Jumping into 2012

This year started out on a great foot with my good friend Erica Zulnay's baptism.  The elders knocked on her door back in November and I have loved watching her grow in the gospel.  She has become such a good friend and I'm so proud of her! (Erica with Elders Dransfield and Parkinson)

This is Erica's son, Michael.  He and Scott are good little buddies.

This was our January trip to see the Jones's in Columbus.  We went down there when James was in Arizona doing his residency interviews so now Scott associates the word Arizona with Brody.  He's in for the saddest shock of his life in two months. :(
Here are sara and macie.  Sara's finally old enough to start playing with Macie.  I love it!

And of course the boys.  The. Boys.

For a few weeks in January and February we signed scott up for a basketball team and James was the coach.   Here is some live footage:

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and here are the kids just chillin' on the couch.  (don't ask me why sara is fully coated up and scott is shirtless.)

I was subbing for a primary class one day when the choister asked me if i by chance had a camera to take a picture of the kids for an activity.  i was happy that i did because now i have this treasure.  (scott's sunbeam friends: mitchell jones, ?, william o'neil, scott, paige bielozer and natalie critchlow)

one special night in february we watched some kids in the ward.  here are the four o'neil boys, scott and mitchell jones all making valentine necklaces for their moms.  it was a blast. :)

scott showing off his "new" cars pajamas.  His friend tyler weston (who sadly moved to alaska) gave scott a bunch of his old clothes before he left.  this one was much too small but (of course) scott's most prized possession.  it's a one piece cars pajama outfit and scott wore it so much that he wripped holes in the toes. 

and here's sara sporting the jean skirt and leggings.  i wish i could pull them off as well as her.

james had a day off so we took the kids to the rain forest at the zoo.  it was such a fun day that we felt like we were on vacation. 

we even have the family photo to prove it. 

two fo them actually...

on valentine's day weekend james let me go out for some "girl time" with a few of my friends in the ward.  when i came home he and kids had set up these flowers (my favorite...lillies!) with dove chocolates surrounding them in the shape of a heart.  it made me feel so special.  thank you james!!

scott and i have been working lately on another project.  we both had been eyeing a bird house at a nearby store and so i finally gave in and bought it.  we painted it one morning while sara was asleep, bought some bird seed at walmart, filled it up another morning while sara was asleep and hung it up on a tree outside yet another morning when sara was asleep.  so far we've never seen a bird eat out of it (apparently the birds in our area are a little too ritzy for walmart brand bird seed) but we keep watching out the window just in case.

another project that we've done (while sara was asleep) was work on scott's valentine box for preschool.  i was especially excited for this because that was the most exciting time of the year for me when i was little.   he scott is with all the valentine's day paraphanelia.

and here he is with his very special valentine's day box. 
he chose the colors... blue and green (his favorite.)

is christmas here?

I gave this post the title that i did because that's the question i hear a lot these days from our little scott man.  he was so sad when we took down the tree and the decorations and he frequently asks me if christmas is here again.  i think it crushes his soul a little when i explain that it will be here soon... in 300 days. 

since james had been traveling a lot for residency interviews we opted to stay in cleveland for christmas this year. it was sad to not see all of our family in utah but i L.O.V.E.D. not traveling over the holidays.


me and the kids.  still can't believe i have two.

me and the girls.  mom and my sister kim came out to visit for a few days before christmas.  here we are in our matching pajama pants.  small things like that make christmas magical.

mom took us out to cheesecake factory one night.  love that cheesecake!!

and here we are... matching again.  apparently we have the same preferences in clothing.

we had a mini "christmas morning" with grandy and aunt kimi before they left on christmas eve.  these are the "awesome trucks" that scott wanted very badly for christmas. 

and of course sara was spoiled with cute clothes.  my mom got her this outfit in the picture and her other grandma palmer sent out the most beautiful christmas dress i've ever seen.  seriously.  thank you so much grandma and grandy! 

and of course it wouldn't be christmas without making and frosting honey cookies.  they were perfect! (and apparently scott doesn't wear clothes.)



here's our little princess sara in front of the christmas tree.  she reminds me of the dolls my mom used to give me for christmas when i was little.

here's my little family on christmas morning.  it was a quiet day and we definitely missed being in utah with all the fun festivities.  but it was also nice to spend time with just the four of us. 

these pics are out of order, but this is a picture of us at our ward christmas party.  i loved it this year because the gym was decorated like bethlahem and we all had to wear clothing of that time.  they gave us food of the time and then some of the kids (and james) participated in the nativity.  it was a really nice, spiritual experience.

my good friend, erica zolnay, with her mom and son michael.  erica recently got baptized.  i love this girl!

gingerbread house making party with the westons and joslyn patee.  mine is the amazing looking one in the middle (sorry girls. :) )

and our boys scott and tyler weston.  the westons recently moved to alaska and cleveland doesn't feel the same without him.  scott still talks like tyler is going to come over any day and it breaks my heart every time.  just today he said, "Is Tyler home from his misson yet?" 

On christmas eve night we went to said weston's house for dinner.  our kids did the nativity which might be the very first nativity ever with a spiderman shepherd. 

again, these pics are out of order but i loved these ones of my mom reading to scott.

scott loved having his grandy here for tchristmas and so did i!

we really had a nearly perfect christmas. i wish we could have had all our family around us but for being so far away it was really a wonderful time.  thank you to everyone for the fabulous gifts and cards and love.  we can't wait for next christmas (in 300 days and counting...)

november

okay, i'm in hyper-blogging mode now because i'm pretty sure sara's going to take her first steps here in a few days and i want to be all caught up so i can blog about it!

november was an exciting month because that's when we went to the Fabulous Food Festival! One of James' favorite past times is watching the food network chanel which i love because he tries all the new recipes he learns about on me. :) 

there were all sorts of famous food guys there that i had seen on james' shows.  our tickets came with seats to see one of the shows so i went to guy fiery (i'm sure i botched his name) and james saw michael symons.

there were a million venders with food samples so we walked around all morning trying out the free food.  here are scott and james taking an apple tasting test.

and here's a picture of Guy.

November is also the month when we finally cut scott's hair.  it was growing a little out of control. 

our mall had a big familiy day for the opening of the food court so we went and they had this robot guy for kids to take pictures with.

my favorite part was when i originally told scott to go stand by the robot i looked up from my camera and saw this...

 he was so enamored by the robot that he walked up and gave him a big hug. how cute is that kid?

scott and sara's favorite past time is playing in sara's crib.  sara loves it because having her brother by her is her favorite time of life and i love it because scott entertains her for a while after she wakes up giving me more time to finish whatever i'm doing.

these kiddos are so fun and love each other so much.  i just love seeing them light up when they're together.

for thanksgiving we went to columbus and had dinner with bryan and annie.  sadly enough the turkey turned out not to be done all the way through when we were ready to eat so bryan cooked it on the grill outside.  it was seriously the best turkey i've ever had.  i know bryan thought i was just being nice every time i said that, but i promise bryan... it really was amazing.  and should be our new family tradition.

the kids waited very patiently for the turkey to be ready.

after dinner the kids played dress-up.  scott and audrey were doctors.  they had to make sure that none of us were going to die from the uncooked turkey.  (just kidding bryan.)

and i loved walking out on the back deck and seeing julia and scott in front of their fake fire pit.  i think scott was a little disappointed that there weren't any flames. 

here's cute annie with our newest member of the family... Lilly Palmer.

the day after thanksgiving was time to get ready for christmas.  we set up the tree and scott and james did a great job of straightening out the fake branches after they sat in a box all year.

then our sweet neighbor sharon came over for some left over thanksgiving dinner. 

we feel so lucky to be living here in cleveland by family and new friends and all the super famous food guys. it was a great month!

Happy Late Halloween

i'm not sure what happened over the past couple months but one day it was halloween and the next it was christmas and suddenly we're in 2012! Time is flying and i'm way behind on blogging. But here are the October pictures and more are to follow shortly.

scott was batman for halloween this year (and he's still batman today if anyone's asking).  he was very fierce.
p.s. yes, that is a duct tape bat belt made by yours truly.

we were out of town this year for halloween so scott couldn't actually go trick or treating.  but seeing this face during our ward trunk-or-treat party was enough for me.

and here's a shot of sara on the big night.  she was a fairy/butterfly/bat girl princess. 

the halloween festivites continued with our pumpkin carving night with mitchell jones and fam. 

mine (the one on the left) is winking in case you were wondering.

we also headed to our ymca halloween bash.  scott's batman costume was dirty so he was a (thrown together very quickly at the very last minute) super soccer player.  he took the roll very seriously.

scott and i tried to do a lot of non-halloween fall activities as well.  we've been trying to use sara's morning nap as a time that we do projects together.  for this particular project we collected sticks outside...

and pinecones too...

and made a very cool stick house with a milk carton and superglue.  (scott was very proud.)

and that was our very exciting october.  stay tuned for november!