Temple Square

We usually go to Temple Square before Christmas but this year Dev had been working long hours and it was FREEZING so it kept getting put off. I really wanted to take the kiddos and go see the lights though so we did it after Christmas. Mathias is getting to the age where he is asking more questions about the temple and understands that this is where Dev and I got married.

The Temple is of course absolutely breath taking year round but even more so being surrounded by all the Christmas lights . Mathias kept asking why they didn't put any Christmas lights ON the temple. Kinda funny. It still amazes me that they built such a beautiful building with so many details so long ago.

A quick pic of our little family in front of a nativity scene and the temple.

Dev and the kiddos.

Another quick pic. It was freezing so we really hurried through all of the light and things. The one nice thing about going after Christmas was that it was not really crowded.

Me and the kiddos.

Mathias had fun checking out the fountains, lantern things and the nativity scenes.

Lastly here are a few nativity scenes from around the world. I always think those are pretty cool. I love going to Temple Square with family. It is such an amazing experience and fun tradition.

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went over to Melanie and Scott's house for some fondue and games. All of the Brower siblings as well as their families were there, in addition to Melanie's side of the family. It was so much fun to get together and hang out. This was mine and Devin's first time trying fondue. I think it was a cheese type. Unfortunately neither of us were really a fan of how the cheese stuff tasted. The chocolate fountain, on the other hand, was super yummy. After we pigged out, some of them played games and some watched a movie. We didn't stay very long because we still had to make cookies for Santa and open the one present, jammies, tonight.

By the time we got home Azlyn was asleep in her car seat so we just left her in there while Mathias and I made cookies. It is a fun little tradition for us to leave out some cookies for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer. We used a fun little mix that our home teachers gave us. For some reason Devin and I can not make decent cookies. As is typical, they didn't turn out. They were for some reason hard as a rock. Oh well, they worked for their intended purpose.

While the cookies were baking the kids opened up their one present for the night. Azlyn had woken up by this point but was not very happy about it. She was so ready for bed. Poor girl.

Mathias' jammies were pretty big but I could not resist getting them since they had a jeep on the shirt. Pretty much anytime I find something with a jeep on it I just have to get it. It is a pretty big thing for my guys.

It took me forever to find some Christmasy jammies for Azlyn. Every time I would look for some they never had her size . Theses aren't really what I was looking for but these snowman ones were the best I could find. They are super soft.

Here are the kiddos showing off their jammies together. Azlyn was way done by this point hence not many smiles. I love the last picture in the right bottom corner. The look on Mathias' face says it all and Azlyn only puts her thumb in her mouth when she is tired and ready for bed.

We finally got both kiddos down for the night. Dev went to bed as well, he had been getting up super-early for work for the past week and a half straight and was really tired. I went down stairs to watch TV for a bit to make sure Mathias was asleep so Santa could come. Not long after I put Azlyn down she started crying. Bed time lately has become kinda frustrating as Azlyn has become quite the night owl with me. So I brought her down stairs with me. When I was heading downstairs I noticed something really stunk. I smelled Azlyn's bum but couldn't smell anything. I sat her down to play with her toys and after a few minutes she got fussy again. So I went up stairs to check her bum before putting her back to bed. I laid her on the couch, undid her jammies, and started to lift them up when I got poop on my fingers. I picked her up and the poor thing had poop almost up to her neck! I went to get Dev so he could help me strip her down and give her her first quick sink bath. Go figure she had to have her second ever blow out in her nice new jammies! While in the sink she kept trying to grab the stream of water. It was so funny to watch. She would try over and over again and then look up at us and smile. It definitely made the night a little more entertaining and memorable.

Sunday Christmas outfits

Here are a few pic of the kids in their Christmas Sunday clothes. I took them when we got home from church and Mathias was starving and not really in the mood for pictures hence not too many of him. I wanted to take them though before he changed out of them to eat lunch.

I think this is going to be a new tradition. I haven't really done it with Mathias in the past but now with a little girl, the clothes shopping becomes a little more fun and now I can coordinate them as well.

They are just so dang cute!

They are both getting too big way too quickly! Love them so much!

Getting a good picture of the both of them together is near impossible but I will continue to try.

Sorry for the overload of pictures of Azlyn, I was trying to get a decent picture of Azlyn to show all the fun details of her outfit. The ruffles on top, the tulle layer on the bottom, the fun black lace leggings, her cute flower and bracelet that match so perfectly. So much fun to dress a little girl!

Santa

Mathias was so terrified of Santa this year for some reason. Last year he was shy with him but this year he was so scared. While we waited in line he kept freaking out saying, " I just can't do it, lets go" over and over again. We kept telling him that it was ok and Santa is super nice, who else gives all the good kids toys? I was determined to get a picture so we ended up with a family pic. It is a tradition that I did growing up and wanted to continue with my family. Also this was the first year for Azlyn and I wanted to see how she would react. She just stared at him, but then again I was still holding her so we didn't see how she would have reacted if it was just her. It is not the best pic. I am beet red from dealing with Mathias and holding Azlyn, I also had a major headache. Azlyn has her hand in her mouth, leg up and isn't looking at the camera but at least Mathias was smiling. Mathias admitted after we were done that Santa wasn't that bad and kept asking dad if he told Santa what he wanted for Christmas for him. Mathias wanted a criss cross crash race track from Santa.

Christmas ornaments

Ever year we have a tradition of getting a new Christmas tree ornament. We usually all get one but with them being so expensive we just got the kids ones this year.

Mathias picked out another motorcycle one this year, in fact it was the last one they had and they let us have the display. This year it was a trike motorcycle.

Here is Azlyn's first year Christmas ornament. So cute!

Decorating the tree

We obviously didn't get to decorating the tree as soon as we would have liked, much to Mathias' dismay. But we finally did it. Mathias was so excited to decorate it and put all the ornaments on himself, however we have each person put on their own ornaments. Mathias was so funny. Like last year he kept putting all of his ornaments on the same branches. He loved having them clustered together no matter what I told him. I went back and fixed it after he went to bed though because it was just driving me crazy.

I attempted to get a few pictures of the kids by the tree but neither one of them wanted to look at me so this was the best we got.

In the middle of decorating the tree my mother-in-law looked down at Azlyn and noticed that it looked like she was clapping. We all looked at her and sure enough she was. We had never tried to get her to clap before, she just randomly started doing it on her own. After she saw how excited we were she got this huge grin on her face, hammed it up and kept doing it. It was just so darn cute!

gingerbread houses

Let the holiday traditions start. Every year we do a gingerbread house as a family. This year all of the Browers went over to the DeGooyer's house to do them for our niece Holland's birthday.

Here is our cute little family with our gingerbread house.

The DeGooyers building their gingerbread house and gingerbread people.

The Browers and their creations. They got a little more creative and made things such as a bus and a rubix cube.

Kelly and Brinley made some super cute little gingerbread people. It was so fun to get together with our families and do this together.

Cornbellies '10

First trip 10/13/10

Cornbellies has become an October tradition for us. This is our 4th year going. We started going when Mathias was about 20 months old. It was so much fun to be able to bring both kiddos this year. This year we bought season passes which lets you go as many times as you would like. I got them on City Deals for half off which ended up only being about $1 more than a weekend day pass so I couldn't pass it up. We were only able to go three times due to rainy and cold weather but we still got our money's worth. Every time we went we did a few different things as well as some stuff over and over again.

Here is our cute little family. It's kinda hard to get them all looking at the same time. I should have asked someone to take a picture for us so that I would've been in the pic too, but oh well.

A quick picture of the kiddos.

Azlyn was so good! She was so content the whole time. She just loved being outside.

The boys on the little pedal go cart things. Boys will never grow up . I think Dev had just as much if not more fun on these things than Mathias did.

Cornball, which is basically volleyball with huge bouncy balls. They were actually kinda hard to get over the haystacks.

Here we are playing in and on the tunnels.

My cute little family watching someone on the mechanical bull. Man I love them!

Playing on the slides. I think Azlyn liked it. She didn't complain anyways. This was her first time down a slide.

Going on the hayride. It was so bouncy! Dev tried to cradle Azlyn so she wouldn't bounce around too much. I love the concerned look on her face.

Some more cute random pictures.

The tricycles. Mathias would push them up the little hill and then ride them down over and over and over again. Out of everything this ended up being his favorite for some reason. We did this for a while every time we came.

The bouncy pillows were also a hit. Although they changed things a bit this year and only let the little kids jump on the huge pillow and the adults and big kids (which since Mathias is so tall he is considered a big kid) to jump on the medium pillow. It was kinda dumb and backwards but what can you do.

Seeing how the kids measured up this year. Mathias really didn't want to do this hence the reason he looks so happy in his picture. Azlyn on the other hand was grinning from ear to ear.

Playing in the corn. Mathias loves to bury himself in it. Azlyn was just happy to participate in something.

Mathias played in this little store for about half a second. Then it got really cold and was time to go home.

Second trip 10/20/10

Playing in the old fire truck. He would try to work the pedals, clutch and wheel like he knew exactly what he was doing.

While Mathias played on the tricycles again I attempted to get some pictures of Little Miss Azlyn.

Here are some more.

This time we went and watched the pig races. It was nothing spectacular but still fun to see.

Love Azlyn's surprised look.

Going on a tractor ride. This one was not as bumpy.

Another bigger corn box. Mathias had fun doing somersaults in here.

He was so worn out that he was sound asleep within minutes of being in the car.

Third trip 10/29/10

On this trip we went through the corn maze. We started out in the kiddie section then hopped the fence into the main big one. We let Mathias lead the way through most of it. We thought it was pretty funny that we let a 4 year old tell us where to go.

Here is Mathias picking a corn once he found out that there was still corn on them.

We didn't bring the stroller this time so we rented a wagon for a bit. Sis slept through a lot of it so when she finally woke up we took some pictures of the kiddos.

Here are some more pictures of our family in the corn maze. We actually spent a lot of time in there and then cheated our way to get out. That is what we get for letting a 4 year old lead us and not really caring.

This was right outside of the maze and Mathias actually wanted to take a picture so I could not pass it up. Unfortunately he is into this really awesome cheeser stage so this is the best smile I was able to get.

He kept asking to pull sister but he would run and not pay very much attention to her so it didn't last long.

Playing in the giant spider web.

It is seriously so hard to get both kids looking at the camera, smiling and not blinking at the same time. I don't know how people to do it. So these are the best I got of the kiddos together this time. I finally also asked someone to take a picture for us so we could finally get a family shot. We had so much fun going to Cornbellies and it doesn't hurt that Mathias gets to burn a lot of energy. It should be really fun next year when Azlyn will be able to run around!