Missing Elder Hess

One of our biggest highlights on Christmas was talking to Jake, he got to call home at 5:00, and we were all way excited! He sounded sooo good, and it was soooo good to hear his voice. We all went down to Hess Pumice to use the conference call thingy, so there was Jake on the phone in Peru, Marvin and Sandra in New York, Mike,Cecilia and Tatum in Arizona, and Hailee and Travis in St. Anthony. Wow isn't technology great. It was so fun to listen , everybody we were missing on Christmas we got to hear from. Bridge and Bryn were really quite and shy at first, I was really surprised they were so excited but after a while they started talking when Jake would ask them question and talk to them. And then when we started to wind things up they wanted to sing called to serve for him and then Brynlee had to sing Joy to the World(her new favorite song)so it was great. Jake is an amazing missionary, he would never say that, but by reading his letters and emails you can just feel his spirit and his love for the Lord and for the people of Peru, I can't imagine being away from home at Christmas or even for 2 years but he is always saying well I miss you guys(which he just means the kids)but I wouldn't trade this experience for anything, and I can't believe how fast its going. And I'm thinking fast yeah right. But he has strenghtend my testimony so much by his example and his testimony that he shares with us every Monday when we get his email, I look forward to reading them and feeling his love for this wonderful gospel, and how grateful he is to be sharing it, and man his Spanish is awesome!

So just in thinking about Jake I had to post this video! Bridger still watches it quite often and says I sure wish Jake would come home soon!

We love you Elder Hess

Christmas Morning

What a morning, it was so fun, both Bridger and Brynlee are at such fun ages, some days I don't want them to get bigger. But thank heaven my kids aren't early risers, me and Clint went to bed about 2:30 (yeah we had a little assembly required) so when we woke up and it was 8:00, we ran in a woke up the kids! Bridger was fine to wake up he knew what was going on, but Brynlee was whiny till we walked into the front room and she seem her princess tent and a baby in a stroller then she woke right up!

Christmas breakfast yuummm! This is one family tradition we never want to end, I was a little worried this year not having grandma Sandra home, but everybody helped and it turned out great! It still wasn't the same without them there but we are thankful for their desire to serve the Lord,and we are feeling the blessings back home because of their service, and we know we will have many more wonderful Christmas's with them again.

Everybody just lounging, cause their so full from breakfast. The best is Grandpa Mike C. sound asleep with baby Keathen, he was only 6 days old, and so cute!
I thought all the shoes by the front door was pretty funny, there were some by the back door too, its a good thing we could of had quite the pile!

Christmas Eve Choas

We had a great Christmas Eve, we spent most the day just getting things ready and running around neighbor and friend gifts it was a lot of fun to do together and it help change the kids mind a little from gimme gimme to giving. Bridger said, mom this is great, I said what is great, he goes ya know when they open the door and they smile and are excited to see me and because we brought them something! I said yep its the Christmas spirit it does feel good. Then he sat there thinking for awhile, while we drove back home, and he said well why doesn't Santa stay and watch us open our presents, we could make him so happy cause we would love everything he gave us, I just said yeah that would be fun but he is pretty busy, then he tells me I know lets film it and send it to him with a thank you card! I just said that sounds great.

Well later that night we went out to grandma Julie's were everybody comes to visit and eat lots of yummy finger foods and of coarse open

new p.j.'s

Fun in the snow!

I know, I know its about time I come back to the blogging world, but we've been without Internet for 3 weeks! So now its back I have no excuse but I do have a lot to share! Anywhoo this was after our first snow storm in Malad and Bridger couldn't wait to go out and play, he loves it, he really has no concept of being cold.

We tried to build a snowman but the snow was way to fluffy, so Bridger tried to pull Brynlee around on the sled, we still had alot of fun. Oh yeah but as we were trying to build a snowman Bridger was around the corner from me and he was so excited, he said mom look the yellow snow sticks together! (Remember we have 4 kitty's outside) Yeah way gross, so we had to have the talk about don't touch or eat the yellow snow!