Christmas time

We were fortunate to have a great December. Paul and I went to the MOTAB Christmas concert and it was great. That has become our yearly tradition and our one official date of the year. We get all gussied up and eat and a nice restaurant and we don't have to go to a place that serves kids meals. Mom and Dad came down and made the rounds to every ones house. They came to our house on Christmas eve and stayed until December 29th. It is always great having them come and spend a little one on one with the kids. They love having Grandma and Grandpa Berrett come to visit.

This is what happens when Grandpa puts his suitcase on the toy box! The love Buster's little look. I don't think he can take the whole blame, his cousin Grant was running around also, so I think he probably had a little to do with it.

It is usually hard to catch Buster will all of this clothes on, so we were doing good to catch him with half his clothes on. He was excited about his snow shovel and scooter that he got from Santa.

Carter picked out a Buzz Lightyear for Buster for Christmas. Every kids seems to go through a "Toy Story" phase and Buster is smack dab in the middle of it right now. It's ok, that is one of my favorite Disney movies.

I think this might be Carter opening up his first of 20 king size candy bars he ate on Christmas day. Ok, the # might be a little exaggerated, but nobody will really every know how much he ate that day.

First of all, Carter and Caleb are both cursed with my "bloody nose" gene! So, as you can guess from this picture the poor kid got a bloody nose on Christmas morning. So, for us it is normal for him to have toilet paper up his nose, but to everybody else it probably seems weird. Carter did make a haul this year from Santa, among his favorites were his night vision goggles (on his head in the picture), Nintendo DS, snow boots, ski coat and mad libs.

A couple days after Christmas we went to the movies and saw "Marley & me", we absolutely loved the movie. We aren't necessarily dog lovers, but Carter had just read the book and we thought it would be a cute movie to see. We laughed and cried and even sobbed a little. There were some words in the movie that I would have preferred my kids didn't have to hear, but it wasn't anything they haven't heard on TV. It was a good movie that reminds you of the days when you were young and how you loved your dog.

November Happens

We went to my parents house for Thanksgiving. I was personally told before we arrived that we would be sleeping downstairs in the bedroom with the king bed. But, when you are the last out-of-towner to arrive then you get left with the one room suite outside. After refusing to sleep in the "one room suite" which is a small cabin with a twin bed and optional double sized blow up mattress, with a 12 inch tv with local channels only and wifi, Paul volunteered to be the in-law of the year. Well, lets say he would disappear quite ofter out to his quiet oasis and would watch tv all by himself while all of the loudness of family get together was going on inside the house.

This year I volunteered to make the sweet potatoes since we have had the same sweet potato recipe since we were little kids. Last year my sister-in-law made a great sweet potato recipe and I had gotten that recipe from her after Thanksgiving, but I forgot to bring it with me. So I hopped on the "wifi" hookups offered and found this good recipe that was very delicious. It is quite simple and I think I will make it year around.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mashed-Sweet-Potatoes-with-Brown-Sugar-and-Pecans-15683

So my mom wouldn't feel so bad, I still put the marshmallows on the top!



Buster, what can I say about the kid, you have to love him. Today I was looking at the cover of the New Era for December and he saw baby Jesus and he said "Look is Jesus Smith". I think I need to work with him on the difference between Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ. Yesterday we went to the BYU vs USU basketball game and while we were there Buster as usual, was looking for BIG BLUE every ten seconds. Well he caught a glimpse of Cosmo the Cougar and he kept saying "Where is the Jaguar", I think he has been watching a little do much Diego.

Carter was Baptised on November 1st. It was a wild few days with his birthday on October 30, Halloween on October 31 and his baptism on November 1st. It was great to have our families there for the wonderful occasion. Every night during Carter's prayers he asks for a blanket forgiveness of any sin he could have committed that day. Today was his first official fasting day. When we were at church he kept asking for fruit snacks and I said that he could eat when we got home. His jaw dropped and he said that he couldn't wait that long. Well, last hour of church Paul came and got me out of R.S. and said that Carter was feeling ill. We were walking down the hall and I told Paul that I thought that Carter was probably just hungry. He did look a little pale and had the sick little pout on his face. So we were proceeding down the hallway and we were walking by the "dangerous" gym doors that open out into the hallway. I live in fear of those doors because you never know who is going to come walking out of those doors when you aren't looking. Well, it was Carters lucky day ( not really). We were walking by the doors and he had his head turned and was talking to me when all of a sudden BAM a kids pushed open the door and smacked Carter right in the side of his head. Poor Carter started crying and I have a bad habit of laughing when people get hurt (a bad curse I have, I don't know how to stop laughing when somebody falls down or gets hurt or has their zipper down), anyway I had to turn my head while I was trying to comfort him. I did tell him is is a lucky thing his head was turned looking at me or he would have a broken nose!

Carter's baptism day family picture.