Holiday greetings from Florida

Just enjoying the Warm Florida Sun in December. Having a white Christmas is cool and all, but we enjoy making sand angels over snow angels. Weather has been in the 80's and no rain. We will enjoy it while we can. California, here we come in a few days.

Aventura Kids Club

So I made a discovery today. I had seen at the mall the other day that there was some kind of kids activity this morning. I got the kids ready and went. It was so great! At the play place they do a singing and dancing thing followed by story time and more dancing. Bryant loved it so much. I guess they have different characters come. This week was Strawberry Shortcake. The libraries here don't have decent story times according to my Provo high standards. (Provo had excellent ones.) This was very similar and just as active and fun. And just for joining the club they give you a t-shirt and an activities list. I am very excited about this if you didn't notice.

Then we walked around our pretty mall and checked out the trains.

It was such a good morning!

Santa Visit at Bass Pro Shop

At the Bass Pro Shop this year, they were offering a free Santa picture as a way to get customers in the store. Paul, some friends, and I all went a week or so ago and missed Santa by 10 or 15 min. So yesterday a couple of us decided to go back without the husbands (them being so busy and all) and try again. Well this time we undershot it. We were an hour early. We just decided to stick it out and play around with all the fun toys they had out for the kids.

After playing inside for 45 min the kids (well mostly us parents) got restless in the store so we walked around outside for a bit and ran into some good photo ops and some giant iguanas.

Before too long it was time to see Santa. As you can imagine, children who were happy about an hour ago when we got there, were now pretty tired and crabby. Bryant was so excited still!

Bryant marched right up to Santa and asked, "will you pick me up please." Santa agreed and as you can see, me adding Briley to the mix didn't go over so well. Bryant told Santa he wanted a tato toy, which I'm sure he didn't understand, but he discovered a Mr potato head set we had hiding in the closet and that's all he talks about now. Santa's only reply back was to please leave chocolate chip cookies. They are his favorite ya know!

On the way out Bryant decided to conquer his fear of the giant shark outside and take a few pictures. Briley once again, not so much.

Open for Business everyone!

My 1 1/2 year long battle is finally over. Before we moved here in June of 2008, I applied for a Florida Esthetics license so I could work a bit from home as we needed extra money. (Which is always by the way.) When we got here I had to take an HIV course and get some paper work from Utah about my education and turn it in to Florida state. Then my license never came, and never came, so I called and bugged them. They said it was in the mail and to call in a month if I didn't receive it. So I did and they told me the same thing. They even gave me a date on when to expect it. Turns out that they never got my change of address form and were sending my license over and over to Utah. So I sent in another change of address, so on and so on..... Finally 3 weeks ago I faxed in a sheet to board of directors for cosmetology that had my real address and kind of a snotty "I still haven't gotten my license" statement on it. Never heard back so I called again. This time, again, they said it was in the mail. I originally applied in April of 2008 and FINALLY today I got my License. Halle-freakin-lujah!!!
So now,another battle with Florida Government won, I welcome all of you Floridians to make your appointments. I do facials, waxing of every kind, and pedicures. You can call me and I can give you my pricing info. Can't wait to get started and am so excited that I got my license in a timely manner, huh! Next Battle, cash assistance. Wish me luck!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was spent with some great friends. We were able to rent a space for very cheap, to have everyone be able to have it together. We had a ton of awesome food and all came home feeling twice our weight.

High chairs are amazing. Lets just start out by saying how thankful I am for them. We had a nice peaceful dinner without the constant tug at the leg. Briley is a pretty big begger.

The pool table was a hit with the kids. The adults never really got to use it, but it kept them busy so that was nice. There was a big tv in the corner which, as you can imagine, kept the men pretty busy watching football.

Briley and some of the kids her age spent their time along the wall of mirrors. She played with her reflection like it was a long lost friend.

The amazing chefs for the evening.

All of these guys are in the podiatry program with Paul except 2 and that's not even all of them in our ward. We had a great time and hope it will be just as good next year too.

What to do?!

I've been having a little trouble keeping Mr. Bryant busy and not in trouble. A friend suggested a bunch of things for me to try out and so far it has been fun. The idea both kids seemed to love was a trip to the pet store. The pictures are of that, but we also go to the library once a week, park time is always a hit and just going down the street to the beach to play in the sand. (that doesn't happen often. Going to the beach with both kids by myself is kind of a chore.) Sorry thew pictures on these next few posts might be bad, but my cell phone is ready to die and I guess so is its picture quality.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Burp Rag Baby!

Since Briley was a tiny baby, she has been attached to a silly old burp rag (a cloth diaper really). This is paul having fun with it.

Halloween!!!

I apologise for delay on the Halloween pics. I spent 30 min doing a great post and right as I was about to publish it, Briley stepped on the keyboard and erased the whole thing. It has taken till now to want to do it all over again. So here it is!

Phase 1:

The Friday afternoon before Halloween, some of the girls from Aventura decided to get together and do a small Halloween kick off party.

Bryant was a pirate and Briley was a bumble bee. She wouldn't let me take a good picture of her ever so I got quick ones when I could be sneaky.

One of the girls brought play dough so the kids could cut out some ghosts and bats. The kids, especially Bryant loved that. Briley just wanted to watch.

(Here is one of my sneaky photos.)

I brought some supplies to make the Daddies some Halloween cards. Briley really liked to peel the backs off of the stickers and decide where they should go (which was all over the place).

We also had a little bean bag toss followed by a crazy game of Monster, Monster....Boo! Similar to Duck, Duck, Goose. It was a good time.

We finished out with some pretty yummy snacks. These were my favorite ones. Angie is very creative and these cup cakes ended up so cool.

Phase 2:
I am our wards activities committee leader. Naturally we had to have a ward Trunk-or-Treat. We had a chili cook-off first, which was judged by Paul and Bro. Marriott. The winner ended up being Leah Lewis. I must agree that it was one amazing chili.

I went, obviously, as a witch. Paul was originally supposed to be Goose from top gun. He had a sweet mustache, but we didn't know we needed to have adhesive to stick it on. It looked like it was sticky, but oh well. He made a good fighter pilot anyway. There is a better picture of my bumble bee too. Her hair was her antennas.

We had a little costume parade followed by some great hallway activities. One of the stations was doing little tattoos. Briley got a butterfly and I just finally got her to let me take it off. She loved it. Then it was out to the parking lot for some Trunk-or-Treating. Paul of course was giving the candy out by the hand fulls. One is not enough! There were some pretty great trunks with awesome decorations.

Bryant was practicing being a missionary as he helped these missionaries, help me clean up after the party. Thanks to everyone who participated. The food was great and the stations were very fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

That was our busy but fun Halloween weekend.

Carving Pumpkins 2009

Briley loved carving pumpkins. More than watching Paul and I carve, she just wanted to run around with the guts. Bryant however, would still only watch from a far. He didn't want to get his hands dirty. He did want to "Poke them". It was a pretty fun morning. Paul made a happy face pumpkin and I did a cat, sort of. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it, but it was the fault of the pumpkin, not my skills.