Christmas!

Owen got up around 6am since he had to go check in a work. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and made everyone breakfast. Owen got home and then one by one the little munchkins all woke up. Kodi was first as always, than came BO and than Rylee.

We decided that the kids had to eat breakfast before even entering the living room. It ended up working out since I think they were all to tied to really remember Santa had come. After we all ate, the kids all walked into the living room together.

The kids were spoiled with Santa and all the family members that gave them things. I made all the kids and Owen a denim/flannel tied quilt, I think they all really liked them. Owen made the girls some barbie furniture and I upholstered them. Everything turned out very cute and we all had a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Eve

For our Christmas Eve Evening, The kids decorated cookies for Santa. I think they ate more frosting than they actually got done in decorating the cookies.

After the cookies, we drove around and looked at all the fun Christmas lights and than we pulled up our web cam for Grandma and Grandpa Park so the kids could open their gifts from them while they watched. After that, the kids all opened one more gift (Jammie's) from us and than we sent them off to bed so Santa could come without any interruptions! (:

Happy 7th birthday Brinly!

Tuesday, the kids, Owen and I all headed to St. George to wish my niece Brinly a Happy Birthday. Tuesday night, Brinly also lost a tooth. It totally brought me back to when I was younger and was just loosing teeth, fun times that was! Wednesday Jana and I went and got some shopping out of the way and the guys all went golfing for the day. We celebrated Brinly's 7th birthday last night and then drove home. Happy Bithday Brinly!

It SNOWED

We woke up to all this wonderful snow this morning. We were all really excited since Christmas is one 3 days away! This is the first real snow of the year for us.

We couldn't waist it, so Owen had the kids all dressed up really warm and they all went out and made a snowman. He's kind of dirty, but he'll do! (:

This morning when Rylee saw the snow she said, "now Santa can really come mom... There's snow for him!" For the past week, she's been asking if it's "Christmas Eve" yet. I think she's really excited for Christmas! (:

Ginger bread house

Last night, we had two families from our ward come over for family night. We made gingerbread houses and had a fun time visiting. Here is what our families gingerbread house ended up looking like!

We tried to cover every inch... Do you think it worked? lol

Family Letter

(I’m going to be a stinker this year and not send out a Christmas card. I will try better next year.)

This year has been full of things. For one, Owen and I went on a really fun vacation to Italy where we spent a week without kids. Owens wonderful parents watched our children while we went. We moved to Arizona from Nevada and each new day is a new adventure.

Rylee Marie is almost 5. Can you believe we’re going to have a 5 year old in February? AHHHH! Rylee loves to help out around the house. She loves her friends and loves playing dress up and having tea parties. Rylee is going to be starting ballet in January and is so excited about it. Rylee played soccer on a city team. Her team was the “Tinker bells”. She didn’t play soccer much, but she loved doing summer salts across the field and hanging out with her friends on her team. Rylee loves dancing around the house when music is playing and making us watch her dance in front of the window. Rylee is in sunbeams this past year and loves her friends and her teacher. We’ve got to enjoy her singing in Sacrament a few times and love seeing her smiling face. Rylee has been in a “co-op preschool” group this past school year with her brother BO and they both love it. I do some things on the side for learning with them too and it’s a good way to learn patience for your children!
Branson Owen (BO) is 3 and is our little ball boy. This year He played soccer and was on the city team the “Tigers” He loved every minute of it. The first few games he cried and didn’t want to play (he was the shortest guy on the team and was always getting knocked down). After Owen’s pep talk with him about being tough and telling him to growl and say, “Your going down!”, BO took it to heart and started mowing over all the boys. He did great after that (I did make Owen tone it down a bit since BO really was taking um down!). BO loves playing basketball with Owen with his basketball hoop. Anytime BO plays basketball, he has to put his basketball outfit on. BO has really started to love coloring and has become really obsessive about it. He stays in the lines really well and wont stop coloring for anything until his picture is all the way done!
Kodi Rakelle is 2 and loves playing with babies and Barbie dolls. She loves doing what the big kids do. Kodi is a little stinker, when she gets in trouble she’ll stick out her bottom lip and bat her big brown eyes at you. Owen and I can’t help but smile! Kodi loves to laugh and play with her big brother and sister. Kodi loves her friends and really enjoys nursery and singing all kinds of songs. Currently her favorite song to sing is, “Jingle bells”, which comes out “bi-bo bews”. We love listening to her sing her own way. Kodi also loves to dance around the house to music and loves having mommy and daddy watch her. Kodi loves doing the school work with Rylee and BO. Currently Kodi is being potty trained and loves wearing her “big girl princess panties”. She does good on most days, but she still has her little accidents when she gets busy!
Owen was working at the beginning of this year at Sundance Helicopters as one of their tour pilots in Vegas. He enjoyed doing that and loved everyone he worked with. A job opportunity came up for him to become a EMS chopper pilot here in Arizona and he couldn’t turn it down, so we made the big move in May. Owen enjoys everyone he works with and loves what he does. He really enjoys where we live now since it’s surrounded by National Parks and of course Lake Powell (which during the Summer months, we live at). Owen was made for the outdoors and loves mountain biking, hiking and riding four wheelers and all of that is at the tip of our fingertips. Owen works 7 days on and 7 days off and is home on his week on until he gets paged out. During his spare time, he works for a friend of ours here doing odd jobs and he also works at a wood shop making whatever he wants. Owen is in charge of the basketball nights for our ward and enjoys his weekly basketball night.
As you have probably gathered, I do pre-school with my kids from home and once every month or so, I teach the co-op pre-school group that my kids are involved in. I have a calling in our ward as the Y/W 2nd counselor and I love all the girls I serve. I currently clean two nights a week for about 30 minutes each time I go in at a cell phone company and I love getting out for a few minutes to collect myself! I have enjoyed the opportunity to do lots of crafts this year. I post some of them on my new blog that I am trying to figure out how to do (http://breescraftycreations.blogspot.com/) I’m going to really try to post better, I’m just not sure how I want to do it yet. I love where we live and enjoy all the fun people that I have met here.
Duke and Bruiser (our dogs) love it here in Arizona a whole lot better then Las Vegas. They actually have grass here and it stays cooler here too. Duke and Bruiser love the attention the kids give them and enjoy their walks. Rylee loves walking Duke her “buddy”!
We love it here and couldn’t ask for a better place to live. It’s not to far away from family and it’s a vacation year round. We just bought some land here, so hopefully we will start building in the next year or so. We love you all and hope you have a happy and safe Holiday season.
Merry Christmas!

Love,
The Park Family

Baking Crazy...

I went crazy last night trying to get all of this done! I made treat plates for all the crew's at Owen's work. Everything turned out really yummy and we got all of them delivered this morning. Yeah!!! One thing down, only 40 more things to go! (:

English Toffee

Almond Brittle

Orange Fudge

Cinnamon/sugar roasted Almonds

Pumpkin chocolate chip bread

Chocolate covered cherries

Chocolate covered pretzels

Divinity

Peppermint Bark

Can you say, "HOLY COW!"? I know... That's a lot of candy, but I couldn't decide on just one or two of them, so I made them all! In all honesty, it only took me 4 hours to make everything. (:

Family pics take 1 and 2

Last week Owen and I took our family pictures. Here are the results...

Take ONE:

Here is Take TWO:

We pinned up a sheet to our wall and set up two chairs that we all sat on. Then Owen pushed the button and ran into place. Here is the Turn out!

This is BO and Rylee showing us how it is really done. (really Owen was trying to center the camera.)

Trip to SLC and Parties...

This last Thursday-Sunday we were in Utah for some well needed Doctor appointments, Christmas shopping (since there isn't much here where we live.) and Christmas parties. We Thursday was the Dr. appointments and shopping. Friday I helped Sheila around the house and than we visited our friends (my second parents) Pete and Keri. Saturday was our Park family Christmas party. We went sledding at the Spanish Fork golf course and went to Josh and Laura's house where we ate lots of yummy food and drank some really yummy hot chocolate. On our way back to SLC we stopped off at our friends Mike and Michelle's house and visited them for a bit and then headed to Jeff and Sheila's ward Christmas party. BO sat on the stage on the red velvet chair that was reserved for Santa and ate the popcorn decorations on the Christmas tree most of the time and for most of the program. There was even a lady that tried to bribe him with a candy cane but he grabbed it and then ran and sat back down on the chair. To explain... Our ward had a Christmas party on Wednesday night right before we drove to Utah. BO ran up on stage when they announced that there was a surprise visitor on his way. Bo was right in front of Santa when they opened the curtain. He was the first in line and the first on his lap. What a stinker. Also at our ward Christmas party, the primary all sang a song in sign language. They allowed Kodi and BO up there even though they didn't ever practice with them. Kodi did the entire thing better them all the older kids. Everyone loved watching her sing and sign. What a nut!

Anyway, here are some quick pictures of our sledding trip.

Kodi, Haydon and Rylee

Mike and his two of his kids Madison and Maison.

Grandpa and Elena and BO

Owen, Me, Kodi and BO

Rylee, Bridger and Alora

Josh and Jason

Owen fell after pushing someone on the sled.

Grandma, Kodi, BO and Elena

Owen, Kodi, BO and Elena

Shantel

Kodi.... Bridger, Rylee and Alora than Owen, BO and Elena with Daniel pushing them.