I ought to be ashamed of myself, and I am.  I knew I was not the most efficient at blogging, but I even surprised myself at how truly bad I am.  I've been sitting at the computer for about 6 hours now, just trying to go through all the pictures.  I'm pretty sure I might be delirious.  I'd like to say that I am committed to being much better about it from now on, but let's face it....that would be a lie.

I realize this is the only way a lot of you keep up on us, so you can slap me next time you see me.  Which probably won't be for a long time, so I am not really that scared.

The boys make so many messes, but they do like to always "help" clean up, which is never very helpful.

The boys like to pound (loudly) on the piano, using their rear ends.

This was super duper cute.  They got the garbage can (of course they dragged it over to the carpeted area) and dumped the whole thing out.  They had a real party throwing the garbage everywhere. I caught Holden just as he was dragging the really nasty garbage can over to dump on the carpet.

The boys were playing in the rain, and having such a great time!!!

 So, our family pictures happened---and it was pure torture.
 

These are our Halloween costumes.  Porter=Garfield, Kyah=Jasmine the Bride, Brian=Prince, Tami=Snow White, Brevan=Grumpy, Holden=Dopey.  I love dressing up so much, I think it is so fun!

So, this is our awesome "GEEK FAMILY PORTRAIT"!!  We are all so photogenic, it is amazing.

Let me start off by saying, this was not one of my better days.  I was up brushing my teeth, then I grabbed the floss and headed downstairs, only to find this disaster.  While I was up brushing (what is left of my teeth), the boys went to Bri's nightstand and grabbed the bottle of Eucerine Cream and made off with it. This is what I saw......

They conveniently drove a toy car over, and over, and over the big 1/2 inch deep pile of Eucerine Cream, and then proceeded to drive the car over the entire couch.  Which left pretty little tire tracks all over the whole couch.  

They filled up 2 shoes with the cream.  They also liberally distributed cream all over the carpet, windows, bar stools, and counter.  This was a very proud moment for me as a mother.

They are just so smart, they used one of Kyah's toy spoons to scoop it all out.  That's my boys!!

It only took me 3 hours to clean up a mess they made in about 2 minutes.

Porter pre braces removal.

Post removal!

Brevan loves to help me cook...they all do actually.

 They boys love to get out all of my bowls and walk on top of them or use them as a stool to reach up and get into everything.  I don't like that part one bit.

She just looks cute, so I threw this one in.

 So, on Oct. 16 Holden turned 2!!!  This was at his little birthday party, and I love these pictures--check out the scary progression......

He seems okay, but slightly nervous.  The cake/fire is pretty far away.

The cake is scooted a little closer, and he is seeming to have slightly more anxiety.

Now, he looks terrified!!  Ha, I love it!!

The big 2!!

He appears to be slightly skeptical of his Doc. His doctor seems to have a sneaky look on his face actually, maybe Holden is on to something.

Look at these tweety birds.  We have this huge tree in our backyard, and occasionally a whole 20 foot branch will just break off.  One day one fell and the kids came running, totally freaked out.  So, thanks to Dayne Raff and Bri, all the branches on our side are now gone!!  What a relief. 

My nephew Tate was getting home from his mission to Bangkok Thailand, and we were there to greet him.

At the airport.

Our family (minus Porter) with Tate.

Brevan feeding Holden, soooo cute!

See, he is "helping" again.  He got out his vacuum cleaner and everything.

I had most of it cleaned up by the time I remembered to take a picture.  But, they decided to go into the food storage and throw all my jars (glass of course) of spaghetti and alfredo sauce onto the floor.  There was broken glass and sauce everywhere.  They are aging me at a pretty fast pace.

 The kiddos and their loot from Trick-or-Treating.

Yet, another mess.  They love getting into my purse.  This time they unwrapped every "bribe" sucker (I pull them out at stores, doctors offices, etc.), then they just plopped them on the carpet, but not before they took a lick from every one.  There was the perfect amount of moisture to make them stick nicely to the carpet.

 This year Bri and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.  Bri is the most amazing person. I love and respect him so much. I am so proud to be his wife. He has such integrity and character. There is a purity about him that is so hard to find, but he definitely has it. He is the best father and such a hard worker. His boyish charm is irresistible to me! I adore EVERYTHING about him. He is one in a zillion and I am so glad he chose me!

We kept trying to get a good picture of us.  But between the kids fighting over who got to take the picture, and the little boys trying to come between us, it didn't really work out that well.  Notice their little heads bobbing up at the bottom of every picture!!

The kids writing their letters to Santa.

 We celebrated Thanksgiving a little early with the Condie side.

Brandon, Garth, Bri

Nicole, Tami, Rachel   

               I look like a total shrimp between them!!!  I think I might be a midget.

My 4 guys!

 Every picture I was taking that Brian was in, there were orbs.  It was seriously really weird.  So, this is what happened next....

Bri giving a pretend orb bunny ears.

Both of us pointing in every direction, hoping to actually be pointing at one...no luck though.

Thanksgiving up in Idaho with the McCuistion side.

We ate our Thanksgiving Dinner that night at Micky Dees.

 Every year, the kids each decorate an ornament to hang on the tree with their pictures in them.  Here is 2011's creative offerings.

Porter

Brevan

Holden

Kyah

Their completed ornaments!

 I was ordering Kyah a Christmas present I finally found online.  While I was doing this, I heard a strange slopping sound.  I went into the next room to find the boys completely enjoying themselves.  They had plugged the sink, turned on the water, and created a nice little swimming pool in the bathroom.  The slopping sound turned out to be their sopping wet clothes hitting the water in the overflowing sink, every time they did a belly flop in it.  It made quite a nice waterfall over the side of the counter top and onto the floor.  Fortunately they did not have much time, and there was only about an inch of water all over the floor.  The unfortunate news is the item I had bought for Kyah fell through.  They sent me an email later saying it was sold out and they would credit me back.  That's enough to make you mad!    

They found this chair, dragged it from it's resting place, and used it to climb up to reach the sink.

Trying to clean up.

Grandpa and Grandma Gillen with Kyah

Kyah at her Cheer Recital

 I don't know if I have mentioned this before or not, but my boys are climbers.  It is really terrible.  Anyway, the day after Thanksgiving we were at Grandma's house.  They boys decided to climb up a bar stool and get into Grandma's pill container.  They just gobbled down some of the pretty blue and yellow pills.  Which turned out the be high blood pressure and high blood sugar medication.  We did not know who ate what, other than the one I saw go down the hatch and into Holden's belly (that was a blood pressure one).  Brevan ended up barfing after he took a bite of a garlic pill, so we thought he would be okay.  But we still had to take them in to Primary Children's for a luxurious night's stay.  The accommodations were just wonderful.  I loved not having my toothbrush, floss, carmex, a brush, deodorant, jammies, etc, etc, etc...We did meet our $6000 deductible though, that is a bonus.

This was the sweet little bed Bri and I got to sleep in that night. Good thing we like to spoon!!!! There was an awesome 4-5 inch gap I was hanging in all night. We pushed a chair up to the other edge so Bri wouldn't fall off! Good times!

Love those kids!

Kyah and I went and saw The Nutcracker.

Brevan loves to get his hair cut!

Holden does NOT love to get his hair cut.  Don't you think he looks like he is wearing one of those huge bibs they wear in old cartoons?

His smile cracks me up!

Check out Holden's right eyebrow.  He got a marker and he happened to perfectly color his eyebrow green, no mirror or anything!!

Our little Utes!

I failed to mention earlier, that in Sept. Brevan had to get 4 caps and 2 cavities filled.  I took pictures on my phone, but I have no clue how to get them off.  Anyway....at about 10 pm the night before Christmas Eve one of them came off.  So, we got to make an emergency visit to the dentist on Christmas Eve morning.

 Christmas Eve 2011 at the my parents house.

The funny thing about this picture is we had not even eaten yet!!!  Bri, Tate, Cael.

Jen, Blake, Glen, Kathy

Cade, Tami, Breaunna, Porter

Matt and Grandma

Brett, Jinni, Grandpa

 

Most of the Grandkids on the Gillen side

The annual kiss.  We don't need no stinking mistletoe!!

A compilation of Bri's gifts from one and all.

 We like to show our Utah pride...we're making U's if you can't tell.

It looks like we are playing a game of Twister, but we really are just relaxing uncomfortably on the couch.

 My life is total chaos all the time it seems.  This was a crazy 15 minutes I am about to tell you about.  We head off to church and on the way in Brevan barfs.  Bri goes back home with him to get him cleaned up.  Meanwhile in sacrament meeting, all heck is breaking loose.  Holden is running around all the chairs set up in the back with the loudest, biggest, snow boots in the world.  (His Sunday shoes were of course lost so he had to go to church in the clunky boots.)  When he gets near us, he makes a dive and slides on his belly all the way to us.  Porter jumps out of his seat, across the top of me, bends half way over, throws his arms out to his sides-parallel to the floor, and says "safe"!  All the while Kyah is moaning and belly aching that her tooth is loose and it is going to fall out.  Holden is now going for a second round, slides into home, and Porter again jumps up and says "safe"!  It is now time to take the sacrament and Bri makes it back during this time.  After the sacrament, I take Kyah to the bathroom and yank her 1st tooth!

 After we got home from church we took some pictures, so we could remember this day for always!

The tooth is in my hand, if you can't see it, I'm pointing at it, it is really small and white, see it yet?

Kyah writing her note to the Tooth Fairy.

Her tooth is in the tooth pillow, along with her letter.

The kids love to slide down the stairs together!!  Porter is buried in there somewhere!

Brevan decided to paint his finger nails in this pretty blue shade.  While he was at it he painted the toilet, the seat cover, the rugs, etc.

 I ordered our trip to Disneyland, and they sent us these "pack backs" as the boys call them.

 Bri had another kidney stone in his kideny that was too big to pass, so he had to go get taken care of...

He looks a little too happy if you ask me.

Now he looks sad.

While entertaining the staff at the hospital, I made them take a break for this picture.

This was Bri after the surgery.  In recovery he was totally out of it.

 When he came to, our conversation went like this.....
Bri: What time is it?
Tami: 8:50
Bri: Did he get it?
Tami:  Yep, he could not see any pieces left.
Bri:  Did I poop on the table?
Tami:  Nope, I don't think so.
Bri: What time is it?
Tami: 8:52
Bri: Did he get it?
Tami:  Yep, he could not see any pieces left.
Bri:  Did I poop on the table?
Tami: Nope, I don't think so.
Bri: What time is it?
Tami: 8:55
Bri: Did he get it?
Tami:  Yep, he could not see any pieces left. 
Bri:  Did I poop on the table?
Tami: If you pooped on the table, he didn't mention it.  Now, go back to sleep.  You've asked me the same 3 questions 3 times in the last 5 minutes!!  (It was really beginning to annoy me.)
 He did go back to sleep, but I got to thinking I could have really had some fun with some of my answers.....

Holden has had problems with his legs being bowed, so he has had to get checked to make sure everything is fine.  This is him on getting the x-ray.

His legs are improving, so we are good to go on that now!

I am a prisoner in my own home, and I hate it.  Everything has to be locked.  This day I had to put a lock on the fridge.  I don't have any chairs to sit on, they have to be kept up or the boys will climb.  My purse has to be locked up, every door has a lock on it so the boys can't get in.  Every cupboard, drawer, etc has to have a lock on it.  As you can see from the picture, they use toys to climb up on to get what they want.  It makes me crazy.  They are so naughty all the time.... 

He was so mad when he discovered the lock....heee, heee, I liked it!

This is me soooo sad that I have to go in for a second bone graft, the one I had in August ended up not taking so I had to do it again.  Want to know why???  Because I am unlucky.

The boys unloaded all the toys from the toy box, and put them on the couch.

 So this is just really quite ridiculous, but it is the cold hard facts.  About 2 days after I had the bone graft, a tooth on the opposite side of my mouth started becoming really sensitive to hot and cold.  It is a tooth I have already had a root canal in.  After about 4 days I could hardly stand it.  Imagine being on a liquid diet (from the bone graft) and not being able to eat anything that is hot or cold.  Everything had to be body temperature that I injested.  So, I would wait for my soup to get cold, and I would heat up water, juice, smoothies, etc in the microwave to reach body temp.  It was ugly.  Being on a liquid diet is bad, but this made it 10 times worse!!  (Remember last time I had the bone graft a different root canal went bad and I had to have an apicoectomy which meant stitches in both sides of my mouth at the same time?)  I'm a bad luck girl.  Come to find out, they missed a canal in the original root canal and that is why this one went bad.  Wanting to strangle someone came to mind regularly. 

Me getting all fixed up at the endodontist.

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!  I love it ladies and gentlemen!!!  It is the best day of the entire year.  I try to stretch it out for the whole month actually!!!

 I asked for the same thing I ask for every year, and that is letters from my family.  I must be a good girl, because I got them!!!

I put this one in just because they drive me bananas, and it seemed to fit.  They look all sweet and innocent, but they are far from it.

 The kids have been into doing head stands lately.

I had to throw this one in, simply because of the crazy took on Holden's face!!  That is hilarious!

Normal people

 Renee and Missy took me out for my birthday.

Abnormal person

 Kyah celebrated her 7th birthday!!!  I can't believe how time flies!!  She wanted a "pajama party", so that is what we had.

Bri helping paint the girl's nails.

Ariel in her pjs on her cake.

They decorated their own nightgowns.

I had them do sad faces because the party was over.  (It was 2 hours of hysteria, but we survived it!)

Kyah wanted Jasmine and Aladdin for her birthday, and she got it.

Some of Holden's girl cousins dressed him up in this get up!!

Porter playing basketball.

Kyah loves Spaghetti Factory, so we took her there for her birthday!!

Holden got down like Cinderella and started cleaning the floor where he spilled.  It was totally filthy, but we couldn't stop him!!

Kyah and I have the only Feb. birthdays in the extended family, so we get to celebrate together at the family party!!!  The people in our family are TERRIBLE, (and I do mean terrible) singers, but we sure love them!!!