Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas card

We didn't send out many this year, so I thought I would put it here for all of my blogging friends!

Another Silly B Post...

(Bren "strangling" Kindyl)
Something is wrong with our washing machine. We are going to have to have it repaired. Or get a new one. And we just had a car related expense that will cost us hundreds. So I was complaining to Wendell about these two unexpected expenses coming at Christmas time. I said, "And we didn't really have enough money for Christmas anyway". Brenley was in the room playing and all of a sudden you hear her little voice say, In a sarcastic little mock whiny voice. "Oh, we don't have enough money for Christmas. Wah wah."

There is nothing like a three year old pointing out that you are being whiny to make you laugh. Cracked me up!

(Love the chocolate face and baby bow)

Yesterday she said "da**it" out of the blue. After I figured out that she actually did say it, I said, "we don't say that word, Brenley. You can say dangit, or shoot." She laughs at me and says, "Mom, three year olds don't say shoot!"

Oh. Apparently they say "da**it". Great.

Silly B.

Abigail...AKA, Brenley's Dolly

I promise the child is growing. But she is still pretty little. I have been getting a lot of comments about how she looks like she is just a doll. I got three comments last week at McDonald's play land from different people about how it looked like I was carrying around a little doll.

Then at church on Sunday I got at least three more. It makes me a little self conscious. Like she isn't thriving. Maybe I am not producing enough milk for this child. But I promise she is growing! She has gained more than the doctors expected her too. I think she just has little features when you see her in person. And she is kind of short, I think. She doesn't really look like a dolly in pictures because you can see her chubby little face. But her body is still tiny.

It is fitting, I suppose. Because Bren thinks she is her own personal little dolly. The other day, Brenley picked out this outfit, and insisted Abigail wear it:

Even though it was obviously not appropriate for the dead of winter. As you can see we put a long sleeved onesie underneath it, and some white leggings to avoid frostbite;) Miss Brenley couldn't resist the sparkly crown on the front. She has a bit of a weakness for bling.

After Bren has dressed her up, she likes to carry her around:
And give her poor mama a heart attack.

Brenley's Journal

She doesn't have one. Because I am a slacker. The first three kids have journals where I wrote down all of the cute things they said or did. Or some anyway. So I decided to write down a few here, since this is my scrapbook/journal.

I was telling Wendell's cousin Karen how funny Brenley was, and how she is my little cure for post partum hormones because she makes me laugh every day. She asked for examples and I couldn't think of anything. Sad.

Part of the reason is that so much of her humor is physical. She will just randomly strike a little pose, or do her booty dance. Out of the blue. If you saw it, you would bust up.

And part of her humor is her cute little voice. When you repeat what she says, it isn't that funny. But when she says it it is hilarious. If you have or have had toddlers, you know exactly what I mean. In fact, the only reason Abigail has kept her name is because it is so adorable when Brenley says it. So, if she hates having such a common name when she is older, she will have B to blame;)

Brenley was eating little peppermint patties the other day. She had been eating more than a couple. She came up and asked me if she could have more chocolate. I was having an internal debate. Should I just say yes so I can keep doing what I am doing in peace? Or should I say no, because she has probably had too many. It took a minute to think about it.

So she looked at me with this earnest expression and said. "say yes". Like she was helping me work out my dilemma. Or she was trying out her Jedi mind skills. Either way, it worked;)

I am afraid she has us all wrapped around her little finger;)

Bunco Ornament Craft

We had a fun ornament exchange this last week for bunco. I had been having a hard time finding twelve of just the right ornament. I found these large jingle bells and really liked them:

But they were missing something. I think Wendell actually mentioned it. He said something about adding leaves or berries or something and I got an idea. This is one of my favorite Christmas decorations:

SO I thought I would do something similar on a smaller scale. This is my super-organized work station. AKA the kitchen table;)
And the finished product:

It was a fun little project, and an even funner bunco night. Caryn goes all out and had the cutest bunco prizes ever. (I won that fabulous candy cane vase. I know you want one.)

Her house is such a cute Christmas wonderland. She made us a delicious dinner and even fancy ornament desserts. It was fantastic.
We had a great assortment of ornaments


Here is Brenley helping me hang them:

Fun girls, fun game, and 12 new ornaments for my tree! Woohoo!

Something Silly I Couldn't Resist

The Twilight Before Christmas

I Can't Get Enough of This Song.......

It is my favorite every year. And now I can listen to it whenever I want. If these guys had a concert I would go.




And I don't usually like music without vocals. I don't know why I love this one so much. Enjoy!

Another Wendell Quote

"Hun- If blogging were porn, we would have a serious problem....."

Thanksgiving- Sherry's Family

What can I say- The Grunyons (Garns/Dunyons) throw a great party. After hosting Wendell's family at my house Thursday I understand about 1/3 of what they do every single holiday. Not to mention every other week for family dinner. Grand total: 29 kids (first cousins) and 16 adults.

I got off easy on Friday. We were only in charge of potatoes, gravy, and pickles.(I only brought dill, not sweet. My bad.) I admit- I signed up for potatoes because I knew Wendell would do them for me. Another basically stress less day.
(Joy's going to be mad at me for posting pictures inside their temporary dwelling while homes are being built. AKA the"scary house")

The spread at the Grunyons was AWESOME! There are so many of us, we get a variety of favorites. Margaret made too much for their Thanksgiving, so they brought a few extra things. We had three turkeys, (you outdid yourself this year, Greg) orange rolls by Jannalee (my favorite, she has perfected the roll to orange goo ratio), two kinds of homemade stuffing (Reb and Marg),squash salad (which I had seconds of. Loved it, I need the recipe Brianne) strawberry pretzel salad, corn pudding, (both by Margaret), Callie's sweet potatoes (may as well be dessert. Delicious),and her regular rolls, pecan pie (MG with Rebecca supplying homemade crust)Joy's famous pumpkin pies, and some regular pumpkin pies by Russell and Tiff. What am I missing? A relish tray. I think there was a spinach salad too, but I can't remember. TONS of food. But some of us missed my mom's turkey.



The babies climbing up the bouncy slide. Addie, Brenley, and Zan. With Maranda at the bottom, and Janee at the side.

Of course the bigger kids love it too. Mitchell, Kindyl, and Tate joined in.


Don't forget the famous Dora bounce house! Booker Brenley and Zephyr having fun inside.

Some of my favorite things about getting the family all together for Thanksgiving: getting to play together! The kids do such a great job playing together, and mostly leaving the adults to sit around and chat.


(Clark's head, Rebecca, Dan's head, Jannalee)
This picture is funny, because Jannalee's recent quirk post mentioned that she talks with her hands. I never noticed, but I believe her!

Russ, Tiff, and baby Riley. And half of Brianne..

Bryce and Callie. And part of Brianne again. Sorry Brianne...

My view most of the day: I love it.



I also love watching how the kids play. Rachael, Kinsy and Dani are apparently not germophobes. They are playing a game with an ice cube. One of them spits it into the air,(pretty darn high) and another one catches it. These kids have some mad skills...Dang- I thought I had a pic but they are all videos. I don't know how to do that yet. I know Rebecca got a good picture, I'll steal it from her later.
Booker playing with Trigg. Obviously, Trigg got cold;)

Kindyl and Andria on the rope swing.


Riley, Teichert, and Abigail. Even the babies play together!

After dark the real games began.

The kids about to start the wheelbarrow race. Kylee and Chandler won. Mitchell and Tate came in second.


They were all awesome! The adults played also. Callie and Chandler won, and your's truly came in last. In my defense, I tripped over the starting line. And I am just weak and uncoordinated;)No pics of that, obviously.

Another game.
They also set up a pretty cool obstacle course. Here is Kindyl on part of it
ANd these kids look like they are discussing the progress of the others
Kinsey, Rachael and Andria, Danica, and Maranda.

After the games, it was movie time. Greg whipped out the projector and showed "Kung Fu Panda" on the side of the house. It is just like going to the theater. Only colder;)
Mitch, Seaver, and Booker trying to keep warm. Later joined by Trigg.


It is always a party when we get together with my family. I love that my kids have so many cousins close by. It is so great to be able to play with all of our built in friends. It will be even better next year when we have my mom back!

Thanksgiving- Wendell's Side

This year we had two Thanksgivings. The Proffitt family (my side) often does Thanksgiving on Friday to accommodate the other half of our respective families.

This year I got to host the Macnab family at our house. If you know me, you would know that this kind of thing would generally stress me out. But I surprised myself by actually feeling excited about it.

Compared to my family it was going to be a relatively small group. Just Wendell's parents, his two brothers, and their families. Unfortunately, Wendell's Grandmother passed away a week before Thanksgiving, and his mom and dad went to Minnesota to attend the funeral. Grandma, Grandpa, and Laura were sorely missed.

This small group meant I got to do a nicer grown up table with real plates:

Rachael and Kindyl just learned about setting the table and folding fancy napkins in Activity Days, so they were able to set the whole thing.

And I was able to attempt a couple of crafts for the kids. That would be daunting for the 30 kids that live in town on my side of the family, but the 8 kids we had over on Thursday were just right.



I had higher aspirations, but left it to the last minute. So I ended up letting the kids take over. Rachael covered the card tables with postal wrapping paper. They all cut out place mats out of scrap book paper. Then we made these lovely nameplates with rocks and alphabet pasta.(super fancy, I know;) And we had centerpieces of crayons and colored pencils.

(Emma, Kiara, Mitchell, and Brendon)

(Kaylee, Rachael,Dallin,Kindyl, and Brenley)

Even the older kids dug it. They were joking around and playing with each other. They ate for a few minutes and said, "can we start coloring now?" They are so funny.

Wendell's brother Dean and his family live in Payson, and we don't get to see them very often. (We see Dean a little more frequently because he works out of Sky Harbor airport)We love these guys. They have three boys and one little princess. These boys have always been sweet to our girls, and very respectful to adults. Their teenagers don't mind having an actual conversation with us, and aren't sulky and quiet. Emma is two years older than Brenley, and is very sweet to her also. We wish we could play with these guys more often.

(Emma teaching Brenley the age old tradition of placing olives on your fingers)


(I'm allowed to show Dean eating, because he never looks at my blog;)

I was concerned that with so few families cooking we wouldn't have enough variety of food. Laura had been sick, so we almost lost Grant's whole family. That meant a tiny Thanksgiving with just us and Dean and Pam. Pam, apparently, had the same fear. SO she brought almost everything but the turkey! This included: Lion House rolls, pistachio salad, pumpkin bars, spinich dip in a bread bowl, sweet potatoes, and olives(green and black).All we had to do was the turkey (which we pit roasted this year thanks to Wendell's friend/co worker Shane. Thanks Shane! It was fabulous)the stuffing, potatoes, and drinks. Pam took the hard stuff. Thanks Pam! We had a TON of food!

(Mitchell and Brendon playing the game cube in the pit/Mitchell's room)

(Emma holding Abigail)

(Dean playing Guitar Hero. Always a family favorite)

Luckily Laura started feeling a little better, and we got to play with their family too (And were spared the horror of store bought pumpkin pies;)

(Grant, Cade and Laura. This kid has the most awesome red hair!)

(Kiara and Abigail)

All in all it was way less stressful then it could have been. For one thing, Wendell's family has low expectations of me. They drop in on my messy house, and are even allowed in my bedroom when it is not clean. (My family is NOT allowed). Wendell did a lot of the cleaning, and the kids helped out as well. Wendell did most of my share of the cooking , and Pam and Laura made the hard stuff. This is my favorite picture:

Who doesn't love the sight of men working in the kitchen?! Wendell is doing the potatoes, and Dean is carving the turkey. Which consisted of lifting the breast off of the bone, placing it on a plate and cutting it. Love that pit roasted turkey. I've never seen anything like it. Yum.

We had a lot of fun. No stress. Loved watching the kids play with these cousins. We need to get up to Payson more often. And coax Grant's family into coming into Mesa to hang out with us. (They live in Gilbert)

Food, fun and family. Does it get any better than this?