#fanX16 #epic

It is no great secret that we are a family of geeks. We embrace it and aren't afraid to show it. Our home is decorated with subtle and not so subtle tributes to the fandoms that  we love and the majority of our dress ups have something geeky about them.  To celebrate our geekiness we took the kids to Salt Lake FanX this last week. The tickets were part of their Christmas this last year and we were super excited to go.

We got the Gold tickets this year which let us in a little earlier as an added bonus FanX was over spring break so no one had to get out of school early or take a costume to school.  We enjoyed time together walking the convention floor, snapping pictures, and enjoying panels with our favorite authors and actors. It was a fabulous family filled weekend.  Matt was the only one who wanted to be in pictures...I promise the others were there. They are just a bit more camera shy.

It is rare that I have a picture of all of us at the same time looking at the camera. This one is
totally going in a frame. 

Day one found us with 2 Harry Potters, Anna, and Elsa. Not pictured- Batgirl Abby

The boys did Super Hero training, a yearly favorite. They were both awesome. 

This shows both their personalities so well. I love it. 

Matt was super excited to run into Kylo Ren! We had to take a picture

Jedis and troopers were good to pose with too. 

The girls had fun seeing other Anna and Elsa's

This was Matt's favorite moment. I thought he was going to die of happiness
when he saw all the spidermans sitting together. 

Day two- Captain America! 

Some of the costumes are just awesome. I have no idea
how long this woman worked on her costume but it was great. 

This is how Abby and I rolled baby in the front back pack in the back!

Matt's favorite moment of Day 2 seeing Ant Man and Cap! Guess
which side he is on in the up coming Marvel Civil War? 

Look, I captured the girls (Katniss and Red Riding Hood with the Silence)

Day 3- Spider Man

James actually volunteered to be in a Trivia contest during a Michael Vey panel I was so proud of him. 

Thanks FanX, we love getting our geek on and we'll see you next time!

Abby- 8 months

Time flies by too quickly when it comes to baby life. Part of me is okay with that the other part of me is ready to grab each moment and just hold on as tight as I can. 

Abby continues to grow and thrive. She is not crawling yet but will roll and scoot her way to what ever she needs. 

Abby has discovered a love of baths. She lays in the water and moves her hands and feet with such pure delight. She squeals and even has let out giggles as she splashes. She loves yogurt melts and food in general really, she also believes that she is old enough to feed herself so meal time generally includes to two spoons, the grabbing of mom's dinner plate, a spilled cup or two, and end with a bath. I think it is her master plan to get just what she wants....it generally works. 

Snuggled up at church (this rarely happens)

She loves the puppy (and he is quite protective of her) and the fish, the fish will calm her down anytime she has a screaming attack. She loathes naps, making the days pretty long.

This was my dress from 1979!

Abby has discovered the joy of toys and it has been fun to see her pick favorites from her stash. She loves it when big brothers and sisters join in the fun too, this baby is a people person. She also enjoys the vacuum...not sure about that one.

her new past time, pull down the toy basket. 

She is inquisitive and seems to scoot faster when big brother is playing with the tablet, she just wants to get her hands on that wondrous thing. 

Abby is truly the sunshine of our family and we are so grateful that she is with us every day. 

Star Wars Blue and Gold

So last May I was asked to be a Cub Scout Den mother for James' Wolf Den.  I knew absolutely nothing about Cub Scouts, well I did remember my brother, Adam, earning his bobcat while we all stood around in the kitchen so I guess there was that. 

I have had fun with my little den. They are three of the cutest boys around and have some good giving heart. 

To celebrate the founding of scouts we had the traditional Blue and Gold Banquet, and to give a little bit of added fun we went with a Star Wars theme. 

I wish I had taken better picture of the decorations but they were awesome. We had lightsaber napkins, and some fun table decorations.  

As the boys (and their siblings) walked in they were given a pool noodle light saber. They had fun trying to keep the balloons up with the "force". 

We enjoyed Jabba the Hutt Dogs for dinner and it was hard to tear those boys away from their light sabers for a minute.

It was fun seeing what the boys had worked on over the last year. My little group had made recyclable robots, created their own dinosaurs, made rekenreks, and just had a ton of fun. It was fun to celebrate what we had done over the last year. 

After dinner their was more light saber fights, they even did well of not whacking each other...at least not hard.

By far my biggest surprise was getting Darth Vader from the Alpine Garrison to come and speak and help us with awards. He gave a great speech on the importance of scouting, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The boys loved this surprise. He also helped hand out awards and had words of encouragement for each of the boys.

Vader was even happy to pose for pictures after. 

We did take a picture with our entire family but the person who was taking the picture didn't hold down the button so alas no family picture with Vader.

We were so proud of James that night who earned his Wolf advancement as well as six belt loops. I will miss being his den mother when he leaves to the Bear group in a few weeks.  

February Happenings

For being the shortest month of the year February has been crazy busy. I guess I should be happy that it is only 29 days this year and not any longer, I'm not sure we could pack any more fun than we already have. 

There was a lot of sickness in the house this month, I think all of us had something during any given week. When Abby was sick that meant snuggles for the rest of us. 

We attempted to visit the Provo City Center temple open house. I was so excited for this and had gotten tickets weeks in advance. We made the trek down to Provo through inversion laden skies and felt a bit bad about adding to the problem but super excited to get to see this building together. I should have figured there would be problems when our assigned parking garage was full, we found street parking and made our way to the staring point- only to find there was a two hour wait with tickets. Knowing that we could not wait the two hours we called it good and just walked around the outside and took a few pictures. 

To make up for not getting to see the temple we got ice cream instead. The kids seemed okay with that trade off. 

The older kids' mom was in town over President's Day weekend and they went off on skiing adventures with her. While they did that Matt and Abby got to see Marvel Universe Live! Matt thought it was the best thing ever and continues to talk about it. Abby was not impressed but did manage to get a nap in between explosions and strobe lights. 

Matt's preschool is a co-op so I have opportunities to go and help in his class. I have been in their weekly for the last six weeks or so and was able to catch a picture of this not so happy boy. He wasn't happy with his George Washington hair, he was also unimpressed that Washington did not have a middle name. 

Matt also got to come with me to a cub scout meeting, while waiting for me to leave he and his buddy found something fun to do-

Probably our biggest news of the month is Laine now is sporting braces. She was a trooper earlier in the month when she had four molars pulled in the same day. She did enjoy the ice cream, pudding, and soup diet she got to live on for a few days. 

She was also happy that she could get green elastics put on her braces to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. She was also happy with the ice cream dinner that she got that night. 

Abby- 7 months

I just realized that we hadn't blogged in a month, not since the last Abby update. Really January was kinda boring, we reorganized the kitchen....there you go all caught up now.

In bigger news...this girl.  She is sitting, smiling, drooling, and rolling her way across the floor. She shows no interest in crawling and I am okay with that. She is also eating up a storm and loves herself some peaches. 

Baby in a box....the kids have way to much fun with her

Of course the kitchen is her favorite toy, this girl has grown up watching the Food Network. 

My friend Rachel captured this moment in church.
This little girl is a good sleeper but it isn't often that she falls asleep on me. 

He loves his little sister 

So Abby continues to be our little ray of sunshine. Her smile is as big as her face and she is happy all the day.

Abby- Six months

Six months, sometimes I think time is going to fast. I'm pretty sure I blinked and somehow this girl became a little person. 

Abby, what to say about Abby. She is growing but is still little. From her last doctor's appointment she only grew an inch and put on two pounds, but what she lacks in size she makes up for in cuteness.  Abby had a busy month of growing and learning. She became a rolling over champ and is now scooting around the floor, I'm sure that we will be crawling in a few weeks and I am both excited and dreading that new stage.  Abby also started eating solid foods, she seems to enjoy eating veggies more than fruits. She loves butternut squash and beets.  

This girl is happy all of the time. She loves her siblings and her brothers are the best of making her laugh. Matt declares that she is the cutest on Earth and always finds songs to sing to her. Really,  she just lights up our lives and keeps us all smiling. 

Here are a few glimpses into her life this last month: 

This shirt started out as a dress, we outgrew the dress but it is a darling shirt. 

Abby's not sure about this Christmas thing. 

Christmas day- she liked the paper more than anything else. 

Sweet potatoes- our first food. 

Abby loves her feet and has recently discovered her tongue and loves to stick it out. 

Dressing little girls for Sunday is my favorite. I love the cute dresses and the leg warmers-ah the leg warmers. 

Beets, we love the beets. Mom also loves Oxy-clean for helping us keep white shirts white. 

December Fun

This post is late in posting, I meant many times to put this up in December...yeah we were just having too much fun to do that. December is always a busy animal and here is just a glimpse of what we did over the holiday month:

CRAFTING

We did a lot of crafting in December. In fact Eve went to town with her 100 rolls of washi tape.  Matt did quite a bit of it in preschool. He was enamored of his gingerbread house and was upset at the end of the month when it was time to go the great gingerbread house in the sky. 

ZOO LIGHTS! 

This is one of our favorite traditions and we were lucky to go at the start of the month before it was too busy and too cold. 

Um, James has gone missing....it's like Where's Waldo here. 

The kids were so happy to have Grammy and Poppa with them this year....and to walk down the light tunnel. 

It was Star Wars Night! Matt was so happy to get to see Darth Vader

BRADLEY FAMILY PARTY

We love this party with Christian's extended family every year. This year it was at a roller rink. The kids had fun skating and I had fun visiting. 

Abby and Grandma matched that day. 

Christian was a good sport and helped Matt out skating for the first time. 

CHRISTMAS EVE

After a week of playing with our cousins, going to the trampoline park, ice skating, and sledding it was time for Christmas Eve at Grandma and Grandpa Bradley's- complete with tamales and the nativity. 

The Angel chorus

Little Shepherd boys. James was their sheep but wouldn't hold still long enough for a picture

The kids came home to the traditional PJ gift and picture. I was super excited that I found matching PJs this year, it is hard than you would think when you have to get everything from a 13 year old down to 6 months. 

CHRISTMAS

Christmas morning got off to a rocky start. I had been up with a vomiting baby at 3 am and then the dog and Matt decided that they too needed to throw up. Once that was all taken care of and everyone seemed okay we got to have fun seeing the packages under the tree. 

The kids all got blankets this year and had fun wrapping up in them right away

Abby seemed happy with her new seat and playing with the super cool paper. The other kids seemed to have fun helping her open her gifts. 

We spent Christmas afternoon at Grammy and Poppa's house. Abby was happy about that...so were the rest of us. 

NEW YEAR'S EVE

We had a fun week between Christmas and New Year's being together. Christian took the week off of work and we took the kids to Star Wars and they enjoyed playing Disney Infinity all week long. We also played plenty of board games.  On New Year's Eve we had the traditional Bradley dinner of fondue...Christian even did a chocolate one this year, 

Sticks to poke bread...sounds like a great idea. 

After playing some games we came downstairs to watch Doctor Who and Super Girl, we told the kids they could stay up as late as they wanted, Matt made it till 11:58. The rest of us toasted the New Year together and then all wandered to our beds. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERY ONE!