Christmas

We didn't get around to sending out Christmas cards this year due to the little bundle of joy pictured below but want to wish everyone a be-lated merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmas this year. Here's a look at some of the highlights:

Carly got a special visit from Mr. & Mrs. Claus this Christmas! She is progressing so well and is finally big enough for her surgery--yay! It is scheduled for this Thursday, January 8th so please keep her in your prayers. I will try to post another update about her before then with more details about her surgery and progress. Sadly Bryson and Lilly ended up not being able to visit her (like I posted about on Facebook) due to a huge influx of the flu at the hospital, but they did get to Skype with her on Christmas and they really enjoyed that and even got a few smiles from Carly during the call. Carly got spoiled rotten by the hospital and got piles and piles of gifts, clothes, stuffed animals, etc.

Bryson had a Christmas program at school that was amazing. Granny and Grandpa came to watch and then we went out to eat after.

Bryson got to lead his class in a few of the songs and he did so well.

We were the recipients of the twelve days of Christmas this year, which we (especially Bryson) just loved. Each day we got a new piece of this cute nativity set delivered to our door with a message about the piece.

The final day the baby Jesus was delivered to our door by this cute family (the Simpson's) and they came in and serenaded us with Christmas carols. They are the most amazingly service oriented family we know and we are so grateful for the examples they are to us of love and kindness.

We celebrated Christmas Eve at my brother Zack's house this year and had such a wonderful time. This is our annual grand kids Christmas jammies photo.

On Christmas Eve we were also the recipients of a Secret Santa gift from my family. They surprised us with Sinclair gift cards to cover our gas to and from the hospital. They pooled all of their money together and the very generous amount they gave us will probably cover our gas expenses until Carly comes home, which is such a blessing. We were so beyond touched and so grateful for their thoughtfulness and generosity. They are amazing.

Lilly was the first one awake at our house on Christmas morning and from our bedroom we could hear her giggles as she came down the stairs and saw all of the presents. It was so cute.

Bryson got a temple Lego set and Lilly got a doctor set. The $70 that Bryson asked for to give to the hospital, we decided as a family to get gift cards to give to the nurses, receptionists, doctors, etc. that had to work on Christmas Eve and on Christmas to thank them for all they do.

We have been so overwhelmed by God's love for our little family this Christmas season. We have felt it more this year than we ever have before. He is so aware and mindful of each of His children. He hears and answers prayers. He has answered our prayers and he will answer YOUR prayers. He makes impossible things possible in His time and in His way. We love Him and give all glory to Him!

Favorite quote this week:

"A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory."

-from the movie Unbroken

Life rules.

Bryson's Christmas List

So I just had to share this little experience because it has touched me so deeply tonight. This week Bryson decided he needed to write Santa a letter to be sure Santa knew everything he wanted for Christmas this year. This is his letter:

It's a list of a bunch of Ninjago Lego mini-figures he wants but it honestly all just looked like a foreign language to me. Here's the translation (as best as I can tell...haha):

Dear Santa,

For Christmas I want 2 Pythors, 2 Skalidors, 2 Skales, 2 Acidicus, 2 Fangtoms, Sensei Wu, Kai ZX, Zane ZX, Jay ZX and Cole ZX, Nya and the 4 Fang Blades weapons. I want 2 Toxic Vipers, Golden Fangpyer Staff, 2 Golden Constrictai Staffs, Golden Hypnobrai Staff, Dragon Sword of Fire, Scythe of Quakes, Surikens of Ice and Nunchucks of Lightning.

So I mailed it off to the North Pole just as Bryson asked me to. A few days later, he received this reply in the mail from Santa:

Surprisingly, Bryson took Santa's reply very seriously. I saw him re-reading it over and over again and seemed to really be thinking about it. Then today Bryson told me he had a new letter that he needed me to mail to Santa "ASAP." Here's what it said:

Translation:
"For Christmas I actually want $70 dollars to give to the hospital. I want to help all the sick people. But it would be nice to have all the Lego's. But this Christmas present is better."

FYI: $70 is what we've told him his Christmas budget is ($10 for each year of age). When I read it, tears started streaming down my face and I was completely speechless...and to be honest, also quite shocked! I asked him if he was really being serious and if he was really willing to give up everything on his Christmas list to help the sick kids at Carlee's hospital (Primary Children's) and he looked into my eyes with absolute sincerity and told me "yes."

For the past 15 or so years, I've kept a book of hero's where I list the names of people who have touched and influenced my life in great ways and have helped me become a better person. This 7-year-old kid made it into my book of hero's tonight. His simple choice was a great reminder to me of what it means to truly "share The Gift" this Christmas and always. I am so grateful not only for Bryson, but for all of the sweet little children that surround us on earth because they are often so wise beyond their years. They teach us, they humble us, and they show us through their innocent examples how to be more like the Savior and bring glory to His name.


Favorite quote this week:

"You don't have to be larger than life to be a hero, just larger than yourself."

-Mitt Romney

Life rules.

P.S. Another Carlee update is coming soon!

A Belated Christmas

I know it's nearly the end of January, but I finally found a few seconds to post about Christmas (it's been on my "to-do" list all month...sheesh!). So here ya have it. Better late than never!

Mike decided to get all gung-ho and put up lights on our house this year. Bryson thought climbing through his bedroom window out onto the roof was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Bryson was off track the ENTIRE month of December, so I decided to do an advent calendar and filled the packages with activities for him to do each day so he wouldn't get bored--things like card games, puzzles, art projects, movies to watch, etc. His favorite activity was a little wooden pirate ship that he got to build and paint.

Another one of his favorite activities was putting together (& eating) this ginger bread house.

Mike's parents let us use their very tall 10-foot tree this year and I had so much fun buying decorations for it and making it look festive and pretty. I love the lit up star on top.

We got an "Elf on the Shelf" last year as a gift, so we pulled the little guy out and put him to work this year. Bryson absolutely loved it! Personally, I'm not a fan of the whole Elf on the Shelf idea--especially after trying it out this year (I ran out of ideas on day four...ha!), but Bryson loved it and I have to admit, I loved watching his eyes light up with excitement when he found it each morning. Bryson got the biggest chuckle when the elf replaced all of our stockings with his undies.

We had our annual Hinckley family Christmas party at the SLCC institute building, which is always a blast. Here's a little clip of Mike biffing it on a RipStik (I love you babe!).


At the party my talented little sister Taylor filmed all of the grandkids talking about Christmas so she could put together a special Christmas video/gift for my parents.

We shared it with my parents at our Christmas Eve party and they absolutely loved it and were in tears! Here's the final video:


Because of some health issues, my parents got transferred back home to finish their mission here (they will now be serving at the Family History Library on Temple Square) and so we were lucky to get to spend Christmas with them.

They gave all the grandkids new Christmas jammies and cool name plates

...and joined us for a couple rounds of Uno for FHE.

Mike's sis-in-law Jessica sent us these awesome hand-made hats for Christmas. I had to snap this pic while they were Skyping with her & her family because I thought they looked so cute all decked-out in their hats.

On Christmas morning Bryson got this Star Wars Lego set (he is totally obsessed with Lego's and all things Star Wars) and Lilly got a little purse, baby doll and baby doll bed.

And that's that! Merry Christmas!

Favorite quote this week:

"If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present."

-Lao Tzu

Life rules!

Our Thanksgiving

This thanksgiving we had absolutely no plans for the first time ever! My parents are on a mission down in Mexico and Mike's parents are down in central America on one of their bi-annual humanitarian service trips. Most of our siblings left town or had plans elsewhere, so we were left to celebrate Thanksgiving on our own this year, which actually turned out to be a lot of fun! Like I said, we had no plans so we played the entire day by ear. This is how it went down...

Mike started the day off by making a delicious waffle breakfast, which the kids devoured.

I had to throw in the pic below because it shows Bryson and Lilly's awesome teeth. As you can see, Bryson lost one of his top teeth (the other day) and Lilly is getting a mouth full of fabulous teeth as well. She loves having teeth and eats like crazy!

After breakfast we lounged around and played with the kids for a couple of hours, got a few chores done, got ready, ate lunch and then decided to head downtown. We feel like we've been blessed with so much in our lives and wanted to spend the day giving back in whatever way we would could find. We initially planned to help serve Thanksgiving dinner at a soup kitchen, but by the time we got downtown most dinners were already finished, so we changed plans and decided to buy some cookies and pass them out to the homeless people we came across on the street.

Bryson begged me to take that picture on our drive because he just loves having his picture taken SOOO much...haha!

When we got downtown we decided to first head to Temple Square. On the way there we met two homeless folk and gave them each a cookie.

We enjoyed looking at the Nativity and then we walked a few blocks down to where Mike works so we could get some hot chocolate. On the way there, we passed out a few more cookies and created a few more smiles. We rode the elevator up to Mike's work, but sadly none of the hot chocolate machines were working so we left hot chocolate-less.

I love that Salt Lake has these red donation meters scattered all along the streets that provide you the opportunity to donate directly to homeless shelters instead of giving money directly to homeless individuals. I have never noticed them before but was very pleased to see them.

We left our last cookie next to a man sleeping in the doorway of a building and then set off to find some food for dinner. I wasn't about to spend the day cooking a huge thanksgiving meal for just the four of us, so we planned to pick up some sushi for our Thanksgiving dinner instead. Unfortunately none of our favorite sushi restaurants ended up being open, so we let Bryson pick where to go and of course he picked McDonald's (bleh!). He was ecstatic.

Then we went home, changed into our jammies and snuggled up as a family to a movie. Can you guess what movie we watched from the picture?

Yep, you guessed it--Ghostbusters! It was Bryson's first time seeing it and he loved it.

We are so grateful for all that we have. We know that everything we have comes from a loving Heavenly Father and that it can all be taken away from us just as easily as it has been given to us. We hope we can continually use the blessings we have been given to bring glory to His name.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Favorite quote this week:

"Our degree of gratitude is a measure of our love for Him." 

-Elder Russell M. Nelson

Life rules!

Halloween

For not being a fan of Halloween, I sure loved this one! We had a blast and created some wonderful memories. My favorite part was walking in from the grocery store Wednesday night to Mike and Bryson sitting very intently at the kitchen counter. Mike had scary Halloween music playing on his phone and they were both carefully sketching onto paper different scary pumpkin faces that they planned to carve into their pumpkins. Since we only had two pumpkins, I let the boys do the dirty work and I sat and read out loud the last few chapters of a Halloween Goosebumps book we've been reading with Bryson. The Halloween music playing was the perfect soundtrack to the very scary story being told in the book. It made for a such a fun Halloween Eve experience!

Bryson planned to enter his pumpkin into his school's pumpkin carving contest, so he worked super hard and carved his entire pumpkin himself including cutting off the top and scooping out the pumpkin guts. He didn't end up winning the contest but I loved watching him work so hard for something he really wanted.

Here's what the boys ended up with:

Bryson's school parade is always the highlight of the school year for me. I love seeing all of the cute kids marching proudly through the gym in their creative costumes. Bryson chose to be a black Ninja this year and killed it!

After the parade I went to Bryson's class to help with his class Halloween party. I love spending time in his class and getting to know all of his cute classmates.

Bryson made this adorable scarecrow at school, so we put it on our porch to greet all of our trick-or-treaters.

We recycled Bryson's Halloween costume from when he was a little baby and had that be Lilly's costume this year. She looked so cute running around with her little turtle fins flapping.

Bryson was in heaven this Halloween because he actually had a big, safe neighborhood of his own to trick-or-treat in (we've never had that before). We had a steady stream of trick-or-treaters all night long and the HUGE bowl of candy we had only had two pieces left by the end of the night. We are loving it here and Bryson has made some wonderful (and very cute) friends!

Happy Halloween!

Favorite quote this week:

"Where you are today is the sum of every choice you've ever made. If you don't like where you are, start making different choices!"  -Dave Ramsey

Life rules.

December Recap

Wow, has it been a crazy month! We've had so much going on that it's been hard to find time to blog about anything, so I thought I'd sum everything up in one very long post. Good luck getting through all of it...haha.

BRYSON & LILLY

These two are bosom buddies and just adore each other. It has been so fun to watch Bryson embrace his new role as a big brother. He's learned how to carefully carry Lilly around the living room and is so gentle and kind with her. We feel so beyond blessed to have these two little ones in our family.


OUR LITTLE MONKEY


Bryson loves to put on performances for Lilly and she loves to watch them. Here's a short clip of one of his recent performances.



TENNIS LESSONS

For the past several months I've been taking tennis lessons with some friends at Liberty Park. It has been a blast and I actually feel like I kind of know what I'm doing now. We have a Monday night tradition where we meet up at the tennis courts and compete against our hubby's and I think us ladies finally have the skills to dominate. The men are going down!


SNOW CAVE

Bryson has been esctatic with all of the snow we've been getting and plays out in it all the time. He's lucky to have a dad that also loves the snow so they've spent endless hours out there together working on a cool snow cave.


KINDERGARTEN PROGRAM


Bryson's school had a Christmas sing-along and this is one of the cute songs he performed (sorry the filming isn't that great).


FARKLE

Bryson got the game Farkle for a white elephant gift and it has become one of our new favorite games to play as a family. Bryson especially loves it because so far he is undefeated and it's not because Mike and I let him win, but because he's stinkin' good!


LIGHTS AT TEMPLE SQUARE

We took Trax downtown to see the lights on Temple Square. The lights were beautiful as always.

Mike's work is within walking distance of Temple Square, so we headed there afterward to warm ourselves up and to enjoy some hot chocolate.


CHRISTMAS EVE

We spent Christmas Eve with my side of the family. The grandkids opened their Christmas jammies from Granny and looked so cute. This picture is of eight of the fourteen Hinckley grandkids.


CHRISTMAS DAY

Being a kid on Christmas morning was always amazing, but being a parent on Christmas morning is SOOO much better. The excitement in Bryson's eyes as he saw and started opening his presents was infectious. He was so cute to watch. He got a castle and a double-sided light saber and said it was the best Christmas ever! Lilly got a few little toys, books, and some clothes. We enjoyed Christmas day with Mike's family. We had a delicious lunch, played games and enjoyed watching Bryson play with his castle.


SLCC INSTITUTE BUILDING


The highlight of our Christmas was by far the day after. My side of the family rented the SLCC Institute building all day and had a blast. We mostly hung out in the gym playing different sports but they also have several pool tables, a ping pong table, and a foosball table, which made for some fun competition.

My niece got a RipStik for Christmas and brought it to practice. I about killed myself trying to ride it but Mike hopped right on it for the first time and rode it around the gym like a pro. He was crazy good at it.

We ordered pizza, had a gift exchange, played board games and just enjoyed ourselves all day. It was so much fun and I'm pretty sure it will become a new family tradition.

Merry Christmas!