Christmas card

For all of our Blogging friends out there, we figured this was as practical as we were going to get this year! Hopefully you enjoy it!! Merry Christmas from our family to yours.

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope this Christmas season is treating you all well. We can hardly believe another year has flown by so we would like to share with all of you some of the things that our family has experienced this year.

First things first…Kambria had her first birthday! We had a lot of fun taking pictures of her with her own chocolate cake. This is a tradition on Eliza’s side of the family to give the one year old their very own chocolate cake and see what they do with it. She devoured both cakes that she had…one at the Fairbanks’ and one at the Lamprecht’s. Two is always better than one right?! She is growing up so fast that it is hard to believe she is almost 16 months old! We have truly been blessed by having her in our family. She is quite the little smarty-pants too! She discovers new talents everyday. She can say kitty, doggy, up, vroom-vroom, “oo” for cold, her own version of hot with blowing noises and all and many more words that slip my mind currently. She has learned how to say “no, no, no,” while shaking her finger at things, as well as understands most EVERYTHING you say or tell her to do. Although she doesn’t always obey everything you tell her!! She like to play the “come and get me game,” when she is doing something she knows she is not supposed to do. She LOVES to dance, play the piano, sing and lead music in church. Do you think she will be a musical person? We sure hope so!

Bryan has been busy this year too. We moved from Fort Collins to Denver so that Bryan could get a job and do some volunteer hours for a prosthetics clinic so that he could apply to graduate school. He found a job at Allosource where he worked as a tissue banker. We all jokingly called him the bone scraper! ;o) If you don’t know what tissue banking is, have him tell you about it sometime. Well after 8 months of working, volunteering, and waiting, Bryan FINALLY was accepted to both schools he applied at; Northwestern University and California State Dominguez Hills. He chose to go to Northwestern University in Chicago. He quit working the last week in October and started school November 5. He is dedicated! He is doing the first section of his schooling online, while he is still volunteering/ learning from the prosthetic clinic here in Denver. Then sometime this next April we will move to Chicago so he can finish the schooling portion on-site in Chicago and then he will have to find a place to do a year of residency. So we will move again. But we like change and he has worked very hard to get where he is at and we are all VERY proud of his accomplishments thus far! Some family news from Bryan’s side of the family is that his brother Scott was married to his high school sweet heart Jacqueline, and his sister Lisa and brother in law Erik, had their first child Madalyn.

I LOVE being a stay at home mom and we are very fortunate to have me home right now. We are living in my parents’ basement to allow me to stay home, rather than having to work to pay for an apartment. It worked out nicely when my little brother Colin left to go on his mission to Argentina so that we could have the basement. Thanks little bro! ;o) So it has worked out nicely, and we are grateful to have this opportunity. My brother Brady even decided to come live at home for a little while too so it has been a party here back at mom’s house. There are days when being home all day with Kambria are more fun than others, but for the most part I enjoy playing with her and seeing her learning curve increase dramatically. I watched a little girl for a couple of months until she found a regular babysitter, which was fun but at times overwhelming. My heart goes out to those with multiples. This brings me to the exciting news of Nelson, my brother, and his wife Leah, having a set of twins. So now Hayden is a big brother! The twins are two very cute girls named Chloe and Ella. They are a gift from heaven and are a blessing to us all.

Some of the travels that we have made this year are to Utah several times for family events, British Columbia, Canada for Bryan’s family’s reunion, Chicago to check out the school and have some fun, which we did, and Red feather Lakes for the Dirk Lamprecht’s first family reunion. It has been a fun year with many experiences to remember.

Hopefully that sums up our year. We hope you all have a Merry Christmas and would love to hear how your family is doing.

Love,

Bryan, Eliza, and Kambria

better day today

So yesterday turned out to be not such a bad day...I actually had time to sit and play with Kambria and due to the fact I knew i was a little tired I tried VERY hard to be patient. And let me tell you it WORKED!!!!

We finished up our Christmas shopping last night and now all I have left is Bryan's stocking...that should be easy enough, he even said that we don't need much candy! he is being so easy this year! We are not giving each other presents since we now have a car payment...except for our stockings.

Today has gone OK. Bryan is at clinical today and Kambria is now sleeping. We are going to go shovel snow for our service today, so I am going to go make cookies to give them too when we are done snow shoveling!

I have to make mention of news I just heard...my friend Megan from church died last night in a car accident. It has hit me hard this morning. I just talked to her on Sunday and she gave me a bunch of left over diapers from her son Teak. He was staying with his grandparents and his dad was thrown from the car. We don't currently know what is happening with Quinn, the dad. I am sure we will find out more tonight as we have choir practice...which she was singing in too. But let me just tell you it has hit me hard and has made me think a LOT about my life and what would happen with Kambria...Bryan and I, I am sure will talk more about this tonight!

Have a SAFE day!

KIDS!!! AGH

So here I sit this morning in a BAD mood. Last night was NOT a fun night once we went down to our bedroom to go to bed. Kambria woke up and Bryan and I decided that we were teaching her bad lessons by letting her come into bed with us. So we let her scream!!! For 45 minutes she screamed!!! And then FINALLY fell asleep, even without her binky. That was quite a surprise to me that she actually feel asleep after all that screaming, you would have thought she was hurt or deathly scared. But she did fall asleep, only to toss and turn for the next 15 minutes. But then she woke up several times and since I did not want to go through the screaming bit again, I went and gave her her binky. This happened about 5 times.
Then I figured she would sleep in a little bit since she did not fall asleep until almost midnight...NOPE I was wrong...7:00am she awoke...so I tried to get her to just rest with us in bed...no she climbed all over Bryan and I for an hour until she started throwing a fit and so I took her up stairs for breakfast...This day is NOT starting out well.

I hope it turns into a better one. Hopefully she will cooperate a little bit and just leave me alone this morning. Is this normal behavior for Kambria and me? I sure hope so and that I am not just a crazy annoyed mother!

Family pictures

So yesterday, Saturday December 8, 2007 we took the first "family" pictures of the Bryan Fairbanks family that included a child. Now there have been many times when we have taken pictures of the family and such, but none officially as family pictures! And I have to admit that they turned out so much better than either Bryan or I though they would turn out.

The story is that we took Don Fairbanks' family pictures while we were out in Utah, but Kambria got a horrible rash and we took them outside when it was FREEZING!! so Kambria was not a happy camper and they did not turn out the way we would have liked. So we went yesterday and just took Bryan Fairbanks' family pictures. It was a busy day at the mall and it was snowing so we were a little late for our appointment. And the store was PACKED with families taking pictures. It was busier than we had ever seen. So we even had to wait a while and so Kambria was getting tired and not exactly cooperating. SO we did not think that there would be any pictures with Kambria looking at the camera or for that matter even smiling, but well there were 3 that turned out cute...We are sending out Christmas card with these pictures on them too so I will have to wait to post the pictures until I get them sent out so we do not spoil the fun.

And I have to say that at church today, I have once again been reminded that giving a child everything they want is NOT a good thing. There was a talk given about how the person talking was given everything should could ever want as a child and how she regrets it. It made me very thankful to have been taught the value of money and the idea of working for what you have. Now of course we all would like to have things just handed to us in life, but after hearing this talk, I don't think it would be worthwhile for ANYONE to have things just handed to them...

I also taught a lesson on financial responsibility to the YW today. I was originally was just supposed to teach Anna, but I ended up teaching the laurels and Mia maids too. It turned out good and we had a nice discussion abut debt and credit and frugal-ness. I think this was a good lesson to have around Christmas time, when sometimes teenagers are "want want want" during Christmas. The bishop from the other ward even sat in on the lesson and told me afterward that he was very impressed with how the discussion went and was very grateful for people like me who can teach a lesson like that! I was very thankful to hear that. Sometimes I wonder if I teach a good lesson, or if I just ramble a lot. I still have to question if it was just a bishop being nice, or if he truly meant it, but I will take it as sincere this time!

Bryan took a service tag off of the ward's giving tree for Christmas this year. I have to say that I am impressed with Bryan doing this because I know it was going out of his comfort zone and it would have been easier for him to have taken a money gift than a service gift, but after talking with me about it and then contemplating it for a while, he chose the service. So we are going to give Madalyn McKinney and Sister Hinchey some service for Christmas this year. I am excited to do this, and also to feel the gift giving spirit as well as the service aspect of it! Christmas is great isn't it!!!??

December 6

We went to the temple last night for our stake temple night and I was so glad I did. I was having feelings of not wanting to go...but if course my loving husband told me that we needed to go and so we did. It was good for me. I reflected on my life and had some wonderful conversations with my husband. It is SO nice to have a live in babysitter...my mother. Although the reason she did not go to the temple was because she was not feeling well, but she offered to watch Kambria for us so we could go. How sweet is that!? Thanks mom!

There also was a wonderful nativity scene in front of the temple that Bryan and I thought was very sweet. it truly reminded me what this season is celebrating...Christ! And what better way than being at the temple! I knew I was supposed to go for some reason.

So with this ever increasing retail holiday...please let us remember the TRUE meaning for celebration! I have so much to be thankful and grateful for...so here are a few.

1. My husband, who so ever sweetly and softly reminds me of things I should be doing!
2. My daughter Kambria, even with all her energy and opinion! I truly m thankful for her health and for the things she teaches me on a daily basis.
3. My family. This has become quite apparent the last 1o months. I truly do not know what we would have done without them...that includes EVERYONE...Tess, Brady and nelson too. It has been fun living with Brady and Tess again and the little things we have been able to do together. i know that all of us are ready for things to move on in a way, but i will miss it when it is gone!
4. My in laws. They are a great family who has accepted me for who I am...I am so glad that I have a great relationship with my mother in law and for all of her help and advice. This means a lot to me
5. For my health. i can not imagine what it wold be like to be sick on a constant basis. I REALLY am glad for feeling good enough to get up in the mornings, and to do the things that I want to do...maybe one day I will even WANT to exercise, when right now it is a have to thing rather than want to.
6. For water. I know this sounds weird, but think about it. Water is what makes life possible. I heard somewhere that the reason we are supposed to have 72 hour kits and not 48 hour kits is that it takes 72 hours for rescue teams to get water in to the damaged area...I thought that was interesting. Water is one of those things that makes you that much more grateful when you don't have it!
7. For the truthfulness of the gospel. I am so thankful that I have this in my life and for the opportunity that I have to live it. I really do not know where I would be in my life without it and do not even want to think about what would be happening in my life...lets just say I have seen many people without the truth and where it got them...glad I am not one of them.
8. Friends. I make friends easily, but it seems like lately that I have not kept up on some friendships that mean a lot to me. For those of you who feel this way I apologize. I truly am thankful for the experiences in my life that have lead me to people whom I trust, love and admire. I am thankful also for the friends that I have lost contact with and then we go back to right where we left off, no matter how much time we have gone without seeing or talking to each other. I love friendship...especially good ones!
9. My heritage. This is one thing that I have not thought about lately, but have come to realize that it is what makes me me. I have a lot of backgrounds that make me who I am, but most of all I claim German, mostly because of my maiden name. It is a joy to know somewhat of your heritage and I have enjoyed when I get time to learn about mine...although genealogy is not a strong point of mine.
10. I am graeftul for technology. I think about my ancestors and the things they had to endure...I am so grateful I did not have to endure them! I love being indoors when it is cold outside and not having to wake up early to milk cows or feed horses!

So those are my thoughts for the day. Remember Christ in Christmas!

it is already december!

I can not believe how time is FLYING past! There are days when they seem so long, but the year has truly FLOWN by! December is already upon us and all the fun of the Christmas season is here. Since we bought our Christmas present early this year, our car, I feel like I don't need to go shopping...but then I remember that I still have brothers and sisters to shop for. We draw names in my family as well as in Bryan's family...but it is a little different. In my family we only use the names of the siblings...when one is married they just get a family gift...in Bryan's family everyone's name, in laws included, are put in a hat and drawn. So this year we have Brady and I have Erik and Bryan has Amanda. And then we have to do each others stockings....yep Bryan does mine and I do Kambria's and Bryan's. And then we have the parents to shop for too...I think that is the hardest one!

Sometimes the holiday is so crazy...I told Amanda, who is giving to me this year, that I don't want anything that I have to move again...so something I can use, like a massage or pedicure or something like that would be nice. We will see how it goes.

Bryan is doing well with school. I know he feels like he can always be doing more, but I am so proud of him and all the time and energy he is putting into it. I can't wait till all the studying is done. But once again I am so proud of him!

So that s ll the time I have for ramblings...