Merry Christmas!

We had one awesome Christmas this year! It was so easy going and relaxing, we loved it! (There have been previous years when we had to go to 4-5 houses in one day) As we have gotten older (and smarter ;)) we have made things easier on ourselves. On Christmas eve we visited both of my grandparents to wish them a Merry Christmas. Then for our own family tradition that Brandon and I started before we had kids (and luckly we have been able to keep up since our kid loves movies) is going to a movie and dinner on Christmas eve. With kids, the movies have changed, but we still love this tradition! This year we saw Bolt in 3-D. It was a cute movie. Tyson didn't want to wear his 3-D glasses, so he saw a rather blurry movie! The trick to going to dinner on Christmas eve, is #1 going early and #2 finding a place that is open! This year we ate at Wingers! We got there an hour and a half before they were closing! Then we came home and got Santa's cookies all ready and put the kids to bed! Tyson thought that Santa would be really hungry, so he left him about 8-9 cookies...and Santa ate them all!

Lily's first Christmas! Asleep! She woke up at 6:30 (after sleeping all night) and Tyson woke up at 7:00 (singing in his room until 7:20) He ran in and asked Brandon if he thought that Santa had come to our house. So, not to bad to start Christmas morning at 7:30 for a 3 year old!

Santa brought Lily an exersaucer and Tyson a remote control racecar (the Thunder Tumbler). Mom and Dad got clothes!

Tyson is always excited to get food! (Goldfish crackers!)

He loved opening presents and he really appreciated everything he got (I know one day that will change!) He opened all of Lily's presents too, he was excited about her stuff too! What a good big brother!

Still sound asleep!

Every year we take a family pic in front of the tree! This was the test picture! I thought it was too cute!

Merry Christmas!

We lounged around all morning, Tyson and Brandon shoveled and played in the snow, and after finally getting ready we did Christmas with my Mom (Ange and Cam didn't make it down because of all the snow, so we missed them) but we had a great time with Mom, Ryan, and Tiff's family. It was a perfect day at Grandma Wendy's! We then headed to Brandon's parents and did Christmas and dinner with Nana, Papa, Zak, Colin and Cori! (we missed Derek and Andi and their families!) It was a great day! Great food, great family, and great reason to celebrate the birth of our Savior!


Tyson coming to see what Santa brought him. He was more concerned that Santa left one bite of a cookie on the plate!

Lily's blessing/Tyson's birthday! (Watch out picture overload!)

Here is our big kid Tyson! 3 years old!
He is such a funny kid, but that made it harder to take his pictures! Since I was the photographer, he was crazy and didn't listen very well, but I think the pictures turned out great anyways!
Something funny about pictures... our house is full of pictures of us and Tyson, so when Lily was born, I started trading out some pictures and put in pictures of her. Tyson has not liked that one bit! He remembers what pictures were in the frames that I replaced and he constantly asks me to put them back and take the pictures of Lily out! You can tell that he is finally feeling that he is not the only one anymore. I will be talking to people about things Lily is starting to do (like smile) and Tyson will pipe up and tell them "I can smile too...see :)"

This picture is proof that for one minute Tyson said he was 3. We told him on his actual birthday 11/26 that he was now 3 and he told us he wasn't 3 until he had his party. Well, we had his party on 11/30 (with Lily's blessing) and he decided for another minute he was 3 until that night. We put him to bed and shortly after he came down the stairs crying "I don't want to be 3 I just want to be 2." Today he still tells people that he is 2! (A rather big 2 he is 40lbs and 39in) Funny kid!

His silly face, and a big cheeser!

What a cute kid and such a great big brother!

Lily's blessing. My Mom crocheted this amazingly beautiful dress and booties for her! My Mom is the greatest!

Lily was so great during the blessing. She didn't make a peep, and we didn't even have to take her out of Sacrament meeting! (Tyson cried through his whole blessing until Brandon held him up!)



Precious!

The generation picture! Lily, Mom(me), Grandma Wendy, Great Grandma Sadler.

With Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Sadler.

Another generation picture. Lily, Mom, and Great Grandma Spencer. (Dad couldn't make it)

The Russell generation picture. Lily, Dad, Papa, and Nana.

Us!

Tyson was so excited about his party and since we did it with the blessing, and all of Brandon's family was in town there were a lot of people to help celebrate! (Thanks for all the gifts, he was sure spoiled that day!)

The day before we celebrated my sisters birthday and her kids wanted to surprise her, so they sent her upstairs and we all hid downstairs and yelled "Surprise" when she came down. Well, Tyson thought it was so much fun that when we got home from church he whispered to me that he wanted everyone to yell "Surprise" to him, so I sent him back outside and he came back in and everyone yelled "Surprise" just for him! It was cute, he acted all shy about it!

These videos are cute. We got Tyson a toy guitar and he decided that when you play guitar you close you eyes and jump! Enjoy!

Go Utes!

Since Brandon and I both graduated from the U, we are both U fans. The last two years we have had season tickets. One of our favorite games it the big rivalry game against BYU. Our neighborhood is full of BYU fans and Brandon gets a lot of guff from them (especially since Tyson and I got Brandon a U flag two years ago) Well, this year Brandon made some posters and got 30 red and white balloons and decorated the street in front of our house. The posters saying "I love Utes" and "U's #1 Fan" went in the yards of the BYU fans. He did this at 11:00 the night before the game. The next morning when he went running he noticed that one of our neighbors took down his sign already, so Brandon got it out of his garbage can and kindly put it back up for him. Brandon did get some payback with this big Y in front of our house!

Our proud Utah family! (Tyson calls it "go Utes" instead of Utah)

When we got our season tickets, we were lucky enough to have our seats by some friends Todd and Megan. Brandon used to work with Todd. They have two cute little girls that Tyson calls "my girls"

The end of a great game beating the Cougars! And having a perfect season!