Guess who's learning to play this?

Derek!
Derek started piano lessons this month. I haven't had too much experience with piano. I'm afraid my one semester of piano at BYU will not be enough to help him, but so far so good. He's very excited and seems to be understanding it so far. He's even started "composing" his own songs.

The Best Morning of the Year

Christmas at our house starts when everyone is awake. It's hard to spring out of bed when you've been asleep for 2 hours, but I tried. The kids pushed and pulled and finally got me going after 30 minutes of torture. We plugged in the lights and turned on the music and Christmas began. I love the excitement on kids' faces as they open their presents. I couldn't resist Snuggies for half price. My kids went crazy over this gift.

After opening presents, we ate our traditional breakfast of cinnamon rolls, bacon, scrambled eggs, and egg nog. Yum! Later we drove to my parents' house and continued the celebration...watch for a details in another post.

Christmas Eve

This was a very stress-free Christmas Eve. I finished most of my projects the week before and postponed my unfinished ones for the week after. The day was spent playing games with my kids, delivering neighborhood gifts, acting out the nativity scene, and eating Hawaiian Haystacks for dinner. It was wonderful.

The Nativity Cast (Some had to play two parts...we need more kids.)

Dave always has to add flare to things...in case you were wondering, he's King Herod. :)

The kids each opened a gift that night. Yep, jammies....surprise, surprise.

Dave and I stayed up until late watching "It's a Wonderful Life" and wrapping last minute gifts. (Okay, so he fell asleep early into the movie and I stayed up until 5 am wrapping gifts...that's a little more accurate.) I love Christmas Eve and the anticipation of the following morning!

Snow Day!!

The last school day before Christmas Break was cancelled due to snow. We received 2 feet of snow in two days!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MeRrY ChRisTmaS!
Love, The Brocks

For Laurel and Traci...

...And anyone else still checking this blog.
Here you go sisters....you asked and here are some updated pictures of Ryan.

Ryan 5 Months Old

Derek the Bobcat

Derek received his Bobcat award in Cub Scouts. He's been very excited to get his patch. We are very proud of the work he put into it. The tradition stands that when the scout pins his mother he is to give her a kiss and hug afterward. He was too embarrassed to do that in front of the crowd, so I grabbed him, dipped him, and gave him a big wet one on his cheek. Dave then grabbed him and did the same. Now he truly understands the meaning of embarrassed. Just doin' our job. :)