The rest of 2010

My sister, Pink, was in town when we first arrived in Utah.  Unfortunately Johnny was sick with the flu (yes, the real flu because we had him checked) for 2 weeks and ruined all my plans for seeing friends and going out with my sister too.
At least I got a few pictures of the boys with their cousins before they went home to California for Christmas.  Here is Johnny, James, Lexi and my parents.

Johnny, James, Jax and Lexi.  You can really tell in this one that poor Johnny was not his usual self.

Back at the Gillespie household we took advantage of some new Kinect video game thingy that someone got and had dance and track and field competitions.  It was funny.  Brian also beat my butt in boxing too. James and Hayley dancing.

Johnny still managed to give me a few smiles (probably because he got so much daddy time while on vacation).

Grandma Shelley and James.

Johnny had to jump in.  Love this one.

Those who weren't here for Christmas arrived a couple of days later so we had "second Christmas" (except that my kids didn't have anything to open up).  It was fun to see everyone.

Aunt Michelle (who, incidentally just left us yesterday and we miss her already), the oldest Gillespie kid.

JayJay, looks like he is trying to poop!  So funny!

Sterling (love the faces I got from all the kids this year).

I don't have any pictures from New Year's Eve (I can't even remember what we did and neither can Brian).  Hmm.  Perhaps we need to start making better plans or look into some memory pills.  That is all she wrote for 2010.  It was fun and full of family and adventures and even a few scares and sad times but it is the good things we remember most.

Christmas 2010

We had a great Christmas. We saw lots of family and had lots of fun.  James and John-Luke especially liked playing with their older cousins.  We started off with a bit of family fun for Christmas Eve chez Brian's mom.  All the kids who were sleeping there got to open some Christmas pajamas.

Christmas morning was lively with 4 kids there.  James and Johnny got a jackpot of toys.  They were so excited!  I even caught a couple of pictures of Trevor smiling.  There is proof that I was there in the bottom left corner of this collage. (I was having a bad hair morning so I didn't post that and since it is my blog it is my prerogative*).

We later went to my parents house to open presents and to have dinner.  It was pretty calm with only 4 kids around.  Still the kids that were there had fun.

That was our Christmas day.  It was fun.  Don't worry.  More Utah vacation posts to come.  That isn't all folks!

*Prerogative is actually spelled pRerogative.  I looked it up!!

November and December in Switzerland

Here are some photos that we took of our daily happenings during November and December (before we went to Utah).  It became coat weather but we still played outside all the time when it wasn't too bitter cold.

Happy Johnny.

There was a lot of yard work to do.  James loves using his leaf blower.

Johnny preferred to mow.

If only this was our private yard and it was fenced in.  Alas it is not.

We went to the Natural History Museum one morning.

James pretended to be interested.

I think he just wanted up so that he could jump off.

Does this one need a haircut?  I think yes but Brian was adamantly opposed to it.

It snowed quite a bit in December.

Making chocolate cookies.

What a smile!

Playing in the snow.

Chasing daddy.

What a fun game.

Never gets old.

Trying to catch the snow in his mouth.

More treat making.

It was a fun time but we like summer better!  I can't believe how fast the time flies and how much the boys have grown!

James turned 3?...

On November 15th we celebrated James birthday in classic Gillespie Family style.  We stayed in our jammies and partied all day with just our family. Here are the boys "helping" me make the cake.  By helping I mean they did the dishes!! (or licked them anyway).

And they liked it!  They love cooking for this reason.

Here is the finished cake.  We didn't have a 3 year old candle so we improvised.  We also got pizza for dinner to celebrate because that is what James wanted.

Look how excited he is!  Love it.

He could not have been happier with his presents which were all based around construction stuff.  He got a tool set, a flashlight and a "chainsaw".

Johnny was just excited that something was going on.

He could hardly contain himself!

I also took his annual picture next to his pillow that I got for him when he was a baby.  Look how he has grown.

At 2 weeks old.  What a cutie he is/was.

We love our little "Bubba" and we would not be the same without him.  He is the best brother and protects Johnny fiercely.  He loves to snuggle and give out kisses.  He also likes to growl at strangers and cannot be stopped from talking to every person that is close enough to hear him.  He is extremely friendly and is generally the happiest of kids.  He also has a lot of energy and keeps us hopping.  Life is more interesting with James around for sure!

Halloween 2011

We celebrated Halloween at the annual church party here in Geneva. Although the pictures are a bit blurry I thought the boys looked too cute not to share. Here they are in there costumes.

James was a little Swiss mountain man and Johnny was a bumblebee (recycled from James last year).

Becky's Birthday Bash!

Last year for my birthday I decided to party like I had just turned 30 (I had only been here for 1 month when I turned 30 and I didn't have as many friends yet nor did I know of any cool places to party for a married woman).  I invited my friends and shared my party with my good friend, Caroline.  It was an awesome night.

Here we all are at dinner. (Laetitia is taking the picture here but is pictured above).  Going around the table from the left.  Celine, Sonia, Janaina, Samantha, Lisha, Katia, Tabitha, Andrea, Marie, Caroline, Me, Ana, Catalina and Harmony.  Harmony is my one and only American friend who was able to make it to my party.

The girls at the far end of the table. (Lisha, Tabitha and Andrea).

The other birthday girl, Caroline.

Me (being a dork).

Harmony, who takes our pictures here, gave me a collage of our latest family photo shoot.  Love it.

Us posing with our presents that we got for each other.

I'm looking sorta pastey white here.

Marie with Caroline.

Harmony being herself.  Love this crazy girl.

My birthday cake!

This restaurant has a DJ on the weekends with dancing (which is why I chose it) and we all stayed late and danced.  No pics of the dancing but it was fun.  I'm really going to miss all my ladies here in Geneva.  We play way too often and I'm going to miss it.  I'm constantly leaving Brian with the boys for a girls night (well, about once or twice a month and sometimes more when I'm lucky).  We have a lot of fun.  It was a great birthday party.