Merry Christmas from the Burts!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and Family!

Sorry we didn't send out cards this year. But as you can read from previous posts, we are busy with our sweet Emily who's 8, Abby who is 6, and Ryan who is 16 months. Greg is still job searching and we know God will be faithful to provide like he's done in the past. Stephanie still homeschools while keeping Ryan out of trouble! We are so happy to visit Stephanie's family (15 in all!) in northern CA for Christmas. But we get a double blessing because Greg's parents will drive up to visit us as well. We will also see Greg's grandmother and uncle and family too. It'll be a busy but fun trip!

May you have a very blessed and merry Christmas as we celebrate the Savior's birth!

Walking and Crafting!

Snowflakes! An easy craft made from arranging q-tips in a snowflake pattern.Next, drop huge globs of glue at the intersections- making sure the q-tips touch. And sprinkle glitter all over the glue. Watch out for the glitter. It makes a mess but the result is very cool, pretty, and worth it! This is a very easy craft that the girls really enjoyed!

The first real snow of the season! The girls enjoyed playing and Ryan can't wait for the day when he can run around and play in it too!

Well, here's my boy! He finally started walking. But God forbid he take his thumb out of his mouth so that he can balance better!! He's climbing on the fireplace (and oh, so proud!) and keeping me busy!

TAG! You're it!

I've been tagged by Nancy Mandl... Now you are it: Jen Troyer, Judy Lyman, Wendy Callaway, Alicia Dennis, and Rebekah Zeerip. Now you open your picture file, open the 5th file, open and post the 5th picture. Tag 5 of your friends. Here's my picture. This is my mother-in-law holding Ryan days after his birth.

By the way, Ryan just started walking this past week. Today was like a milestone for him because he walked all the way from the living room into the kitchen! His farthest walk yet!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

These are the Pilgrim cookies we made this week. The bottom is a striped shortbread cookie. It's topped with a chocolate dipped marshmallow. We used icing to draw on the buckle. Very easy, very fun, and very tasty! See the chocolate mouth!

Ryan's either yelling "Touch Down" or "Ta Da"!

Kenzie and Katie were great with Ryan.

We enjoyed a fun and family-filled day at my cousin Julie's house in Loveland. The kids have such a great time together. I am so happy to have relatives nearby with whom to celebrate the day! We ate all the usual thanksgiving dishes and the girls especially loved tasting some of the 6 pies we had! Chocolate cream was a hit!

Can you see the chocolate around their mouths??

Cheese!!

I know this is dark but here's Ryan rocking out to Bill's Garage Band. He really enjoyed the music!

We've Elved ourselves! Merry Christmas... a bit early, but hey, why not?

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Ryan's First...

Ryan really really needed a haircut. Yesterday, I took him to SportClips (because that's where the boys go!), sat him on my lap and he did really well getting his first haircut. Only at the end did he get a bit squirmy and I needed to pull out the sucker to distract him. I think it turned out pretty well.

Also this week, he's been taking a few first steps. They've been so random that I haven't been able to get the camera in time to record the momentous occasion. But I did get him on tape pushing his rocket car around and trying to keep up with it as he pushed it out ahead of him. It's pretty cute! Very soon, he'll be running around keeping up with his sisters!!

Catching up!!

First things first.... So long Marilyn Musgrave! The end of this political season means the end of Marilyn's term as Congresswoman. After 3 tries, the liberal bullies have pushed her out of office. This also means the end of Greg's job working as a Constituent Advocate, helping people on behalf of Marilyn. Please be in prayer that God will guide Greg as he initiates contacts and interviews and discovers where he's meant to be in this next season of our life.

Halloween 2008

Emily is a jester. Abby was a hula hula gal.

We thought Ryan would be a cute cow but the costume didn't fit. At that last minute, we dressed him as a cowboy- minus the irritating hat! They all got LOTS of candy for their troubles.

Emily lost her 2 top front teeth within 3 days! I have had the most fun trying to get her to say various things and listening to her lisp. "Say Christmas!" To which she'll reply "blah! I'm not falling for it, mom!"

Em also had to get glasses a couple weeks ago.

She LOVES them and they help her see better at church.

Here's Ryan playing a duet with Gretta Hansen.

Maybe they'll grow up to make beautiful music together!
Greg and Ryan enjoyed one of Emily's last soccer games this fall.

My two little girls are growing up.

I can't take a picture of them without them wanting to "strike a pose"!

Ryan's new past time is climbing into the dishwasher! He loves to put things in and take things out... Oh, to be young again and enjoy the simple things in life!

One day, he'll actually help put dishes in. Can't wait!

Another fun thing is to take pots and pans out and put them in and see how much noise a little boy can make! Can't wait for him to put these to work in the kitchen and make us some vittles!
Last but not least, we had the exciting opportunity to see Sarah Palin up close at a rally in Loveland. We waited in a line for almost 3 hours and barely made it in. At the last minute we were able to get VIP access and get up to the very front to see her. It was an incredible event- very fun!

This and That

I did something the other day with my girls that I used to do when I was a little girl. I would get together with my friend Sharon. She'd come to my house or I'd go to hers... we'd get into the cupboard and look for any ingredients we could reach. A little of This and That. Flour, sugar, butter, salt. We'd throw it all into a bowl, mix it up, stick in in a pan and bake. Most of the time it turned out hard as a rock. Usually tasted terrible, but it was so much fun!

So the other day the girls were wanting to bake something. I wasn't sure what if I had the ingredients to make something specific... so I thought it would be fun to just add various ingredients- without following a recipe. I encouraged or steered the girls away from adding things like ketchup and pepper... and we came up with quite a tasty cookie! Emily dutifully wrote down the measurements as we poured in our ingredients (just in case it was edible!). We came up with these little chocolate, peanut butter cookies rolled in coconut. They were yummy! Maybe next time I'll let them try out whatever ingredients they fancy and see what it would taste like... but I was in the mood for a cookie! :) It was fun to make a memory in the kitchen with my girls who are growning up too quickly!

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Alas, A New Blog Entry! It'll be long... so sit down and relax!

It's been a busy few weeks. So I'll try to catch you up!

The beginning of August we went to California to visit Greg's family. Greg and I were able to go away for a couple of days to Catalina Island and leave the kids with the grandparents. We had a wonderful time away.

The kids enjoyed getting to know their grandparents too. It was special for them to have that time with them. They haven't spent much too time with their cousins, Christian and Conner, so were very happy to play with them as well. The kids had a blast at the beach. I think they could get used to riding the boogie board and jumping the waves!

Then we all went camping on the beach by Malibu. We celebrated Ryan's birthday there. The biggest highlight was going to the big D! Disneyland!! The girls were in awe of the rides, all the people, and Mickey Mouse! It was great fun!

Now is the start of our busy birthday season! On the 22nd of August, we celebrated Ryan's first birthday. The 30th was mine and Greg's 11th anniversary.
September 1st was Emily's 8th birthday. It's hard to believe that she is so grown up. She was looking for makeup yesterday to put on! What's next? She is a sweet young lady and loves God and her sister and brother. Since her birthday was on Labor Day we were able to have a day full of fun. We started the morning by surprising her with decorations in her room! She awoke to streamers on the ceiling. Then she had a special breakfast of belgian waffles. Next was a girl day with mom and the girls going out to see the American Girl movie, Kit Kittredge. And she requested lasagne for dinner. So it was quite the fun day! This year she is playing soccer for the first time. She had her 2nd game today. She is enjoying running around and playing.

We started homeschool the week of Labor day. It was a slow start but I think we are getting in the swing of things. On September 8th, the girls started the 1-day a week program at Rocky Mountain Homeschool Academy. Here they are posing for their 1st day of school shots. Aren't my girls pretty!

Abby wanted to pose as though she was walking out the door! She is the "strike a pose" girl!

I can't leave out Ryan. He is crawling everywhere. He just learned how to climb the stairs. Oh my! I can't walk up the stairs carrying him. He insists on getting down and climbing up himself. And I caught him climbing up on the fire place hearth. Gotta watch him closely come winter! And he loves to crawl under the table and chairs, climbing over the rungs. The other evening, he sat down there for at least 10 minutes, just laughing and enjoying the view from under the table! He also enjoys playing with a new birthday toy, a Little Einstein's Rocket! It makes lots of noise!!

Finally, today we celebrated Abby's birthday with a small party. In light of our recent trip to Disneyland, she wanted a Minnie Mouse themed party. She wore her Minnie mouse ears and we had some ears for her 5 guests too. I attempted something I have never done before. I made a Minnie Mouse cake! It was quite a feat, I tell you! I was nervous it wouldn't turn out. But, aside from Minnie looking like she was crying, because the icing was dripping, I think it turned out well, if I do say so myself. Here it is...

There you have it. A longwinded, blundering update. This next week, we'll wind up the birthdays with Abby's and Greg's on the 17th, and mine on Friday, the 19th. September is an expensive month. And it's only 3 months till Christmas... gotta start saving.

Ryan is one today!

Seems like only yesterday you were this little bundle of blue. So sweet and so very tiny, my tiniest baby of all. With all that black hair that would eventually fall out and make you bald and fuzzy.
Then you grew, as did all the other care group babies. Your new little friends: Rebecca, Gretta, and Owen. It'll be fun to watch you grow bigger with your buddies!
You are blessed to have such loving and adoring sisters. Emily and Abby love to play with you and report your every movement and sound. "Look mommy, he pulled himself up!" "Mom, he just said 'dat'!"
Look at your light brown hair, in need of a hair cut and hair product! You have grown into such a handsome and happy boy! You are crawling all over, pulling up on furniture, and soon you'll be tottling all over. We love having you, little boy, in our family!

We were happy to celebrate your 1st birthday last week at the beach in CA with your cousins, Christian and Conner. Aunt Carrie, Uncle Craig, Papa, and Grandma were there too. We had a fun time camping at the beach.

Happy Birthday, dear Ryan, Happy 1st birthday to you!!

With Love from your mom and dad