BFF

Soon after Christmas, we had a visit from our friends, the Conovers. We have known Scott and Karissa since our days before children. Karissa and I were pregnant at the same time and due about a week apart from each other with our first children, Mckenna and Jacob. They have been best buds ever since. We graduated about the same time from BYU-Idaho and both moved to Iowa for school at Des Moines University. We loved having them live in the same complex as us in Iowa. We were so sad to leave them when we moved to Baker. But, Karissa's parents live close to us so we still get to see them about once a year when they visit family.

Jacob is good at making everybody laugh, especially Mckenna :)

Mckenna and Jacob played for like 9 hours, and never had a single issue. They play so well together and are good friends.  A few months ago, Karissa and I both found out that we were again pregnant at the same time! The funny thing is that we are due a day apart. Another funny thing is I am having our 3rd girl, and she is having their 3rd boy. 

It's so fun to see our friends again. It sure made me miss them and my other Iowan friends even more.

Christmas

Christmas this year was so much fun! Mainly because we got to stay at our own house and had family visit us instead of us visiting family. Grandpa and Grandma Collins and Aunt T came for Christmas this year. It was so fun. We made gingerbread houses, went sledding, played games, made cookies, and enjoyed playing with new toys. Santa had to knock over our couch to down our chimney.

It's so fun seeing kids on Christmas morning. The girls enjoyed every second of it. 

It was so fun to have family at our house. Thanks for coming!

Special Visit

We had a special visitor on Christmas Eve.

Santa himself made a special visit and brought the girls a present. 

Brielle loved Santa... until he came to our house. Now she keeps saying, "I'm scared of Santa" (which kind of sound like, I killed Santa haha).  She wouldn't even get close to him for the picture, so Devin and I ended up being in the picture.

Thanks for making a special visit to our house, Santa!

Preschool Christmas Program

Mckenna's preschool had a little Christmas presentation. 

Mckenna is on the top row in the pink dress. They had a bunch of songs to sing. Mckenna has been practicing every day at home. And as a result, Brielle knows all of the songs too! I feel like I haven't spent near as much time teaching Brielle as I did with Mckenna, but Brielle still knows a lot. It's because Mckenna has been teaching Brielle so much. I always find them reading books together or doing puzzles together. They are the best of friends.

Great Grandma Great

We stopped by Great Grandma Great's house on our way to Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving. This is the girls' great great grandma. We usually call her Grandma Twila because Great Grandma Great is too hard :). And because Mckenna likes that her middle name is the same as grandma's name.

The visits to her house aren't complete without popsicles :). We also had to get a picture of the girls and her on her front porch. Mckenna loves that her grandma loves pink!

Announcement

These two girls have a little announcement to make...

We are expecting yet another girl in this family! 

As you can tell, we are quite excited. I'm due April 2nd. So far, this pregnancy has been SO easy! It's been so weird. I haven't felt nauseous at all. I have been a bit more tired, but I really can't complain. In the summer, I got called as the Primary president in our ward and Devin got called as an early morning seminary teacher for the church the next week. When we got the callings, I was like 5 weeks along. I was really nervous that I was going to be sick and it would be hard to do our callings. But, I think our first of many blessings that we have received  was that I have felt completely normal this pregnancy. I am truly grateful for that blessing. Because I wasn't sick, Devin and I were pretty sure it was a boy this time. When I was 16 weeks along, the doctor did an ultrasound for fun and was pretty sure it was a boy. So, you can imagine our shock when we went in for the official ultrasound and found out it was a girl. Mckenna was the only one that guessed it was a girl. We definitely have plenty of pink at this house, so she will fit right in! It's a lot less stress and preparation on my part because we already have most everything that we need. We sure love our girls and are excited to add another into the family... as long as Devin can handle us all :)

(By the way... I had great visions of a cute all pink photo shoot announcing her. But, it just never quite happened. Life is just a little crazy! So this will have to do :).)

Mckenna's birthday

This little miss turned 5 this year... 5, I can't believe it!  I feel like this was the first birthday of Mckenna's that I felt a little sad that she was getting so old. I can't believe she is that old already. Time sure flies. 

We had a fairly low key party. Mckenna wanted a dress up party, which is what we did last year. So, we tried to change it a bit and had a tea party instead. We had a few friends over for a tea party lunch. We played some classic games like musical chairs, read some books, ate fancy lemonade in our tea cups, and decorated cupcakes. It was pretty simple and fun.

Brielle wanted in on all of the fun too, especially the tea party lunch.

Happy Birthday, Mckenna!

Potty Time

We broke down and did it...

We are potty training Brielle. 

We started potty training the middle of November. Our life has been so crazy lately that I kept putting potty training aside. We had too many vacations, appointments, etc scheduled so we didn't have a good week to stay home and just potty train. But, I realized that life isn't going to slow down. So, I broke down and just did it. Mckenna was pretty fast and was potty trained withing 3 days and rarely had an accident. Brielle is another story... She is taking her time! She still has at least one accident a day. But, we are trying to be patient! I really want her potty trained before the baby comes, so we aren't going to give up! 

Halloween

We had our annual pumpkin carving party with friends.  Mckenna was very particular about her pumpkin and new exactly what she wanted.

Brielle wanted a "B"

They both wanted to be black cats this year. Which is kind of funny, because Brielle is terrified of animals, especially cats :)

They love to dress up. 

The candy isn't a bad bonus either. :)

Brielle wanted a picture with her tail. These girls had so much fun!

Fall

Our house has two huge trees in the front, which makes for a beautiful fall! And, lots of leaves to play in! Devin made a big "nest" for the girls to play in. They had a blast. Can you find them in all of the leaves?

... and this was just the first raking of the year...

October

Before the Saturday session of General Conference, we ran to the store to get donuts. I'm ashamed to admit that on the way there, Mckenna asked me what a donut was... :)

She enjoyed it, especially her sugary fingers.

and we all know that Brielle is all about the sweets :)

So, with Devin teaching early morning seminary, he is so tired! He falls asleep on the couch every night while he is preparing his lesson. He is working so hard and is so busy. The girls get about an hour with him every night between when he gets home from work and when they go to bed. The girls take advantage of every second they have with him... even if he is asleep. This is what they were doing one night...

Don't worry, those are clean diapers :). They decided to put diapers on his head, and he didn't even wake up. So they decided to sit on him too, which he also slept through! We are proud of Devin and his hard work. He definitely takes advantage of his days off and the weekend to make up for any lost time with the girls. We are so blessed.

San Diego

Devin had a medical conference in San Diego the end of September. His work paid for our hotel and everything for Devin. It was such a fun trip, our first trip with just the two of us. It was much needed! In August, Devin and I got new callings in church. I am the Primary president and Devin is an early morning seminary teacher.  Needless to say, it was a much needed trip, especially for Devin. He leaves for Seminary at 6:15 and gets home after work around 6 or 6:30. So he is with the girls for about an hour until they go to bed. Then he prepares his lesson for the next day and stars all over again. I feel like he is in school again! I don't know how he does it. But he is doing a great job!! And he really likes it. Anyway, so we went to San Diego for days.

Old Town San Diego by the "Hot Licks" sign :)

Mormon Battalion Museum

Ok, so Devin was in class a lot, so I was by myself looking at the sites most of the time. So, as I was looking through our pictures, I realized that they are kind of boring because not very many are pictures of us haha. 

Our hotel was right on the beach, so we were so close to a lot of attractions. This is the Star of India boat and below is a statue by the Midway Museum.

This picture was for Mckenna, she thought the house on the water was so cool.

This one was also for Mckenna. One of the yachts shared a name with her :)

Panda at the zoo

La Jolla Beach

And... we had to go to Sea World. Devin has been wanting to go since he was a kid. We felt a little bad going without the girls, but someday they will be able to go with us.

This trip was made possible by grandmas and grandpas :) who watched the girls for us. Thanks!

Photo Shoot

Ok, so I'm definitely not a whiz at the camera... like at all. But it's fun to get pictures of the girls. I realized I hadn't taken good pictures of them for a while. In these pictures, Brielle is a little over 2.

This is her favorite "doggy" and she sleeps with it every night. She likes to play with it's fur with her pinky while she sucks her thumb. A few times, her pinky has even gotten stuck in the fur.

Mckenna has never been a poser for the camera, so it's hard to get good pictures of her. But, once she got the sucker, she was a little better. Mckenna is almost 5.

Sure love these girls!!!