Thanksgiving

Yay Thanksgiving! For Thanksgiving we got to fly out to Utah. Woot Woot! As always, I freaked out a little bit when I thought about flying with Madi. I'm always scared she will have a melt down or be cranky on the plane.  And as always, she was an angel.  Seriously, she did amazing.  When I told her it was time to take a nap, she grabbed her dog and her blanket, laid back, closed her eyes, and went to sleep (true story).  And when I said jump, she said how high. Ok not really. But she was that good.

We flew into Vegas on Monday night and stopped for dinner at Cafe Rio on our way up to St. George. Umm...yum.  I miss that place so much.  Luckily I found a copycat recipe that I can make any time I want. :)

Tuesday and Wednesday were mostly spent preparing the house, grocery shopping, and getting everything ready for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was mostly your typical Thanksgiving day.  Cooking, cooking, cooking, and eating, eating, and eating.

But Thanksgiving would not be complete in the Hymas family without a morning workout.   On the menu that morning was "death by push-ups".  Long story short, Bruce did about 200 push ups and I did about 90.  Crazy workout, but fun.  Especially when everyone is doing it together.

And of course who eats Thanksgiving dinner without making napkin bunnies?  ;)

Also, isn't it just the cutest when the husbands clean up dinner? :) 

After dinner we took the kids to the park to run off some steam.  It is so fun to see Madi running around on the playground.  At one point she was climbing a ladder that was a little scary for her. When she got to the top she raised the roof and said, "woot woot".

On Friday we hiked the Temple Quarry Trail. I really miss living so close to the mountains and being able to go on little hikes like that.  The Temple Quarry was where they mined rocks for the foundation of the St. George Temple. You could still see the holes from where they drilled the blasting mines. Cool dude! ;)

Later that night we grilled out and made smores.

Saturday we took family pictures before everyone left. 

Grammy and Papo with all the grandkids.

 And later that evening we took the girls for a carrousel ride and grabbed some ice cream at Neilsen's Frozen Custard.

We also wanted to be able to visit with family up in Provo so Sunday after church we made the trek.  It was really fun visiting Provo. Driving around brought back a lot of memories from when Bruce and I where dating.  Aw, tender. hehe. ;).  It was also good to visit with family and friends up there too.

Monday was spent running around town doing things that out-of-town-ers do when they visit Utah. Like going to the Distribution Center and Deseret Book. We also went to Temple Square to see all the lights.  My little brother Zacky, who is going to school at BYU, got to come with us!  When I was living in Utah I always wanted to have one of my siblings out there with me.  Then right before Zack decided to go to BYU we moved to NC.  Just my luck!  But it was fun being out there at the same time, even if it was for only a couple of days.

Tuesday was spent visiting old teammates and roommates and getting ready to leave the next day.  By Tuesday I think we were all a little vacationed out and ready to come home and get back into a good routine.

I couldn't have asked for a better trip.  In the words of Simba from the Lion King (the movie we watched several times on our trip) it was "slimy, yet satisfying". Ok, maybe not slimy.  But we were fully satisfied with our trip and all the things we got to do and people we got to see.  I am so grateful that we were able to make it out this year.  I loved spending time with family.  Life doesn't get much better than that.  I am so very very blessed to have such a wonderful family, to have my health, and the gospel in my life. My Heavenly Father is so good to me.  Oh how I love Him so. :)

Some pics of Madi with her cousins.

Halloween Festivities

When we went to the pumpkin patch we let Madi get her own little pumpkin. She got to paint hers and then we carved the big one.

For Halloween Bruce went as Justin Bieber and I was his biggest fan.  Don't ask how we came up with that one. (We may or may not have been watching a Justin Bieber video on Youtube). Madi, obviously, was a ladybug.

Bieber Fever and Brittany and Justin B. FOREVER! <3

At our church's trunk or treat Bruce had a couple of girls come up to him and ask if he was Justin Bieber.  When he said yes they were so excited. Bruce talked to them for a little bit and then I asked if I could take a picture.  They were so excited about that.  They were star struck. Cute!

Here are some pics of Madi trick-or-treating.  She was really unsure at first but eventually got the hang of it. 

Here are some pics of Madi's Hal Pal week at gymnastics.  They get to dress up in their costumes, have fun games, bring a friend, and they even got a visit from the tumble bunny.  It is fun to watch how Madi improves in her class each week.  She is doing forward rolls all over the house now.  She was even doing them at Target the other day while we were trying shoes.

Zzzzzzzzz...

So my favorite part of the day, hands down, is putting Madi to bed.  I know what you are probably thinking.  I love putting Madi to bed because then I get to have some time to relax and some time for myself.  While this may be partly true, it's not really the reason.  

I love putting Madi to bed because it is great quality time for us.  We have so much fun reading books, singing songs, chasing each other around, playing peek-a-boo under the bed, and just laughing and having a good time.  And of course I love having scripture study and prayer together too. Our bedtime routine is probably 45 minutes long because of this, but it's all fun and I love every minute of it.

We have this game we play and it is so adorable.  I will whisper something for Madi to do (i.e. go give daddy kisses, or go tickle daddy's feet), she will go do it, run back and kneel down in front of me and just look up and me waiting for her next "mission" as we call it.  She will even whisper with me.  It is so cute and just makes me so happy.  

Here is a video of us having fun before bedtime.  

Dumpdy Patch

"Dumpdy".  That's what it sounds like when Madi tries to say pumpkin.  It's pretty cute.  

Dixie Classic Fair

Meh, don't really feel like talking typing. But here are some pictures of our trip to the fair. 

Camping!!

A couple of weekends ago Bruce and I pulled out all of our camping gear from storage, packed it up, and headed to the ward camp out. Bruce and I love the camp and we thought it would be fun to bring Madi too.  Of course I was nervous about how Madi would sleep, but I figured that since she is such an easy going baby that she would do just fine.  

After we got there and set up our tent we just hung out and sat around the camp fire eating smores and listening to the bishop give a fireside.

Eatin' smores

Chilin' by the fire

 Then we tried to put Madi to bed. We started putting her down around 9:30 (she usually goes to sleep around 8) and she finally fell asleep, in my arms, walking around outside, at 11! We have always been pretty set on Madi sleeping in her own bed ever since she was just a couple of weeks old.  That has worked out great for us...until we tried camping. Let's just say Madi had a hard time settling down lying in the same bed as us.

As much as I'd like to say that the rest of the night was a breeze, it was not.  I tried bundling Madi up since it was going to get down into the high 40's, and I knew she wouldn't keep a blanket on her.  Well, she was uncomfortable and kept waking up. Not wanting to disturb the other campers, we climbed in the front seat of the truck, Madi fell asleep in my arms, and that is where we spent the rest of the night.

Surprisingly, when we woke up that morning, we were both in fairly good moods.  We had some yummy breakfast by the fire and just enjoyed each others company.  But the one thing that made the whole trip worth it was listening to the bishop and his wife talk about farting. Bruce and I felt right at home. Haha! I love our ward!

Sittin' on the back of the truck with our friends Landon and Levi.

 Even though we didn't get much sleep, I can't wait to go again!

What's Up In Our Hizzouse...

Well...really my parents hizzouse because we are still living with them. Haha. ;) Anyways, this is what's been going on in our lives.

Madi started preschool! She is going to the same preschool that me and my siblings went to.  Pretty cool.  She goes 2 days a week on Tuesday and Thursday for 2 1/2 hours. I put her in for several reasons. She didn't get really any interaction with other children.  There are not a whole lot of kids her age out here. The closest ones are 6 months apart and even then they are at least 30 minutes away. She is also the only grandchild on my side of the family.  So I wanted to give her an opportunity to be around other kids, to learn how to interact with them, and to share, etc. She also seemed to get so bored around the house. Preschool gives her something to do and somewhere to go where she can play with friends, do fun art projects, sing, have snacks, read books, and learn.

The first two weeks were a bit of an adjustment for her (she has not had a lot of time away from me). But she did better than I expected. She really seems to be loving it.  It is fun to see her eyes light up when I pull out a picture from her bag that she colored or painted at school. And I love it when she learns something new at school that I haven't taught her yet.  Like the sound an owl makes. Adorable.

Here are some pictures from her preschool family night at the skating rink.

They didn't have any sizes available that would fit her so we let her try on mine.  

Madi also started a Mommy & Me gymnastics class. She goes once a week for 45 minutes.  It is a good chance for her to get some exercise and spend some quality time with mommy. I'm still undecided whether or not I want this to be a long term sport for her, but I believe there is no better foundation to build her strength. I do know that I want her to try lots of things and find out what she really loves the most. If that's gymnastics then that's fine with me, but I'm definitely not going to push her to do it. 

Showing off her muscles in her cute little leotard.

Madi has also started doing chores.  Most of the time she likes being mommy's little helper (key word, most).  Some of her chores include: picking up her toys/cleaning up her messes, putting her dirty clothes away, helping me get the mail, and helping me cook dinner.  She loves to help me cook. She always says, "help me" when she wants to help me cook. And sometimes I sing the clean up song when we are picking up her toys and now she likes to do it too. She says,"een up, een up". It's fun to see her learning new words. 

Of course we have to sample it to make sure it's yummy. :)

Madi is definitely growing up way too fast.  She really loves to color, read books, and play outside. She also loves to sing and dance. She's got a great booty shake; I'll have to get that one on video.  She has recently learned how to lip-sync. She started doing in when we were in Old Navy. (Don't know where she learned this one....hehe). 

For the most part Madi is such a good girl.  She is starting to push her boundaries as I'm sure every child does.  But we love her so much and she brings a smile to my face every day! 

(p.s. if anyone who has some good advice on how they discipline their children slash a good book to read on the subject please let me know! We are on the search for the best method for our family)

As for me, Madi is pretty much my life.  Most of my time is spent on her, but I'm also busy being the class mom for her preschool and being a semi-permanent substitute in primary.  

Bruce is busy working on Zachary Douglass as well as doing some work for my dads business. He finally launched the new software for ZD and an article just came out about it in the Funeral Business Advisor magazine.  So traffic is starting to increase on his website. Yay! He is currently in Canada for a couple of days meeting with a company who may possibly want to workout some kind of business deal. So we are pretty excited about that too.  It has been a long hard road. It's not over yet, but at least we are starting to see some light.

The Lord blesses us so much and we just love life. 

The end.