It's Coming! She'll be walking before we know it!

Look at my big girl! In this first picture it looks like she is standing with no support, but that is just because of the angle. She was so excited to figure out how to stand up on her own. It's kinda tricky to sit her down anymore. Brynn had her 9  month appointment a few weeks ago, at 9 1/2 months, and she is growing so much. She weighs 20 lbs!! All of my girls hover around the average mark for their height, which surprises us, but the doctor is no longer concerned that Brynn isn't gaining enough weight! Go Brynn!  

SNOW

We have had alot of snow in the last week, so I had to catch a few pictures of Abbi and Reese playing in it. This is one of the great things about Utah, we get to play in snow in our own backyard. My girls ask to play in the snow 2 or 3 times a day, and so we take 10 minutes bundling them both up, then they bounce out the door to play. Without fail each time they come back in from playing in the snow, they ask for hot cocoa. Maybe that's why they want to go out so many times... smart girls!

The Barrons' in a Year

My friend gave me the great idea of writing our family newsletter on our blog rather than sending one out in every Christmas card, and so I thought I would start something new. Well, actually writing a newsletter is new altogether for me, so I'll give it a shot. 

This has been an eventful year in our house. In February of 2008 we finished building our first house. Building a house was exciting and scary, but well worth it! In the same month Megan received her teaching certificate from BYU, and most exciting of all Brynn was born. So far all of our girls have been born on holidays, and Brynn was no exception. She was our leap day baby!

Abbi started both soccer and kindergarten this year, and she loves them both! She reads to Reese and Brynn constantly, and her writing improves everyday. She discovered that she loves soccer, and that she is quite good. Reese is a fully energetic, and very independent little 3 year old. She is in a do it myself phase, and our help is only wanted at her request. Brynn  changes daily, but that is to be expected from a 10 month old. She crawls, sits herself up, pulls herself up, babbles, and is even learning to throw fits. A house full of girls can be a handful, but it is so much fun!

Megan has discovered a passion for kickboxing. Being done with school has offered her much more time for both her kids and herself, and there are many talents she hopes to expand and explore. Andy is working for Verizon where he has been for the past two years. However, this summer he and a friend decided to start a clothing business together, and they have been working since to get the business up and running. The business is called Policy clothing, and they just received their first large shipment of shirts. Andy is so excited for this new opportunity, and we hope this is something that will grow, and stay in our lives for a long time to come.

So this is us, and here we are. The end of the year has come. We are looking forward to another year of unknowns, and we will try to live each day better than the day before. Until next year have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

                       With Love,

                            Andy, Megan, Abbi, Reese, and Brynn 

My 3 Girls!

My friend Karen took our family pictures last month, and here are just a few from the shoot. I'm having problems importing the pictures, or I would have 50 pictures posted already!!! Thank you so much Karen for taking our families pictures! the odds were not in our favor this day. Daylight savings had just happened, and here we are taking pictures at 4:30 on an overcast day, when it gets dark at 5:30, so overcast wasn't ideal. Yet, Karen still took our pictures, and they turned out beautiful! Here are my cuties, thanks again Karen...you are Fabulous!!!                                                                Brynn  9 months old
                                                                 Abbi almost 6 years old
                                                                   Reese 3 years old

Family Night In

Tonight was so much fun. We had a night devoted to the girls. Whatever they wanted to do, we did. We ordered some pizza, bought some sugar cookies, I made some cream cheese frosting, and we had a party. I suggested that we decorate a few cookies for other people, maybe? Abbi and Reese thought it might be better to decorate a cookie a day for themselves, and do something else for neighbors. 

After pizza and cookies we played a little mother may I, or father may I (of coarse), red light green light, and some simon says. To top off the night the girls wanted to jump on daddy, and wrestle with him, and end it with a horsey ride. Even though Brynn can't walk, she crawled as fast as she could to be with her sisters, and when we played red light green light she got first class service being carried everywhere she went. Overall, this was a really fun night, and the girls felt pretty special being able to make all of the choices! 

Yeah, I know...My mouth is HUGE in this picture!

Lucky for us the Parnells come to Utah every few months because of family that Ricki has here. They have been great friends of ours for years, and it's so nice to be able to see them so often. Usually when they come out I don't take pictures, so I wanted to capture a few precious moments...
Its crazy how large my mouth is in this picture!!! Ricki was NOT wanting to be in a picture at all, but it has been way too long since I have taken a picture so here we have it. 

Abbi was looking through some old photos, and came across some pictures of Brig and her when they were tiny kids, and she was so happy to learn that she has been friends with him since birth. I know most of these are crazy pictures, but sometimes it's more fun that way...looks like Reese is in the middle of a blink in this picture. ha ha, love it.

Happy 3rd Birthday Reese

Reese wanted a princess party, but she doesn't care about princesses. That is very like Reese. She doesn't really want things yet, so when I asked her what she wants for her birthday she told me candy. So, I put as much candy on her cake as I could, and along with her gift from us we gave her 2 packs of her own gum. Gum is her favorite thing in the world right now. 

Reese invited 8 friends to her party, and they had a tea party, made pretty necklaces, decorated cupcakes, and played. It was a very fun party, and Reese's 1st friend party. We love you Reese!!

Reese's Favorite Things

1. Gum

2. Nilla (Soy milk vanilla)

3. cartoons in the morning

4. Reading books by herself or with 

mommy, daddy, or Abbi.

5. Playing pretend with her ponies 

and dolls.

6. Nursery

7. Sitting on laps and snuggling

8. Throwing fits!!!

CLIMBER

I haven't had a climber yet, but sure looks like Brynn is going to be my climber. She hangs out on the bottom step most of the time, or if anyone is on the ground she prefers climbing on or over that person. 

TWILIGHT OPENING NIGHT!!!

Yeah for Twilight!! I love these books, so I was really excited to go to the opening night of Twilight. What was even more fun was going all out for it. We got to the movie theater 6 hours early, oh yeah baby! That's getting there at 6:00 p.m. for a 12:05 a.m. movie!! There were actually 5 of us...jenny came later, and we had so much fun having a girls night. So I was planning on getting a shirt to wear to the movie for months in advance, and then a few days before I started waffling, but I am so happy I did because then Karen and Trisa went and bought some also. We ordered take out, and roamed the mall a little bit, and played games, and ate snacks...I loved it. Did I love the actual movie??? WELL...Love, no. Like, yes. I am a pretty big Twilight nerd, so I was REALLY hoping they would stick to the book hard core, and of coarse it didn't, and after the movie was done I was thinking, no seriously there could be another hour and a half and I don't think I would have noticed. But, it was fun, and I since I was expecting it to be horrible it was way better than what I was expecting. Yeah  for Twilight, and this super fun night!                                          Here's Julie pretend making out with Edward.
Oh Edward. Ha Ha ha. Surprisingly I thought he was way better looking than I originally thought. 
We had to book it out of the store after the store clerk told us we weren't allowed to take pictures inside their store. We thought she was going to call mall security on us!
                                      It was so fun to just be dumb, and have fun with this!


                                          Middle, Middle. Right where we wanted to be!
     Great picture of karen, not so great of me, but this reminds me of our Maui pics, so had to add it.

Abbi's New Hair

This was her first time getting her hair done professionally. Abbi is funny because she is very stubborn in some areas, and easily swayed in others. Her hair is something that she is very stubborn about. A headband is her idea of doing her hair, so when she wanted to get bangs like mine, and layers, like mine, I was unsure how that would end up looking on a regular basis. BUT...she promised that she would let me do her hair All the time, I love promises from 5 year olds. The really cute part was after the hair cute she turns to my friend Lynsey and says, "Okay, are you going to put highlights in now, I think I want it a little lighter like my moms." I love your new hair Abbi!

Artsy

The girls are really into coloring, and painting, and doing art projects. This was a cute picture Abbi made for Andy.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

      Reese really was happy today even though she looks pretty mad right here. Abbi was a super cute Hannah Montana. Reese was a dog, and Brynn was a kitty. We had almost NO trick or treaters...that's what we get for livin' in the boonies! Oh and notice the deflated pumpkins in the back, so sad for them:(
                                              
                                     This cat costume cracked me up! I love the round belly.

Crazy Hair Day

                                           Reese's very first pony tail, and she's almost 3.
 This month is red ribbon month, and this week was "it's crazy to do drugs" week. Today was crazy hair day, and I loved her hair after it was done. With a few tweeks I might actually send her to school normally like this.

Too Early

So we were so good and we went to a pumpkin patch early this year. Reese was hesitant to put her hands into the mushy guts, but eventually she daintily pulled out a few. Abbi loves pulling out the guts. ...Okay, here's the sad thing about carving pumpkins 11 days early... saggy, floppy, shriveled pumpkins on Halloween. But look how pretty they were when they started!