Merry Christmas

Let it Snow!

Well about an hour after my last post it started snowing and hasn't done much else since then. It's been quite the experience! I'm becoming an expert at driving in snow and have to say I LOVE my car! It drives so good in the snow. Its been really really cold this week (I'm sure I'll be saying that for the rest of winter because it seems like every week it gets a little colder!) We had a few days in the 20s this week!! Rilyn's favorite spots in the house are over the heating vents. I don't ever want to hear anyone from AZ complain about how cold it is when its 65 outside! Oh an according to the weather report we're supposed to get a bunch more snow the next week and a half (I can only see 10 days into the future) but I'm thinking Erie will have a white Christmas for sure! Rilyn is totally LOVING the snow and we're learning all sorts of things about living in the snow. Like how much work shoveling is and how salt is your driveways best friend. Ri looks so cute in her snow suit and I love to watch her try to learn to walk in it! We built a snowman who Rilyn named, Once There Was A Snowman (shes very creative isn't she) and we made a little sledding hill in the backyard to introduce the concept to Rilyn. She LOVES it! She calls it "sliding". She laughs the whole way down! She's also figured out that going down the hill on her stomach is so much more fun. Rilyn is also learning how to make snow angels. She thinks you just have to lay down and forgets to move her arms and legs.

Its pretty funny to watch. I also had an unfortunate event in the snow. I slipped on my back steps while taking the dog out to the potty. Lets just say my back has a nice bruise and I feel like I broke my hip from my legs flying out from underneath me. Luckily it was like 18 degrees outside so no one saw! I laughed pretty dang hard at myself though. Too bad we don't have that on film! We also got Lola some snow boots which she HATES and refuses to walk in (I guess I'll have to be more creative). Maybe some old baby socks would work. She loves to wear her jackets though! Shes so cute! Cody only has one more week of school and we are so excited to get to spend the break with him! Rilyn really misses her daddy when hes at school.

Baby Its Cold Outside

This week has been SO cold! It still hasn't snowed enough to stick on the ground but I'm pretty sure its coming! We stopped by the mall to see Santa and Rilyn was not too into it. The picture is so funny! She looks so mad! I have to figure how to scan it into the computer to put it up so it make take a while. We've been trying to stick indoors so we went to the Children's Museum one day. Its was practically empty so Rilyn had a blast running around and playing! She spent most of her time in the play grocery store. The girl LOVES to shop! On Saturday we went to Home Depot for their Kids Workshop. Ri had a blast building her wagon. Her favorite part was pulling it all around the store once it was done. And there was a special guest at Home Depot...SANTA!! Rilyn did so great this time! She smiled and talked to Santa. Its giving me hope that maybe this year I'll get a really good picture of her and Santa because last years pictures were horrible! Doesn't this look like one happy girl!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a blast this Thanksgiving. Cody was out of school most of the week and it was a lot of fun to have him at home because we NEVER see him anymore. One fun thing we did was build a gingerbread house. Rilyn ate most of the candy as usual but she loved it. I wasn't sure how Thanksgiving was going to go being away from family but we've made a new family out here. We went to our friends the Meads' house and had a blast! Rilyn just loves "Ashwee and Mitty". My job was the pies. I love baking especially with my cute little helper! Rilyn really like the pumpkin roll. She kept sneaking handfuls out of it when we weren't looking and by the time we served it one end was totally destroyed! Little Stinker! We tried to go to the beach in between the meal and dessert but it was FREEZING so we only lasted like 5 minutes. It was an interesting 5 minutes though. (Cody had to help Ri "paint" the sand yellow) Then on Friday I decided to try out this whole Black Friday Shopping that it seems like everyone does. This was my first year and I have to say I'm NEVER doing this again! I went to Target at 4:30 to stand in line (which I did in the FREEZING rain) only to finally get in the door and have EVERYTHING on my list gone! Yeah, I was bummed! So I went back home and slept for another hour and then we looked online for what we needed and headed to our Walmart (also a very crazy place) and were able to get: Our new TV and DVD player, Our new portable DVD player (actually I got this one at Target), and Our new GPS (this one is really from Kmart on Thanksgiving). Then we put up the rest of our Christmas decorations. Rilyn's favorites make noise and have already "broke" (or maybe their batteries mysteriously disappeared). On Saturday we went over to the Meads house again to watch the BYU game. What a good game. We were cheering for ASU (even though we weren't watching the game cause its not on TV over here) and we were so sad to see that dropped punt at the end of the game. It was so close!! This next week should be exciting. Its going to be COLD and its supposed to really SNOW (not just the mushy stuff thats been coming down). Better go buy a sled for Ri!

Rilyn the Snowgirl and NEW MOON

So this week Rilyn decided that she was going to play with my snowman kit and try to turn herself into a snowman. I thought it was pretty cute! Rilyn thought she was pretty funny. On Friday Ashlee and I went to go see New Moon! It was pretty good. We totally geeked out over it. (ok No this wasn't our car but we thought it was pretty dang funny)We made shirts and Ashlee got us candy bars made special for the movie. We got a kick out of all of the girls in the theater that kept screaming every time Jacob came on screen. My favorite thing I heard from the little girls sitting by us was "Wow he looks great from every angle"! Ash and I decided that she had probably never seen a guy without his shirt in real life for a comment like that. When I go home to visit my mom and I are going to see it again so hopefully the next time I'll get to actually hear most of the movie and not the audience sound effects.

The Next Taylor Swift

Hey Taylor Swift watch your back! Rilyn Breinholt is coming to take your thunder (with the back up vocals by her Daddy)!

This is actually her second take and the first was much better but is on the video camera and I can't get it on here! :(

Look what I can do

This week Rilyn learned a new trick. Actually a few of them. She has figured out how to work the dvd player and spends a lot of time putting dvds in the player only to switch them 5 minutes later. I think I'm going to need to invest in a scratch repair kit because just about every dvd we own is now scratched! I wish I had a way of locking it all up where she can't reach! Her other new trick is sticking spoons to her nose. How cute is that? I love it! It may not be the most lady like trick in the book but it'll definitely make you laugh when you see her do it. On Saturday I walked a 10K with some friends from church. One of the girls in our ward set this up and called it the "Keeping It Holy half marathon and 10K" because just about every city race here is on a Sunday so she did a Saturday. The shirts are really cool because our names are on the back! I love it! I was going to run it but I'm way out of shape so I walked really fast instead. It works. Its always nice to feel like you did something good every once in a while. Part of this that I will always remember is that I walked to the sound of gunfire because its duck season so the lake was lined with hunters. It was quite an experience. When I got home Cody had to go study and was gone all day thanks to his really hard classes that hes in right now (I'm so glad I'm not the one in med school) and Ri is really into Christmas right now so she convinced me to put up the Christmas trees. Yes trees. We have a big one where the presents go and she has one for her room. I know its a little early (or really early) but the way I'm justifying it right now is that shes really into Christmas and this way we get to enjoy them. Next year I'll be waiting until after Thanksgiving for sure. And I'm waiting until after Thanksgiving to put up the rest of the decorations but I can handle the tree for a little extra time. I mean its only like 20 extra days right? When I have the house all decorated I'll put better pictures of the tress up. I know ones really dark and the other one you can't see the ornaments.

Happy Halloween!!

We have had one BUSY Halloween around here. Rilyn has gotten to dress up a lot and do lots of trick or treating. She LOVES it! On top of the birthday party and the mall trick or treating last week, we have done trunk or treat at church and zoo boo and then there's acutal Halloween night! Ri and I went to Zoo Boo for free because some one at Cody's school was able to get tickets for free for volunteering and pass them on to us. We had a blast! Ri's favorite part was the train ride at the end. She really loves trains right now and was in heaven on the ride. The ride took us through reality tv shows that the zoo but a creepy spin on. I had to take a picture of DOG the Bounty Hunter (he was Dawg the Ghost Hunter) because thats my moms favorite show and American Idol (or Eerie Idol as they called it) because the whole family loves that show. Trunk or Treat was a blast too. Cody got to come with us so we dressed up as a family. Rilyn is our ASU cheerleader, I'm the football player, and Cody is the fan. At trunk or treat Ri was the first to win the cake walk. She tried to eat a doughnut on a string (very funny to watch) and played some other games with Daddy. She also got her face painted. One side is a devil and one side is a pitchfork. GO DEVILS! There were tons of great costumes at the party. One family was Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Puss (very creative) and our friends the Wiglamas were an old couple. They pulled it off perfectly. We were all dying laughing when they walked in! I told Cody that next year we really need to step it up in the costume department because we looked pretty lame next to that. On Saturday we went to the environmental center by Presque and checked it out. It was the first time we had been there and they had a lot of interesting things about Erie's past and they had some huge fossils. They also have a huge observation tower that we went up and the view from up there was really pretty. You could see the water from up there as well as all of the trees. Our neighbors brought Rilyn over all sorts of Halloween goodies on Saturday. She was so excited! We didn't end up going trick of treating because we had already had a pretty big day so Ri helped me pass out candy. We didn't get too many trick or treaters but something that I found interesting was that we have trick or treating hours in Erie. You can only trick or treat from 6-8. Its kind of nice because then we don't end up with kids ringing the bell way late at night! Well now we have one holiday down and 2 more to go! Time to get ready for Thanksgiving!