Annual Christmas Letter

   Merry Christmas to our wonderful family and friends! We just wanted to give you a quick update on our family and our year. Bryant and I both agree that this has been one of the best years we have had so far. We have been greatly blessed.

    Bryant has been busy working at Franklin Building Supply as the manager of the Closet Department. He has had to work a lot of hours this year, but he loves what he does and has had some major successes.When he is not working, Bryant has enjoyed lots of fishing in Island Park, working on the family cars, doing a lot of gourmet cooking (he makes a killer turkey, homemade mayo, and smoked pulled pork), and spending time with me and the boys. We love him!!
    Tripp just turned four last week-wow! It makes me feel old. He is in preschool and is loving it. His favorite part is the craft they do each day, whether it be making Christmas advent calendars or turkeys to hang on the wall for Thanksgiving. He is currently into Super Mario and Pokemon and plays the wii better than his parents can. He comes up with the cutest phrases and is always making us laugh!
   Chantz will be eighteen months in a couple of weeks and will be in nursery! His current favorites include "a ball" of any sort, mushy baby food (we can't get him to love big people food yet), puppies, babies and kittens. He coos and giggles at the sight of any of them. Though he is definitely opinionated, Chantz is our laid back kiddo who always has a silly face to share.
    I still work part time at St Al's Nampa in the ICU. I just hit my five-year mark this September. When I am not working, I am at home being a mommy to my little boys and playing the piano for the church primary. I was also able to participate in a church musical last month. I had forgotten how much I love to sing! As part of a goal to become more healthy, I have taken up running this year-it is a challenge but it has given me lots more energy to keep up with our munchkins.
    At this time of the year, our family is trying to celebrate our loving Savior who has given us everything we have. We are so grateful for the blessings we have received this year and we know it all comes from Him. We hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season as well.
 Love,
Abrie, Bryant, Tripp and Chantz

Let's go to the FAIR!!!

We look forward to the fair every year...despite the fact that it's 100 degrees, has over 1000 people, and costs like 10000 dollars. Hey, it only comes once a year, right? And the kids love it! Trippster quite enjoyed the rides. He's a bit taller than last year so he was able to go on more of them. He loved the four wheeler ride!                                               

 Then, he found the balloons!! In case you can't tell, this is an offical "Legend of Zelda" Link sword complete with sword holder. The day this popped was a sad, sad day for us all.

Aunt Lainey got a balloon "water gun." Pretty cool!

 He wasn't even afraid of the clown!

 Later on we headed to the petting zoo. This scared Tripp to death, so Uncle Brice ended up holding him and walking him through-and no petting of the animals was done. :)

 Tripp loved the pony ride-this is his third year doing it!

 Chantzter had a blast playing with Lainey's new sunglasses and riding along in the stroller.

 The heat got to him though, and he slept like a rock for quite some time.

 Here's Tripp and Trey driving the jeeps. Watch out kids, here they come!

 This ride was my personal favorite because these boats were actually in water that was pretty deep. I thought it was a clever kids' ride.

Later my mom and I came back to the fair-kidless-and looked at exhibits, bought souvenirs, and ate greasy fair food. All in all, the fair was a success!

Labor Day 2011

We had a wonderful Labor day at the cabin! We were pleasantly surprised that a lot of our family was able to come up too! We hadn't seen them in so long and it was fun to catch up. There was lots of card playing, eating, gaming, talking, and laughing! Here is Tripp with his cousin Wynn playing the DS...

 Saturday night we got to go to the last show of the season at the Playmill--High School Musical. We loved it! It was almost Brice's birthday, so he was pulled up on stage and the girls sang to him...what a lucky guy. :) Happy birthday Brother!!!

 Tripp and Chantz were able to spend a couple days with their Grandma Trudy, and I had a nice break to be an adult...and to sleep...and to do what I wanted to do, which mostly included reading and spending time with the family. When the boys returned, we got busy playing! Tripp and I had a great afternoon shooting his potato gun (courtesy of Grandma Trudy), shooting his new bow and arrow (courtesy of Grandma Teresa), four wheeling, and throwing rocks into the pond.

 Trippster on the four wheeler...happy as a clam

 The new bow and arrow, complete with homemade quiver

 The last day before we had to leave, the few of us who were left (my Mom, me, my boys, Grandma, Kevin and Pat) went up to Wade Lake for the afternoon. I have never seen anything more beautiful! We were able to have a fire, a great dinner provided by Kevin and Pat, and my boys absolutely LOVED the water! Chantz would have jumped right in if I would have let him! Here's an example of how happy he was:

 My baby looking out over the water

 Classic.

 Chantz and Grandma Teresa...can you tell my boys are spoiled? These pictures are lacking Tripp because he fell asleep on the way and slept for almost the whole afternoon!

 Tripp, after finally waking up, sitting with Grandma Gibbons

 Smores! (That Grandma Teresa cooked on a flaming hot fork over the fire, by the way)

 The boy loved the corn on the cob!

 I'm not really into taking scenery shots, but I couldn't resist. This is the view from the property by the cabin where Tripp and I went four wheeling:

 This is Wade Lake. Breathtaking.

As for this past week, it was one of the best ones of the summer. Bryant was able to take a couple days off work and do some major fishing, and I was able to relax, breathe the fresh mountain air, spend time with my family, and count my blessings!

Daddy

Our Daddy is the best. We love him so much! Every night we just can't wait for him to come home. When he gets home, he picks us up and tickles us. He always wrestles with us, and a lot of the time Mommy has to work so he feeds us dinner, plays with us, reads us the Book of Mormon, and puts us to bed!

 We are always fighting over who gets to sit with Daddy. Sometimes we make him hold both of us, even though we're a bit wiggly.

 Sometimes he has to distract us by holding toys up for us to see so we don't fall right off the couch while Mommy is taking a picture.

 We love when Daddy helps us open our presents...except when he eats the candy out of them. :)

 Daddy is also a good uncle! One time he held both us boys and Ella and Paisley on his lap all at the same time! I think they love him too, but not as much as we do!

 Daddy likes to catch big fish. He caught this one up at the cabin this summer. It's huge! Too bad he couldn't keep it so we could eat it-yum!

 Speaking of Daddies, we love our Grandpas too! Here is Mommy's Daddy, Grandpa Hessing:

Needless to say, we LOVE our Daddy!!

Let's go to the ZOO!

Tripp has a marvelous preschool teacher named Mrs. Amber. The kids go on field trips once a month, and I got to go with Tripp and his class to the zoo! As you can see from the picture, Tripp is the only boy. The class only has six students, so each student gets individual time and attention from the teacher which I feel is very important. Here they're inside the little hut in the African village:

 We brought Chantz along. He had no idea what was going on, but his big brother loved showing him the animals!

 Here's the kiddos looking at the giraffes...I think...

 Tripp and his friend Addison checking out the birds

 I thought these pheasants were so cool! I'm not an animal person so the zoo doesn't thrill me, but I've been twice this summer and both times I have really enjoyed seeing these colorful, unique birds.

 The kids stopped mid-way for a snack.

 "Can we keep going? I want to see more animals!"

 I think the highlight of the day was the giraffe slide--who needs live animals when there are plastic ones to slide down??  :)

 Tripp, Lainey, Trey, Chantz, my mom, Macey and I went back to the zoo last week. This time I decided to give the little African hut a try with the kids...

What great memories we are making this summer! I hope we can take the kids back one more time before the zoo closes-we haven't gotten a chance to feed the giraffes yet!

Ahhh...Summer.

What would Summer be like without mentioning the cabin? What would Summer be like if we didn't go to the Cabin... a lot?? Well, don't worry friends. Our family has had the blessing of being up in Island Park twice so far this year, and we plan on being back up there asap. Between the two trips, we have experienced snowy blizzards, lightning storms, 85 degree weather, an 8lb, 25" plus fish, many smaller fish, two Playmill shows ("Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" and "High School Musical"), a rafting adventure, bridge jumping, a double ear infection, a trip to the ER, four wheeler rides, wildflower picking, lots of napping, lots of reading, catching up with aunts, uncles and cousins, huckleberry cheesecake, playing at Grandma Trudy's,watching fireworks over the water, having Chantz's first birthday party, and having the suburban overheat every twelve miles the whole way home. I was involved in most of these activities. :) Needless to say, besides dealing with a poor little sick baby, we really had a great time! Here is the gang before the rafting trip:

As you can see, Tripp was super excited to go to the cabin...or maybe he was just super excited that Chase let him stand on the suburban. Aunt Denise and Uncle Steve took the kiddos fishing the first day-it was Tripp's first time and he loved it! No fish, but maybe he'll have some luck next time.

Tripp and I were best buds on the rafting adventure.

Chantz and I took a gorgeous walk around the cabin one afternoon...you can see how happy he was in his stroller to be out and about!

We have also been hanging out at home as a family and enjoying the beautiful weather and time together. Chantz and Tripp are best friends, as you can see from the pictures. I thought I'd throw in a few pictures of their obvious cuteness. :)

 Grandma Hessing celebrated her 90th birthday this last month. Wow! There sure is a huge Hessing clan, and I feel so blessed to be a part of it. There are so many amazing people in our family and it was so fun to catch up with everyone and to let Grandma know how much we love and appreciate her. She's the cute one in the middle dressed in pink, if you couldn't tell. :)

 The Boys in their new double stroller

 Chantzter in his swing in the backyard. We spend quite a bit of time out there!

 Tripp's "Link" face. Link is a character from a video game...

 Here are my boys on Chantz's first birthday. We had two parties for him-one at home and one later at the cabin. He wasn't quite sure how to dig in to that monster cake, but with a little help he figured out!

More brotherly love