Justice League

My son the ham! Olivia and Evelyn too!

For Christmas Callie and Elvin made T-shirts for all the cousins to make up the Justice League. So cool!

Kiana-Green Lantern

Kaleo-Superman

Olivia-Hawk Girl

Evelyn-Wonder Woman

Luke-Flash

Ty-Batman (as if there was any question).

Ty was really happy to be taking pictures-can't you tell?

Christmas Morning

Luke was so excited to find under the tree the things on his list to Santa (all except for the Jack-in-the-box). But he got a new Obi-Won spaceship and new Boba Fett spaceship.
Ty got a bunch of Super Hero Squad toys and Batman toys.


New Batman dress-up set.
BYU dress up set.
Dad and Luke playing with new Legos.
What a great Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve

Making Christmas cookies for Santa. I love doing this with the kids. Luke is more interested in eating the dough and icing than making the cookies. Ty really liked playing in the flour. Although it can be chaotic and I have to watch closely that no unwanted ingredients end up in the bowl, we have fun. Then they get to pick which cookies to leave out for Santa.

Dancing to some Christmas tunes.

So sweet. He was singing to her.

New pj's.
Our cookies for Santa.
Ready for bed.

I loved that we started a new tradition this year. I was again something taken from Jake's childhood. A few days before Christmas we took the boys shopping. We helped them each pick out a gift for each member of their family. We were sure that Luke would catch on and hopefully feel the spirit of giving. But little Ty got into it as well. He was so sweet picking gifts for Daddy and Lily and Luke. He really picked things they liked. Luke's insights into his family members was amazing. All by himself he picked a beautiful silver bracelet for me, a movie for Dad, and a copy of Ty's favorite show. We helped them wrap their gifts for each other on Christmas eve. As part of the evening we let me give their gifts. They were so adorable.

I really enjoy it being just our family on Christmas Eve. We have a yummy dinner of our favorite things. We listen/sing Christmas carols. Read the Christmas story. This year we watched the Polar Express. Usually Dad sings us some carols in Russian, which we forgot to do this year and I missed it. We also bear our testimonies of the Savior to the kids. Luke was very attentive this year during that part and he seemed touched by the spirit.

After the kids go to bed "Santa" gets to work wrapping. Jake and I always watch "It's a Wonderful Life" and then head off to bed.

Santa has come and we are ready for the morning.

Burt Family Christmas Party

Baby Jesus in the Manger.

The Wise Men (Uncle Jackson and Alex).

Seeing the baby Jesus...which he later stole.

The Shepherds (Daddy and Ty) and angel (Aunt Holly).

Mary (Brooklyn) riding her donkey (Uncle Matt).

Joseph (Luke) and a wise man (Alex).

Luke was so excited to play Joseph.

We had a great time doing the Christmas Nativity with our kids this year. They loved it and of course all the parents and grandparents let out many an " ooh" and "awh" and "oh". Our kids are adorable!

The entire cast.

Christmas sleepover at Grandma's

The Sunday before Christmas we had a sleepover at my parents house. We went to church with them which the boys enjoyed. We attempted to get some good pictures of us in our new Christmas church clothes...this is what we got. Poor Ty had fallen asleep in church and was not a happy camper when we got home and tried to take some pictures.

12 Days of Christmas

A tradition that we have carried on from Jake's childhood is the 12 days of Christmas. Every night we do an activity together as a family. It was Jake's idea this year for me to draw a picture of the day's activity and post it on the front door. Then when the kids came down in the morning they could figure out the activity based on the picture. Luke LOVED this.

Some of the things we did:
shopping and seeing Santa
Movie night-Princess and the Frog
Game night-New Yahtzee Jr.
Temple Square to see the lights

to name a few. Unfortunately I didn't take very many pictures...oops. But I did get some of us making candy trains with the Speredons.

Luke's train.


Ty REALLY enjoyed this. Surprisingly he didn't eat very much of it, but was intensely focused on making his train. He worked on his the longest and enjoyed every minute of it.
Notice all of us in our BYU stuff. The BYU bowl game was that night. Go BYU!

Snow Buddies

Mostly they just like to eat the snow. But they are having fun this winter playing in the snow.

3 Months Old

Can we say "double chin?"

Lily is now three months old. I can't believe it. She is such a good baby. Already sleeping through the night. (Usually from 9 p.m.-7 a.m.) Great eater, always smiling, rarely crying. She is such a joy and a blessing to us. She is just starting to giggle and coo which we would argue are the sweetest sounds ever known to man. We are so in love with our "Lily girl", "Silly Lily" and our "Pretty Princess". These have become our new nicknames for her. The third is what Luke calls her. Ty the first two. But he can't say l's so it comes out "siwwy wiwwy" or "wiwwy giwr". Ty absolutely is the most enamoured with her. He LOVES her so much and is always very worried when she does happen to cry. The other day he picked her up when I turned my back for a second. He then accidentally dropped her. She cried pretty hard which is to be expected, (good thing he is short so it was a short drop). But Ty cried just as hard. He came to me and said, "Hurt, Lily...I sorry Lily". It was really sweet. Too bad it didn't cure him of his constant urge to hold her/pick her up. I have to watch really closely.

Thanksgiving

The guys watching football.

Grandma reading a story.

We spent Thanksgiving with my parents. It was nice, quiet and slower paced because we got to be the only house guests for the day. Great food and the kids enjoyed their time with Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks Mom and Dad.

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

For those of you who haven't seen my house, our living room is the size of both stories. It has a loft looking over into it, but needless to say it is a very large room. Our previous 6 ft. pencil tree looked sadly pitiful in our new house. So this year we invested in a beautiful 9 ft. full Christmas tree. I LOVE IT! Thanks babe for indulging me with new decorations too.