Valentines Day 2012

For Valentines Day I wanted to get an updated picture of the kids for Taber since the one on his desk is a year old and Cam has changed a little since then. : )

It took several attempts and a fair amount of bribing but I managed to get some decent shots with all 3 of them looking. This is the one I framed for Taber.  I know I'm biased but man my kids are cute! : )

This one was my second favorite. Cam's smile isn't as cute but I love Brinley's little tongue sticking out.

The girls were great models. Teya still thinks the head tilt is the ultimate picture pose so now she's got Brinley doing it too.

Cuteness to the maximus 

Love this one of Brinley. She has the sweetest face.

Teya's just darling too.

And Cam... Well Cam didn't really care for the photoshoot ; )

The girls and I snuck out to the garage in the morning and decorated Taber's car for work. I traced their hands and they wrote their names. He loved it so much he kept it on there for a few days because he said people were nicer to him on his commute : )

Later in the afternoon we got a special delivery from the flower shop. Taber sent roses for me and spring bouquets for the girls.

They were so excited to get their own flowers.  

 A+ to my man for making all three of his girls feel special ; )

And we tried to make him feel special too with his favorite treat, chocolate dipped strawberries.

After work Taber picked up take out from Olive Garden and we just had a nice low key evening in with the family.  It was a sweet day with all my little sweethearts. : )

Someone gets a little excited about Christmas over here...

And that someone is miss Teya Rigg.
You will witness it, at the end of this post, but first a quick Christmas recap:

This year Christmas was extra awesome because my sister Naomi and her family came out from Chicago to spend it with us.

The girls loved having their cousins around for a week and it was cute to see them all in their matching pajamas on Christmas morning.

Matching sisters Teya and Brinley!

Matching sisters Becca and Naomi!

The girls showing off their new shawls that Grandma Karen knitted for them.

Taber and Cam on his very first Christmas!

He loved crawling through the wrapping paper and playing with everyone else's presents : )

Uncle Kevin made Taber this sweet frame for his Hartford marathon medal and bib.

Taber made all my Christmas wishes come true and got me the DSLR camera that I've been drooling over for years.  (do you like how this picture was taken with our old camera and is all blurry? it was definitely time for an upgrade!) I took over 300 pictures the first day I had it : ) I still have a lot to learn to unleash the camera's real potential, but I'm excited to start taking better pictures.

I made Taber 2 blog books to cover all of 2010. Each book covers 6 months and is just under 200 pages long. It was a labor of love that took me many many hours to finish, but it's always worth it to see Taber and the kids pouring over the books and smiling over the memories.

Happy Taber with a little piece of our family history.

So now I've made blog books from 2007-2010. I just need to make 2 more to catch up on 2011 and I'll finally be up to date : )


The highlight of Christmas though was seeing the kids get so excited about everything.

I don't think I've ever seen a kid more excited about Christmas than little miss Teya.

She was so pumped up that she literally screamed/shouted every word she spoke for the first 20 minutes of opening presents.  Brinley was still a little sick from the night before but Teya managed to stir up plenty of excitement on her sister's behalf over her presents. You have to watch this video to witness the intensity of it. And prepare yourself for the 1:16 minute mark when the excitement reaches fever pitch. This is Christmas magic at it's best!

A Simple Thanksgiving

This year for the first time in our marriage we didn't travel to Utah or Colorado for Thanksgiving.  Instead, Taber's parents flew out to NH and we hosted a humble little Thanksgiving at our house.

Taber took care of the turkey so there was no pressure on me. This was his 4th time grilling one and he's got it down to a fine art. 

 

The smoky, flavorful, juicy masterpiece.

The Draschils came up from Boston and Mel brought some amazing pumpkin, chocolate silk, pecan and banana cream pies. 

We kept it was very casual and low key but the girls decided they wanted to wear dresses. : )

 Teya even fixed her own hair with a bow to match.

Melinda brought Thanksgiving coloring pages for the kids to keep them entertained at the kids table.

We ate all the traditional Thanksgiving fare, although this year I tried a new sweet potato recipe and it was AMAZING! I will definitely be making it again for Christmas. You can get the recipe here.

It was a simple Thanksgiving. 

We ate on paper plates. 

But the food was incredible and the company was even better. 

My belly and heart were full. 

I really couldn't ask for anything better : )

Pumpkins, Parties, and Trick or Treat!

Pumpkins Take 1:
Halloween comes with a lot of fun traditions. Pumpkin carving is a must, mostly because we love eating pumpkin seeds! Taber found a big ol' pumpkin at Sam's and brought it home to carve with the girls.

Everyone got into scooping the guts, except Teya, who is going through a dainty phase and doesn't like to get her hands dirty. She had fun watching though.

We took a nice family shot and then I started preparing the pumpkin seeds. We had every intention of carving our giant pumpkin but the kids got hungry and then they were tired and we had to put it off for another day. Unfortunately, by the time we got around to it again the giant pumpkin was rotten and moldy. So, we had to go to option B.


Pumpkins Take 2:
Option B was a kid friendlier version anyway. Teya can't really wield a carving knife yet so she was happy to do some fun painting with Daddy.

Here are their final products. Teya's is the pumpkin on the right. She painted that whole thing all by herself, not too shabby!

Ward Party:
Another great Halloween tradition is going to the trunk or treat Halloween party at our church. I was glad we could have a night that the girls could wear the costumes without being bundled up. Teya looked so stinking cute in her little mermaid costume.

And here's princess Brinley, I never got a great shot of her by herself so I had to crop this one. Isn't she adorable in that dress?
The party was a lot of fun, they had a cake walk, costume parade, pie eating contest, Halloween bingo, crafts and more. At the end Teya went out to the cars and got a HUGE loot of candy too.

Trick or Treat!:
Last but not least, we took the girls out for a little trick or treating in the neighborhood. This year was my favorite Halloween yet because Teya was totally into and Brinley was old enough to sort of get it too.

Getting bundled up and ready to go.

Here they are at their first door. You'll notice that Brinley's bucket is empty and she's looking at me like, "What the heck are we doing here Mom?!"

Fast forward a few houses later, bucket is full and Brinley is happy as can be. She really got the hang of it and wouldn't let anyone take that bucket away!

Here's Teya with her combined loot from the trunk or treat and trick or treating. We've told her she can only have one piece a day but she's still young enough that she thinks that's awesome! Brinley is still a little small for candy so I guess I'll just have to take one for the team and eat hers for her. : )

And Monty wishes you a Happy Halloween too! Woof!

09-09-09 Party

Happy 09-09-09 Everybody! When the numbers align that perfectly there's really only one thing you can do: Bake a cake!

It was Taber's idea actually. I guess way back on 08-08-88 He recalls baking a cake to celebrate the date. I guess if it made a big enough impression to last in his memories for over 20 years it was worth doing with our kids too. The girls and I had fun baking the cake, filling our tummies with frosting (and putting some on the cake too) making decorations and learning about the number 9. Teya has found learning numbers a little more challenging than letters, so this was a fun way to really make number 9 stick!

Brinley helped too, but this was the only picture I got of her, complete with marker and ketchup stains on her shirt from decorating and eating.

For the grand finale we sang "Happy 9 day to you" and we all helped blow out the candle.
It was a memorable ending to a memorable date.

(This post has been brought to you by the number 9.
And the letter C, for Cake! Yum....)

All American Weekend

The 4th of July is probably one of my top 3 holidays. Maybe even top 2, especially when celebrated in Minnesota where the temperature stayed in the comfortable 80's, giving us some perfect summer days without scorching heat. Here's how we celebrated.

We started off by hitting the strawberry patch on Friday morning. Teya loved apple picking and it got her to eat apples, so I thought maybe the same would be true with strawberries. To my delight, she actually ate some! (she's NEVER eaten a strawberry before) So that was a big moment. Brinley ate some too and made quite the mess. It was lots of fun though and I made 6 batches of stawberry jam, should last us till the end of the year! Woo hoo!

After berry picking and making jam Taber wanted to go on a run. My legs are still recoverying from the marathon so I followed him on a bike with the girls in tow. It was awesome! We finally figured out how to "run" together without getting a babysitter. Now I just need to buy my own bike! (the one I used was borrowed ; )

Every time I looked back and saw those two it just made me smile! At one point Brinley got tired and laid her head on Teya's shoulder. sweetest thing I've ever seen!

The next morning Taber was up bright and early to put the pork on the grill. He got a new grill for father's day and under the tutelage of our amazing neighbor Taylor (who is pretty much an undercover gourmet chef) Taber is becoming quite the cook. Taylor lives right across from us so he was over every hour to check on the meat, help change the woodchips, gauge the temperature, stuff like that. Then they'd go over to his house and check on the ribs. All day back and forth, flipping and poking and smoking and grilling. I think Taber may have found a new hobby, He loves the grill!

When the meat was done we gathered with more friends at Taylor and Kara's place and ate the feast of feasts! The pulled pork and BBQ'ed ribs were the stars of the show. We also finished off with homemade apple pie. (yes I gained 5 lbs, but it was soooo worth it!)


Here's Brinley and her buddy Noah. I had to post these pics because this was Brinsies first watermelon. Kept her busy for AGES! It's also really cute because she just learned how to smile and say "Geeez" for the camera.

Also had to throw in this picture of Taber walking with Brinley because it makes me smile. Brinley's watermelon stained American flag shirt, her dirty knees from crawling on the ground, her bare feet and rolly little arms make this picture perfection!

After stuffing ourselves silly we went outside for a couple rounds of badminton. The kids kept running (and crawling) onto the court but we managed to get in some games without accidentally swatting anyone so that was good. : )

To finish things off, our friends Patrick and Maria (Who are like the cool aunt and uncle that kids always want to hang out with) brought a fat load of fireworks to light. Teya was so into the fireworks this year, she even held a sparkler and kept asking for more. My camera battery died after the sparklers but it was a great show and the kids loved it.

So yes, wonderful 4th of July and definitely beats last year when we didn't make any plans because I was sure I was going to go into labor that day. ; )