Beating those Winter Blues!

In a small attempt to cheer my sister up, I packed up all the kids and headed west for the week. I’m not sure if I brought more chaos to her life or not by having the kids and I there, but after a long 4 ½ hour drive and kids asking every 5 minutes “are we there yet” we arrived, alive!
My plan was to keep Kel distracted by doing fun things, so the plan was to meet them at Wal-Mart to buy fabric so we could sew aprons. We found cute fabrics, but the terribly mean old lady at Wal-Mart was not the medicine I had in store to lift Kels spirit. After getting stare down after stare down and getting chewed out and scowled by this mean old lady, we felt it necessary to tell a manager about how we were treated; in hopes she wouldn’t treat someone else the same way. With fabric in hand, groceries and a stop at Blockbuster for light hearted Chic flicks we were off to Springcreek for a week.

The sewing of aprons got off to rough start when I couldn’t get my sewing machine to sew, and spent the first night trying to fix it. With no success I decided I would try getting it fixed, so headed to a sewing shop to only have the lady sew perfectly with no problems and tell me nothing was wrong with my machine. Not true, it sewed perfectly for a while and then completely stopped working. Are precious time was going fast and so far. . . no cute apron to show for all the time spent so far. After borrowing Kel’s friend’s machine, Kel and I sewed like maniacs, sewing 4 aprons in less than 24 hours.

Kel in the driver seat . . . did I mention another favorite thing about hanging out with Kel is we never get ready for the day. Its robes and pajama pants all day long. Maybe we’ll run a toothbrush through the teeth, but then again maybe not!!
Although making aprons was fun (well kind of) my favorite part of the trip was after getting all the kids to bed each night, watching movies up in Kel’s bed with her bed warmer on. Although we hated ourselves in the morning when the kids got up early or the fact they never went to bed at all, it was fun to have that time with my sis to talk and relax together. Things we don’t get to do very often. My favorite thing about hanging out with my sister is we don’t have to do anything at all and we have a good time. It’s enough just being together. The week flew by and before we knew it, it was time to say goodbye. More tears were shed as the kids and I left their cousins and my sister behind.

Fixing 3 meals and day, getting 3 kids ready for the day, bathing the children, dishes, clean up after clean up, referring . . . that’s how I vacation! Jealous?

The many faces of Kazzy, Coley & Tyler this December!

Bringhurst Family Christmas Party!

This years Christmas party was . . . well, perfect in my book! Being with my family makes me happier than anything in this world and when you top it off with lots of yummy food, a little Christmas bingo, sledding, sugar cookie decorating, a nativity scene and of course Santa Clause and presents. . . really life doesn’t get much better. I don’t think we could of packed one more activity into one day, Ginka and Papa sure know how to entertain there nine grandkids. . . feed them lots of candy, give them whatever they want and plain old spoil them!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . . and I can’t wait!

Family Pictures again. . Oh, boy!

The whole gang! We started out as 5 of us and now there's a whoppen 17 of us!
 

Check out Coles purple lips, they were purple for hours after pictures, that's how cold it was!!


Now that's alot of really cute kids!!

Although we wanted snow to sled, we didn’t expect Mother Nature to bring winter wonderland again for this year’s party and pictures. This year’s storm was a little more relentless which made family pictures kind of a drag and bitterly cold.

You think we would have smartened up after lasts year’s family pictures and done this year's pictures in July. Doing family pictures in the middle of December with 9 little kids is not so ideal, but that doesn’t stop the Bringhurst’s.


However, before this gets to depressing, despite the harsh conditions the photographer (Greg Anderson . . . a little plug for you Greg) was able to make it and we were able to find a spot with some shelter from the snow and wind.

Willie wiping the snot from Coley's face. This pretty much sums up family pictures doesn't it?

Next year I think we'll shoot for pictues in July, better yet maybe we won't do family pictures next year!

Mr. Man

1. Jumping off his chair at Smith’s Marketplace, Cole says “ I’m Super-Fred”. Too cute… meaning Fred from Scooby doo.
2. Cole’s in the shower and I’m washing his hair and he say’s “Mom, guess what? When you close your eyes, you can’t see!! Cool, huh?”
3. We were just about to put in a Christmas movie for the kids to watch, and I had been saying for a while, we can’t watch Christmas movies until it’s Christmas time. So. . . the next thing I know Cole walks out the front door, and he’s looking up at the roof, and he’s looking pretty hard. Then he comes running inside saying, yep Mom, we can watch a Christmas movie, cause we have Christmas lights on our house!!
4. We were walking through the music Dept. at Wal-Mart, and I said to Willie “Look it’s Carrie Underwood’s new CD, I wonder if it’s any good, or something like that”. Next thing we hear Cole saying “Carrie Underwear?... Mom” (long drawn out Maaaaaaaam as if she was crazy).
5. At night Coley just got out of the tub, and Coley and Daddy were getting him dressed for night-night…. Coley said, out of the blue: “Dad, I have a we-we and two bellies” flabbergasted and somewhat confused (because Coley slurres his speech) I said what? He then replied “ I have a we-we and two bummies” Ok… so I said Coley, are you saying bummies as in your bummy? He said “no dad, berries” thinking he did not know what he was saying, I said… “cool Coley, where are your berries?” he then looked at me for a second, then made his best guess, and then opened his mouth wide as he could and pointed in his mouth… laughing and now curious, I say “good Coley, and do you know where your we-we is?” then he looked down and got that question right… so I said again.. “Good, you are my smart boy”
6. Right before bed… Daddy was trying to give Coley some good thoughts for him to dream of, so daddy said… Coley, you can dream that you are a Kung-Fu master and you protect people. He got all happy and smiled and said… “Yeah and I can throw a frog up in the air, catch butterflies with my net and kiss them” made me laugh, maybe he is a lover not a fighter.
7. Same night as above, Daddy was giving hugs and kisses night-night, and Coley looked at Daddy and said “Daddy, I love you” so I said, I love you to Coley, he then said “I love going to the ball games with you” (Note: we went to a BYU Basketball game a week prior) so I said “me too, we should go again sometime” he then said “yeah, and maybe Tarzan will be there”

Time for Bed!

If you think the hour long Finch Kid Bedtime routine of getting pajamas on, going potty, brushing teeth, taking vitamin and fluoride, medicine, reading books, saying prayers, drink of water, kisses, tucking and retucking in is enough. . .try getting all three of them out from under their bunk beds!

Worth the Wait!

It might have taken Ginka Extra Long to get Tyler her baby blanket . . . but it was well worth the wait. We know it was made with Extra love and lots of hard work. We are so lucky to have a special Ginka like you!


Ginka giving Ty-Ty her new blanket she made!


Special buddies for life!


Tyler took a liken-too her new blanket right away and has been sleeping with it ever since.