Marshall's 2nd Birthday in Pictures

Thanks to the H.B. and Larry Arnett families for helping us celebrate. Why yes, there are a lot of photos of the Blue's Clues cake, yes I did make it myself, and yes I am prodigiously proud.

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Sadie's Winter Olympics

Sadie has been taking Gymnastics classes for almost two years now. Twice a year the gym has a "recital" of sorts which they call the Summer and Winter Olympics. This is the third one they've had since she been enrolled but the first she was able to participate in, since we were out of town during the other two events.

Sadie was very excited to finally be able to participate and we were so proud to watch her strut her stuff. She definitely put her own Sadie personality into the entire event.

Vault

Floor

Bars

Beam

Getting her medal

Team Photo

Good Job Sadie! We love you.

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Easter

For Easter we took a fun-filled whirlwind trip to Utah. It was action packed. Here are the highlights.

Thursday afternoon - We headed down to Utah. The trip was good.

Friday - Sadie went to Kindergarten with her favorite Aunt Joyce and the little boys and I had haircuts by Lexi. We looked amazing. After haircuts Stacey, Marshy, and I took Jax to school and then shopped for hat supplies. Meanwhile Joe and Ryan went out to lunch with his good friend Troy. Finally in the afternoon we were all home to make our hats for the parade. They too looked amazing. That night Ryan, Stacey and I went to La Jolla Groves for dinner. The meal was delicious and our server was awesome.

Saturday - Started with the Annual Arnett Easter Hat Parade Extravaganza. I took no pictures (we didn't even pack our camera) but Mallory took a few and for a more thorough post I refer you to My Auntie Candy's blog. This year we did themes, which was very cute. Our themes were: Big Pimpin' (We told them they were Gangsta bunnies, to avoid the, What is a pimp? question.) for the little boys, Spring Bunny (Sadie), Space Bunnies (Mark and Mallory), Safari Bunny (Grandpa Larry) and Roarin' 20's bunnies (Ryan and Dana). After the hat parade Pop-Pop and Marshall went to pick up Gangy from the Airport, Mark and Mal took the older kids to Jax soccer game, where he scored two goals, and Ryan and I went and saw Atlas Shrugged with some friends.

Sunday -Started with church in all our Easter finery. The Easter bunny came while we were at church. Then we had a wonderful Easter dinner. After that we visited my grandparents and went and saw Danny and Stacey's new house and finally at 6:30 p.m. we started the long drive back.

The sun made it hard to get a great picture of the kids in their outfits.

The Easter Bunny delivered this year and everyone was happy.

We had a really great weekend visiting with family and friends.

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Eight is Great

Joseph turned eight in January and with that birthday came exciting changes and opportunities for him. He joined Cub Scouts, which he loves; took first place at the Pinewood Derby, which Ryan loved; and was baptized, which we all loved. He's a great kid and we're so proud of his choice to be baptized.

His Car

@ the derby

Baptism Day

Joe and Ryan

Grandpa Larry and Joe

Grandpa Larry confirmed Joseph. Grandpa Howard confirmed me when I was baptized and we wanted to carry on that tradition.

Cousins

In their whites

The Family

Joseph and Brynley

Joseph and Brynely are good friends so it was fun that they were able to be baptized on the same day. Her mom and I may have planned their first date while we took this picture.

Cousins

Thanks to all of our friends and family who came and supported Joseph in this very important life step.

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Christmas Eve

Since we are without any extended family this Christmas, a first for the Brijs clan, and have grandparents, aunts and uncles spread out all over this year, we thought we'd blog to help you all seem a little closer. Plus, Mallory tells me I don't blog about our kids enough.

So I present to you our Christmas Eve Celebration in photos:

First we started with dinner, which looks very neutral in the picture but we did serve green beans and yams for color, I promise.

The kids helped set the table, notice the placement of the spoon. We used the beautiful linens Grandma Bonnie gave us from the Caribbean. They added just the right touch.

Marshall ready to dig in. We all enjoyed dinner but I would say he enjoyed it most.

Sadie doing her famous head tilt. This girl could give posing advice to Paris Hilton

Joseph ready to dig in.

After dinner we told the kids they could open one present each. I don't think the pajamas were a big hit but they were good sports about it.

After they changed into their new jammies we watched elf. Marshall made it half way through the movie and then sadly had to retire to bed. For the rest of us, after elf was over, we watched Joy to the World , set out Santa's cookies and then the kids went to bed.

It was a quieter Christmas Eve than we are used to but still very fun. We miss you all and hope your Christmas Eve was as enjoyable as ours.

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