Christmas Letter!

Season's Greetings everyone! Here is our Christmas Letter and Photo for those of you whose address was not incredibly handy (sorry, that's my bad). This is so much easier! Love to all!



Merry Christmas!

This year has held many exciting changes for our little family! Here’s the short version.

Dan
answers to “Daddy”, “Honey-would-you…”, and now “Dr. Budd”!
accomplishments: graduated dental school with honors and began practicing in NV
adventures: camping with three small children, Disneyland, gardening!

Courtney
answers to “Mama-where’s-my…” and “Honey-where-did-you-put-my…”
accomplishments: three small happy children (“clean house” not in our vocabulary)
adventures: search and rescue (of favorite toys)

McKenna
age 5; sings, dances, writes, reads, twirls, giggles, draws, jumps, get the picture?
accomplishments: tying her shoes and learning to tell jokes with no punch line
adventures: pre-K classes and fieldtrips—the world is a big, wonderful place!

Jacob
age 3; climbs, climbs, climbs, how about that picture?
accomplishments: learning to write his letters and numbers with Mommy
adventures: train rides, mini golfing, apple-picking

Hannah
age 9 months; laughs endlessly at siblings’ antics, melts hearts with her sweet smile
accomplishments: first few words, crawls lightning-fast, stands alone
adventures: so many cupboards, so little time

We are living in Carson City, Nevada and settling in nicely. We are so blessed to be happy and healthy. We are very grateful for our family and friends and especially for our Savior. We love you all and wish you all the joys of the season.

Love,
The Budds

Christmas Tree Cutting!

One of the blessings of living in a somewhat rural area: we got to (legally) cut our own Christmas tree! It was fun to go hiking back into the Tahoe woods and let the kids help us choose and cut a tree and bring it home. What an adventure!

Dan is not allowed to use my beaters anymore.

Please note the dough INSIDE the gears. I do believe this one is a loss. Maybe Santa will apologize and bring me a new one for Christmas.

Halloween--Dan's Favorite

Dan just loves this time of year when I make him dress up in something I have sewn and parade around the ward party and around the neighborhood with the kiddos. He is such a good sport. This year I went easy on myself and made everybody wear what we wore last year since it was so much sewing last year. I had to take in my Wendy dress several sizes since I was pregnant with Hannah last Halloween and I just made her a little Princess Tigerlily costume so we could all be Peter Pan and crew. Aren't we cute? Let's just all assume that the grim expression on Dan's face is because he is
"in-character" as Captain Hook.

Our Little Pumpkins

Tune in next Halloween for something completely store-bought. :)

McKenna is 5!

McKenna turned five at the end of October and her (very obvious) wish was to have a princess birthday party. So, Mommy whipped up a princess castle cake (no, I will not do another one so long as I live...probably any amount of money is worth the bakery doing it special-order next time).

We decorated the house with crowns and castles and pink and purple toole and ribbons everywhere. So girlie. McKenna was in heaven. The kids got to decorate their own crowns and make princess (or race car) magnets. We had a few princess games and a treasure hunt. Everyone had a great time, even the boys who just kept asking for more cake...

McKenna continues to excel in her little Pre-K class and keeps us smiling with the jokes she makes up herself (you know, the kind with no punch line but her infectious giggle at the end of it makes everyone laugh anyway). She has lots of friends and always seeks out the little kid who gets left out. She is such a sweetie...although once in a while a bit of sass creeps out (I am sure she got those genes from Mommy.) Here is a little comparison for you. The first picture is McKenna at age 5. The second picture is McKenna at age 5 minutes! The scowl. She is so good at it. She really was born with it. We love you, McKenna.

Jakers is 3!

Jcob turned 3 (yes, at the end of September, but here it is.) Jacob wanted a Lightning McQueen birthday party, so we had some race car cupcakes on a racetrack...


Here, let me help you take off the paper... and the candles.

Grandpa made a race track for the kids to play with!


Each of the kids painted a little race car.

A little birthday attitude from our brand-new three-year-old.

Nothin' like spending the rest of your birthday in your birthday-suit. (No guests present.)


Jacob is an energetic little jokester. According to the pediatrician, he is off the charts in his verbal skills (what's new around here) and so we enjoy listening to the kids pretend-play and hearing what they come up with. Even though Dan expresses his dismay when Jacob dresses up in full princess attire, Jake is all-boy: climbing, vehicle sound effects, rude humor, dirty fingernails, wrestling moves on any living object. His latest trick is to pretend to zap us with laser beams (complete with "psssshhhh" sound effect) if we ask him to do something which does not suit his fancy. Stink bug. We love you, Jacob.