2011 in Review

2011 was another crazy year for our family with plenty of changes and fun times. Luckily the stress of a job change and a new baby weren't in the mix this year; however, we did move again...this time back to our house in Cedar City. We love having our own place back that we can make into a home our family can enjoy for the next few years. The kids have responded really well, getting back into a much better routine and just loving the extra room to run around and play. Here are some family pictures from October 2011.

The kids are growing up so fast and we are trying to enjoy every minute of them!

A few highlights from 2011:

Hoyt has grown tremendously in 2011. He turned 1 in May, then 18 months in November and started Nursery!

Lexie turned 3 in August; she enjoys learning everything, can now write her name, and is starting to figure out how to read.

Angie turned 30 in July and loves staying home where she is kept on her toes by both kids every day.

Bryan now works from home full-time and goes up north once a month to work in his office.

Bryan and Angie celebrated 5 years of marriage in August and were able to go on a much-needed Anniversary trip to San Diego! We teach a CTR 6 class in primary together.

We have been so blessed in 2011 and thanks to Bryan's awesome job, have met a lot of our financial goals. We have built our 6-8 month emergency fund, fully-funded our HSA, started a Roth IRA, and one of the biggest accomplishments was paying off Bryan's student loan making us debt free except for the house--and that's next! We were also able to purchase something I've been wanting for a long time. Here is my main Christmas gift that we got about a month early...a digital piano! I'm so excited to start playing again and the kids are excited too!

Here's to another fantastic year in 2012!

Christmas 2011

This year we were excited to have Christmas Eve & morning in our own home. Everything was ready for the big day so Friday I cleaned the house so Saturday we could just relax and enjoy. For dinner we had ham and potatoes and I even made some pumpkin pie. We also got a special treat--some sparkling grape juice which Lexie wasn't so sure of, but Hoyt kept asking for more.

After dinner we read the bible account of the birth of Christ and watched "Joy to the World" which has songs by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and shows the story of the First Christmas. We then put all the Christmas presents under the tree.

Lexie really wanted to make cookies for Santa so we made chocolate chip cookies and put them on our "Cookies for Santa" plate (thanks Kirsten). She was super excited! I love having little kids because they were in bed asleep by 9:00.

Here is our house Christmas morning...

I woke up at 7:30 and took a shower and about 8:00 Hoyt woke up and I woke up Lexie so we would have enough time to open gifts and get ready to go to church. The kids were way excited about their Santa gifts. Lexie has been talking about her "Pink Princess Laptop" for months and Hoyt got a "Talk & Teach Turtle". Santa was really nice and the kids loved their gifts.

Here they are playing with their new toys.

Lexie was also excited to get a candy cane full of candy in her stocking. Here are the kids with their loot from their stockings.

Hoyt enjoyed getting some fun new toys. Books to read and new cars!

He was especially fascinated with this big present which ended up being more Mega Bloks which has been one of his favorite things to play with recently.

Lexie had fun opening presents. Christmas books from her friend Britton, and princess hair accessories from Hoyt.

Grandpa & Grandma Lyman gave the kids this dog to bounce on and they have had fun with him.

Lexie was excited to get all 3 Toy Story movies! And she had fun taking pictures of everyone with her new camera.

Hoyt's race track was a hit with both kids!

Here are a couple videos we took. I missed when Lexie first got to her laptop, but she was still waking up so the reaction was pretty subdued. Hoyt was having a great time with his new toys.

I think I spoiled Bryan more than the kids this year, but he deserves a little spoiling. One of his favorite things I got for him was a Mythbusters t-shirt and matching mugs. That is by far his favorite show so he was excited. He also likes to collect hardback books from his favorite authors so I got him the full hardback set of Fablehaven.

We both got new slippers which are so nice and comfy!

We both got DVDs of TV series we enjoy. Bryan got "The King of Queens" and I got "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman".

I love this picture with my stocking because David Archuleta was in the background singing. That concert was awesome when we went live last year, and I enjoyed watching it on DVD this year! I was also excited to get a new baking set with nice pans and a cooling rack which I haven't even had since I've been married.

This picture of the kids eating breakfast was the last picture I took on Christmas and for the rest of the week. We should have gotten pictures before church, but we had to hurry out the door to be on time. I absolutely loved going to church on Christmas! I've heard other people say this, but I wish we could go celebrate Christ and take the sacrament every Christmas Day!

After we got home from church, we finished packing up and headed to spend a few days with my family. I wish I would have gotten pictures of the kids opening presents from my parents. Hoyt got a new truck with cars and Lexie got a trunk of dress-ups which she loves and wears most of the time now! We had fun visiting with everyone and going to my Grandma Hoyt's house Christmas evening and seeing all the family. The kids had fun playing for a few days and we headed back home on Tuesday. I'm really excited to be able to have Christmas as our little family, and I enjoy being able to spend time with the rest of the family during the holidays as well.

Merry Christmas 2011 from the Lymans!

Tis the Season

Warning...LONG post with lots of pictures ahead. We had a fun December this year! I was happy to get my Christmas shopping mostly done by Thanksgiving so we could just focus on enjoying the holiday season as a family. The first week of December we got a pretty good snowstorm and had about 8 -10 inches so Lexie wanted to get bundled and play in the snow.

They were out there for an hour and got the bottom 2 layers of a snowman done, but then it got too cold and after that day it started warming up again so the snowman didn't quite get finished.

The Christmas tree was a challenge this year with Hoyt and we could only have decorations on the top half or he would pull them off. I only got this one picture of the kids decorating the tree.

But I did get some video of the kids dancing to Christmas music. It was so cute and we did this several times during December.

I took a few pictures the day after we decorated the tree. The kids were excited about all the Christmas decorations, especially the tree!

Also the first week of December, Lexie wanted to send a letter to Santa. I wrote the letter and she asked for a pink laptop and a candy cane with candy inside for her stocking. She also asked Santa to bring Hoyt a toy he would like. I took a picture of her mailing the letter even though she didn't want me to take a picture of her with the letter. The next pictures are of Lexie singing with the primary at the ward Christmas party. She was so excited they let the older nursery kids going into primary next year sing with the primary.

This shows how huge our primary is and this is not even close to the full primary because not everyone came to the ward party. We have 3 nursery classes with around 20 kids in each!

This is just a random picture from December, but it is so cute! Hoyt loves to climb in the dryer when I am doing laundry and Lexie climbed in with him so I decided to snap a picture. Love these silly kids!

One weekend in December we decided to go to St. George and have some fun. We decided to eat at one of our favorite places...Olive Garden! We all enjoyed a fantastic meal!

Next we went to the St. George Temple to see the Christmas lights. Of course it isn't Temple Square, but it was decent weather and just right for our kids. Lexie wanted to get a picture with Jesus in the visitor's center.

I love this temple and it looked awesome with all the lights!

Here are the kids looking at the nativity. The reason for the season!

Lexie wanted to get a picture with me on the temple steps, and this is the best I could get of Bryan and the kids.

After the temple we went to the mall so I could grab a few things and Lexie got to see Santa. We didn't get pictures because you couldn't take your own, and professional pictures were way too expensive, but it was so fun to watch her meet him and sit on his lap. At first she liked seeing him but said she was too scared to go meet him. Bryan gave her a pep talk and she finally decided to do it, but by that time there was a line so we had to wait for a while. She was so cute talking to Santa and he was one of the best I have seen. So overall it was a fun little outing for our family!

I was determined this year to make to the Melody Miss program in Orderville. This was Mrs. Lamb's 43rd year to do Melody Misses and my mom, Mickell, Jodi, Jen and Pete were all involved so I was determined to make it over! They did not disappoint and it was a really great performance that brought back a lot of memories from the years I spent in Melody Misses.

I love Mrs. Lamb! She is one of the best ladies I have ever known and I'm so grateful for the years she was my teacher and she has been such a great friend to me and my family through the years. She is also my awesome friend Amy's Grandma. I was so glad I was able to talk to her and give her a hug after the performance.

My Mom also put tons of work into making the program a success and Pete helped out on some songs on the keyboard.

Jen did a great job on her solo, and Mickell and Jodi did a pretty duet. I'm glad I got to go!

The Monday before Christmas I needed a quick idea for an activity so we bought a gingerbread house kit to decorate. Hoyt was ready for bed soon after we started so we put him to bed.

Lexie had fun helping put candy on...and eating the candy. Here she is with the finished product.

I'm not much of an artist so this wasn't the best, but Lexie had fun and that's all that mattered.

It was a great month full of fun and hyper kids. We enjoyed watching some of our favorite Christmas movies like Muppet Christmas Carol, The First Christmas, Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer, Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Lexie's favorite this year was Frosty the Snowman. We had fun dancing to Christmas music, looking at Christmas lights, and reading Christmas stories. And Veggie Tales taught Lexie the true meaning of Christmas. In her own words she would say "Christmas isn't about toys, it's about Jesus".