Happy Birthday Mikey Boy!!

Mikey turned one on Christmas Day and I couldn't help but look at the clock every hour and remember how I was feeling and where I was at that particular time last year! So I kept whispering it to Mikey in his ear. Not that he knew what I was talking about!! I can't believe he is ONE! I think the more kids you have the faster time goes! We are going to celebrate his birthday on Sunday when there isn't so much going on. I haven't quite decided how I am going to celebrate this little guys birthday every year, but I am thinking about not doing it the same day. After putting Christmas together, the last thing I am wanting to do is throw together a birthday party that same day!! Any ideas would be appreciated, because right now his birthday is going to be a couple days after Christmas!

Denver Christmas-Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve in Denver was all about last minute shopping, eating a bunch of really good appetizers all night, playing games, and just being together!

Yeah for Christmas Eve Jammies!!

Can't forget to sprinkle the reindeer food!

The two lovebirds!!!

Martha and Todd, Jake, Tanner, and Nathan acting out the Nativity while Uncle Justin was reading it. All of the clothes were in the room where Mikey was sleeping and we didn't want to wake him up because he had been pretty sick, so we improvised with blankets and funny wigs! The three wiseman looked hilarious!

I lucked out with such a great sister-in-law! Alisa is the best and I love hanging out and doing everything together when we are in Denver!

And a Merry Christmas Eve to the hubby...

And the sweetie Mikeyboy who was so sick for the first little while why we were in Denver. He had a pretty high fever, was up all night off and on for three nights straight and threw up twice.:( Sad...but we pushed through it even though he wasn't really the most enjoyable. He was usually in bed by 6:30 the whole trip, he just couldn't catch up on his sleep because he didn't feel good. Maybe next time around he will be a little more pleasant!

Temple Lights

We headed over to see the temple lights for FHE this week. It was beautiful as always! We walked around for quite a while.

Poor Mikey just wants a little freedom...but the boys are sure to keep him from getting to far! He was getting so mad!

This was the best I could do of the three of them together and there aren't even any Christmas lights in the picture. Oh well,.... these pictures are few and far between so I will take what I can get!

Merry Christmas!

We wish you all a Very Merry Merry Christmas this year!!

There's A Squid in the Kitchen!!

I was putting Mikey to bed the other night and Tanner busted in the room with a tupperware bowl in hand yelling "Mom! There's a squid in the kitchen!!"....usually I would have gotten upset with him because they know they are not supposed to come in Mikey's room while I am putting him to bed, but since he was so concerned and I had no idea what he was talking about, I grabbed Mikey and went to see what all the ruccus was all about. Sure enough we went into the kitchen and there it was....the squid...aka....the scorpion! Tanner was trying to catch it with his bowl, but was unsuccessful(thank goodness), so he came and got me! Because of the business Doug is in, the boys are well aware of what a scorpion is and they know that they can sting and make them really sick, so Jake was TERRIFIED!! I am talking, he climbed up on the highest part of the counter and reassured me that the scorpion couldn't get him up there! After talking it through with Chip, Melis smashed it with her shoe and flushed it. I don't know where he came from....ecspecially since it is winter and they usually are not out this time of year. But I am sure glad that Tanner saw it and didn't step on it!! And I don't know why he was calling it a squid...he has been mixing up some of his words lately and it is pretty funny!

Tanner's 1st trip to the Dentist!

Tanner had his first trip to the dentist about a week ago and he did amazing! We had a good talk about being brave and that the dentist would be so nice with his teeth getting all the yucky sugar bugs off on our way over, so I think that was good prep. He loved all the train decor...the whole office was set up like a train station....and that alone would make any child comfortable.

He loved his goodie bag! He had to show everyone!! And he absolutely LOVED his new toothbrush! Jake even let the dentist take a look in his mouth too and she told us that he is still working on getting one and a half of his 2 year molars in. That may explain some of the excessive drooling that that child has....at least I hope that explains it.:)

A Few of our Favorite Pastimes...

Eating Paint...

Constant Wrestling....

and climbing EVERYTHING!!!!( I mean EVERYTHING! and this picture does not even do it justice! He isn't even one and you should see some of the things he climbs!)

We have been fairly busy with Christmas happenings...but these are the things that keep us busy in between all of that! Boys will be boys! I hope they just survive their childhood!...or I survive their childhood without a heart attack!

A Blue Necklace For Daddy!

It is nearly midnight and I am still up getting some things done and Tanner just walked out of his room with a big smile on his face and said "I want to make Daddy a necklace!!"(just as chipper as ever....like he hasn't been asleep for almost 5 hours already). I just smiled at him and said "You want to make a necklace for Daddy do you?....what for?" and my sweet little Tanner says "For all he does for us!" (tear:)) and I said "What kind of necklace?" and he said, "A blue one...because that is Daddy's favorite color." And after a little snuggling and telling Tanner how thoughtful that was, he went back to sleep. He must have been having a sweet dream about his Daddy who has been out of town all week! But he comes home in the morning and I know three excited boys ready to see him!!

All I Want For Christmas...

Tanner: "A bike and a super duper race car!"

Jake: "A bike and a super duper ball!"

Mikey: "Just get me off of Santa's lap!"

After we saw Santa we headed over to Tempe Marketplace where it snows every night at 7pm! It was so fun! The boys loved it! They were dancing around like crazy! So fun!

I just love this time of year! Every morning the boys wake up and the first thing Tanner wants to do are his Christmas countdowns! One that Mammy sent....and they love...and the other one they made at preschool last week! Christmas here we come!!

Another One Bites the Dust!

At least his arms and legs bit the dust. This time it was Jake that was nibbling on our sweet gingerbread man ornament.

At least they were cute while they lasted...which wasn't very long.:)

Christmas Decor

Today while we were putting our Christmas decorations out, Tanner came across his bag of ornaments that he has made in that past couple of years. Next thing I know he yells....

"Mom!! I found a yummy gingerbread cookie in with the ornaments!!" And next thing I knew he was eating the two year old gingerbread man. Sick...Sick...Sick....the best part?...he LOVED it and wanted to eat the whole thing!!

So now he has one less ornament to put on their little tree. We still have one gingerbread man ornament....we will see if it makes it through the Christmas season!!

Time Out For Women

Last Christmas my Mom presented all the girls in my family with a ticket for a girls weekend to attend Time Out For Women!! She put so much time and effort into coordinating schedules, flights, places to stay, etc.! She even made an individual call to each husband to make sure they were available to watch the kiddos while we all went to St. George and enjoyed a very uplifting, spiritual, fun-fulled weekend! Just what every woman needs...right? We had a blast! We all met up in Las Vegas on Thursday night. Emily, Erin, Melis, and I all jumped in Erin's van and drove up to meet the crew! Melis and I were so excited for our weekend!!!(as if you couldn't tell!!) You should have seen the face that little Brynlee was giving us...she looked like"Oh great, I am going to have to drive 6 hours with these crazies!!!???" Ha! Love it and love her!:)

Cheers to starting our weekend off right!:)

Here we are waiting to get into the kick-off session on Friday night. There were 11 of us total! From the top left: Sanette(SIL), Erin, Melis, MOM, Kelsey, Melinda(SIL)

From the bottom left: Emily, Lindsey(SIL), Rebekah, Me, and Rachel

I am so lucky that all three of my brothers married such amazing and fun girls!! They are the best and the perfect addition to the immediate 7 Brems girls! We love you!!

And we can't forget our other 2 sweet additions...Baby Brynlee and the newest addition...sweet Baby Lydia. She is so tiny and cute! And we were lucky that they were girls too...so it didn't throw off the theme of the weekend:)!

Friday night and Saturday were full of amazing speakers and we were lucky to hear from Hilary Weeks(loved her and want her new Christmas CD bad!), Chieko Okasaki, Kenneth Cope, Emily Watts, Caroline Rasmus, Mary Ellen Edmunds, and many more! It was all so uplifting! Doug did great with the boys....he is such a good Dad! We kind of played tag team because he was out of town all week until Thursday morning, so he came home that morning and I left around noon that same day. Craziness, but it all worked out just fine! Here we are having our lunch break on Saturday afternoon!

I love that there is a Brick Oven in St. George. I haven't had it in years and it was delicious!

After St. George we headed back to Vegas because Mom had tickets for some of us to go to a magic show and some of us to go to Broadway's Lion King! We stopped off at Hard Rock before our shows to celebrate Lindsey's and Melinda's birthday!

And then it was off to our shows! Lion King was AMAZING and I highly recommend it to anyone! My boys would LOVE it too! Here's Kels acting like Scar! Scar was my favorite performer...he sounded just like the movie Scar! So good!!

The next day it was time to head home. It took all day because we got stuck in traffic caused by an accident right outside of Vegas...but we finally made it late Sunday night! I am sure Brynlee was so happy to have her bed and be out of that car, although she was a pretty happy camper the whole way home! What a trooper!

Thanks again Mom for an amazing weekend! I loved every minute of it(minus the no hot dog buns...if you know what I mean:)). LOVE YOU!!