Allens Visit

Adam and Amber's family and Ryan came to visit after Christmas. It was a lot of the fun! Nash, Ridge and Ashlyn made quite the little threesome!
We went to Zoo Boise one of the days. The monkeys were great, they really put on a show. Maybe they have to move a lot in the winter to keep warm or something, anyway they were very entertaining.

Sweet baby Trey stayed warm!

Lots of monkeys

The kids loved the statues around the zoo just as much as the real animals

Fun times!

For not talking, this little guy sure has a lot to say!

Nash went crazy over these elephant statues

He kept giving this one kisses on its trunk

The lions were lazy and wouldn't even look up to see who was growling at them.

Punky pretending to be on a camping safari

Ridge was memorized by this bird and kept running back to look at it again

Miemie with her bird twin. See they both have fancy fur around their neck.

The bird was pretty excited to find her long lost twin and did a little celebration dance.

It was a beautiful day at the zoo and it felt great to be outside, even if it was little chilly.

They splashed in everything that even resembled a puddle. =)

How many kids do you know that have rode a tiger?

Now you know two.

The birth of Venus

All of the kids were wild about the real and the fake kamoto dragon

Alice the camel was quite popular too

Of course Brynlee wanted a shot of her with the butterfly collection

Can't remember what that was but its cute

More monkeys

Maybe monkeys just really like Ryan. I know my little monkeys are wild about him.

A stop at the zoo just wouldn't be complete without a slide down the giraffe's neck.

What a fun day! Thanks for coming to visit guys!

More Holiday Fun

We had a lovely Christmas but I don't know what I was thinking on Christmas day; I didn't take a single picture! Oh well, Brady was video taping so at least we can watch it. I did get the above picture of them opening presents on Christmas Eve. I'll write more about Christmas later, but for now I at least just want to a few pictures posted.

This was so funny Brynlee came running saying, "Quick mom, get your camera dad is in the crib!"

Oh they have a funny dad!

And it gets even funnier...

Brady was so happy to finally get a pair of onesie jammas like the boys!

It always makes me laugh when Brynlee wears her eye mask to bed!
And since I took picture of Bryn sleeping I couldn't pass up one of Nash.

Holiday Fun

We had a lot of fun over the break playing hide-n-seek! It's one of our favorite games right now. I thought it was hilarious how the boys kept "hiding" in the pillows on our bed.
Bryn is pretty sneaky when it comes to hiding!


Two little cheesers







We had so much fun getting to see family over the holidays. The kids adore their cousins! I wish I had taken pictures at all of the family parties we went to but at least I got a few!

Nash and Grandpa Doug

Ridge and Grandpa Read

Grandma Whitmore

Nana has the magic touch

All the cute cousins on the Murray side

Uncle Ed has the magic touch too! It was great to see you all!

Preschool Christmas Party

Nash really hasn't been happy with Santa this year...until the preschool party. Somehow this Santa was different and Nash was a huge fan!

Ridge was still a little hesitant to sit on Santa's lap, but the candy cane convinced to try!

We always look forward to the preschool parties!

Nash's teachers and class are awesome!

Nash shared his party with Brynlee so it could be her party too since we missed her class party while we were in Utah.

Gingerbread houses are one of our favorite holiday activities!

They boys made one together and Brynlee made her own! They did a great job!

After the last day of school we had a party, read Christmas books and the kids slept under the tree! I am so excited to have the kids home for awhile!

Christmas Fun

Merry Christmas! Time certainly does fly when your having fun! And the holidays are always packed with fun! We have really been enjoying this holiday season. The kids are at such fun ages it really makes the holidays exciting and magical! At the ward Christmas party the primary kids stood up front and sang a couple songs for us. Brynlee and Nash were singing with them and Ridge was sitting on Brady's lap watching. At the end of the first song Nash came running back to us calling for Ridge. He took his little brother by the hand and lead him up front, showed him wear to stand right next to him, whispered sssshhhh very loudly and started to sing the next song. It was so sweet! They were so proud of themselves! The primary kids were definitely the highlight of the night they did an awesome job!
Ridge and Brynlee were pretty excited about their first visit with Santa, but not Nash. He didn't want anything to do with him! He wouldn't even look at him. He just screamed buried his head in my neck and hung on for dear life. It was pretty funny since Nash usually loves every man with a beard that he sees. It must be the suit!

Such a sweet girl! She has certainly been beyond good this year!

Brynlee had been talking non-stop about her friend that visited the "North Pole." She probably asked us a thousand questions about the North Pole. Enough that we decided we better take her there too. We weren't sure if she was up for all that traveling but she assured us she was! So on the 2nd Saturday in December we set out on a North Pole adventure! We had to ride a real train to get there. It was pretty amazing! Brynlee knew it was going to be a long ride so she got busy coloring right away.

The boys had fun relaxing and talking about Nashie's Christmas sweater.

Everything was wonderful until Santa showed up! Nash wasn't happy about that! But Santa was very friendly and patient like usual and he stuck around until Nash started warming up to him. By the time we got off the train they were high fiving!

Getting braver

and braver!

The "North Pole" was freezing but amazingly enough there was no snow! We decided it must be due to global warming.

The elf houses looked bigger than we thought they would...Brynlee was starting to get suspicious.

What cute boys!

Who knew there was hula-hooping in the North Pole?

Santa was there but the reindeer must have been out flying around.

On the way home Brynlee said, "Alaska looks just like Idaho." Maybe it wasn't the real North Pole, but we had a fantastic time pretending!

Another of our favorites this month was attending the live nativity. Ridge was especially excited about this. It was freezing cold but we loved it! I'm pretty sure his favorite part was listening to the beautiful heavenly angels sing. He had his most excited face plastered on!

Jump Start (Nash's therapy) also put on a great party for the family. They even had good ice-fishing which is hard to come by in Meridian!

The boys were a little weary about sitting on Santa's lap again but agreed to be in the picture if I would hold them.

We're glad there are 31 days in December and plan to enjoy them all! Hopefully you are doing same!

To All A Good-Night!