Christmas News Letter

Andrew 5 McCall 10 months Jackson 2 1/2

Merry Christmas 2007

Hosting two Christmas dinners has put me behind this year with getting Christmas cards out. I am going to be a loser and post ours on the blog!

Brook - This year has brought us a new baby girl, a new home, and lots of fun memories. We added a new addition to the family at the beginning of the year. McCall May Blad was born February 25. We feel very blessed to have three beautiful healthy children that the Lord has intrusted us with. McCall has brought some peace and harmony to our two rambunctious boys. They both love her and treat her well. In May I took up the sport of dirt biking with Dustin. We went on quite a few camping and day trips this summer with the bikes and our couple friends. We loaded up the bikes in July for a Blad family reunion and spent the week in Southern Utah riding with Dustin’s brothers. In September Dustin hit the year mark for his business BlueRockIT. He is as busy as ever and things have been going very well. In October we moved yet again and yet again we have stayed in the same ward. We have a wonderful ward with great friends. I had a small break from callings after McCall was born and now I am the Activity day leader for the 10-11 yr olds. I am loving this calling, the girls are great and we have a whole bunch of them. I am enjoying my long days with all three kids at home and I am counting down the days until Andrew starts kindergarten!

Dustin - This has been a very eventful year for us. We welcomed a new bundle of joy into our lives! McCall has brought great happiness to my life seeing her grow these last few months into a happy little crawler! Andrew and I went on a couple camping trips together; Father’s and Sons and a trip down to southern Nevada. It is in southern Nevada that we found his new passion of riding 4-wheelers! Jackson is a true daddy's boy. He is a very loving and compassionate boy who is always greeting his dad with hugs, loves, and smiles. I have learned to appreciate all of my children in their own special way. I have been Assistant Scout Master for over the last year. It has been filled with lots of cold camping trips with the scouts. This summer I was able to break out of work and enjoy dirt bike riding with good friends on my new Honda CRF 250X. Brook and I plan on doing plenty of riding next summer as McCall will be older and Andrew will be able to ride something on his own. As I reflect on this last year I think adversity brings forth blessings. As I have worked hard to grow my business I have learned a great deal and have been blessed tremendously as I have stayed close with the Lord. I have learned to place trust in him when all things seem to fail. I am so grateful for a healthy family and a roof over our heads!

Christmas Dinner

We had our 5th annual Christmas dinner with the Bledsoe's and Gerratt's this weekend. We had a wonderful meal and great entertainment by the kids.


Aren't they dang cute?

Orange! What was he thinking!

We exchanged gifts and chatted. We look forward to this get together every year.

Every year the number of people increases! We're going to have to get a wider lens soon!

Ready For Christmas?

Jackson


What would you like for Christmas?
Andrew - "A ball"

We are officially ready for Christmas. The boys saw santa reluctantly at the ward Christmas party anxious to receive their candy cane from him. Andrew asked for a ball and Jackson just shyly sucked his finger.
This year the boys are into Hot Wheels. For Christmas we bought a few hot wheel cars and Dustin found some used race car games for the X-Box. Andrew has become quite the X-Box player. He plays X-Box during quiet time and when mommy goes out for the night I'll find all three boys with a controller in their hands!

Dustin and I gave each other a house in October for Christmas! We will spent the holiday enjoying it as we are staying in town this year. The day after Christmas we will head out for Priest Lake at the tip of Idaho. Friends of ours have cabins up there that are actually huge full sized fully equipped homes.

Winter Time in Boise

The cold weather has begun. Here is a great recipe for hot cocoa that I tried out tonight. It is way better than anything you can buy because it has no hydrogenated oils or artificial flavoring.

Hot Cocoa
1 1/2 C baking cocoa
3 Cups powdered sugar
5 Cups Powdered milk

or reduce sugar by 1/2 cup and add 12 candy canes crushed in food processor

For other great recipes check out my web links to the right.

Andrew has been asking me a lot of questions about santa clause. At school they made a 25 chain link count down till Christmas and Andrew asked it Santa would see it when he came to our house. He is trying hard to get along with Jackson so santa won't skip us this year!

McCall Blad

McCall is still so small and dang cute. She is nine months old and loves to smile. Her new thing is to stick out her tongue rubbing it on her gums. She started army crawling a few weeks ago and now gets into the kids playing area. Andrew will say, "mom, she is ruining my train track, get her off."

Thanksgiving at the Brown's

Andrew has had a countdown of the days till we go to Grangeville for Thanksgiving. Everyday he says, "only four more days till we go," this stared with six.

We ate our traditional homeny casserole and honey glazed ham that mom brought. Lance mashed the potatoes as he does every year. Brandy made mom's yummy homemade crossant rolls. Between Cynthia, mom, Brandy and I we had 13 pies to eat in 3 days! We almost pulled it off.

There was so much snow that the kids spent most of the time sledding out Brandy's backyard. The kids made a nice track with a jump. Amazingly no one was hurt. Andrew did come in once because he had gone out with no socks on and snow got down in his boot! The older kids spent the night out in the half court size gym that the Brown's built for their kids two years ago. Brandy made us work out the next morning in the gym to work off all those pies.

We all had a great time.
Thank you Joel and Brandy Brown!

Weekend in McCall

November 9, 2007

We started our weekend in McCall thanks to Justin and Rebecca Bledsoe. Friends of my parents own the Timber Crest Resort where Rebecca signed up for a free nights stay. We were invited to accompany them along with the Gerratts. We had a blast playing a murder mystery game, sitting in the hot tub, and strolling around downtown McCall.
My parents took the boys for the weekend so our stay was much more relaxing. McCall did great and got along well with Shaydon (3 months) and Trey (2 yrs).
Thank you Bledsoes!