a christmas of firsts

so my pictures kind of suck but i was preoccupied with my cute FAMILY OK????
anyway...

this christmas had a couple firsts for us!! it was brecken's first christmas and it was all of our first christmas in our new home!! and it was oh, so nice and simple and great.
we woke up to our kiddos talking in their room so we went in and grabbed them while filming, and walked them out to where santa had left them their presents. at first grant didn't see his and thought that santa had brought him a stuffed fox... which was cool ... but not near as cool as percy and james...the trains he has been asking every santa he saw this season for. so we showed him what santa brought and he was so excited! he could've cared less that we got him anything else. in fact it was hard to get him to open anything else up. i love how simple kids are. we could've just gotten him those two little trains and he would've been 100% satisfied. 

what i thought was cute was while we were playing with grant, i noticed brecken crawling over to where her santa stuff was... she crawled over, pulled her self right up and started grabbing the adorable stuffed fox that was waiting for her... she now sleeps with it every night..mostly using it for a pillow. santa also brought her a little toothbrush/teether that she looooves. she chewed on it all morning. she was so fun this christmas. i won't lie... grant was kind of boring at his first christmas... he couldn't care less about presents... but brecken is a lot more interested in toys and playing than grant was at her age. so it made her first christmas pretty fun.

after we opened presents and were relaxing in our living room, soaking in the moments with our kids... we got a call from our bishop telling us church had been cancelled due to the crazy snow. (seriously though...how crazy has the snow been this season????) so we got ready to head to pocatello to spend the christmas break with family. 

we went to normans parents and ate food, opened presents, and relaxed. then headed to my parents to have dinner. we weren't doing presents with my family until the next day when my sister and brother in law got here from boise. the day after christmas we opened presents with them and played our annual christmas game which was SOOOOO fun this year. i mean... it's fun every year, but this year we had to draw a name before the game and then we were to get our gifts as if we were that person (without telling anyone who we were)... it made the game a lot more fun and kept the giving spirit of christmas as part of the game. 

then we spent the rest of the week hanging out with family, sledding, four wheeling, going to star wars (of course), and partying with family while bringing in the new year! it was a great way to end 2016!! hope everyone else had a great season as well!

volleyball pics, thanksgiving, and forgotten carols

so i know volleyball season ended like a million years ago, but i wanted to share some of our pictures we had done for our team this year. they turned out so good!! the infamous molly landon did them and she's pretty much the best. 

i really didn't have anything else to say, other than i love me some volleyball and am forever and always grateful for the opportunity i have to coach. i learn and grow every year from the girls and my fellow coaches and it truly is a blessing in my life.

speaking of being grateful....while we are here, lets talk about thanksgiving!

we are trying to recover over here from the lack of sleep from partying all night errrr night! 

it was a great four day weekend for us! we spent our weekend in pocatello with our families. we played games, had thanksgiving dinner with normans side of the family, went to the new movie moana and i thought it was cute! it had great music. it was grant's first movie in a theater and he did really well! he sat through the whole thing. then we took family pictures which were a disaster...no need to go there right now...still too fresh. ;)

and then last night we had the opportunity to kick off the holiday season by going to the forgotten carols with normans family. i looooove the forgotten carols. i listened to them all growing up and i truly love the messages each song has. bringing it back to our Savior. norman and i walked home after the show, hand in hand, talking about which songs were our favorite, what loved ones we think about during the show that have passed on, and the miracle it truly is that our Savior WAS in fact here on this earth, and how special it is to be able to celebrate Him. 

now that our little family is starting to grow, norman and i are trying to come up with some traditions of our own to help keep the Savior the focus of christmas for us AND our children. it's fun to create new traditions with our little family. i'm always up for some suggestions, too! what are your family's favorite holiday traditions??? 

i hope you all had a great thanksgiving weekend and lets get this christmas party started am i right?????

thanksgiving & christmas 2015

so i'm a little behind on the blogging thing...but i have to record holidays for my sake so here's a little thanksgiving and christmas mashup for ya.

thanksgiving 2015

we were with my family this year for thanksgiving. our family had reserved the ISU institute building so all the little kids could run around and not be cooped up in someone's house. well us bigger cousins are quite the competitive bunch and we (i) decided that we would hold a ping pong tournament. all our family is pretty decent at ping pong so it was quite competitive and a lot of fun. norman and i bought a (cooked) turkey hat that dances for the winner of the tournament. we also played dodgeball, lightening, ate lots of food, watched football, and chatted of course! it was so fun and a nice refreshing change from just eating and sitting around all day. 

christmas 2015

right after normans last class, we were packed and ready to go to pocatello for the break! 2 weeks of partying! we started it off by heading to salt lake to see the lights and go to dinner with my parents, my sister, and her family. i hadn't been in a few years and it's always a special place to be at christmas.

we stayed with my parents the first week and norman's family the second week and had a fabulous time at both. we spent christmas eve with normans family and had a nice dinner and had some funny entertainment from norman's dad, who read us christmas letters to santa from various people (President Monson, Obama, President Benson, Elder Packer, Richard Nixon...etc etc.). We spent christmas morning at my family's house and got spoiled as per usual by both families and had SO much fun playing santa for our little guy. grant still doesn't fully understand the santa thing...or the christmas thing...but he liked opening presents. (except for when i wrapped one of his presents in an old graham cracker box and he thought it was actually graham crackers and got real upset when he found out it was just clothes....)

he got lots of train stuff this year. he's currently obsessed with trains and cars. santa also brought him a bouncy horse (that stayed at my parents...no room for that in a tiny 2 bedroom apt), and a basketball hoop!

i couldn't help but think how weird it is that next year we will have TWO babies at christmas time. it just keeps getting better and better.

we played our annual christmas present game with my family (which i didn't get pictures of) and it was a blast as per usual. probably one of my favorite parts of christmas. 

At our big annual christmas party on my mom's side of the family we did a costume competition where everyone had to dress up in what they felt was the most "christmas-y". well, me being pregnant, i thought it would be perfect to dress up as mary, joseph, and a shepherd. grant won his age group for best costume, and our family won as the "best family costume". it was a blast!

the power went out for about an hour and a half on christmas eve so norm and i played santa's helpers in the dark, with a head lamp, putting stuff together!

hope everyone had a great holiday season as well and a late merry christmas to you all!!

the reece's x 3 1/2

family pictures this year were a BREEZE! a: norman was on board with the whole matching jammies for family pictures idea so it made my life easier. b: i didn't have to try to plan outfits for everyone that "coordinated". c: my sister took them which is always comfortable and we feel like we can be ourselves. and d: we did it inside on a bed so no red noses from the cold, or worrying about the weather, or trying to find the right "scenery" etc, etc. 

i may just take family pictures in pajamas every year!
(in fact...i loved how these turned out so much i couldn't use just one...so i used 9 on our christmas card!!! :)

when we were done and driving home i realized that this is the last time we will take family pictures with just the THREE of us! AHH! norman and i always say how it's going to be so weird having two kids. because when you have one kid, you still feel "young" and "new" or whatever you want to call it....but once you have TWO kids...you're a full on family. i mean, some people stop having kids at two! some people stop at one, too, but ...you get my point? (and no....we don't plan to stop at 2....).

anyway...moral of the story is, it'll feel so different to be a family of 4! it just feels more....legit. hah. 

BUT--- only one and a half more days until we are worry free and ready to party! my husband is in his second to last semester and is finished with finals on friday morning. then we are headed to pocatello to stay with family for 2 weeks!!! we have so much fun planned and i can't wait to get it all started. i love this time of year and there's just something about being in the home of your childhood that makes it feel that much better.

christmas/nye 2014

so i realized as i was putting this post together that i did not take very many pictures this christmas season.....and the pictures i did take...were of grant. i guess that makes sense bein that it's his first christmas. also..i had the camcorder out a lot this year videoing his first christmas, so a lot of pictures weren't taken unfortunately. whoops. mom fail. 

we spent most of our school break in pocatello hanging out with family. we had christmas parties and christmas dinners and game playing and all sorts of fun to bring the christmas spirit. christmas eve is always my favorite, though. norman's family and my family live about a neighborhood away from each other so we get to see a lot of both families at christmas, but we always rotate spend christmas eve with one family....and christmas morning with the other. this year christmas eve was with my family. my mom shared a really great message about the meaning of christmas and really brought the spirit into our hearts as we thought about giving and the real gift which is Jesus Christ and how we can become more like Him. it's always nice to end the christmas season bringing it back to what it is truly about. 

then we headed over to the reece's to sleep and spend the follwoing morning. and let me just say....christmas was fabulous! everyone says this but it is true...christmas with kids is so much more fun. even though grant has no idea what christmas is or what presents are all about...i was so giddy christmas morning for him to experience it!

his great grandparents on normans mom's side gave him a pretty sweet trike....even if he can't ride it for another year probably. ;) and he enjoyed attempting to open presents. his schedule was pretty out of wack though staying up later than normal multiple nights in a row so he got tired pretty quick on christmas morning and started getting annoyed at us making him open up more presents. haha. he's a feisty little bugger somtimes. so we hurried and finished him up, laid him down for a nap and continued with our morning.

we went over to my parents house afterward to exchange gifts with my parents and siblings and i tell ya.....between norman's family and mine we get spoiled every. single. year. and feel so guilty about it. our family's sure know how to make christmas a big one each year and they are both so generous it's overwhelming! we appreciate the help a lot at this poor college time in our lives. :)

norman's mom got grant a little pair of carhart bibs and i about died....cutest ever. so that is what he wore on our very snowy and cold christmas day.

we did come back to rexburg in between christmas and new years to do some laundry...spend a couple nights in our own bed...and then head back to poky for some NYE fun! we went bowling with norman's family and on new years eve we played some games with mine, put grant to sleep, and then headed to a party to ring in the new year with our friends (grainy iphone pics are all you get for NYE)...

i can't believe 2014 is already over!! we were so blessed this year with two huge huge blessings. the first being the obvious....we became parents. since we brought grant into this crazy world our lives have changed so much in the best way possible. i can't say enough about how great it is to be his mom and to see my husband fill a new role as a father. it has truly been the biggest and best blessing of this year.

second...my incredible father received a kidney transplant in april and is doing so well! i am seriously so grateful for all the crazy events that led him to being on the donor list for a short 7 months!! that is unheard of!! i often think about the little girl who lost her life so i could keep my dad. and although it makes me sad for her family, i am beyond grateful that she was a donor. she saved my dads life! it also wouldn't have been possible without the incredible man who donated his private plane and pilot in a moments notice so my parents could fly to nashville to be there in time to have the surgery. it was the most incredible blessing and i get a swelling in my chest just thinking about it. there are some extremely generous and giving people in this world and it makes my heart so happy!

2014 was pretty epic for our family and i couldn't help but be a little sad as we counted down to the new year and see it slip away. but 2015 it is! and we will make it a good one!

happy new year everyone! and a very late merry christmas!