Work and Play

I have a new little helper that likes to help me with everything.  He enjoys sitting in the middle of all the laundry and moving things from one pile to another.  He likes to help with the grocery shopping and wants to have his own list and pen to cross things off.

A few days ago when I left the pantry door open he found the broom and decided to sweep up the kitchen.  This is an improvement over trying to use the little sweeper brush to brush his hair, which is what he has done in the past.

He loves to help in the kitchen and watch us cook.

He has also loved "helping" the workers that have been coming to our house.  He has been walking around with a tape measure and measuring things where they have been working.

When he isn't "working" around the house, he likes to show off his new skills including going up the stairs.  We are still working on the down part.

He enjoys listening to music, watching TV, and wearing dad's headphones.

He loves to eat.  He makes some of his happiest faces when he sees grapes, tomatoes, bananas, and green beans.  He will eat almost anything that isn't too spicy or sour.  This picture was taken at our favorite pizza place (the Pi) right after he picked up a bite of the pizza and he saw the big string of cheese hanging off it.  He was pretty excited about it.

We love going to visit our Bodell grandparents.  Brigham likes to play Peek-a-boo with great grandma,

and do stickers with great grandpa.

When he isn't working or playing, he LOVES going to bed.  We ask him now if he wants to go to bed, and most of the time he will start walking to the stairs by himself, point upstairs, and wait for us to open the gate and take him up.  I think his love of going to bed may come from his love of his pacifiers, which he only gets in bed and the car, but wherever it comes from, we are grateful for it.

December Leftovers

I thought I would share a few leftover pics from December.  I love this one of us talking to Johnny on Christmas.  He was able to use face time and for about 45 minutes all of the Hicks clan was connected through an imac, 2 ipads, and an iphone.  Thank you Apple for helping to provide a great Christmas treat.  It was so much fun to see my baby brother as a missionary!

This year we decided for our family gift exchange we wanted to use our creativity and not be so concerned about spending a certain amount of money, but try to think of something we could use in our homes or with our families.  It was so much fun to try to think of things that we could make for each other.  Julia monogrammed these mugs and came up with a quick family home evening that we could do for each letter of the alphabet.  It was so clever.  We appreciate all the FHE ideas and the mug has become my new favorite for hot chocolate.

Becca made these for us to hang in our homes.  She spent so much time on them and they turned out so cute.  Such a great and creative idea, and I love the way it looks in our kitchen.

I made these great little quiet books.  You can find the templates at Simply Fresh Designs.  She has done most of the work by providing the design and text, you just have to insert pictures from the church website, print, and assemble.  Her blog is awesome and she is constantly adding new freebies, and after making these I realized she is my neighbor and relief society president and was an Academy for Girls counselor the same year I was.  Small world.

It was a great new tradition that I hope we are able to continue.  It was fun having an opportunity to use our creativity...or at least be inspired by other peoples' creativity and try to copy it.

Merry & Bright

Brigham loved helping us get ready for the holidays this year, and I loved having a child to celebrate Christmas with.  He enjoyed playing with his early Christmas gift, a new nativity set from grandma and grandpa Hicks.

He loved helping us decorate the Christmas tree and got excited each morning when we would turn on the lights.  These are some pics of my boys and some of their favorite ornaments.  Brigham liked my Tigger one and his new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse one.  Aaron loves his acorn bird that he made when he was three.  He puts it in a prominent place on the tree every year and likes to show it off to everyone that comes over.

We made our annual visit to the Festival of Trees, one of our favorite traditions.

Brigham loved anything having to do with Christmas lights.  He would get so excited to see them and open his mouth and eyes really wide.

He loved the lights at temple square.  He would ohh and ahh and clap as we were walking around.

He didn't really love the visit with Santa.

But he did love the chocolate sucker he got from Santa.

He also loved the giant Mickey he got from grandma and grandpa Barth.

He enjoyed opening all of his gifts Christmas morning and having lots of time to play with them.

I think what Brigham (and we) enjoyed most about this Christmas season was having so much time to spend with both of our families.  He loved having cousins and grandparents to play with him and pay him attention all the time.  He stayed up way too late many nights because he was having so much fun with them.  We are so grateful for the time we had to spend with family and friends.  We are grateful for this time of year that we have to reflect on and celebrate the birth of our Savior.  We are so grateful for Him and His life and example.

Cousin David

A few weeks ago my dear cousin, David, was killed in a car accident.  It was such a shock to our family, and I still have a hard time believing it is true.  I have trouble finding words to express the sadness I feel when I think about him being gone and my heart aches for his sweet family.

David has always been a part of my life.  We were born just three months apart. The very first home videos I have are of us hugging each other when I was a toddler heading off to Illinois. So many of my childhood memories involve my cousins who were some of my very best friends.  I remember playing Nintendo, sleeping bag wrestling (which led David to get some stitches), riding the bus to Salt Lake to have sleepovers, playing lots of Risk and Monopoly, making Home Alone 3, and taking a trip to Palm Springs.

When we were in high school our friends became friends with each other and we had so much fun together.  We took many trips to the ranch with our friends and had many adventures.  He even showed up in a tux with his friends to perform at my 16^th birthday.  My friends all loved David because he was so much fun and he treated them so well.

We also spent many summers working together at my grandpa’s ranch where I have memories of burning thistle, barn dances, hikes, tubing, entering parades, and making movies.

David had a great love for people and made sure that everyone felt included.  People loved to be around him because he was so kind and genuine.  I honestly can’t remember him saying mean things to or about people.  He was extremely creative and constantly used his creativity to enrich others lives. He was constantly thinking of others and serving them up until the very end of his life.  I am so grateful for the blessing he has been to me.

I think my sister is much better at expressing things in words.  She wrote a wonderful description of him on her blog.  

This experience has caused me to reflect a lot on the things that are most important to me.  I have been reminded of how blessed I am to have a knowledge of our Heavenly Father's plan and to have been born into such an incredible family.  I am so grateful that our families can be together forever.