Sheesh, we've been so busy!

We have been so busy lately that we just haven't had time to post all of our pictures from our Christmas trip. A few brief updates and then I will post a few of our Christmas pictures. Brian will be posting about our New York trip sometime soon.

Right when we got back from our trip I started looking into jobs. Brian had to take a pay cut to work at the State Hospital so we figured we could make it work if I worked a few evenings every week. I interviewed to work at the new Buy Low market in Provo. I thought I would just cashier or something in the evenings. Turns out, they needed a part time cake decorator. The bakery manager was more than willing to work with my schedule and gave me the exact hours that I wanted. It's crazy how perfectly it came together. I have loved no job as much as cake decorating and, if I have to work, there is nothing I would rather do. It's been stressful this week (and will be next week too) because we are required to work a lot in the day training and orienting before the store opens. I spent all day today in classes taught by a cake decorator from LA who was absolutely incredible. I am learning so many cool things. It's been soooo hard thought because my heart is home with my kids and it's hard to focus when I would rather be somewhere else. Thankfully it is only for another week and then it will strictly be a few nights a week after the kids are in bed.

The biggest news of all is that Brian got into the Masters program at the U. I know, I know, the U. The have a very highly ranked Social Work program and have the emphasis that Brian wants. We are super excited, relieved, and ready to start today. Brian will kill me for posting about this, but I am so proud of him and his drive to push on even when things don't work out like we planned. He never gives up and just keeps pushing. He's my hero. We now feel like we have a future plan, which is such a relief. Yea for Brian!!!

Now for Christmas is a nutshell. It was soooo fun to be with my family for Christmas. We haven't been with them for so long that I had really gotten used to not being there. It was such a treat.

We always got to open Christmas jamies on Christmas Eve while I was growing up. I have carried the tradition on in our little family. This year it was fun to have grandma pick the jamies. Meg loved hers so much that she didn't want to take them off for a couple days. Adin looked so handsome and grown up in his.

This cracks me up. I took Meg to a $5 Store in Maryland and let her pick presents for Brian, Grandma, Grandpa, Sarah, and Adin. I wanted her to understand the giving part of Christmas and get her to get really excited about giving instead of just getting. I didn't give opinions, I just let her pick what she thought each person would like. She picked this hat for Brian. It says Nightmare Before Christmas on it and she was sooooo sure that Brian needed a new hat. Sarah, who got the most useable gift, got jamie bottoms. My mom got a pink Wilson baseball mit. My dad got a nerf gun, and Adin got a fire truck. It paid off because she was so excited to wrap her presents and so excited to see people open them Christmas morning.

My mom surprised my dad with a plasma tv. He had absolutely no idea and was truly surprised, which he never is.

Just a couple pictures of the kids with some of their new toys. Sheesh, they have way too many toys.

We hope all is well with all of you. We also hope that life slows down a little so that we can post more often again.

So much has happened

Wow, it has been a long time since we have posted. We left for Maryland on the 16th of December and just got home on Friday. I speak for our whole family when I say we had soooooo much fun. I don't even know where to begin. As I try to think back on all we saw and did, I tried to pick my favorites. I couldn't pick favorites. I loved every part. We stayed with my parents at their home in Columbia, Maryland. It was so fun to spend time with my parents. It's hard to have them live so far away. Brian and I both loved it in Maryland. It is about 30 minutes away from D.C.. It is right in the middle of everything. It seemed like no matter where we went it was a short drive. We would both love to live back East, if only it weren't so dang expensive.

Here's a breakdown of the trip. We spent 4 days in D.C. taking in a lot of historical sites and museums. D.C. is awesome. For anyone who hasn't been, you really should go. It brings such an amazing sense of pride in your country and it's history. We went to Havre de Grace which is where the Susquehanna river feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. Havre de Grace has tons of amazing antique shops that I could spend days in. They were huge, full of amazing things and not as ridiculously priced as some of the antique shops in Utah. We went up to Mount Vernon to see George Washington's home, which was definitely up there on my list of favorite places. I have a new fascination with George Washington and his family. We spent a day at Arlington, which is very humbling. Brian and I spent 3 full days in the amazing city of New York. I loved New York. I totally get why people love it there. I get heartsick just thinking of being there. This was the first time that we have left our kids since Meg was born. Neither of us are very good at it. Brian was nearly in tears as we left them. Nonetheless, New York was absolutely amazing. There is so much to see and do. Brian would move there today if we had enough money. I would love to visit it over and over, but I am not sure that I would want to raise kids there. There is definitely an addicting energy about it.

Now, I am not sure how to post pictures. I will have to do it in a few posts. We took over 800 pictures during the two and a half weeks. I figure that I will post a select few of our pictures from the places we visited near Columbia in this blog. Then I will have separate New York and Christmas posts.

JEFFERSON MEMORIAL

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

Brian and Adin with a couple Monet's.

Adin checking out a Van Gogh.

Brian with the only known Da Vinci painting done in America.

THE CAPITOL

The rotunda was absolutely amazing. We were able to have a tour of the capital. It was beautiful.

Me and Adin in the Rotunda.

HAVRE DE GRACE

The evening that we went to Havre de Grace it was foggy and pouring. It made it so much more memorable that way. Plus, it made for some really great pictures. This is a lighthouse that you can usually go up in, but it is closed in December.
Brian and Meg at a lookout point where the Susquehanna river feeds into the Chesapeake Bay. We were all completely soaked.

Brian posed this picture. He thought it was hilarious. He cracks me up. What a funny man I married. :0)

LINCOLN MEMORIAL

Adin at the Lincoln memorial. I love this picture. He looks so small yet so important. Tons of tourists were standing in front of the statue for pictures so Adin wanted to too.

WASHINGTON MONUMENT

Brian holding the Washington Monument.We got tickets to go up to the top of the monument and see the views. It was cool. This is Meg with the views.

Brian and Adin at the bottom.

THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

This was a really awesome museum for the kids (and us). There was every kind of animal you can think of from dinosaurs to ocean life to wild life.
I don't know how many pictures of Meg I have posing with animals trying to make the same face/pose as them.

WASHINGTON D.C. TEMPLE
I thought this temple was breathtaking. It was so bitter cold this day so this was one of the only shots we have, but I think it is one of my favorites from the whole trip.

VIETNAM MEMORIAL

Meg was really not happy to participate in this photo. This was one of her more put out days. All things considering, our kids were amazing for the trip. We saw a lot of things that didn't mean anything to them. Brian and I both want to take our kids there when they are teenagers and can really learn from the experience.

ARLINGTON

This was one of the more emotional places that we visited. It just really hits you the price that has been paid for our freedom. There was actually someone being buried there while we were there. They had a carriage with horses that carried in the casket and a horse without a rider. It added to the impact of the experience to walk past a family that was burying a loved one. It gets me emotional just writing about it.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the changing of the guard. These guards take one hour shifts in the winter. Pacing 21 steps then pausing 21 seconds then pacing again. They looked so cold.

MOUNT VERNON

In front of Mount Vernon

Adin posing as George Washington in the kid area at Mount Vernon. I couldn't Meg to dress up as anything let alone Martha.

This is the view behind the mansion. The mansion was so amazing. I loved the house. I loved the grounds. I loved the view. This was the one place that I visited that I actually bought something from the gift shop. I was so interested by George Washington that I got a book about him and his estate.

In front of George Washington's family tomb. He insisted on being buried at his estate and listed in his will that he wanted a new tomb constructed for him and his family because the old tomb on the estate was falling under repair.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

When we first got to the National Archives all I could thing about was the movie National Treasure. It was very cool to see all of the documents.

Meg and Adin didn't think the documents were as cool as I did, but Meg did pose for me in front of the Bill of Rights.

Well, there you have it. We have so many hundreds of pictures that it was hard to sift through them and find which ones to post. Hopefully it's not too boring.

Thanksgiving and Holiday Fun!

This time of year is the greatest. I love that the holidays bring families together. Brian and I are blessed with amazing families who we love to see and spend time with. Thanksgiving was another double even this year. On Thanksgiving day we were at our Oma and Opa's in Toole. The highlight of the day for Meg was playing with her cousins. She was counting the days until she got to go see her cousins. The older cousins were so patient in including Meg in all of their games and Uncle Jeff played with the kids for a couple hours. Then Aunt Lynn brought craft stickers for the kids. Meg, Lucy and Annie literally sat at the table for three hours doing page after page. It was so cute to listen to their conversations and sing Christmas songs together. Meg is so lucky to have girl cousins her age the love all the same things she does right now.

Next we went to Andy and Nat's house for my families annual "Day after Thanksgiving" Thanksgiving. My parents and Sarah were in town for it so it was extra special. Meg calls Grandpa Marchant "The funny Grandpa who thinks I am a bird." This is from a memory she has of when he was here last year. She and Kallie teased Grandpa all day. Nat makes an excellent Thanksgiving dinner.

The next day was the big bathroom remodel with my parents. I will be posting on that in a day or two. We are putting the finishing touches on and then we will post before and after pictures and tell the exciting tale.

Now we are in full Christmas preperation mode. We have decorated our tree and are mostly done with shopping. We fly out for Maryland in a week and a half so we have to be a little ahead of the game this year. I just love Christmas. Having a four year old makes it soooo magical. The elves have been watching her for the last few months making sure she is good so that has made for some fun bribery. She has long debated what she wanted Santa to get her for Christmas. It took us quite a few weeks to convince her that Santa Claus doesn't make the big $300 Pony's that you can sit on. She was positive that if she asked he could surely make it happen. It was difficult to talk her out of it without undermining Santa's magical abilities.

Stay tuned in the next couple days for the big bathroom remodel reveal.

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.

This picture cracks me up because Meg's face is so intense. Sorry, it is blurry. She was going just that fast when she played Ghost in the Graveyard with her cousins.

Don't think I am a bad mom for laughing when Adin falls. He just kept falling in the same spot over and over again. He would just giggle and get back up.

The crafting fun at Thanksgiving.

These are the tree die hard crafting girls. I could have sat the whole day and just listened to their cute conversation.

Marchant Thanksgiving

These two were inseperable the whole day. They were unified in their goal to run grandpa ragged.

Christmas Tree extravaganza.

These are just a few super cute pictures that I got of the kids while I was trying to get a Christmas card picture.