Christmas Decorations

 I love Christmas time and decorating my house. If I had my way I would put up my decorations right after Halloween but I kinda like our tradition of popping champagne and decorating on black friday too. I always keep my decorations up as well to epiphany to remind me Christmas is not just about Santa but needs to be based in Christ and by doing this every year I am reminded of what the true meaning of the season is. Here are some of my favorite decorations:

I love my tree! Funny enough we actually now have enough ornaments to get a second tree. I am hoping to get a 9 footer for our huge front room and move our current tree downstairs. Part of the reason I have so many gorgeous ornaments is from my ballerina ornament collection started as a little girl. It was a wonderful gift my Mother gave me when I got my own home to already have such an extensive ornament collection. I decided to do the same for Kinsale and got her a gorgeous angel ornament to start her collection! I did finally get a tree skirt this year, In the past I actually just used a long piece of fabric and wrapped around the tree. I love this white, sparkly tree skirt. Christmas and New Years always mean sparkles to me!

Love this wreath, the picture doesn't do it justice they are candy apple red and will be gorgeous around valentines day too.

This is my long table in the front room, it has my nutcrackers, my Scandinavian tree and vintage decorations from my Grandma Johnson. The nativity is very old and the toy soldier carousel is from her too and is sweet!

I always put my candles on the center of my dining table .I decided this year they look a little lonely, I took a note from my lovely mother in law Kathy and added some angels. Kneaders had these pretty angels and some garland made them very festive.

Here is the my cookbook holder in my kitchen, I have our advent candles (which are burnt down pretty far) our Santas including our skiing Santa from Gramma Barb and also the Polar Express Train which I think is one of Quinn's new favorite decorations.

Here is our fireplace and mantle. These stockings are my very favorite decoration. They are a labor of love and usually take almost six months to complete each one. The white ones are the ladies and the red are the boys, snowflake for us and trees for the kids. I also love the village which is extra special because all the pieces have been gifts, I haven't bought any of them myself.

This is a side table in the middle of all of Quinn and Kinsale's toys. It has a special frame and photo book from their traditional polar express date with Uncle Tommy and Aunty Brandy and also two different nativities they can both play with. One of my favorite decorations as a little girl was my Mothers Nativity, cannot tell you the hours we played re arranging the figures.

Christmas cards always make my heart happy and full. Seeing my friends start their own families or even our parents friends become grandparents makes my heart sing. I actually have more then what fit on this fridge but what is here always is lovely to see each day!

Christmas is special and I love sharing these decorations fro our home!

Love

The Whites

Joy to the World!

I feel like I am on cloud nine with the wonderful weekend I just had. My lovely Mother flew into Utah and we got to see Laura Osnes and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was so special, the Motab choir does not sell tickets and I missed the raffle back in October. I was devastated when I found out it was Laura Osnes singing. I went to high school with her, both my Mom and I had followed her amazing career since. She has been in NY starring in Cinderella on Broadway among other shows. It was pretty amazing when one year on the Thanksgiving parade (one of my personal traditions after the 5k) I watched my friend Heather (a Rockette) and Laura both perform at the parade. That is about as close as I will ever get to Broadway and it was so cool!
I scrambled to try and secure tickets and low and behold my husband's awesomely cool college professor from St. Thomas came to the rescue. I was pretty shocked when one of my husbands college professors messaged me saying she might be able to get in touch with Laura and help us secure tickets. Most teachers who remember my husband remember him for all the wrong reasons! When I finally had the tickets in hand I almost got teared up because I knew how special this would be.
It was incredible! My mom flew to town and we had one of the best nights ever. We had dinner at my favorite restaurant the Copper Onion, we did a little shopping at City Creek and then walked through Temple Square to see the lights and finally ended up in our seats through a VIP door which was awesome. Laura was radiant and absolutely wonderful. I predict she will headline many more Broadway shows and secure a Tony very soon.  I had a moment during the concert where I felt like I needed to be pinched because it wasn't real. The rest of the weekend as well was so much fun, the kids loved spending time with their Gaga and just enjoying her company. We were spoiled!
The week only gets better as well, Tom and Kathy are en route to us in Utah to celebrate Christmas here. We are trying to continue a tradition of one Christmas in MN and the next year Utah. I miss MN but am looking forward to also continuing/creating some of our own traditions here.

My next post will probably be in 2016. 2015 has been wonderful, our sweet, Kinsale joined us and this year has been the year of "I think I can". I can't tell you how many times I (similar to Thomas the Train) have had to chant that mantra to myself. Whether it has been adjusting to two kids as a working Mama or adjusting to a whole new career it has been the 21015 mantra. Life is good and oh so sweet!

Love
The Whites

Mama and I on our special night

Mama helped me getting my sewing machine working and how to sew

Quinn loves Gilles and Gilles loves Quinn

Gaga B doing night time story with babies

Gratitude

I meant to write this post earlier this week after Halloween last weekend but it didn't happen until today. I had a very full circle, beautiful moment last weekend that I wanted to write about and share. Last weekend was Halloween, I have loved halloween since I was a very little girl. I would pick out my costume months in advance and I always looked forward to trick or treating at the extra spooky houses. Four years ago I had my worst halloween ever.
We had been trying to get pregnant and I had finally got a correct diagnosis from the U for my PCOS. Before we delved into a bunch of drugs they tried a very basic one that some how, some miraculous way I got pregnant from. I was waiting to get my period to start the really serious drugs (clomid) and I wasn't getting my period. I took a pregnancy test at home, it was negative. So we scheduled an appointment to discuss what was going on with my specialist. Like every single appointment he did an ultrasound. Suddenly as he started the ultrasound he says Oh my goodness, this is shocking, your pregnant. He proceeded to point out the sac, the little beginnings of our gummy bear baby and even brought in another doctor to confirm. It was a miracle, one time possibility. We were shocked, thrilled, overwhelmed and could hardly believe it. The only concern was there was no heart beat. We were told since it was still early, to come back in a week and it would probably be there.
 Bren and I went to High west to celebrate, me enjoying lemonade and Bren enjoying a whiskey. I remember thinking how incredible this was, of course our miracle baby would have a heart beat and we wouldn't have to go through trials and trials to get pregnant. The next appointment was Halloween, I thought we were extra lucky because it was one of my favorite holidays.
All week I felt positive that our little miracle was growing and we shared the news with family. I have always been a firm believer its better to share the news when life begins than weeks later. I am glad I did share because I needed the support, down the road. One week later, halloween arrives and we go for our ultrasound and not only is there no heartbeat but there is no measured growth and we are prepared for a full miscarriage.
I was numb, terribly sad and shocked because it didn't seem possible we could lose what had been such a miracle. That night, adorable child after child came to door for candy. Bren gave them candy and all I could do was wonder to myself will I ever have a child to go trick or treating with?

Last Saturday was emotional for me. My Dad was in town for work and that evening four years later we put the costumes on the kids (plural kids, not kid!!!) and started up the street. Holding Quinns hand as we walked to each door and he held out his pumpkin, I got all sorts of Mama emotional. It was truly such a full circle moment to be trick or treating on one of my favorite holidays with my two beautiful babies. It was Quinn's second halloween but first one actually trick or treating. My Dad went part of the way with us and Bren came part of the way too. I was filled with so much gratitude for all that we have been blessed with. It was a tough journey getting to our family, that had more then one miscarriage and lots of trials but was worth every penny, struggle and terribly raw, hard moment. I felt like this was a fitting blog post for November because of thanksgiving and finding gratitude in the daily journey and all we are given.

Love
Alyssa

Kinsey's Baptism

It seemed like a good night to sit down and get some blog updates done. One of my goals this year has actually been to stay on top of photo books and updates. It seems so basic and easy but I blink and suddenly realize I am super behind and I just need to suck it up, sit down and get it done. One of the big projects has been finishing my Kinsale maternity journal with pics and her baby book. They both are updated, next up has been the blog here and then working on her photo books. Since people don't really print pictures anymore I try hard to make photo books for our family so our kids can look back on then someday.

All is well, two weekends ago we had Kinsale's baptism. It was really nice and special. She actually wore both the gown I wore as a baby and the gown that is an Irish tradition in Brens family. Just like Quinn she has godparents from both sides of the family, Charlie from Brens and Ross and Jessie from mine. Quinn's godparents are Tommy and Brandy and Jay and Kristy. We kept everything really small and just to family this year, she was a good baby during the ceremony and we actually had to work harder to keep Quinn out of jumping into the baptismal fount. I am proud of our faith and bringing our children up as catholics.
More travel coming up, florida for Bud and Barb's 60th wedding Anniversary and New Orleans for a work trip. We have been real home bodies on weekends just because it feels like during the day even on weekends we start right at 7am and don't stop ALL day. Love it but feel lame we don't get out more often. Although we did get a date night this past Wednesday night and saw the Martian (really good movie).

"Fall has always been my favorite season. The time when everything bursts with its last beauty, as if nature had been saving up all year for the grand finale" - Lauren DeStefano

Love,
B, A, Q and K

Pictures from this fall

At the Puff cottage in Michigan

Jay, Kristy and the boys came to visit us in Utah

Gaga B and Quinn blowing bubbles

Quinn and his tree planted last year

Continued our tradition and planted a snow crab apple tree for Kindle too!

The Brecke twins with Quinn and Kinsey

Celebrating my fabulous Trudis Birthday in Utah

Little Joe dock view in Michigan where we got engaged

Michigan picture on our six year Anniversary

Out to spot Elk for the very first time

four generations

learning to water ski already!

Auntie Laura with the babies on the boat!