New Years Day

We started off our 2011 by making Olibollens at my Uncle Ric's house, just like we have for the last 3 years. It is one of our very favorite family traditions! It is something my Great-Grandma used to do when my mom was young and my uncle and my mom decided to start it back up and we love it!!! It brings together a lot of extended family that we rarely see and they started it when my Grandpa was really sick with cancer, so it kind of is a big reminder to me of him. Olibollens, or Oil cakes are delicious! They are a dutch dessert and they are kind of like a cross between a scone and a doughnut. They are fried and then rolled in SUGAR and they are addicting! I seriously eat like 10 every year and then regret it big time later! My cousin, Rikki, was also here from California this year and it was so fun to see her and her cute family. She has 3 of the most adorable kids and my kids loved playing with them. Too bad this picture of all of us has ALL of our eyes closed...I think we were looking right into the sun.

Logan and Rylee hanging out with Grandpa Boman. The kids watched some movies and some football downstairs.

Avery made a new little buddy - My cousin's little boy, Ben. He is so stinkin' cute and LOVED Avery. It took her awhile to warm up to him though. They both were big fans of the popcorn.

Avery and Uncle Dean

It took Logan awhile to try an oil cake. I don't know why! He has eaten them before, but for some reason, he was kind of scared to try them. Once he did, he ate several! He loved them too! How could you not? They are covered in SUGAR!!!

Logan laughing at his Uncle's - He LOVES them so much and thinks they are hilarious!

Thumbs up from Logan - This is his favorite pose for the camera for some reason!

Our kiddos!

Rylee playing in the kitchen

My cousin's cute kiddos before they left for California - Bella, Maddie and Ben. I felt so bad that they had to get in the car and drive all the way home that day...especially after all the sugar they had!

Ben was a regular Casanova. He just wanted to love on Avery the whole day and gave her some kisses before they left. She wasn't having it though and kept pushing him away. It was so funny to watch them interact!

Cute little friends - at least for a minute...

Mom and Avery - We finally let Avery have a taste of an oil cake and she loved it! Once again, it being rolled in SUGAR makes it a little hard to resist, especially for our little sweet tooth, Avery!

For some reason, it took all my kids' awhile to try the oil cakes. Rylee just kept eating all the fruit, but wanted nothing to do with the sugar cakes but once she tried them, she LOVED them too!

I was walking upstairs and found this lovely display of all my Uncles' baby dolls and stuffed animals - I knew right away who the culprit was - Rylee has a habit of lining up and arranging everything! Then she got a chair for Avery to pose with them. Such a funny girl!

Then, she wanted a turn...

It was a fun day with the family and a great start to our 2011! Happy New Year!!! (only a couple months late...)

New Year's Eve

We rang in the New Year by partying it up at Darren's brother, Brian's house. His other brother, Curt and his family were still in town from North Carolina, so we were able to see them one more time before they headed back home. We sure miss them when they aren't around! We had a great time. There was lots of laughing, and lots and LOTS of yummy food! Last day to cram in some junk food before the New Year's resolutions, right???
There was also lots of Kinect playing, which resulted in most of the laughing. Darren and his brother Curt were getting pretty competitive! I think they might have pulled a few muscles!

Logan and Rylee playing some Kinect

Raegan, Logan and Rylee chowing down! I think Rylee ate at least 15 shrimp that night! She just kept coming back for more! The girl has some seriously expensive taste in food and LOVES her shrimp!!! She also ate LOTS of fruit and Logan LOVED the Little Smokies!

Our cute kiddos partying it up - They had a great time with all their cousins!

I should have taken a picture of this sooner... My sister watched our kids while Darren and I went and stayed for our anniversary the night before and when I picked up the girls, they of course had cute hair. I don't know how to french braid, so this is a big deal for Rylee to be looking this cute! Or at least, it was cute before it all started coming apart at the end of the day.

I love this cute little stinker! She had cute piggies, but they were totally coming out by this point. She liked chasing around Brian's dog Raja.

Rylee and her cousin Raegan - They are good little buddies (Besides when Rylee locked her in the closet...) and Rylee was so sad to leave her. It is so fun for her to have a cousin to play with!

Logan playing Xbox with Madi. It looks like it should be an ad of what video games can do to your brain...

We had a great time! We ate SO much food! Brian always has the BEST stuff! Curt and Carla also helped start a new addiction for me. They brought PB Snickers Squares! Oh my gosh!!! Those things are the best treat EVER!!! Around 9 o'clock, the kids started to get a little out of control and were acting pretty tired, so we packed up and headed to my parent's house. They didn't quite make it to midnight - We are party poopers, I guess, but they were getting SO grouchy! Darren and I stayed up and played Ticket to Ride with my parents' until almost 2 am! Who says old people don't know how to have fun???

A Sun-BEAM!

In January (Jan 3), our sweet little Princess Rylee graduated from Nursery and started PRIMARY! She was so excited to be a Sunbeam and go to the "class that Logan goes to". She is loving it! Her teachers are Sister Bladen and Sister Bingham and she loves them! She also loves her class. It has a bunch of her very best friends - Madi, Alli, Savannah, Easton, Owen and Gabe (I think I am forgetting someone...) Oh, Gabe! He is SO cute and Rylee has decided that she is going to marry him! He missed the first 2 weeks and Rylee was so concerned. She came home from church the first Sunday and told me that she was going to marry Gabe and grow as big as me and move to her own house!!! I thought I was just sending her to Sunbeams!!! Whenever she told anyone about her class, she would include that she is going to marry Gabe someday. She told Grandma Pat that "Gabe has been gone for 2 weeks. If he's not there, I'm going to be worried. I'm going to marry him."

Usually after church I will ask the kids what they learned about and I will have to ask Logan over and over again about things, but it is VERY different with Rylee! She will tell me EVERYTHING about her class, if she got picked to go up in sharing time, who she sat by (or didn't sit by)... a million things! She is SUCH a girl! She pays attention to every little thing. Sunbeams has also come with a little bit of girl drama, which I am not really ready for, but hopefully it works itself out. I hate seeing my little girl sad!

Rylee on her first day of Sunbeams!

Rylee made a life size drawing of herself on her first day of Sunbeams. I need to take a picture of it and post it because it was so cute and so Rylee! Her teacher also told me something funny she said the other day. They were talking about being baptized and the teacher asked how old you are when you get baptized. Someone said 8, and then Rylee said, "I'm never going to be able to get baptized because my Dad just wants me to stay 3 and be little forever!" So sweet! We have been teasing her that we don't want her to grow up and that we aren't going to let her turn 4.

And just for fun, here is a little flash-back...
This is Ry on her first day of Nursery at 18 months old in our old townhome in Logan! Time flies!!!

Of course, she didn't end up actually going to Nursery until she was closer to 2 years old, but this was her first official day of going to nursery and then sitting with mom! She didn't even look back when she went into Primary. She is definitely growing up... WAY TOO FAST!!!

Sunny St George, Part 2

Sunday (January 30) we headed home from St George :(. I wish we could have stayed a couple more days! We were really enjoying the beautiful weather. We got up and went to church with Grandma and Grandpa. I packed some fun spring clothes for the girls to wear and I thought they looked so cute!
Avery not so happy about Rylee hugging her...

UGHHH... I have tried and tried to reload this picture and it just keeps staying turned. Does anyone know why Blogger does that? It drives me nuts! I love this picture - Twinner outfits and twinner poses! Such funny girls!!!

Avery

Rylee

While I was packing up, Avery somehow managed to do this with her skirt. She walked around for quite awhile like this and got a lot of laughs. She tries so hard to be independent!

We needed some lunch before our long drive, so we made a stop at In-N-Out Burger. I think this was Avery's first real taste. She loved it! I'm pretty sure she ate almost an entire burger by herself...unless it was all on the floor, which is a definite possibility, but I think it mostly made it to her mouth!

Ry chowing down

Thumbs up from Logan

Avery LOVES her burger

The kids with Grandma and Grandpa before we hit the road

The kids did pretty good on the drive. They were all pretty tired and Avery took a pretty long nap. Once she woke up, we were a little worried! We had to stop for gas in Spanish Fork so we let the kids pick out a treat in the gas station and hoped that would hold them for another 2 hours. Rylee picked a ring pop.

Logan picked Pretzel M&M's - Thumbs up for those, too!

He LOVES his Leapster! It kept him busy most of the drive. The speaker went out on it, so he has to use headphones until we return it. We have tried to a few times, but they never have them at the store! I think he kinda likes the headphones though.

Avery picked a BlowPop as her treat.... She LOVES suckers!!! The good news is that it really did keep her busy and pretty quiet most of the rest of the way home. I don't know why we didn't think about this sooner!

The bad news is she was A MESS! She had sticky sucker EVERYWHERE! She kept putting it in her hair and her hands were so sticky! Her face and her carseat were all a sticky mess! And her super cute white sweatpants were GREEN from that stupid sucker! I guess it was worth it to not have a screaming baby!

This is the new face she LOVES to pull. Isn't it funny? She thinks she is hilarious! She is pretty entertaining.

She also kept putting it in her mouth like a dog bone or something and just holding it there. She is so funny!

Yep...now she is getting sticky sucker on her feet!

She is happy though, so we won't complain...too much...

She is very independent and wants to do EVERYTHING herself, and since I couldn't really reach her that worked out OK. She did try pretty hard to get her hands and face washed. Our sticky hot mess! I love this baby!!!

We stopped at my parent's house for a yummy Sunday dinner around 5 o'clock. While we were there, a big snow storm hit! Welcome back to WINTER!!! We had to drive home in it, which I hate! I wanted to turn around and go back to St George!!!