Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! We spent Christmas here in Alexandria.
For Christmas Eve we went to Trent and Wendy's house. We had some finger foods, played some games, acted/read the nativity story, and played nerf gun wars.

We also listened to the kids give a piano recital. Here's Wendy, Tayzlie, Trent and Townsend.

Melanie and Tennesse.

On the way home we drove through Old Town to see the Christmas lights.


Christmas Morning! Ryan woke me up at 7 am so that we could open our Christmas presents.

Here's our stockings after Santa came. I even made a stocking for Asher. He got some good presents too.


Our Christmas tree with our presents under (or around) it.


The stockings emptied out.


Me with my presents. Asher with his presents.


Ryan with his presents. His favorites are the 007 James Bond Wii game and his toy shotgun.
We've had an enjoyable day relaxing, watching movies, playing games and reading the Simpson's comic book.

Here is my favorite gift from Ryan.

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas as well.

Our Christmas Letter

We sent out letters last week, but wanted to post it on our blog for those that we might have missed sending an actual card to. We hope you have a great Christmas week!

Dear Family and Friends,

Another Year’s coming to an end, but our experiences and knowledge continue to expand. Throughout 2010, we have grieved, celebrated, made new friends, welcomed new family, gained and continued employment, explored more of the Washington D.C. area, traveled, but most importantly strengthened our bond with each other, especially as we prepare for a new and exciting chapter in our lives.

Ryan continues to work as a patent attorney in Old Town Alexandria. He passed his one year mark in August, which has taken some (but not much) of the pressure off. He works hard and says he enjoys what he does, just not how much of it he has to do. He is a great provider for our small but growing family. He made arrangements for us to celebrate our 3-year anniversary at a bed and breakfast in Shenandoah Valley in June. It was a great relaxing weekend where we got to see more of Virginia and a little bit of history. Ryan loves to get away and drive, or hike somewhere new. He keeps us spontaneous and adventurous! He is definitely the laid back, easy going one of the family. So much so, that others remember when he shaves, not when he doesn’t:)

Melanie started the year staying at home getting to take care of Ryan, and then she started a new job in March as a receptionist for a Dental Office in Alexandria. She started part-time, then worked full-time for 3 months, then went back to part-time before she quit in August. She really enjoyed her job and the extra income, but quit so she could go to her brother-in-law’s funeral in Idaho and visit her family in Utah. Then she spent a couple weeks staying with her little sister in Hawaii in September. Melanie also had the opportunity to enjoy more of the sites around D.C. during her parent’s visit in July and her older sister’s visit in October. We love having visitors because we want to see family and friends, Melanie likes to play hostess, and because it’s the perfect excuse to tour more of where we live!

We are both still in the Cub Scouts as Webelos leaders. We enjoy the boys most of the time, and the other times we get the blessing of working on Melanie’s patience. We are still living in our 2-bedroom apartment in Alexandria and have made it quite comfortable and full! We enjoy where we live and the friends we’ve made in our ward.

Our biggest and most exciting news is that we are expecting our first child, a boy! He, Asher Ryan, is due to arrive on February 12, 2011. We haven’t had any difficulties or sickness during the pregnancy and are hoping this continues for the rest of the nine months. No doubt our New Year’s resolutions and preparations will all revolve around this new addition to our family. Melanie has already started decorating and making lists of all the things needed in the nursery. We are very excited and blessed to be starting out the New Year with such a miracle and new experience in our life.

We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

With Love,

Ryan and Melanie Crockett

Mel's Movie Review

Ryan and I went and saw Tangled this weekend. We both really enjoyed it and I would recommend seeing it if you haven't. I like that it was funny, and had good songs. It's been a while since Disney has had a great Princess movie come out. (It is much better than the Princess and the Frog, which was terribly disappointing) And it stayed fairly close to the fairytale I remember. Obviously a few differences, but still good. My favorite part of the movie was when Rapunzel first leaves her tower and she is at war with herself. Very entertaining.

Belly Update

Here is the most recent picture of me. I am just over 30 weeks.

I got all dressed up for Ryan's work party. It was last night and was fun to see Ryan's co-workers and families.

Being Crafty!

Tis the season! I love the holidays this time of year. I love to go shopping, but I also love to make things. It started over Thanksgiving break when I quilted some blankets for our nursery. I also made some Christmas Stockings for my mom's store, and a tutu for Ady to wear to her new dance class.

Ady in her new tutu!


I also like to make things that will be good decorations:)

A sign I made from vinyl for some holiday decor.

A Christmas wreath I made for our door. (though I'm not quite finished. I need a few more flowers from the craft store)

And here's our little Christmas area in our apartment. It's not much but every bit helps make a festive mood at home. One day we'll have a bigger tree:)

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Day! Ryan and I celebrated Thanksgiving in Utah with my family. Our day was a lot of fun. Ryan flew in that day (hurray) so I picked him up from the airport. We got to Morgan just in time for Ryan to finish playing some FOOTBALL with some of my cousins and aunts and uncles.

They played out back of my parents house in the field. (The dairy farm is directly behind them.)

Ready for the hike.

Ryan playing quarterback. It helps that he is so much taller than everyone:) I love Ryan's physical attributes and skills. (In church today my aunt commented on Ryan's singing skills. I think it was a surprise that he has some really good singing talent, since my family isn't known for any singing talents at all!)

THANKSGIVING DINNER

Here is the little kid table. Carissa, Adyson, and Landon. I think my parents were feeling a little old since they were the only ones of my mom's siblings that had any grandkids there. And our baby is #5 for them.

Everyone sitting down to dinner in my parents great room. We had about 42 people total. It was a good turn out.



Here is my family at dinner, with 2 of my cousins. Some how we all ended up at the same table in the dining room.

After dinner and conversation we played GAMES. We had 3 different tables of Scum going on. The we played a couple large group games: Mafia and the Name Game.

BLACK FRIDAY
On Friday, Ryan and I went to Logan to see Grandma and Grandpa Parkinson. We also saw Nancy and Brandon and their kids, and Spencer and Gayle. It was good to see them and we're glad we made the trip even though it wasn't very long.

Here is a picture of the sunset on Friday night coming through Sardine canyon.

On our way home from Logan we stopped in Brigham City and had dinner at Maddox with my friends Kristan Jo and Kami. It's always good to see them.
Finally, we met my parents and my sister and her husband at the Theater in Ogden to see HARRY POTTER 7, part 1. We liked the movie but think that there is still a lot that needs to happen and hope the next movie can have enough time to wrap it all up.

On Saturday, Ryan and I did some Christmas SHOPPING so we won't have to mail presents to everyone. Today, Sunday, we went to church, had a family dinner, made Ady a dance tutu and played the Wii. Ryan and Adam are having another show-down on the Wii right now.
I also took some great video today:) I was recording Ady in her new dance outfit doing her dance while Adam, Kasey and Ryan were playing the Wii in the background. The video is hilarious, just watch the background players to see what I mean!

Anyway, Ady was upset her dance video got messed up, but we all think it's great we got the Wii incident on video. Just goes to show that video games can be dangerous! (at least if you play with my sister)

Well, we hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving Holiday. I know we have!

Baby Shower

I had a baby shower in Utah last Saturday. It was a lot of fun and we had a good turn out.

Baby shower invitations

We had the shower at my parent's house. Here are some of the decorations we put up:)

I had a lot of family come, and some friends too.

The little kids loved opening presents the best.

My nieces and nephews enjoying the presents.

I got a lot of cute and useful presents (though everything is useful at this point:)

Thank you everyone for coming and for the amazing presents.

November

So far this month we haven't had much excitement. I did make a few pumpkin pies with the Tripples, and went to a baby shower for a friend. Other than that Ryan has been busy working and I've kept busy planning our trip to Utah this month and doing a few projects.
For the last couple months I have felt little baby boy Crockett moving around a lot. He is starting to push harder. It doesn't hurt but sometimes takes me by surprise. I still feel good for the most part and my doctor appointments have all gone well. The baby is growing well. Enough that I finally went and bought some maternity clothes.
Though lately I have had some episodes where my heart will start beating really hard and fast. I'm not sure why or what to do about it. It's not real fun. Yesterday while sitting in sacrament meeting it happened again, so Ryan and I timed my heart rate and it was at 120 bpm. Has anyone else had this happen? Any suggestions?

The VanTassell's Visit

My sister Kasey and her family visited us the beginning of October. They were able to stay almost 2 weeks. It was fun to go touring, play with the kids, and play the Wii with Adam and Kasey!

We did a lot of things while they were here. We went to The Mall in Washington D.C. and visited a few museums and looked at the monuments and some of the cooler buildings. Here's everyone in front of the Supreme Court Building.

The doors to the Supreme Court. Adam really liked this building and the history here.

We also visited Mt. Vernon.

Here are the VanTassell's at the 16-sided barn.

And here's Ady at her favorite part, petting the sheep.

A really cool place we visited was the United States Mint in D.C. It was really interesting and there was sooooo much money! Too bad they don't give out free samples:)

Me and the closest I'll get to one million dollars!

The process of making money.

We also toured Ford's Theater were Lincoln was shot. I really like this place.

The building

The Theater

The Presidential Box where Lincoln was assassinated.

Fort McHenry in Baltimore was also really interesting. This is the Fort that was in battle when Francis Scott Key was inspired to write The Star-Spangled Banner.

Kasey, Brock and Ady.

Adam and Ady in prison!

Other than touring, we played with the kids and had Wii competitions. Though Ryan and Adam were mainly the competitors.

The Boys! Ryan and Brock playing Wii. Ryan and Adam stayed up the last night they were here to play all the sports. Adam won bowling, but Ryan beat him in all the rest! Ryan was quite proud. We'll have to have a trophy to pass around every time we get together and have Wii competitions.

It was really enjoyable to have the kids around.

Here's Ady on the Carousel in D.C. It was the longest carousel ride I've ever been on!

Ady found a dead butterfly that she had to keep. At least until she decided to set it free (which probably didn't do much good since it was dead).

Ryan with Ady and Brock.