Nick about how it would be kind of nice if one of our parents lived just far enough away that we could take a mini-vacation for the holidays. Well, this year, that is just what it turned out to be for Thanksgiving. We went to my mom and dad's for the feasting of turkey and all the trimmings. Yumm-0.

Then there was the browsing of ads. Ellie had a fantastic time playing with cousins.

And so did Maren.

We spent the night and the next day we could find the men here. My parent's roof (half of it anyway) needed a serious reroofing. This is one of the benefits of having a large family. There were some 5 men, and several of my nephews working on it all at once. It still was an all day project though.

We were planning on coming home but another project was on the to-do list - reroofing the barn roof. I guess some raccoons had damaged the plywood and it needed to be replaced in one corner - which kept getting bigger and bigger! After the shingles were removed it was obvious that nearly half of that side needed new wood, so it turned into quite the project. At the end of the day, the men were close to having it completed - but they ran out of shingles!

Meanwhile, I ate lots of food, chatted with my family, and relaxed with a good book. No complaints there! I hardly saw my kids. They were completely entertained by their cousins and all of Grandma's fun toys. They also checked out the cows:

And the chickens:

And played in the backyard:

And now it is time to pull out the Christmas tree!

I'm Thankful For...

Last night our FHE was Thanksgiving-themed. We put together Tom, the thankful turkey:And then Dad made the girls pilgrim bonnets. I know this photo is fuzzy, but Maren is just making the cutest face, so I included it anyway. And here is another photo of Maren from this morning.

A moment to brag about my kids. Maren is at such a fun stage. She is already the comedian of the family, doing silly things just to get a laugh. She is talking all the time, but we can't understand most of what she says. She'll 'pray' which means she'll get on her knees, fold her arms, and make talking sounds. So cute. She loves babies and wants her baby wrapped in a blanket and then she'll bounce her (just like her mom does when we watch our friend's baby).

Ellie is also fun, just at the age where she is a touch more defiant than her baby sister. She is also very cute and funny which makes up for her naughty moments. She was telling us last night about the "Belize Mommy-not" song that she'd heard in the car. We finally figured out she was singing "Feliz Navidad"! She is creative and happy and busy. She loves to dress up, pretend with her friends (and Maren if she can convince her), make crafts, sing, and read books.

Boy we love our kids! Really, how blessed are we?

We Are Still Here

I feel like I haven't had much to blog about lately, so I just haven't. But we are still here, doing the same old thing. We are looking forward to the holidays and our Christmas shopping is getting nearer to completion. Yeah! The only problem with that is I love Christmas shopping and would rather just keep doing it until Christmas day (that can be a bad thing on our bank account). Maybe I'll have to find other holiday activities to keep my urges under control.

Anyway...here are some cute photos of my girls. Maren is such a character. She was dipping her face in the bubbles, just to get a laugh from her sister and I.

Bubble beards all around. Aren't Maren's eyes gorgeous?

Rub a dub dub, two silly girls in the tub.