Party till the cows come home

Dinner was a little rushed tonight as Deni had to run off to a training. As we were cleaning up the dishes, I told the kids that we were going to "party till the cows come home". Deni overheard me and said, "you just called me a cow." We both laughed about it.

I figured it I'd better write it down before Deni does.

In a world where Sea Monsters ruled the ocean....

A while back Deni and I decided that we should start going on "dates" with our kids. Deni would take one kid and I'd take the other. We did this a few months back and it was a hit (for both the kids and for us.)

It was fun for us to spend one on one time with each of the kids and be able to focus only on them and what they wanted to do. Since it was one on one, it was fun to listen to what they wanted to talk about.

We gave the kids a small budget for the night and let them spend it as they wanted. We told them they could go out to eat with the money, or we could eat before went out and spend it on other fun things, or better yet they could spend it all on themselves if they wanted to. As with all good ideas we got busy and we never did it again.

With the new year, we thought we would try and start it up again.

Tonight it was my turn to go out with Ryan. (while Deni and Sydney went out).

Ryan and I started out the night by playing a game of Mario Strikers Charged (which is a really fun Soccer game on the Wii) at our house. Next we drove to Lehi to Thanksgiving Point to the Mammoth Screen Theater, which is an iMax type theater. We bought tickets to "Sea Monsters" in 3D and then walked around the theater looking at dinosaurs.

At 7:20 pm we were seated. I asked the lady if it was going to be a private showing as Ryan and I were the only ones there. We got our 3D glasses and choose our seat. 2 minutes before the movie started, one couple walked in and sat a few rows behind us. It was almost a private showing.

Ryan and I with our 3D glasses on.

Sea Monsters takes audiences on a remarkable journey into the relatively unexplored world of the “other dinosaurs,” those reptiles that lived beneath the water.

The movie alone would have been pretty cool, but the fact that it was 3D made it even better. We enjoyed reaching out attempting to touch the giant "Sea Monsters" as they swam towards us. It was only 45 minutes long, but again, well worth the money.

After the movie we decided to run across the street to Cabelas to look at the giant fish tanks. We didn't have much time at Cabelas but got to look around really quick.

I had a great time with Ryan tonight. I wouldn't change a thing about him. I'm pretty lucky to have such a great son.

Look Dad, no boots

When I woke up this morning it was raining. Within an hour it was snowing hard. By noon it had stopped snowing and we had just over 6 inches of fresh snow.

I went out to shovel the driveway and found the snow was wet and heavy. Great snowman making snow. A few minutes later Deni and the kids got dressed and came outside to build a snowman.

As we were building the snowman we hear, "Mom... Dad...I need some help"

We looked over and we saw this:

Only Sydney would be out in the snow with her boots off.

We had fun making the snowman.

In the past, our snowmen haven't lasted too long. Usually some kids in the neighborhood come by and push it over or do something to it. While we were making our big snowman I had an idea.

We have 2 larger sized rocks in our parkstrip. I threw snow around these rocks and had the kids make smaller snowmen, with the rock packed with snow as the base of the snowman. I'm hoping I don't wake up and see a car stuck on my parkstrip thinking it would be funny to run over a small snowman only to hit my rock.

Pause.....Happy New Year

My parents hosted the "1st Annual Berger New Years Eve Party" at their house tonight. Both Teresa and Stefanie came with most of their families. We met about 5:30pm and had dinner as a family. After dinner we visited and played games together. We took the Nintendo Wii over and Teresa's boys brought their Playstation 2 and guitar hero.

We played all sorts of games. Phase 10, uno Master (a cool new game we got for Christmas), Swipe, etc, etc. Ryan and Deni playing Phase 10.

Because we all have little kids and we didn't want them to be up until midnight MST, we decided to celebrate the New Year with the East Coast at 10pm MST. The best part of the night was about 3 minutes before 10pm MST. My mom was channel surfing attempting to find a channel showing the Ball falling in NYC. Apparently everyone wasn't quite ready, so we paused live tv until everyone was ready. What did we do before we could pause live tv?



Sydney with 2 of her cousins getting ready to ring in the new year (NY time).

High School Musical Audtions

Sydney is a huge High School Musical Fan.

While we were waiting for Deni to run into a store the kids and I were listening to the Soundtrack for High School Musical 2 and I caught this little video clip of Sydney singing.



Oh and we have had the High School Musical 2 soundtrack for 4 days. She learns fast.

Also, if you didn't notice, he's wearing her High School Musical Varsity Jacket too.

Christmas Traditions - Sitting on the Stairs

Growing up, I had a lot of constants in life. Things I could always plan on. One of those was, no matter what time we woke up on Christmas morning (early or late), we had wait for my dad to "get his eye's in" and then get his cameras ready to capture the events of the day.

As a kid, it felt like an eternity. Even worse, once he had his contacts in and cameras ready, he would go downstairs and taunt us by saying "Do you think Santa came?" and "Ooh look at what Brett got." We had to wait upstairs until we got the go ahead to come running down the stairs.

I thought of my childhood Christmas's as I made my kids sit on the stairs and wait while I got my camera ready before I let them come up to see what Santa brought them. It's funny how that works.

Although it looks like Ryan is crying, he isn't. I think I caught him mid sneeze.

Christmas morning, waiting on the stairs.

Christmas Eve Snow

We went to my parents house this afternoon for a Christmas get together. We got there around 1:00 pm. It was cold but not snowing....yet. We had a great lunch and an enjoyable time visiting as a family. After lunch, we played "Disney Scene it" for a while with all 19 of us. Playing a game with 19 people isn't that easy either. It began to snow very hard while we were playing. Around 5:30pm we decided that we should get the presents we had stashed at my parents into our car. When we went out to the car, there was about 2 inches of new snow. By the time we left, about an hour later, there was even more snow. Dad got out the 4 wheeler to clean off "the driveway", however even with the snow off, we slid all the way down. The roads weren't that great coming home but we got home safely and did our Christmas eve traditions.

Ryan read the Christmas story out of Luke 2 to us.

Sydney was our picture holder.

After reading the Christmas story we put our stockings out and then opened a present from Grandma Berger. Deni read the book to the kids and then we put them to bed.

Brett, Ryan and Sydney

Ryan, Deni and Sydney

The kids have been in bed for about 30 minutes and I think they are asleep. Now comes the fun part.

Christmas Traditions - Sugar cookies

As a kid, I always remembering my mom making sugar cookies around Christmas time and as a family we would decorate the cookies for our friends. It was fun decorating them. I also remember having a good time driving around to my friends homes to deliver them.

Deni made cookies for us this year and we spent a Monday night decorating them and delivering them to some of the kids friends. We had a great time as a family decorating the cookies.

Ryan and his cookie:

Deni and her cookie:

Right before we went out to deliver the cookies:

White Christmas

I just watched the weather and it appears that we will have a White Christmas this year. It's not snowing yet but is supposed to be snowing by tomorrow and continue almost all week.

Tonight the kids and I watched a Sesame Street Christmas show on TV. They have been so excited about Christmas this year and have been counting down the days till Christmas.

We have an advent calendar (the one we had when I was little) and the kids have been taking turns putting up an ornament each day. They were so wound up tonight before bed that I didn't think Sydney was going to go to sleep. After I put her to bed, she laid in her bed singing Christmas songs as loud as she could.

Tomorrow we are headed to my parents for lunch with the rest of my family and then we'll spend Christmas day at home.

Dear Heavenly Father .... and Jesus

I put Sydney to bed tonight and she had a cute prayer. She said:

"Dear Heavenly Father.....and Jesus. I love you. And I love Azure." Her prayer continued on and she said, "and I love the movie Annie."

This weekend I was sick, so I was stuck inside all weekend. While I was here though, Sydney was saying the ABC song to me and she would get the the "L, M, N, O" part and say "Elmo Elmo P" I stopped her and told her it wasn't "Elmo Elmo P" but that it was "L, M, N, O, P". She laughed and tried it again, but for some reason it always came out as "Elmo Elmo P".