Christmas

Christmas was wonderful this year  it is always a magical time with little kids!
We made the most of the season baking cookies, making crafts, seeing the lights, going to the live Nativity at our church and buying gifts for the Angel tree. Jocelyn loves to pick out gifts for the angle tree kids and had a great time in the church's Christmas program - she was even on TV even if it was just for a few seconds! We also had an Elf on the Shelf join our family this year. Jocelyn named her Sparkle Heart and the kids were so excited to go racing around the house each morning to see what mischief she had been up to while they slept.

We spent a ton of time with family, my cousins Kenneth and Karleigh flew in from Texas and my Grandparents were here from Kansas. It was so nice to have them all out here with us.

The Sunday before Christmas we spent the evening with Matt's family where we played the pass around game, sang carols and ate tons of good food - so much fun!
Christmas Eve we went to the candlelight church service followed by opening presents at my parent's house. It was made even more special since my Grandparents were there to share the night with us.
Christmas Day we had the excitement of Santa Claus and then made the rounds visiting both sets o parents. Such a busy time but every part of it is so special and I love the memories we are making with the kids. This is definitely my favorite time of the year!

For some reason the blog is not letting me insert pictures so I will try that again later.

Shots

Ice cream after shots...
The girls had their shots the other day and I treated them to ice cream afterwards for being so "brave".
Jocelyn seems to think that being brave involves kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs as if she is being stabbed and crying for 20 minutes after the fact while Brin whimpered for about 20 seconds and was over it. To make matters worse, the nurses called after we left to tell me that they forgot to give Jocelyn one of the immunizations so we had to go back again, and this time it was even worse! So glad she is done with them until Junior High!

Stats:
Brinley 18 months
Height 32" 83%
Weight 26 lbs.82%

Jocelyn
Height 45" 99%
Weight 48 lbs. 91%

Jocelyn LOVES Halloween. We celebrated this Halloween with a variety of spooky crafts, trick or treating at Aunt Kristina's work, the Zoo, with friends and she had a wonderful party at school and at church. The cutest thing was that Brin understood what was going on, she had to walk up to each door by herself to get her candy and it was so cute to hear her say "trick treat".
We packed up all our decorations today - bring on Thanksgiving!

Preschool

Jocelyn started her last year of preschool on Tuesday. She is in a class with all her friends and has the cutest teachers! I think it is going to be a great year for her. I can't believe she will be in kindergarten next year!

Summer Fun

At the petting zoo on the way to Vegas. Brin kissed an Emu and was spit on by a Llama. :)

Joss and Annie at the Zoo.

Cayden, Kai and Joss in Vegas.

Our annual trip to Vegas.

Red Butte Gardens

Jumping at Jump Around Utah.

Summer party at the Sant's.

Memory Grove

We have had a busy summer filled with playdates, friends and local outings. We really enjoyed the zoo, local swimming pools and parks and Joss was lucky enough to spend tons of time with her friends.

We were able to go on our annual trip to Vegas with my Mom. We walked a lot and spent an insane amount of time at the pool. It was fun although it always amazes me what a different experience Vegas is with kids!

Family "Campout"

We had the Doane Family Camp Out this weekend which didn't actually involve camping this year since Matt and I couldn't find a cabin that was big enough but also in the right price range to accommodate the family. On Friday we spent the day at Seven Peaks (a local water park), all the kids had a wonderful time of course and I think most of the adults enjoyed it as well.

On Saturday the plan was to have a day of outside games, kickball, water balloon fight, etc. but it was cold and rainy so we all spent most of the day huddled under a pavilion. The kids painted, colored with chalk and blew bubbles and the adults visited and played cards. The little kids did brave the rain and splashed in the puddles :).

The weekend did not turn out as Matt and I had planned but at least the family got to spend time together and the kids had a wonderful time playing with their cousins.

This is the only picture I managed to take... my sister-in-law Julie took tons and since she is a fabulous picture taker I will just hijack some of hers when she posts them :)

Cousins Noah, Rock, Ellie and Jocelyn

Brinley turns 1!

Cake!

My little munchkin turned 1 today! She makes us laugh every day, is a better sleeper than Jocelyn (although that's not saying much :)) she is walking, climbing, trying to run and talking more every day... she never sits still. Jocelyn dotes on her and never stays mad for very long when Brin pulls her hair which is often since Brinley loves getting a reaction out of her!

Height 30 3/4" 92nd%

Weight 23.2 80th%

Brinley 11 Months

Brin is now walking and adds more words to her vocabulary all the time!

She is a mischief maker and is constantly pulling Jocelyn hair just to see the reaction :)

Brinley 10 Months

Disneyland!

We spent last week on vacation in California with our good friends the Sants. We spent 4 magical days at Disneyland where we had lunch with princesses, rode all the best rides and Jocelyn and Annie were made into princesses by Fairy Godmothers. We also spent a day at the beach digging in the sand. It was a much needed vacation and we had the best time ever!

Brinley 9 Months

Weight 20 lbs. 62%

Height 30.2" 98%

Head 17" 22%

The girls

Destinee and Baby Brynnlee arrived yesterday and although we thought adoption was an option for us we received a call this morning telling us that we would only have them until Monday or Tuesday. Since we are only licensed for one child because of the number of bedrooms we have we are unable to keep two in our home. The caseworker thought since one was an infant we would be okay but I guess she was wrong.

Jocelyn loves having Destinee here and is very disappointed that she is not staying forever. I am sad but also feel a little relieved since our house has been chaos since they arrived. My hat goes off to all the mothers out there who can manage this many kids, this close in age and still have a clean house, dinner on the table and a smile on their face. Despite the fact that my life will be easier with them gone I am going to miss them a ton. I can't help but wish they would have just left Destinee with us from the get go.

It will be a sad day next week for all of us.

Our growing family?

I received a call from DCFS Friday letting me know that Destinee and her baby sister were most likely coming back into care and they were moving to terminate parental rights. They wanted to know if Matt and I would be willing to adopt.
After tons of discussions we have decided that we will tell DCFS that we would love to adopt the girls if parental rights are terminated. Big changes for sure -- if it happens we will have a 4 year old, a 20 month old, an 8 month old and a 1 month old and I will probably be a basket case for at least the next year :). We finally just decided that if we said no we would always regret not knowing what happened to those babies. There is no guarantee that rights will be terminated but if they are and it is God's plan we will welcome them with open arms.
They are supposed to go to court this week and I will post more when I know more.

Jocelyn is 4!

Joss is 45 lbs. and 43", still 98th percentile in both.

I cannot begin to describe how much I love this little girl. She amazes me daily and keeps me smiling!

Brinley 8 Months

Brin is getting so big so fast! She is currently cutting her back teeth so she is back to drooling with a runny nose... good times. She is almost crawling and almost walking, not sure which one she will actually do first! She is saying Hi, Mama, "issy" for Sissy and Dada. She is a wonderful baby and doing Cry it Out worked wonders for us!

Brinley 7 months