Happy Birthday Brandon

Today is Brandon's birthday so I wanted to take a minute to publicly announce what a wonderful man he is. (And totally embarrass him. **WARNING: Major sappiness ahead.**) Brandon is the greatest husband, father and friend and I am so blessed to have him as my eternal companion. He always makes me laugh, he is so considerate of others, he always helps out, he has such a good heart and he does the dishes. He is such a great and caring father and Ella adores him.

Happy Birthday Brandon, I love you!!!!

Okay, moving on... Of course we celebrated! Here's what we did.

We had dinner at my mom's house on Sunday and cake at my Dad's.

We decorated my Dad's Christmas tree and had some family-filled good times.

Me, Riley & Ashley

James, Eva, Brandon & Ella

Riley and Laura

The fam

Yes I made the cake, and no it's not for an eight year old girl. He wanted strawberry cake and I guess I got a little crazy with the pink decorations. It was good though.

Today we went to Disneyland with Brandon's mom, Deborah, and his sister, Lindsay.

We had an awesome breakfast buffet and Ella got to meet Minnie Mouse.

Captain Hook hung out with us and tried to steal our jewelry... sneaky sneaky

It was Ella's first time at Disneyland and she had a blast. Well, she slept a lot and got a little fussy when we tried to take her on Pirates of the Caribbean, but the rest of the time, she was having fun.

It was a little chilly, but luckily there was no rain.

Grams bought Ella a hat and gloves. They were a little big, so it looked like she had lobster claws. So cute.

We were pretty tired at the end of the day, but we had so much fun. And as you can see, the birthday boy had a great time.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a lot of fun with family this Thanksgiving weekend. We celebrated Thanksgiving at the Stewart's house and had lots of delicious food. Brandon's cousin Owen and his wife Maki came over too with their darling son Zen.

Ella was excited to meet her second cousin. As you can see she really liked him.

(If you're wondering what happened to Ella's hair, Brandon was trying to hold the baby and eat mashed potatoes & gravy at the same time. Result = gravy head)

Grams and Auntie got to have some Ella time too.

Ella's onesie says "My Auntie Loves Me"

On Saturday evening we drove to Rancho Santa Fe for my cousin's wedding reception. The clouds got darker and darker as we drove and it was pouring by the time we got there.

It was a fun trip though, and a beautiful reception for a beautiful couple.

Ella also got some play time with her cousin Eva.

Cousin Love!

Eva wants to snuggle.

It was nice to have Brandon home for a couple extra days. Now the count down is on for Christmas!

Thanks

Thanksgiving is (almost) here!
I am ready to eat. But more importantly, I have so much to be thankful for. I won't bore you with the entire list, but I will say that I am thankful to be a mother and a wife and to have an AMAZING family that gives me so much support and love.
I am thankful for all the men and women who have left their families and their comfortable homes to serve as missionaries and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ all over the world, and to those who are also away serving in our military and keeping us safe. We are writing letters to missionaries tonight for the youth activity at church. If you want to say thank you to our troops, there is a cool website called Let's Say Thanks where you can send a post card to military personnel stationed overseas. It takes about two minutes, and you don't have to give them any personal information like your email or anything. It's a small gesture, but I'm sure it will make someone's day.
I am grateful for this time of year when we are reminded to really focus not on the problems and challenges that we all face daily, but on the things we have been given. I feel so blessed to have the life that I do and I hope I can remember that every day.

Family Photos

I am thinking about taking some family photos and decided to look around to get some ideas for poses. I found some great ideas! Which one should we do?

We could put cats in our pockets

Straw Hats are always a nice touch.

We could do an environmentally friendly pose

Tie Dye Anyone?

How about a theme photo, a little Happy Days?

or A Christmas Surprise!

These are all priceless. Hopefully our family photos will turn out as great.

Giggles

Ella loooves her daddy and always smiles for him when he gets home.

Litter bugs

Has your foot ever been baptized in orange soda? If not, you are lucky. It is not so fun to get out of your car in the Vons parking lot and step on a full cup of sticky orange nastiness... in sandals. I was unfortunate enough to have this experience yesterday and it got me thinking about how lazy people are that they can't even walk to the trash can (which was only 10 feet away max!) or at least hold their trash in their car until they get home.



I have to admit that I was once guilty of this crime, but I was just a kid, so I can say I didn't know any better. I learned at a young age that littering is a no-no. One fine day as a youngster, I was happily enjoying my pudding snack in the parking lot while mom quickly ran into the store. When I was done, I of course didn't want to hold the trash all the way home, so I carefully placed it on the ground outside the door of our car (sweet dodge caravan). We were a good distance from the store when my mom realized I no longer had my snack and asked what I had done with the trash. I casually admitted it's new location, thinking it was no big deal. I had seen other people do this, so isn't it okay? Needless to say mom was shocked. I learned my lesson when she turned the car around and drove back to the store so I could properly dispose of my garbage.

I am glad I had a mother who taught me this lesson. Why is it that some people, adults even, feel it is okay to use the parking lot as a trash can? Did their parents never teach them this lesson? Do they just have no respect for their community? Do they not mind walking around in a sea of trash? Don't even get me started about cigarette butts thrown out the window or dropped on the ground... I may not be the most "green" person, but I at least put my garbage (half empty soda cups included) where it belongs. And that place is not in my shoe!

Some Firsts

This month Ella had a few firsts.

She experienced her first time in a swimming pool. Luckily it was heated so it felt like bath water. Daddy took her around and she would kick her little legs like crazy. She loved it!

She met her cousins the Higbees for the first time who were visiting from Provo.

She also had her first Halloween. We went over to Grams' house and passed out candy. Ella had so much fun she fell asleep with all her toys.

Ella laughed out loud for the first time this month too. Our attempts to get this on video have been unsuccessful. She always stops when the camera comes on, but hopefully we can catch it soon.