Great Grandma Meanea with Brett.


Great Grandma Meanea watching Ellie play with
the heat pad.


Great Grandpa Meanea loving Ellie Jean.

Ellie playing with Great Grandpa's oxygen tubing.

We are so lucky to have the Great Grandparents living down in Central next to mom and dad for 8 years now. The whole family gets to see them a lot more and they've enjoyed getting to see the kids and watch them grow up.

Christmas with the Meanea's

A cool new toy for Trey.




Brett and his dragon.




Brett & the 3 wise guys (Dad, Uncle Dave, Uncle John)




"Yeah, we have a girl cousin!" say Allyse and Emily.




Grandma playing with Aiden.



Let's eat!




Dueling babies - Aiden Meanea & Ellie Marshall.


On Saturday we traveled down to Central for the Meanea Christmas Party. We had a good time and good eats! We missed Joe and his family (but Kristin has to keep that bun in oven all nice and comfy. Come on baby girl!) We also missed all of the Willson's.

The cousins had a good time exchanging their gifts and we sure appreciated the gifts from mom and dad and the great grandparents.

Us siblings, a few years ago, decided that instead of spending money on gifts for each other that we would pool that money and have do a Christmas project, I think we've started calling it "Meanea Angel". One sibling per year takes charge and uses that money towards helping families, organizations, etc. (whatever they see fit in their community). This has turned out really well and we love it, now I mention this not to brag about what we do but as an idea what you may want to do in your own families.

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas everyone! We had a wonderful morning. The kids slept in until 8:30am, yeah! Brett knew a little of what was going on but he was funny, he saw Trey's two new toys and Ellie's dolly stoller (walker) and wanted to play with those before he even noticed his bike. Ellie was happy that there was wrapping paper to try to eat and new things to play with. Trey was a tired little boy but once he started playing with his new toy he perked up.

I made homemade blueberry muffins (thanks Brianne, the recipe came off your blog) for breakfast. They are so yummy. It was nice not to have any thing to do all day. We even got naps!

For our Christmas dinner we made cheese and chocolate fondue. We had a lot of fun and really liked it. Ellie even joined in on the fun, do you think she actually got any in her mouth?

Family Picture

Ever since Paul and my first Christmas together we have taken a family picture in front of the Christmas tree. It is fun trying to get all the kids to look at the camera at the same time! But they're cute so it doesn't matter! :)

Christmas Eve Day with the Marshall's

We spent most of Christmas Eve Day at Paul's parents home with his family. It was wonderful to share this Christmas time with them and exchange presents and have a wonderful dinner. Here is Brett, Trey & Ellie getting a present from Grandma and Grandpa Marshall.

Trey had his Christmas program on Thursday. His class does two songs then the other UEI class does a couple of songs then they show a slide show of pictures of the kids and Trey's teacher (who has a beautiful voice) sings "Angels Among Us" while the slide show is going. It is so wonderful and I always get choked up because it is so sweet and those kids are so wonderful.

A Decade in the Making

It's finally finished. A project I've been working on for 10 yrs. Collecting all 50 state's quarters as they were released to circulation has been fun. Although I was excited to have it over with when last week I received my final quarter (Hawaii).
I found this neat display for the quarters but have no where to display it right now. In fact it is up in my closet on a high shelf because when Brett has seen it before he has wanted the quarters out and for himself. Freeloader! :)
Maybe I'll super glue them in or hook up some sort of shocking mechanism so if someone tried to take a quarter out of the display they will get the shock of their life.
Has anyone else collected the state quarters?

Ellie Pulling Up

The pictures aren't in order, if you start with the bottom picture she is kneeling, then getting herself up, then standing.

Ellie is pulling herself up to stand, but she doesn't know what to do from there yet. She is so proud of herself, today I caught her chewing on some stuff that was on the entertainment console that she hasn't been able to reach yet. But now she can!
She loves to crawl around and is getting more adventurous. She loves to try to chase Brett around and she loves to crawl all over Trey when he is on the floor.
She is almost 11 months old, I can't believe how fast this year has gone.

Trey and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Part of Trey's Sunday mornings is watching The Mormon Tabernacle Choir "The Spoken Word". http://www.mormontabernaclechoir.org/ Well, Sundays (Dec. 14) was a treat for Trey because the opening song was filled with bell ringers and dancers. He loved it and I kept rewinding it for him and every time he just smiled and got all excited.

Snow Boy

For my first blog entry I would like to dedicate to my little boy, Brett. Who like his mother, loves the SNOW! We finally received a good snow storm and here it is mid-December. Brett's checks were nice and pink when he came in from helping Paul remove some of the snow. Brett and Paul enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows.