Dodging a Bullet

One day, I was driving along singing songs with my kids in the car, when we passed an Animal Control vehicle. I watched in my rear view mirror as it turned on it's lights and flipped around behind me. Now, I was under the impression that Animal Control cars had some volunteer type person in them and had no legal power, so much so that I thought they must have seen some stray animal and so I started looking around for the poor dog who was about to get caught. I was so disillusioned/stupid, whatever you prefer to call it, that I told Mason, "See that car with the lights on, they're going to catch a doggie." I pulled over for it to pass since it's lights were on and was shocked when it pulled over behind me. It was then that I realized that I was the animal who was caught. Who knew there were ticketing police officers in animal control cars? NOT ME! And I hadn't even been going that fast. The officer came to the window and was very kind as he explained I was driving 35 mph in front of the high school with a 25 mph speed limit. He kindly explained different statistics about the distance it would take to stop and how stupid high school kids/drivers are and how I need to be extra careful here. I agreed and apologized for my carelessness. He asked for my license...oops left my wallet at home. He shook his finger at me, but said he could look it up. Asked for my car registration...looked through the glove box but best I could come up with was one that expired in 2009. He laughed now and said I was striking out, but said as long at the policy was the same he could verify it was still current. Two strikes against me. It wasn't until the officer started walking back to his car that I realized the third, and very big, strike was about to come. My drivers license had expired the week before on my birthday and I had forgotten to renew it. Mason, who hadn't asked any question up until this point asked quietly, "Are they going to take you to jail?" I told him "no" and hoped I was telling the truth. It didn't take long for the kind officer to re approach my window. I rolled it down and immediately exclaimed, "It expired last week!" He nodded his head, yes. That kind kind kind man then told me that although I had failed every single thing so far I had gotten one thing right and that was my kids were buckled into proper car seats and since that was the most important thing he wasn't going to give me a ticket. I couldn't believe the bullet I had just dodged. Good things like that don't usually happen to me. I swore up and down I would renew my license immediately and told him Thank You about a million times. Whew, that was a close one. However, I never have been very good at learning from my mistakes and I still have not renewed my license...better get on top of that.

Beating the Blues

I can't believe January has already come and gone. What surprises me more is it wasn't half bad. I always get a little mopy and blue around this time each winter, but this year is different. It's still bitter cold outside making going anywhere outside, even to the car, miserable. Scott still went on several long business trips last month leaving me with no relief at 5 o'clock each day. But this year I have a 3 1/2 year old and 1 1/2 year old that are busier than ever putting a smile on my face and keeping me on my toes. Here are some of the things that have been going on in our home that have been driving my winter blues away.

• Little Miss Independent discovered that she can reach a lot more things with the help of this stool, so she carries it all around the house to aide in her mischief making.
• Mason discovered Legos and spends hours building things along side his daddy.
• Brynn learned how to dress and undress herself and insists on doing it entirely by herself. Many mornings I wake to find a happy naked girl jumping in her crib and by the afternoon Brynn has dressed up in multiple layers of clothes, usually everyone elses....Mason's underwear and Mommy's bras tend to be favorites.
• Mason decided he needed to wear goggles to keep the sun out of his eyes when we went to Costco one day. He put a smile on more faces than mine that day.
• Brynn wears said googles around her neck as a necklace for the majority of every day.
• These partners in crime run around the house together.
• Brynn loves to jump, jump, jump on anything with spring to it. She climbs up on everything, big or small, and whether we are there to catch her or not she counts to 3 and jumps off. Seriously, how have we not had a broken bone?
• We have fun building forts, boats, helicopters, and anything else we need for a good adventure.
• Brynn spins in circles until she is so dizzy she can't stand up.
• Mason loves having playdates with his little buddies from preschool and sunbeams. Is my little boy really old enough to be calling his friends to see if they can play?
• Brynnie talks and talks and talks and we actually understand most of what she says now.
• Mason is learning how to read and amazes me with how well he is doing. He is already reading beginning books.
• Brynn walks around the house singing her version of Ring Around the Rosie "ashes, ashes, down down down!" ALL DAY LONG.
• We finally have an awesome non-family babysitter who I trust completely and my kids absolutely adore! Now we can go out on dates without having to feel guilty about mooching babysitting off our family.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today I turned the big 2-6 and it was honestly the best birthday I have had in my adult life. I woke up to my sweet little boy jumping on me and saying, "Happy Birthday, MOM!" completely unprompted. It sounds silly, but there was something so special about Mason remembering it was my birthday without us telling him. He made a big deal about my birthday all day and did so many things to make the day special for me. Brynn made me pancakes for breakfast....seriously, she makes pancakes. We help control the mess and help with the griddle so she doesn't burn herself, but she gets everything we need out, puts in the mix and water, stirs, pours, and flips without us telling her what to do next. She's a better mom than I am and I'm lucky to have her.

Then it was time for the real birthday celebration. I got to pull out my snowboard and hit the slopes with Scott. It's been awhile since I've skied or snowboarded....a LONG while. It's been six years since I've flown down the snow covered mountain and oh boy did it feel good. It took almost no time for my body to remember how to carve through the snow and before I knew it I felt 16 again. The best part is I got to share something I have enjoyed doing since I was 5 for the first time with Scott. Honestly, how have we never been skiing together in 6 years? School, work, two pregnancies, and two kids. That's how. But we did it now and it was a blast.

Scott's skiing pose.

My snowboarding pose.

Do we look good or what?

I could have stayed on the mountain all day if I didn't have two darling kiddos waiting at home to finish off my birthday celebrations with balloons and cake, which is exactly what we did.

It was the perfect birthday!

Thanks to my wonderful kids, husband, and parents for making it possible.

Jumping Class

One thing we have learned about Mason's personality is he tends to live by the rule "if at first you don't succeed...do something else." If he can't do something well he would rather just not try at all. I don't want this mindset to stop him from trying new things as he gets older, so last June we decided to start Mason in a sports development/gymnastics class at the Little Gym. The Little Gym's goal is to increase confidence and teach children they can succeed while having fun learning new skills, and for Mason, that is exactly what it has done. When he started the class he was very apprehensive and would watch the class from the sidelines with a scrunched, stinkbug face and his hands tucked in the back of his pants. I am kicking myself that I never took pictures of it. With the help of some wonderful teachers Mason went from making excuses why he couldn't participate like "I am really busy" and "I think my teeth are falling out" to trying everything they ask him to do. By the end of the summer semester Mason loved his "jumping class", as he calls it, and looked forward to it each week, so we enrolled for another semester. Here are some pictures from the show week they had in December. This is how they go from one station to the next singing, "Down by the station"They told Mason these were train tracks and he is a train puffing down the track to get him to walk across these bars on his hands and feet. It's one of his favorite things to do.

He has really improved his coordination with balls.

Miss Mel (or "Smell" as Mason called her) and Mr. Joe were the most AMAZING teachers. They really understood Mason and his imaginative little mind. When Mason was carrying around imaginary ice cream cones that were inhibiting his participation Mr Joe would offer to hold them for Mason while he took his turn on the bars then we hand them back when he was done. Both of them left at the end of December to teach school and do Physical Therapy, respectively. Stinks for us, but lucky for all the second graders and disabled children that get them now.

Brynn comes with me each week to watch Mason and would always go crazy trying to get through the door to play in the gym. Finally in October I decided to enroll in a parent/child class with her. Mason loves coming and playing with the other older siblings while we are in class and Brynn loves getting one on one time with me. It is great!

Brynn is my fearless little monkey and she just runs around climbing up and jumping off of anything and everything during exploration time. Then when we work on different skills as a class she blows me away with her coordination. I become more and more convinced each week Brynn is going to be a little gymnist. It only took her two weeks before she could walk across the balance beam by herself. It's hard to believe she is only 18 months old and doing all the things she does. .We just started another fun semester of "jumping classes" and are loving it. It has really helped this winter having something to look forward to and get us out of the house a couple times a week.

Christmas

I'm not sure what to say about Christmas day other than we kept it super simple this year and it was absolutely perfect. We did all of our extended family celebrations before Christmas so we weren't feeling rushed Christmas day and could just go at our own pace and enjoy. The kids would each open a present and then play with it for 15-20 minutes, sometimes more, and then we would remind them there were more presents waiting under the tree. Mason got his Annie and Clarabel from Santa and there was even some extra room in Santa's sleigh so he brought him How to Train your Dragon, too. Brynn got her Elmo Live and was excited until we turned him on and he started talking. She wasn't so sure about that and cautiously enjoyed him from a safe distance of about 3 feet for most of the morning. Just like with people she eventually warmed up to him and they became best friends. In my effort to put more emphasis on giving than receiving I encouraged Mason to think really hard about the perfect gift to get Brynn. He decided she would really like a baby doll. We went to the store and he chose one that came with a lot of little accessories including a potty. On Christmas morning when Brynn opened her doll Mason said, "Do you guys want to play baby.... I'll be the potty!!!" It was my favorite quote from Christmas morning. Brynn loves to use the potty as her own little chair ( see above picture). She is very good at taking care of her dolly, too. Brynn gave Mason a big R.D. dragon that swallows little Gronckles that he has wanted SOOOO bad. It was probably his favorite present and I'm so glad it came from Brynn because he tells me every time he plays with it, "that was so nice of Brynn to get me my R.D., she must have known it was just what I wanted."
The other highlight presents included Creaky Cranky, Bumblebee, hungry hungry hippos, and legos from Dad. I can't believe I don't have any pictures of Scott and Mason playing with legos because they spend a lot of time building things together, I'm not sure who enjoys it more. Brynn's favorite things were her spinning toothbrush and chapstick in her stocking.

Our goal was to make it an exciting and wonderful day for our kids without going overboard and I think we succeeded. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

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.