Jane

WE LOVE VACATION!
(You can stay in your PJ's all day and make silly faces:)

This is a "very great" picture of our sweet Jane

We made it to Grandma and Grandpa Miller's yesterday and had "2nd Christmas." It was really wonderful to stop along the way and visit Grandma and Grandpa Great too~ thanks for the ornaments and shells.
Thank you to mom and dad for all of the great books and presents. Brad also gave me some new pottery bowls that are so beautiful! http://www.whitestonepottery.com
Today was a fun day at the BYU animal museum followed by a trip to Jamba Juice for Bruce (ohh it was so good.) I got the cutest picture and will put it on the blog later. Tonight we plan on eating more great Mexican food (we have to stock up because we haven't found a good place in NY yet.) Baby Lilly's blessing is tomorrow, and next week Jane and cousin Josh get to go to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur museum.
We're still having so much fun fun fun!

B's great gifts!

Twas' the month before Christmas and B was busy in his workshop.

He MADE a croquet set for his brother Ben & family and made a beautiful box of Cherry wood for my brother Stuart and his family.

He is so talented!

(I think it's now safe to post these pictures since the gifts have been opened.)

Box with 2 drawers and lid
Close up of dove tails and "stitches"
It's so much more beautiful in real life
croquet set & box
One of the mallet heads

Pixie Presents

We had such a wonderful Christmas!

The kids were so excited, we were with Grandma and Grandpa, and the weather was beautiful. We started (not to early) and opened presents, ate great food all day, went sledding, and sang Happy Birthday to Grandpa and Uncle Pete.
(More PICTURES of today's festivities will come)
In our family there are 8 kids so each year we "pick pixie names" and buy a present for that person/family. My brother Derik and Kim, Elise, and Elizabeth had us. The kids got great sticker books & toys, Brad got awesome ornaments, and I got a very nice gift card. Thanks- we love it! Thank you also to Uncle Pete for the "cool" ice cream maker!

Merry Christmas 2007!

For everyone whose address we didn't have, here is our Christmas letter:

(Enough pictures are posted on the blog already- pick a favorite!)

Seasons Greetings 2007

M- many events have occurred this year including…

E- eventful birth of baby Kate, July 2nd (6 lbs, 12 oz)

R- receiving a PhD from BYU in April (Brad graduated with his

PhD in Chemical Engineering)

R- relocating from Provo to New York in May

Y- yoga and pilates (Eliza’s new favorite “alone” time)

C- crazy times that come naturally with our 3 cute kids

H- haircuts, Jane gives them to herself, Brad & Bruce don’t

like them at all (Kate’s hair continues to grow)

R- relatives and friends who have come to visit and make us

so happy (fun times and Buffalo wings promised to all who come)

I- incredible holidays, fun parties, Easter egg hunts at

grandmas & dressing up for Halloween all month long

S- school, Jane started her preschool in September

T- Thanksgiving dinner with our Minnesota Millers - Thanks!

M- many trips to Niagara Falls & many more to come

A- Amherst ward, it’s so great to live so close to where the

church was restored (Bruce loves his nursery too)

S- sending this Christmas card to special people like you!

Our family has been so blessed and we are especially grateful for the Savior at this time of year. We wish you warm holidays and all the best with your new year!

Call Mr. Plow

Bruce got a new snow shovel to help his dad clear the snow. He does such a great job!

We got at least a foot of snow here, B and Bruce shoveled 3 times in one day!

This is what our street looks like

(Sorry you can't see his face, he was to busy to turn around.)
Here's one of our "cheesy boy" and his cute Christmas -not so smiley- sisters!

Snowflake Bentley

Yesterday we went to the science museum to see an exhibit on "Snowflake Bentley."

http://snowflakebentley.com/

It was really great. There were lots of fun snow things to do and they had lots of pictures of snowflakes.

(Yes, Jane does love this dress and wears it all the time, but she does wear other things too, you just can't tell this month.)
Here's some of the highlights:

Snowshoeing with wooden snowshoes
Speed-skating
Snowball catapult
Kate and some snowflake pictures
(Lissa- you can kind of see how long my hair is)
Ice fishing

*FYI- Today it snowed (lightly) all day. They didn't cancel church, but we got at least a foot. Brad is in Heaven with all the shoveling he's been able to do (Bruce helps too.) It's supposed to keep snowing until tomorrow morning, some schools have planned on closing, our 2 Christmas parties tomorrow have been canceled, so we may just have to play all day here in our snow- hooray!

Bonus: Here's a great video of Jane in the Kids Exploration room. They had a table with lots of "plastic poop" so you could match the poop to the animal who makes it. Pretty gross, but fun!

Happy Birthday my love!

Today B turned another year older and wiser too.

Here are some of my favorite pictures:

Today we went to lunch at B's work, and then we had a party tonight.
We made him a "Rudolf, birthday cake- it's pretty crazy.
The Aftermath
(lots of gifts from Rockler~the wood worker's toy store.)
Thank you to all who called, send gifts, and emails!

Let it Snow! (But not everyday until April)

Kate liked sitting in her first real snow

We got a really pretty snow storm today(abt 6 inches.) In our city (village) we are fortunate enough to get snow, but not tons of of like our neighbor cities to the South. We bundled up warm today and played outside for hours while Kate and Bruce took turns taking naps. Luckily our LandsEnd gloves arrived today so our hands stayed warm the whole time!

Snow angel Jane

Our street

Our little snowman- Bruce was a big help.

(The snow was really powdery so it took us a while to just get it this big. )

New Gloves!

Jane eating snow!

View from up above, you can kind of see my snowshoes.

In the Village...

We live in a village and last Saturday they had some fun Christmas activities in the main part of the village. They had:

Pictures with Santa (this one was a little better)

Hay Rides

Decorating Gingerbread men at the library

Unfortunately there wasn't enough snow to build a snowman while we were there.

Snowshoe video

Not the greatest, but you'll get the idea...

SNOWSHOES!

For Christmas B's parents gave us awesome snowshoes.

B's mom said, " I knew what I was getting you the minute you said you were moving to Buffalo."
So far we haven't had very much snow at all. It is starting to get cold (low 30's), but no real big storms. We hear those come in January and February when it snows everyday. It did snow a little on Saturday so we put on our snow shoes to try them out.
Jane moved around like a pro!

Bruce's boots were small so he kept slipping out, but still had a fun time!
B's snowshoes(not pictured) are cool red/orange colored.

Thank you!!!

Welcome Lilly!

Congrats to my sister Joanna, Doug, and Sophs on the arrival of baby Lilly today. Kate is especially happy, she made this sign (and you can see her 2 teeth pretty well in this picture too.)

O Christmas tree

I apologize for being a "little blog happy" this month, but I really love Christmas and so much is going on.

In our little family we have a tradition of decorating our home on the first family night in December. We listen to Christmas music, sip egg nog, and decorate our tree.
Our tree is... unique this year. While living on Utah we would either buy a real one or borrow one of my parents artificial ones. This year we didn't know what to do since we're going to Utah in little while. We didn't want to buy a fresh one or buy a new expensive artificial one, so a friend let us borrow her 3 little ones. Bruce was so happy when he saw them, "Oh, WOW- Christmas!!" We kind of clumped them together and hung up some ornaments (Bruce unfortunately broke a few,) and now we feel so grateful to kind friends for helping us this Christmas.
Here's a picture: (The tallest one is about 5 feet tall)
Here are some of our Christmas books we've been collecting:

Preschool Christmas Party!

Today we had Jane's preschool party since this is her last week. She'll start back up again in January.

One crazy thing is that she has 17 teachers. She has 2 teachers who are there all the time and then every day there are 3 other teachers who are all currently working on their PhD or master's degrees. So 17 in all.
We made each of them a little mug with hot chocolate & candy to thank them and wish them happy holidays. Plus, as an added bonus, Jane's class are called "the penguins" and we found mugs with penguins on them!

Here is what we brought to the party- A fruit Christmas tree (the idea came from Family Fun)

Jane and her friend Karli- I love her smile!

Check us out- dancing!

Our kids are pretty great dancers. B inserted the freaky looking one- silly guy!
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1141876605

Christmas is Coming!

Last week I took the cute kids to get their picture taken for Christmas.

While we were there we also got to visit Santa and got this "great" picture with him.
It's a classic!

We love our Jane!

2 (of many) cute things Jane has done this week:

1. She told us she was going to make breakfast so she got out 3 bowls, 3 cups, 3 spoons, and then put them all on her place mat, filled the bowls with cereal, filled 1 cup with water, 1 with juice, and 1 with hot chocolate. She ate all of it. So silly.

2. I took the kids to get their pictures taken at the mall and as we were walking out Jane looked up in the sky and yelled, "Look, those geese are flying in a chevron!" All those around us also looked up and commented on how smart she was. How many 4 year olds do you know who know what a chevron flight pattern is?

Phew ! and Palmyra

Phew, those Minnesotans are gone- just kidding!

We had a tearful morning on Friday as we said "See you later" to family. Jane was so sad to see her "Minnesota cousins" leave. We really did have such a great time together- and now have a fridge full of delicious food! Thanks for everything!!!
Here are some pictures we took from Palmyra:

Baby Kate in the Bjorn & bundled at the visitor's center

Andy and Jane at Smith Log Home

Frame House

Bruce outside the grove with temple in the background

Ben and Jane
Sam

They also left us with this beautiful tree:

The red is really deep and beautiful

On Saturday we just did laundry, played, and slept. Tonight we had B's boss and his family over for dinner and all went really well with that.

*Plus here are 2 bonus pictures of Baby Kate for the grandmas:

B got the fireplace turned on and working

This is what Kate looked like today- Thank you Sarah T. for the adorable hat & outfit!

Happy Anniversary to Joanna and Doug today! (hee hee)