That's what I get for trying to be sneaky!

Just a quick story :)
It was Monday and I was doing some laundry when I noticed the kids had left their blankets on the floor of the laundry room. Both kids are pretty attached to their blankets, but Grace is like MEGA attached: drags it everywhere, sleeps with it every night, cries for it every time she's hurt, mad, sad, etc. You get the picture. Washing that thing can be quite the ordeal. So when I saw the blankets sitting there and realized the kids were in the front room I saw the golden blanket washing opportunity!! I hurried and stuffed the faded thing into my load of laundry. I would have it all dry and clean long before bedtime, so she would never even know! Hurray for MOM!

Lunch time rolls around and Bryan comes home for a few minutes to eat. Grace decides she is not going to eat her lunch (I know, everyone is SHOCKED - or not!) but she wants something else. Bryan tells her she has to eat what she already asked for before she can have anything else. Grace doesn't think that is a very good arrangement and gets really mad. OF COURSE she immediately wants her blanket. I had to give her the bad news - Sorry, it is being washed. She wails some more. I told her that since she was playing and didn't need it I had snuck the blanket into the laundry and it would be done soon. The wailing continues.

Then Joshua, ever the protector of his little sister, says "Mom, that wasn't a very nice choice to sneak our blankets into the laundry. Someday when I'm big and do the laundry I'm going to sneak into your room and wash your blanket!"

Hahahaha! Anytime you want to do laundry you go right ahead, kid, go right ahead!

Watch out, old age will catch up to you quick!!

So my wonderful husband had a birthday last week.

Wanna guess how old he is?

Maybe my fabulous cake decorating skills will give you a hint! :)

Yep, that's right, Bryan turned 30!!!

He keeps telling me he's getting old, having aches and pains, etc.

Poor guy.

It must be rough being so OLD.

I can say that because I am not old - - - yet :)

Anyway, here are some pictures of the birthday boy and our celebration in his honor.

The kids and I tried really hard to help him have a special day and to let him know how much we love him. Hopefully it worked! ;)

Here is the birthday boy with all of his presents.

Opening presents with his little helpers!

And this next picture is what happens now that Bryan is "OLD":

Yeah, I was at the desk on our desktop computer and Bryan was laying on the bed using his laptop. We had been talking, but neither of us had said anything for a minute so I turned around to see what he was doing and this is what I found!

Sound asleep, hand still on the computer like he is typing in his sleep!

Apparently old age will really catch up to you quick! It was only 9:30 for goodness sake! ;)

Birthday's must be exhausting at this age!

p.s. Bryan has no idea I took this picture - the flash didn't even wake him up, and it is a bright one! - so if you don't hear from in the next couple weeks, you'll know what happened! :)

Christmas:Guymon Style!

I am so out of the blogging loop and way behind since I haven't blogged for so long! I thought I would just give you a little (okay, not so little!) tour of our holiday travels and celebrations:

Our Christmas Tree!!!

This was a HUGE deal at our house because this is the first time in our married life that we have had a normal sized Christmas tree - we usually have done them in miniature since we haven't had a lot of space. I never thought I would get a fake tree, but since we were leaving town in the middle of the month, I decided the $35 Wlamart special was the way to go!

(I'll admit though, I'm lovin' the pre-lite tree!)

The tree was beautiful - I took a ton of pictures - I just couldn't get enough of it!

Christmas Morning at the Henke house!!

We started a new Christmas morning tradition that Bryan had read about in the Ensign, and it was really neat. Throughout the weeks leading up to Christmas we each thought of things we were grateful for and we wrote them down on slips of paper and put them in a box. Then on Christmas Morning we read all of the things we were grateful for and then read the Nativity Story from Luke Chapter 2. It was a neat experience, a great way to start off the morning, and definitely something we will continue to do!

After the morning at my parents we headed to my Grandparent Henke's house for opening presents with a 3/4 of my Henke family cousins- that was fun and you should have seen the sea of wrapping paper by the time we were finished!!

Christmas Lights at Temple Square:
One of our favorite traditions at Christmas! This year we got the whole family in on the trip, the Guymons and the Henkes!

Bryan and I - we've gone to see the lights every year since we were engaged, with the exception of last year when our trip down there got snowed out.


My brother Todd and his wife Elaine - I was just so happy to see them together again after they were apart for the last five months while Todd worked in AK and Elaine went to school in UT.
YAY for being back together!!!!

Henke Sisters on Christmas!!
Awwww...CUTE!

Dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Larsen's:
Love these precious pictures of my kids with my grandparents!

Grace loves to gives Nosies!!

Guymon Family Christmas Party!!

Guymon Family Christmas Morning tradition -

yummy Cinnamon Rolls made by Bryan's mom!

Grace was cheesing it up for Grandpa Guymon :)

Target Practice with Nerf Dart guns!

Just a cute picture of our niece Jenna :)

Guymon grandchildren acting out the Nativity Story - this was so cute!!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for starting this new tradition!

Joshua was Joseph and Grace was an angel.

And Story time with Grandma!

Don't they all look so cozy?!

I love this picture!

This is what happens when 9 of your 12 grandchildren are under the age of 5!!

Partying with the Odells!

After the Christmas celebrations were over,

we headed home for a few days and then New Year's day we took off for Dallas to go see our friends the Odells. They are our good friends from law school and they were blessing their sweet baby boy, Wesley. We were so glad to spend the weekend with them and to meet Wesley!

This is Wesley - handsome little man, isn't he?
And this next picture is of Wesley and his proud big sister Claire!

Whew, that was a lot! I will try to get back on track with my blogging so you don't have to go through picture overload again! :)

We sure enjoyed the trips though -

we just can't pass up an opportunity to see our family and good friends.

Thanks to everyone who made this a wonderful and memorable holiday season!

To: Dominoe H., Ashley N., Jen M., Kim G., and Katie W.

So you may not even remember...yes it has been that long... but y'all signed up to win something homade from me! I was supposed to have them to you by the end of the year, but obviously I missed that - so sorry! Things got a little crazy and I didn't get them finished before we headed out for the holidays. Anyway, I am getting ready to mail out your goodies, but I am not sure if i have all of your addresses. I think most of you have my email or we are friends on Facebook, so would you kindly send me your address via one of those two methods?

Thanks so much, and thanks for being patient with my slowness!

Janelle