Take Down

Tonight we were at my parents house and Mason was leaning on the couch playing angry birds on grandpa's Ipad. Brynn loves angry birds and wanted to get in on the fun, but every time she tried to reach the Ipad Mason would turn his body to block her out. We all watched as she took a step back glaring at Mason, then stepped forward and wrapped her little arms around his waste and threw all her weight back, tackling him to the ground. Mason sat there confused as to what had just happened, but Brynn didn't waste a second scrambling to her feet and taking control of the Ipad. I couldn't control my laughter. It just goes to show it's not the size of dog in the fight, but the size of fight in the dog.

Christmas Time

It's been a wonderful Christmas season at our house. Every year I think it can't get any better, but then the next year rolls around and somehow it does. We have definitely entered the golden Christmas years with Mason when everything is magical and exciting. I plan on enjoying every second of them because before I know it the magic will be gone. What set this year apart from last year was Mason's anticipation. Last year Mason was excited about everything we were doing, but didn't really grasp the concept of time so telling him Christmas was next week meant nothing to him. Mason totally got it this year and the anticipation was half the fun. Brynn fed off all Mason's excitement and had no idea what was going on, but knew it had to be great if Mason was that excited. Here are some of our highlights from the Christmas season.

We started off with the traditional night of decorating the tree and covering the house with decorations. It was a lot of fun to turn up the Christmas music and let the kids help decorate. What wasn't so fun was redecorating the tree every night because Mason and Brynn both loved to take off the ornaments and hide them all over the house. Silly kids.We went to the Festival of Trees again this year. We almost didn't go because we were afraid we would be battling Brynn the entire time. Boy were we wrong. Brynn LOVED it. She got so excited about the trees and she walked around holding our hand like a big girl and never once tried to touch something she wasn't supposed to. Her favorite tree was the Elmo tree. Mason didn't care as much about the trees as finding all of the trains. I guess some things never change. Therefore his favorite tree was the one that had the polar express train. We did gingerbread houses with cousins at Grandma Nancy's. I can honestly say Mason did his 100% on his own. There was a lot of this as he covered his house in "snow".

And there was even more of this Brynn actually caught on pretty quick and would point to where she wanted the frosting then choose a piece of candy and stick it on. Most of the time she ended up picking the candy right back off and popping it in her mouth.

The finished products.

Temple square was beautiful. I love how excited Mason is to see the temple. I hope he always loves the temple this much.

Brynnie all bundled up.

We were lucky enough to go with our cousins the Reeses. Mason and Kayla, or should I say Buzz and Woody had a blast running around together.

We had the traditional Murray Family candlelight dinner. This year's nativity was a huge success starring Brynn, Kayla, TayLynn, Mason, Karissa, Keyana, Austin, Kenzi, and Tanner. Mason was very excited about his role as a wise man because he got to have a gift and ride a "camel". Our three wise men. Brynn was the most adorable angel, but wouldn't sit still long enough for a cute picture. A cute side story. We tried to keep the focus of Christmas on Jesus' birth and Mason fell in love with the nativity story. He watched the church's short little nativity movie honestly 8 times a night. One night after watching it he asked Scott if he wanted to play Mary and Joseph with him. Mason sat on the pillows and pretended to be Mary and Scott went around and knocked on all the doors to see if anyone had room. He loved playing with all the "stables" around our house. I think he really understood that Christmas is a big birthday party for Jesus.

The second annual Grandpa's Sleepover was a hit, even with the addition of two new babies. Here are the all the Hale grand kids in their Christmas jammies.

Brynn, Mason, Andrew, Rachel, Kennedy, Chase, and Cannon.

Brynn didn't want to cooperate for a girls picture. Hey, that sounds familiar.

The boys picture turned out so cute. Seeing Mason holding darling, not-so-little Andrew makes me almost see another baby in our future... or we'll just keep having more baby cousins... yeah, I like that plan better.

There is just a little glimpse of our Christmas Season.

Merry Christmas.

Passing the time

I knew Mason would have a hard time falling asleep on Christmas Eve in anticipation of Santa coming. What I didn't expect was for him to have a hard time sleeping the entire WEEK of Christmas because he was so excited, which turned out to be the case. Each night when he got in bed he just couldn't turn off his excitement. One night Scott and I could hear him talking to himself and moving around in his dark room until 10pm. At 10:30 Mason peaked his head out of the door and proudly announced he had decorated his bed. While lying in bed he noticed some little hooks underneath the top bunk and decided they would be perfect to hang some little ornaments on. I think it was a very festive way to pass the time.

Miracle Painting

I'm sure most people who live in Utah have heard about the Provo Tabernacle burning down last week. So sad to loose such a historic and beautiful building. The tabernacle is right next to Scott's office so he got a bird's eye view of the fire all day Friday. Everything inside was burned by the fire including this portrait of the second coming. As you can see the entire picture and frame were completely scortched except for the Savior. Gives me goose bumps.

6 crazy years

6 years ago I married this man

and I'm sure glad I did.

Happy Anniversary to us.

Go Team!

Grandma and Grandpa took the kiddos to UVU's basketball game. Mason was lucky enough to get a shirt that is "just his size". He wore it for the entire game and can't wait to wear to to preschool. We'll see about that.

Santy Claus

As part of our 25 days of Christmas fun we wrote letters to Santy Claus, as Mason calls him. This is what Mason's looked like. In case you can't read it, it says Dear Santa, I would like Annie and Clarabel for Christmas from Mason. Who are Annie and Clarabel you ask? They are Thomas' train cars. Mason decided over a month ago this is what he wants Santa to bring him. I didn't bother scanning Brynn's letter since I just wrote it for her and there is nothing cute about it, but she is asking for an Elmo doll from Santa. To make sure Santa's Elves knew exactly what to make we included pictures of Annie and Clarabel as well as Elmo. Several days after the letters were mailed to the North Pole we decided we better be safe and visit the big man himself to put in our requests for Christmas. We went to Thanksgiving Point, where we waited less than 10 minutes last year, to find that word had gotten out. We waited 1 1/2 hours to see Santa. Mason had been so excited since he had picked the paper that said we were going to see Santa and his reindeer that morning. He waited patiently in line, never got upset or asked how much longer, just waited excitedly. Brynn wandered around but was super happy, too, even as her bedtime approached and then passed. When our turn came, Mason walked excitedly, yet shyly, to Santa and sat on his knee while Brynn took one look and ran to hide. Mason answered all Santa's questions clearly and confidently and Brynn tried to jump out of my arms as I sat with her. We didn't really get a great picture to capture Mason's excitement, but I think this pretty well captured how Brynn felt about it.Of course the printer broke and so everyone got these lovely pink pictures.

In retrospect I don't know why I didn't just let Mason get his picture with Santa without forcing Brynn in it, too. Oh well. Mason's experience was perfect even if we didn't get the perfect picture.

After we left he said, "Santa was really soft, I didn't know Santa was soft." I don't know if he was talking about Santa's clothes being soft, which they were, or if he was talking about his belly being soft, which it was. Either way, I thought it was pretty cute.

Bunk Beds

Brynn and Mason have been roommates for the last year and a half. You see, there are only 2 bedrooms upstairs in our house, so even though we don't use all our bedrooms in our basement, I felt like Mason was too little to be down there by himself. It's been a rough road with them sharing a room. Brynn was such a poor sleeper for the first 11 months of her life that Mason spent most of that time in our room sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor. Even since she has started sleeping better we were faced with one of these scenarios almost every night.

Scenario A: Brynn would start fussing a bit during the night and after a while Mason would yell, "BE QUIET BRYNN!", which would scare her. She would become hysterical as Mason stomped out of their room and climbed in bed with Scott while I went to calm Brynn down.

Scenario B: Brynn would start fussing a little bit and to avoid scenario A I would run in and give her a binky.

Scenario C: Mason would wander into our room during the night throwing the doors open along the way, making Brynn stir in her sleep. When I would walk him back to his bed Brynn would be standing up in her crib half asleep, but would wake up when she saw me and would cry hysterically if I left without picking her up and rocking her for a minute. Then just when she would let me lay her back down Mason would start crying for me to lay in bed with him, making Brynn upset again. It would turn into a 20 minute ordeal to get the kids back asleep.

Scenario D: Mason would wander into our room during the night, throwing the doors open along the way. I would roll over and let him climb in bed with me to avoid scenario C.

Needless to say, it wasn't working out well for any of the parties involved. So when Mason decided he wanted to have his own bedroom downstairs, we finally agreed this would be best for our family. We unpacked my parents' 25-year-old bunk beds and gave Mason his own room. It has been heaven sent! Brynn is sleeping better, or at least no one is waking up to her fussing anymore, Mason stays in his bed all night, and both kids are sleeping almost an hour longer than they were in the same room. You'll notice the bunk beds don't exactly meet current safety standards, so Mason only sleeps on the bottom bunk while we come up with a solution to make them safer. In the meantime we are now taking bets on how long until someone gets stitches. What do you think? Did I mention Brynn knows how to climb the ladder.

Cinderellie, Cinderellie

Anyone who knows me knows my disdain for housework. So I've started putting my kids to work at a young age. Not really, but if Brynn had it her way that would be true. The girl loves to clean so much that I've started calling her Cinderella. Every time I get out my broom to sweep (several times a day much to my dismay), Brynn is right by my side. I frequently find her with a wipe in each hand cleaning the floor, table, or chairs. She is giddy with excitement when I get the vacuum out and tries to ride it while my 3 year old boy is in the next room crying because he's still afraid of vacuums. I refuse to clean the bathrooms when she's awake because I know she'll want to clean the toilets on a regular basis, too. It's very fitting that her favorite stuffed animal that she treats like a baby doll is a mouse I named Gus Gus for her. I hope these habits keep up until Brynn is actually helpful with her cleaning.

Mr. Grinch

It's been several months now that Mason has been on a Dr Seuss kick. Every trip to the library fills our bookshelves with these classic titles. So as Christmas season approached I added How the Grinch Stole Christmas to our pile. From the first time I read it, Mason has been hooked. Mason's favorite (my not so favorite) thing to play is "the Grinch", which consists of emptying all the toy bins into bags and putting them in a box sled and pulling them to the top of Mount Crumpit, better known as our lovesac. The funny thing is he prefers his Grinch to be the nice Grinch and so he just pretends the Whos didn't want their presents and gave them to the Grinch. We did have a little incident at preschool where Mason turned into the Grinch. He had a complete meltdown over something small and as his teacher was trying to calm him down he kept yelling, "I'm just going to be the Grinch!" His outburst merited a call home from the teacher and I wasn't very happy about it, but in his defense he did start throwing up just a couple hours after he got home, poor guy wasn't feeling well and couldn't cope. Anyway, I was thrilled to find out with the help of friends that there was a Grinch and Max the dog/reindeer toys for super cheap at Kohls. One day when the kids were being sweet, I just put them in the car and wouldn't tell them where we were going. We drove to Kohls and as we were walking in Mason started asking, "Mom what do we need to get...". He trailed off mid-sentence as he saw the Grinch display set up right inside the doors. He ran over and grabbed a grinch then turned to me with a look on his face that showed he was ready to start begging when I said, "we came to get you a Grinch and Brynn a Max". He was speechless, I think he might have actually started to protest thinking I was telling him no and then registered what I had said. He was a pretty happy guy, and Brynn liked her doggie, too. The Grinch didn't leave his side for several days.

A little side note, Mason was playing playdoh during the First Presidency Christmas Devotional when he heard President Uchdorf reciting parts of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It sure got his attention! Now he tells me, "President Monson likes How the Grinch Stole Christmas, too." Priceless.

To Card or Not to Card?

I have been debating whether or not to do Christmas Cards this year. Honestly, it kind of felt like just one more project I don't have time for, so I had decided to bag it this year. Then I heard about this promotion on Shutterfly and figured what do I have to loose? I am a huge fan of Shutterfly's photobooks and calendars and their Christmas cards are just as cute, not to mention, super easy. Now all I have to do is pick some pictures and I"ll be done. That might be easier said than done since this is how all our pictures turn out these days... Mason in his own world and Brynn refusing to sit still for more than .5 secoonds.

Oh well, if nothing else, at least it will be on a cute card, right?

If you would like to recieve a Christmas card from us please email me your address at scottnrachel@gmail.com

Even if you think I already have your address, I probably have lost it, so please send it again.

Advent Calendar

This is our advent calendar this year. Rather than a piece of candy or toy, each day has a piece of paper with a Christmas activity for the day on it. We've only done two days, but so far it's been a huge hit with Brynn and Mason. Here are some of the things we will be doing as we count down the days to Christmas.
Festival of Trees
Building a snowman (will be moved to whatever day we wake up to find snow)

Write a letter to Santa and mail it
Make Gingerbread Houses
Drink Hot Chocolate
Buy a gift for someone else
See Santa and his Reindeer
Act out the Nativity
Learn a new Christmas Song
Go Sledding (once again revolves around snow)

Make a Reindeer Puppet
Go to library and check out Christmas books
Sleep over at Grandpa's house (Grandpa's Sleepover)
Temple Square lights
Make sugar cookies
Watch a Chirstmas movie
Wrap Presents
Drive around and look at lights (probably Thanksgiving Point & Spanish Fork light shows)
and of course the 24th reads: Put out cookies and milk for Santa.

I wanted to share this idea with all my friends who love doing activities with their kids like I do. I meant to post this before December started, but as you can see it's 2am on December 3 and this is the first chance I've had. To say I have been burnig my candle at both ends would be an understatement, but that's Christmas time for you.

I still don't think it would be too late to start, so start yours today.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas Season as much as we are.

Shocking

Today was Brynn's first day in nursery. She is only 17 months, but the nursery leader told me I could start bringing her now so she would have Mason there to help her before he advances to Sunbeams in January. There is absolutely nothing in Brynn's past that would indicate this was going to be easy. Mason took her hand and walked her from the chapel to nursery. The door opened and she ran in never looking back. Scott and I couldn't believe this was happening and went to our classes just waiting for a leader to show up with Brynn. Sure enough, as I was conducting in Primary, I heard a familiar cry at the back of the room. I knew it had been too good to be true. Then the leader told me Brynn was doing great, but she was poopy and when she took her out she got really upset. I changed her diaper and barely had her tights pulled up before she was running back to nursery. I peeked in on her a couple times and watched as my baby sat at the table rolling out her playdoh with a rolling pin, a huge smile on her face. I finally understood, she is just so happy to be a big kid.

Treasures

You know the saying, one man's junk is another man's treasure? We are living proof of this statement at our house. Every time Mason goes to Grandma Nancy's house he comes home with many treasures he has unburied there. Every one of these "toys" has come from my Mom's house in the last week and they are Mason's favorite things to play with. He has a bag that he carries all his treasures around in and plays with them all day. I could never take a little lock, a piece of cheese, awrench, and a few random tiny animals and come up with the stories Mason does as he plays. Scott and I have decided we are going to be on the lookout for any small, random trinkets from now until Christmas and we are going to fill his stalking with them. I am willing to bet he'll be more excited about them than any of this other presents.

A Real Man.

What is it with guys and trucks? I don't get it. Since the time Scott and I were dating he has talked about one day owning a truck. Being the realistic man he is, he never expected it to be anytime in the near future, that is, until our neighbor offered to sell Scott his truck for a great deal. It might seem crazy since we have only had our Subaru for 5 months, but Scott posted it on KSL to see what he could sell it for and got several offers for the same amount our neighbor was asking for his truck (making quite a profit on what we bought it for). I really like our Subaru, but since it wasn't going to affect our bank account and it would increase Scott's happiness I gave him the go ahead and he bought his first truck. Mason was very sad when we told him we were selling Daddy's blue car, but all it took was one look at Daddy's black truck for the testosterone in his little body to kick in and tell him that trucks are way cooler than cars. Adios to cars, we're a big, black, car family now.

Home Sweet Home

Three years ago, this month, we moved into our house. We have a big Maple tree in our front yard and one of my first memories in our house was raking the massive amounts of leaves that covered our yard. After 3 years of living in a basement apartment we were so excited to actually have a yard we didn't mind the seemingly endless job of raking these leaves (now we sometimes do mind). Mason was 6 months old and we would sit him on a blanket while we raked, only to look over and find he had crawled to the nearest pile and was helping himself to a delicious snack of leaves. Every year when the leaves turn yellow and start to fall I love to think back to what our life was like at this exact time the previous year. This is what I thought about:

2007:
Mason was still a baby, if you can call a 20 pound 6-month-old a baby, I was in my last semester of the nursing program, Scott had decided to stay at Nu Skin after graduation, we had just bought a house and were in the process of completely remodeling it, and we felt so incredibly blessed in life.

2008:
Mason was 18 months old and the most adorable boy ever! I had just found out I was pregnant with Brynn and was starting to feel pretty sick. Scott was busy being Scott (by that I mean an awesome husband, father, and provider for our family).

2009:

Mason was 2 1/2 and Brynn was 4 months old. We were still adjusting to life with 2 children and Scott was madly studying for the GMAT and applying to Business Schools (for the record he did awesome on the GMAT, was accepted to schools, but then we decided this wasn't the right thing for us right now). We were completely robbed of a fall, it went straight from summer to rainy, cold, lousy winter. When I think back on last year I remember it being a very busy and stressful time, but I still remember being so grateful for all the blessings that were keeping us busy.

2010:
And that brings us to present day. Even when looking back at how happy I was and how wonderful life was in past years nothing even comes close to the joy I feel right now in my life. I am blessed with 2 perfect (for me) and wonderful kiddos. I am married to my best friend. Scott and I both have jobs we enjoy and that provide security and stability for us at this very unstable time in the world. And this is the first year the kids were actually a little bit helpful raking the leaves :)

Here It Comes

The temperatures have dropped and we had our first snow. I guess there is no more pretending winter is never coming. So far the kids seem to like what winter has to offer. When Mason woke up and saw the snow last week I couldn't get him to wait long enough to change out of his jammas before he had his boots on and was headed out the door. Brynn was right behind him in her make-shift winter gear, since part of my denial included not buying her a coat or boots yet. She lasted surprisingly long considering she refused to wear gloves. Even when her hands were bright red and freezing she still wasn't ready to call it quits so she ran in the house and returned with her blanky to hold and keep her hands warm. Pretty good problem solving for a 16-month-old if you ask me.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but after the great summer and fall we've had I'm excited for the fun times winter is bound to bring.

Cornbellys 2010

Cornbellys has definitely become a favorite Fall tradition for our family. My kids absoluately love it there. Both times we went, we stayed for over 5 hours and had to drag both kids out kicking and screaming when it was dark, cold, and way past their bedtime.

Mason's favorite stops seemed to be the places he could travel to an imaginary place, no surprise there.

Brynn on the other hand preferred anything that involved climbing, jumping, sliding... basically anything where she could just go, go, go.

Outtings are getting so much easier with these two. I feel like I can give them both the freedom they want because they are really good about staying close and obeying instructions, especially Mason. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I love having a 1 and 3 year old. So fun! Mason spent a lot of time being the conductor of the train. Luckily the duckies were right next to the train and Brynn was happy spending a lot of time there.

Brynn saw these tractor rides from afar and got so excited. I planned on riding with her, but she would have none of that. She loved this thing. And I had to take this picture because her little head barely poked out as they drove around. This is a hideous picture, but Brynn was absolutely in love with this slide. She couldn't go down it by herself because she isn't heavy enough and would just get stuck, so I would pull her down with me (there was no way she would let me put her on my lap). Well, if you've ever been on one of these slides you know it is Bumpy! We went down this thing probably 25 times and I am not exaggerating at all. My butt was bruised for a week. But it was so worth it to hear her belly laughs every time.

Mason, king of the haystack.

Brynnie dancing on the bales of hay.

This was the first year we actually ventured into the kids cornmaze. Mason LOVED it! It was a little too far past Brynn's bedtime for her to appreciate it, but she was a trooper. Love these boys. And love this baby girl.Mason had so much fun playing with his buddies Payton and Brooklyn Bell who we have missed horribly since they moved to Idaho in August.

I realized how much I have missed our playgroup for the last 2 months since Karli moved and it kind of fell apart. After our playgroup reunion, the rest of us have a new resolve to keep the playgroup going.

I really do love all these girls. Until next year.