Brett's baby blessing

Brett had his baby blessing this past Sunday.  It was a great time with lots of family.  

My family with my dad's parents and sister and my cousins family at the Temple Christmas Lights

So sweet in his blessing outfit

Brett with his Great Grandpa Stan

Grant and his cousin Jackson were side by side the whole day

My grandparents with our boys.
They came all the way from Colorado!

My beautiful mom with Brett

My cousin took some great pictures of Brett and all of our family on the blessing day.  So you can look forward to more pictures later!  I can't wait to see them myself.

HO HO!

 Thought I'd show off Brett in his cute Christmas outfit.  Grant loves this outfit too because the bum has Santa's face on it.  Whenever the bum is showing, Grant points to the Santa and says, "HO HO!"  It's so cute!  I'm glad he recognized Santa on his own.  Maybe this year he won't be afraid to sit on his lap, or even get near the guy.

"Look at how cute I am!"

"HO HO!"

"It's fun with this cool hat too!"

Okay, just for fun, let's look at one of last year's attempts at having Grant sit with Santa.  In the first picture we're thinking that maybe if I held him he'd take a picture of us standing next to Santa.  No way! He threw a fit and "accidentally" hit me in the face right as the camera flashed.  (I know I look pretty funny)  Look at Santa's expression...I think he'd had enough too!

"Oh brother, let's get the show on the road!" - Santa

Crying on daddy's shoulder

I'm remembering other attempts at taking pictures with characters:  

Not too happy about standing next to a big furry whale.

Poor Goofy

Pluto felt heartbroken

So we'll see how this year with the jolly old elf goes.  Wish us luck!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

My cousin is so clever.  She created a Thanksgiving character for each family member, at our delicious Thanksgiving dinner, and made them into magnets for us.  She also cooked almost all of the food.  And it was way yummy!  I wish I had a copy of everyone's funny Thanksgiving character.  There were some pretty funny ones.  I think Grant's expression looks great on his!

What's going on around here?

Well, time has just flown by since Brett was born.  He'll be 7 weeks tomorrow.  Aside from the occasional major spit up, he's doing great.  He's still trying to figure out napping during the day, but he usually sleeps very well at night.  I hope I'm not jinxing myself by saying that!  

Grant loves his brother.  He does get a little jealous sometimes, and he occasionally pokes Brett in the eyes.  Yesterday Brett was in his swing and Grant decided to sit in the swing too, right on top of his brother.  Brett had a very confused expression.

At this point I feel like we survive during the week and then we love having Keith home on the weekends.  This week should be a lot more fun with Thanksgiving mixing things up a bit.

Thumbs up at the park

Growing boy

Grant jumped in to pose next to his brother

A little excited

Helping with dinner

Family Home Evening "camping" outside (for about an hour)

What's camping without s'mores?

Baking Therapy and Christmas Shopping

Baking is so therapeutic to me.  I've been feeling slightly overwhelmed lately, so I did a little baking last week.  And it totally helped.

This is my grandma's gingerbread recipe.  It seems like she always has these at her house when we visit.  They are one of my favorites.  I think I need to roll them out a little bit thinner and make the glaze a little bit thicker and then they'll be just like hers.  I decided to cute them out in Christmas shapes.  I'm so in the mood for Christmas.  I realized yesterday that Thanksgiving is just next week.  And my sister is due with a baby girl the next day.  And then before we know it, Christmas will be here!  

I like to make my Christmas lists for my family throughout the year.  I like to put thought and purpose into each gift.  And then I try to get my shopping done early.  I usually do pretty well at this.  I especially like shopping online and having it come straight to my door.  No busy parking lots, no busy stores, no long lines, and sometimes when there's no shipping charges that's nice too.  

How do you like to do your Christmas shopping?  Early?  Closer to Christmas?  On Black Friday?  Don't like shopping at all?

My Grandma's Ginger Bread

Mix together: 1/3 cup butter

                      1 cup brown sugar

                      1 cup dark unsulphured molasses

Stir in: 1/2 cup cold water

Sift & stir in: 6 cups white flour

                     1 tsp each: salt, allspice, ginger, cloves, & cinnamon

Stir in: 2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 3 TBS water

Add: 1/2 cup more flour

Roll out on floured surface to about 3/8 - 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into desired shapes.  Bake on lightly greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes.  (Test like cake- by touching lightly & no print should remain.)

Frost, with a glaze made from powdered sugar, vanilla, & water, while still warm.  (Start with about 1 cup powdered sugar.  Then stir in a little water and vanilla at a time until you reach your desired consistency.

Store in tight container between wax paper.

A few things

I picked up Cars 2 at Target the other day.  I also got 2 pairs of great boots while I was there.  I love that store!  I've been there twice since Brett was born.  Each time I felt like a kid in a candy store.  There's something about staring at the walls of your house for a month that makes a simple trip to the store more like a field trip.  

As you can see below, Grant was entranced by the movie.  He had his Finn Micmissile car with him the whole time.  Now that he's watched it one million times you can find this little man not only rolling his cars around the house, but now making them fly.

Notice the white armoire?  That's our TV's new home.  I found it on craigslist a while back and recently my brother and Keith spent a long days work on a Saturday to lacquer it white.  It's so nice to have a place for our T.V.  But mostly I love that I can close the doors and the T.V. magically disappears.  Oh, and I love that all of our games fit in the bottom cabinet.

In other news, Brett is getting bigger.  I went through his drawers yesterday and bagged up most of his clothes.  He barely wore any newborn sized clothes, and now he's starting to wear 3 month clothes.  Here he is modeling his favorite 3 month guitar one-piece.  Isn't he cute?