Christmas music and plays

I put together a night of Christmas music. Here's a picture from it. Mark and I both played a few piano pieces and I asked my friend Kathryn and Jared to play a couple numbers. Kathryn was a piano major at the U and Jared is a violinist. I did an arrangement of Silent Night with me on the piano and Jared playing the violin. It was nice to do it with Jared because he likes to play by ear. So I didn't have to spend hours writing it all out, I just told him what I wanted him to play. :) It was awesome. I'm so glad the night actually all came together. It really helped me progress to have something to work toward. It might become a tradition for us since music is one of my favorite ways to celebrate and bring the Spirit of Christmas.

Mark and his brother Mike were in a Christmas play called "Christmas Without Mr. C" They were the mysterious travelers. They were hilarious. In the play Santa decides he's going to take Christmas off because he's tired of kids being so ungrateful and greedy. So, he's going to go to the Bahamas instead. But one little boy realizes he forgot to mail his thank-you note to Santa the year before so he goes all the way to the North Pole to get it to Santa in time. He meets the travelers at multiple spots along the way. So, Mark and Mike came out as different people with a different accent each time. They made their characters very funny with lots of little jokes. There were about 40 kids in the play, which included all of Mike and Tami's kids. It was very cute. Tami directed the music for it. I got a little clip of Mike and Mark's awesome Russian dance.

Peek-a-boo & Kindermusik

I LOVE Brynli's laugh. Here's a little taste of how cute she is.
Caleb has a lot of fun at Kindermusik. It's really fun to watch him. Occasionally he likes to sing this song around the house.

November 08

Ha ha, I guess I better post the month of November before December is over.

I went to a wonderful doula conference the first weekend in November. It was great to associate with other Utah doulas and be inspired. A few of us went to dinner after and ended up talking for hours. Pretty crazy, but fun.

Our Stake volleyball team played in regions the first couple weeks of November. It was SO fun! We ended up forfeiting a game the first Saturday because they didn't tell us we had another game, so no one showed up. So we had to work our way through the loser's bracket. These were some intense, very exciting games. On the next Saturday we played about five sets of games. We played from 11:00 to about 5:00. Some of the games were scary and we were trying to catch up from behind, but we ended up winning everyone and took 1st place! Wa hoo! Mark and the kids had fun watching on Saturday, but we actually didn't get any pictures. Bummer.
Later that night we went to a work dinner for the finance department. I discovered that I actually know some of the wives of the husbands who work with Mark. It was kind of funny because I thought they looked like other people I know. After talking with them I realized who they were and why they looked familiar to me!
We went bowling for family home evening. Caleb was hilarious. He liked to throw the ball, run away, and then turn around and watch it. He got pretty excited when the pins fell over. Mark went bowling with the Elders Quorum a few nights before. One of the guys let Mark use his ball and Mark bowled a 192!


I went to see Twilight with Lyndi. A lady rented out a theatre at Gateway and sold the tickets to friends and friends of friends. The whole theatre was full of women, pretty funny. She gave a little gift bag to everyone. One of the gifts was a Cullen necklace ha ha. I missed a lot of the first part of the movie because there were 2 accidents on I 15 and I 215 was closed because of an accident. But what I did see they did a good job. The best part for me though was getting to talk to Lyndi for a while after. I didn't take pictures of Thanksgiving, but we had a really great Thanksgiving at my parent's house with almost all of my family.


The extended Weaver family has a Christmas get together the Saturday after Thanksgiving for whoever can make it. We do a little gift exchange and play volleyball. It was so fun. Here's some pictures of Caleb and Brynli opening their presents. Our cousin Debbie gave us a great present of the Proclamation on the family with a bunch of our family's pictures as a border around it. I really like it. :) We watched part of Kung Fu Panda after the party with John and Michelle's family. Now Caleb will randomly do the I love Kung Fuuuu (with his head stretched up in the air). And then Brynli does it, which is so funny to watch.
Check back in a few days because I have a couple cute videos of Caleb and Brynli I'm going to post. :)

Christmas Tree

We bought a Christmas tree and decorated it for family home evening on Monday. I have been so excited for Christmas! I love Christmas time. It's even more fun because I'm so excited to give Caleb and Brynli a couple presents that I know they'll really enjoy.

It is not the days but moments that will capture your heart forever.

"Few things can transform us as quickly as the presence of a child." - Tobin Hart

"When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn't stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, He has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother's heart, and she puts it into the baby's mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies." - E.T.Sullivan

I am so thankful that Heavenly Father sent His son for us and I am so thankful for the precious gifts my children are to me.

Fall Activities

We had a fun month visiting family and playing with friends.

Here's some pictures of Caleb and Brynli in their costumes.Thank-you Grandma Weaver who let Caleb borrow one of the costumes she has made! The veterinarian costume fit Caleb this year. I think he looks pretty cute.

Brynli Loo Hoo as Cindy Loo Hoo

She is a cute hoo!

We went to Gardner Village with our good friends Marissa and Sydney. Around Halloween they have a bunch of decorative witches all over Gardner Village. Some of them are really funny. They also have a petting zoo and a pony ride for the kids. With the nice fall weather we were having, it was a great day to be out and enjoying it all.

Brynli is fascinated with animals. She loves them. These ducks weren't afraid to come right up to you, to the point I had to make sure they didn't get too close to her and bite her. But she loved every minute of it.

They are so beautiful!

Caleb checking out the chickens

We had a little incident in the petting zoo as well. We were right in there with all of the animals - goats, sheep, etc. The goats must have smelled the apples Brynli had been eating earlier because they practically attacked her. These were pretty big goats pretty aggressively climbing up onto my little girl - I wasn't too happy about that. It scared her, but once we got past that she enjoyed the rest of the animals.
I love the look of fascination Caleb and Brynli have on their faces.
Instead of carving pumpkins this year I decided to try painting them. Caleb painted the bats with my assistance and I did the scarecrow. It was really fun. Caleb loved it. He kept saying this is so exciting, this is so cool! They are so peutiful!
We went on a big scavenger hunt with a bunch of neighbor friends. It was sooo much fun. They gave us clues that we had to figure out which told us the place to go to and then we had to search all around to find the clue. We were in groups of four and there were about 6 groups. They split up couples, so Mark and I were in different groups. The clues were all over the city. Some of the places were a high school, a skate park, a golf course, an elementary school, a park, etc. It was so funny! We had such a great time.

Marc is home!!! I love the look of anticipation on everyone's face as they wait for him to come down the escalator.

Yay!!

We went up to Logan for Marc's homecoming on Saturday. I didn't really take any pictures (batteries), but we had a great time with family. There was lots of volleyball and settlers with Mel late at night when everything is very funny! Or maybe it's just Melanie and Mark that are really funny!
Marc gave an amazing talk. I was very touched by the Spirit and his sincerity. I could tell he really came to understand how to apply gospel principles in his life and helped others do the same.
Michelle took us over to the pumpkin walk Saturday night. They have tons of different scenes. It is so fun to see the creativity and talent.

Noah's ark

Michael Phelps!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

You know what's scary? How little I post on my own blog. We went over to Christie's parents for an impromptu pumpkin carving party. If you know me, I'm not content with triangles for eyes and a nose, and a smiling mouth with two teeth. And I'm too lazy to come up with my own design, so I enjoy finding fun patterns and taking some time to churn out some fun pumpkins. My favorites have been Stupendous Man (from Calvin and Hobbes), the Mortal Combat Dragon (that one was awesome), Lightning McQueen last year (Caleb loved that) and this year...



This one wasn't too bad, since there weren't too many intricate parts. My biggest fear is, as Peeve sings in Harry Potter 7, that Old Voldy will go moldy.

Ha ha, I also changed the background on the blog, Christie.

Vacation to sunny southern Utah part 2

On Sunday we went to our old ward and saw some friends. It was good to see everyone again. When we lived down there we lived next door to some really great friends. Caleb loved playing with Collin and Maleah and we loved living next door to Ryan and Erika. Erika really helped me out after Brynli was born. She always offered to have Caleb come over and play with Collin so I could take a nap. I could tell it wasn't some obligation she felt, but she wanted Caleb to come over because she loved having him over. She's actually the one that witnessed Brynli being born in our bathroom. :) It was great to spend time with them again.
The pictures do a pretty good job of capturing what a fun and exciting reunion they had!

We went over to a park for a little while. This is a picture of Erika, Caleb and Collin waiting for Ryan to throw the x-zylo to them.

Ryan and Maleah

Vacation to sunny southern Utah

We had such a great vacation last weekend. We went down to Southern Utah to visit some family and friends. Friday night we went out to eat with my brother and sister-in-law, my grandma, and my parents who happened to also be down that way the same weekend. We went to a great Thai food restaurant - a first for me. We did the pass the dishes around and take a little of each thing. It was fun to sample each of the dishes we got. We spent most of the day Saturday playing in my brother's amazing backyard. Caleb and Brynli had a blast playing with their cousins. We love visiting Scott and Heidi. They were so nice and welcoming. Their family is amazing!

Caleb and Brynli love to jump. At first I was a little worried that the kids would bounce Brynli too much, but no not her, she just gets up, laughs, and keeps jumping.

They have an awesome sandbox with lots of great toys. They were in heaven.

The basketball boys

Mark has become really good at riding a unicycle.

We went to a park with my brother's family. The weather was perfect there all weekend - low 80's.

Look at that cute face!

Mark played the piano for my Grandma, which I think she really enjoyed.

Here's my Grandma listening to Mark play.

vOLLeYbaLL

This was one of the biggest highlights of our summer. We had so much fun playing volleyball with people in our neighborhood every week. There is a park really close to our house where we set up a grass vball net. We usually had 5 on 5 or 6 on 6 with slightly varying people. We live by so many athletic people. There were a lot of great volleyball players. It was so much fun! Everyone was amazed at how good Mark is.

Our kids would play on the playground next to us while we played. It was a great set up. We would try to keep playing once it was dark because we never wanted the night to end. It made for interesting volleyball when you couldn't see the ball until it was right in front of your face!

It's getting too cold to play now, but I've started playing stake women's volleyball. I haven't played with all women on a women's net probably since high school . . . and that was a little different. :) Quite a few played in high school or college and everyone is really nice and friendly. It is so fun. I can actually block too . . . at least every once in a while. :)

Kindermusik

Caleb and Brynli love going to "music time" every week. I've been taking them to a Kindermusik class once a week that my good friend Marissa is doing. They love it. The classes incorporate musical concepts, pretend play, movement, social interaction, and learning through fun ways. There's probably even more benefits, that's just what I can see happening. I'm so glad they get this opportunity. It has been so much fun.

Nathanael's baptism

We went to my nephew's baptism on Saturday. Nathanael is a very smart, sweet little boy. It was great to feel the Spirit as he was being baptized. Todd and Julie are great examples to me. They have so many good ideas for raising their children. Hopefully some of them will rub off on me!

My brother Todd, Julie, and Nathanael

My sweet, cute little Brynli.

Our family with Nathanael.