Nine is Fine

Beans, Bennet, Brynners, Bwennows, Yuletide, B, Beatrice, Sweetheart, Cutie Pie, My Brynn, No-My-Brynn, and My-little-Brynny are all alias names for our youngest. She answers to all of them. She even prefers to be called some of them. She understood at a very early age that they were all terms of endearment and that the speaker speaking them loved her. "Brynn" is just what someone calls you who doesn't know you all that well... your teacher, the nurse in the waiting room at the doctor's office, the census taker.
Yes, we call her many things, but most importantly, we call her OURS.
We recently celebrated another birthday with Brynn. She's not quite the decade mark yet, but well on her way.
I can't believe our baby is NINE. Any day now she'll be walking through the door and telling us she's in love and getting married.
Ok, so maybe not ANY day now; I'm being dramatic. But boy, time is flying by.
We were lucky enough to celebrate Brynn's birthday a number of times this year: grandparent outings, sleepovers, a family dinner, and a friend party at Color Me Mine in Provo (http://www.provo.colormemine.com/ .... HIGHLY recommend it).

We just love Brynn. She brings so much happiness and noise to our house. With her around, there's always a handstand to dodge, a craft area to tidy, and a little head to hang a sparkly hat on.

She keeps us smiling with her eagerness and excitement for life.
Nine Things We Love About Brynn:

1) She keeps us honest. 2) She keeps things going. There's always a party when she's around. 3) She's the protector of traditions such as Family Home Evening and Gingerbread Houses. 4) She sings and sings and sings 5) She can put her siblings in their places 6) She loves school and her teacher. 7) She's a good snuggler 8) Her smile 9) She shows her love for us, her family, in many different ways. I hope she enjoyed her birthday week, because I know I did. We're just so glad she's ours.

Lights at Temple Square

By absolutely NO FAULT of their own, our two oldest children, Caitlyn and Zach, have found themselves teenagers. And in so doing, they live their lives attached to cellphones, Ipods, and social networking sites. More than once I have found myself having a COMPLETE conversation with Caitlyn, not knowing that she can't hear a single word I've said, but has watched for cues and has succeeded in nodding and grunting at the appropriate times. It's a little strange and stressful as a parent, but Brook and I look at each other helplessly and can't blame them for trying their best to tune us out. It's just what teenagers do. Spending quality family time together has become increasingly difficult and challenging. While we (Brook and I) see the years ticking away, we want to spend as much time with them as possible. At the same time, however, THEY (Caitlyn and Zach) see that there's more life than what's waiting for them at home (imagine that) and want to hang out with their own kind.
Ok, we get it. But that doesn't mean we (Brook and I) don't still try.
We decided that we wanted to take them to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square a couple days before Christmas. We braced ourselves for their resistance and managed to trick get them into the car. We had planned it out well so that they really didn't have any excuses. There wasn't school the next day, so I have SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much homework didn't work. There weren't any practices, meetings or commitments. HA! They were pretty much stuck. I did hear Let's just turn around and go home so I can hang out with my friends, spoken halfheartedly about 20 times, Why do we have to go? asked about 15 times, and Ugh, this is stupid, uttered maybe eight.

But Brook and I managed to keep our cool. Brook concentrated on the road as he maneuvered through the snow storm, I sang Christmas carols with Brynn, and we turned the movie volume up really loud. Really loud. Pretty soon I had forgotten about the two disgruntled people in the back and actually believed that we were having a fun family outing. We happened to choose the best night for Temple Square. There was a light snow falling so not only did the snowflakes look beautiful, but they also frightened off scaredy-cat families. BYU was also playing in their fancy-shmancy-shut-down-the-state-of-Utah bowl game that night and JACKPOT...... No Mormons!!!!! While a normal night at Temple Square is spent shuffling shoulder to shoulder with about 20,000 other people, this night saw us walking wherever we darned well pleased and being the first in line for everything. We loved it. We saw cousins. We smiled. We laughed. We held hands and threw snow at each other. And Caitlyn may have summarized it best when we had almost made it home. "That was fun," she said with a smile. "It didn't suck that bad." No Caitlyn, it didn't suck that bad at all. :)

The Spirit's Gonna Get Ya!

Sometime in October Brynn jumped into the car after school and shoved a crumpled green paper into my face. She then announced that she was auditioning for the Ridgeline 3rd Grade performance of "A Christmas Carol."
"Fun," I said.
"I have to memorize a speech and tryouts are next week," she informed me.
"Fuuuuunnnn," I said again, trying to muster a little more excitement in my voice.
Sometime that night she showed me the passage she had to memorize.
Oh brother, I thought. This is too long. And it sounds funny. Charles Dickens? Ugh. I don't have the energy for this tonight.
Luckily it wasn't ME who was auditioning. Brynn had it memorized lickety split and graced us with her memorized passage every chance she got. We heard it done cowboy style, British style, hip hop style, and my personal favorite, pirate style.
It wasn't uncommon to hear, "BRYYNNNNN, STOP! We're sick of it!" coming from her sibling's mouths. Plum pudding and holly through the heart gets kind of tiring after 400 times.
Well, the day finally arrived (thank goodness) and Brynn was rewarded for all her hard work with a SPEAKING part! I need to make sure you understand the honor here. There are SEVEN 3rd grade classes at Ridgeline Elementary. Yes, we live in Utah County.
December soon showed it's wintery head and "A Christmas Carol" was performed for all to enjoy. I don't think there has EVER been a more excited and happy Business Woman #1 than there was this year. Brynn performed her two lines flawlessly and had many fans to support her. Thank you to all her grandparents for coming down to support her. It meant the WORLD to her.
She announced that night that she's finally decided what she wants to be when she grows up. She's gone through various phases with this. She's wanted to be a McDonald's worker, a Build-A-Bear employee, a princess, a veterinarian, a dancer, a teacher, etc. But now, dim the lights and raise the curtains: she wants to be an actress..... (please whisper wistfully when you say these final two words).