Christmas 2009

This Christmas we found ourselves back in our favorite place on earth, The Brian Ranch in Grover, UT. It was quite a magical time being in the newly finished house and having extended family at the neighboring homes. Christmas Eve we all got together for appetizers, soup, and a Christmas Eve program complete with a nativity performance from the kids and a visit from Santa. We had the best time all being together again. We were sad when the week was over but are excited knowing we'll spend many more holidays back at the ranch!

The Nativity




Starring Beck as Baby Jesus


Santa pays a visit




Decked out in Christmas Eve jammies


Christmas morning before the kids awakened. Notice it's light outside, that's a first!




Beck and Grandpa


Kids waiting to come down from the loft and see what Santa brought


Sweet bed head Crew!


The kids had one last gift waiting at home. It was all Riley had asked for this year. She was beyond excited to say the least.

Thanksgiving in Grover

Thanksgiving was the best this year! We got to spend it with the entire Brian family in our newly built ranch house in Grover. The house turned out better than we could have imagined. The setting is perfect and the house accomadates all 34 of us very comfortably. We had a delicious Thanksgiving feast, finished many a project, road 4-wheelers, and enjoyed everyones company. We will all be back for Christmas in a few weeks. Can't wait!
The Brian Ranch



The kids playing in dress-ups

Riley begged for a haircut "just like Aunt Darin's"

I was a little hesitant but LOVED how it turned out!

Darin and Riley

The bell all the kids presented Mom & Dad with. It says "Brian Family Ranch Est. 2009"

Boulder Mountain Christmas tree hunting




Sunday we blessed Beck in Torrey. It was great to have most of the family there for that.

Beck on his blessing day

All Aboard The Potty Train

The boy is finally potty-trained! Crew decided himself that he was ready to ditch the diapers in exchange for some cooler Cars undies. He's going on 3 days strong of no accidents. Wahooo!

Halloween

We had a great Halloween this year. Riley got to dress up for 3 different events and went as something new each time (thank goodness for hand-me-downs). I didn't find Crew an outfit until the day before Halloween, but thought he made the perfect little golfer. Crew really got into it this year. Jake and I would wait on the sidewalk and let the kids run up to each house by themselves. Every time a door opened Crew would yell trick-or-treat and just start grabbing handfuls. Riley had to keep reminding him to just take one! His bag weighed 3 X's more than hers by the time they were done. Of course the night would not have been complete without Marnie's famous homemade doughnuts. DELICIOUS!

Colts & Diamondbacks

Two weekends ago Jake, myself and Beck hopped a plane to AZ. We are big Colts fans and couldn't think of a better time to see them than when they played in AZ. My sis Darin picked us up Friday night and we grabbed a bite to eat then headed to our favorite store "Last Chance". No trip to AZ is complete w/o a couple of stops there. Saturday we got an invite from Darin & Pete's good friends to use their tickets to the Diamondbacks. We were pretty excited and then much more so when we found out they are the best seats in the ballpark. Literally right behind the dugout! They had 4 tickets so we took my nephew Penn and his buddy. Beck watched his first baseball game at 6wks old. Pretty lucky I'd say. He did great too. The game was so fun and the seats were quite incredible.
Sunday night was the big game. Sabbath breakers you say? Only for the Colts and we did make it to church earlier if that counts. Anyway, we had found a sweet deal on ebay for the tickets and were able to get 3rd row seats. Talk about a weekend of up close action. It was a great game and the Colts won. Not that we had any doubt :) Darin & Pete were so good to house us and let us use their car for the weekend as well as watch Beck while we were at the football game. It was a fun filled weekend of sports. Just the way we like it! Until we meet again Manning!

Back to School

Riley has started her second year of preschool. I'm not sure who has been looking forward to it more, me or her. At any rate she loves it!

Introducing Beck

After months of not knowing what I was carrying around in my womb, we finally got to meet our baby boy! Beck Monroe Terry was born Aug 11th, 2009 at 6:13am. He weighed 7 lbs 10 oz, was 20 inches long and had a full head of hair. He was delivered at Timpanogos Hospital in Orem.

And here's how it all went down....Monday night around 2am I started having some good contractions so I awakened Jake and told him if he wanted to shower before we left, now was the time. He gave his mom the wake up call and she headed over while we packed a bag. We got out the door around 3am and made it half a mile up the road before we realized we left our bag with camera and all sitting on the front porch. So we flipped around, grabbed the bag and were back on our way. By this point my contractions were pretty strong. I rode in the fetal position most of the way to the hospital. When we arrived it was 3:30am. After checking me out, they admitted us and sent us to our room to wait for an epidural. It took an eternity! I finally got one at 5:40am after I was fully dilated and ready to push.
The Doctor showed up at 6am, put on his gloves and took a seat. Thirteen minutes and 6 pushes later, out came our little boy. It was awesome not knowing the gender up until then. Needless to say we were thrilled! We hadn't fully decided on a name yet so he was Baby Boy Terry until the following day.
We're all home now and doing great. Beck is such a sweetie and the perfect addition to the family! And on a side note, I'm excited that I can actually see my toes again :)