Punxatawney Phil was right!

Move over Live 5 Weather Vipir! Apparently, the good old groundhog never fails to predict the weather. I had my doubts on Groundhog's Day when I sent Kaeleb off to school with no jacket. And, as you can see we have been enjoying some lovely weather... (sorry about the fuzz, the lens had a smudge, no doubt a tiny fingerprint)

This is us at Johnson Canyon with Nathan, Mary Lynne, and McKay last Saturday.

But, what do you know.... this week it was winter again! This snow lasted about 5 minutes, but it has rained and been chilly all week. Tried and true, Phil was right. (Check groundhog.org for more details!)

Here's the Brenster wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day!!

Who says you can't be rich, healthy, and save the planet all at once?

I have been so excited about some dorky things this week. Like most of you I am always looking for ways to save money on groceries. I keep trying to do the coupon thing like my savvy sister-in-laws and I am not having the best luck. (Maybe I need a mentor) It seems like the things I spend the most money on are dairy and produce, which there are not coupons for (except for yogurt sometimes) and the things that I find coupons for are things I either do not buy or can find a generic cheaper.

So, I have been super frustrated. This month I decided to stock up at Costco on things that are best priced there and it worked fabulously for me. Based on my estimations I think I will just need a few things at Walmart and I think I will have saved quite a bit of money. I am so excited!

The other issue I have is that, as you know, Kwint and I are major health nuts. It's not that we don't have sweet tooths, cuz we do, but we are into whole wheat and fruits and veggies and we don't eat a lot of boxed-treat-like foods. For whatever reason, healthy food just costs more. It makes no sense to me. For example, at Costco you can buy Krusteaz pancake mix in an 80 serving bag for about 6 bucks. The whole grain pancake mix is 8 bucks and only provides 30 servings. What gives?

Or bread- you can buy a knock-off Wonder bread for 99 cents but the Orowheat healthy stuff is 3 dollars a loaf.

So, I buy a bag of whole wheat flour for 3 dollars and make 10 loaves. I also found a recipe for pancake mix and made whole wheat pancakes that were great.

I love saving money. ah.....

Finally, I am becoming as obsessed with recycling as my sis-in-law is with coupons. There is a new recycle station by Albertsons that recycles everything. I have 5 garbage cans full or more each week that I haul over and feel so good about myself as I dump them into the bins. And, the cool thing is, on garbage day for the past two weeks there have only been 2 bags to be taken to the dump. I only need to take the can to the street once a month.

I love saving the world.....

My boys are all well. Kwint's new obsession is facebook. I have not joined yet. Many of you have told him to get me going on it, but I don't even have time to blog, let alone do that. I would get nothing else done because I would be on it all the time. He loves it, though and I am glad.

Kaeleb is a sweet little guy. His two best friends are moving away. Mikell is already gone and Hudson is moving next week. He is a one at a time kind of guy when it comes to friends, so it will be hard for him to make some new friends, but I know he will.

Kaeleb also has a new obsession- it is dipping graham crackers in milk.

Brennan has been talking up a storm! A few of his new words and sentences inlude "Go away" which he said to his blanket as he pushed it to the floor, "bubee" for his favorite blanket (which we call "funny blanket" because he cackles every time he sees it), "tuck" which he says when he or one of his toys gets stuck, and "boke" which is "broke." In fact he has a story...

While we were watching the Super Bowl he was playing with a balloon and kept biting it. We told him it would pop but he wouldn't stop. Finally it popped in face and he sat there dumbfounded for a few seconds. Then he said "Balloo-boon boke!" Every day, all week he has been telling us the story about "balloo-boon boke. Balloo-boon boke." It has been so funny.

Today while Kaeleb was dipping his graham crackers Brennan walked up and said "Dip. Ah wanna dip." Kaeleb loves it when he says sentences and tells us over an over all the things his little bro can say.

Anybody have any good ideas for separation anxiety? (Besides the cry it out method-it's not for us) Little Brenny just needs his mom and dad but we need a date sometimes. We always end up coming home early from dates or just staying home because he cries from the minute the door closes to the minute it opens again. We went to an EQ social on Friday and we only stayed an hour. When we got home he was red-faced with snot and drool running all over the place and he was so very sad. If nothing else, I suppose he will soon outgrow it.

That is that for us, I guess. I am sure Kwint is keeping everyone up to date on facebook better than I am here... but for posterity's sake I will keep on blogging.

Brennan's Bad Day

Brennan the Destroyer as we affectionately refer to him as...


Yesterday Brenny had a rough day. 'Nuff said.

Random babblings

I feel like I should blog because it has been awhile, but I can't think of anything to share.

When all else fails...kid stories are always good.

This morning Brennan pulled a thumbtack out of the wall and walked around, grinning, saying "danger, danger, danger" in his cute little voice.

His vocabulary is really growing. Most of his words are incomprehensible to anyone besides Kwint, Kaeleb, and I, but it is really fun to watch him learn about his world, make connections and talk about it. He has also started jumping off things. Not good.

Kaeleb now fully believes that he is a superhero. He told me once about some amazing stunt he pulled to get a bad guy (they usually entail lightning, poison darts, and smacking) and I said "Wow! That is way cool!" and he said in that "duh Mom" way, "Well Mo-om, I'm powerful."

Yesterday he was daydreaming out loud about being a super hero kid with a really powerful sword. I heard him say "There are some kids and I can hear them saying 'Look! A kid with a powerful sword! We better run!!'"

At this very moment he is behind me in the office with a sword saying "A super hero sword! Yes! I am a super hero so I have to have this sword! I've been wanting this forever! I have moves that I can do, too. I'm just like a panda! There are 8 guys I can use my moves on. I have power moves, too. Here they are!" I only wish you could hear the sound effects.

Kwint and I are plugging along with our noses to the grindstone. He is working super hard. I am too, but occasionally I get rebellious and refuse to cook dinner. Anyone else in a slump like that?

Holiday cheer

Brenny's cheesiest Hello to all!

Ah... the Christmas season came and went too quickly. We had sooo much fun!! We didn't take enough pictures- we were too busy having fun, but here are a few....

This is our tree the night before we left for Layton. We decided to sleep under it. It was not as fun as it sounded. Kaeleb slept great. Kwint left when I wouldn't give him any room on the couch cushion. I couldn't sleep because Kaeleb kept flopping on me.

Once up North the fun began immediately. Monday we relaxed and enjoyed some time with Grandma and Grandpa. In the evening we went to dinner with Dan and Dee, which was sooo nice. We were so excited to go on a kid-less date... so guess what we talked about all night? The kids.

Tuesday was Kwint's birthday. Woo Hoo! He's finally my age!! He went snowboarding with Dave, Tam, Kris and 4 of our nieces and had a blast. That night we had the first of several big family shin-digs to celebrate the December birthdays. Lots of fun, great times together and oh yes, lots and lots of food.

Christmas Eve was spent in Heber at Kris and Barbi's. They host a good party, let me tell you. There was laughter, singing, and oh yes, lots and lots of food.


Christmas morning... Holy pile of presents Batman! We were completely amazed by the bounty that surrounded us. Before you think that we spoiled our children beyond belief, you must recognize that this was 3 families worth of gifts. Our kids had a blast and all of us were truly happy and grateful to be together. Other than a few people coming down with fevers and the stomach flu we had a perfect Christmas.

This is Kaeleb's favorite present... it was free. Kwint and Coby made magic wands. (Kaeleb likes to pretend he is Harry Potter.) His other favorite present is the Superman cape that cost 1.00 for Santa's elves to make. I feel nearly sick when I think that we could have spent 1.oo on Christmas and it would have been enough.

Here is Bren with his new toolbox. He likes the drill and hammer best and finally has some toys that Kaeleb wants to play with instead of him always stealing Kaeleb's toys.


Here we are the day after Christmas for the annual family brunch at the Little America Hotel. Lots and lots of food. It is always fun. We are always amazed that it has been a year since we were there.
We enjoyed visiting the Packers that night and were sorry to miss the friends we didn't get to see.

Once back home the fun continued. Pictured above is Harry Potter playing basketball with Brennan. Kwint got back to work for a couple days and I cleaned the house (finally) before we had a New Year's Eve celebration at the Robinsons. We had pizza and watched movies, but alas, only Kwint made it to midnight. He tried to give me a New Year's kiss at midnight but I wouldn't wake up. Oh so lame!

New Year's Day we spent with the Miller's. We do so love Nathan, Mary Lynne, and McKay. We went to Pirate Island Pizza- the new restaurant in town that will make all of you want to come visit us. Then we watched a movie at home. We had a great day.


Last but not least, this is Kaeleb at Owen Powell's birthday party again, at Pirate Island Pizza. It is a seriously cool place. Kaeleb had so much fun! Thanks to Chris and Kim for that. It has been really fun to hang out with them and have a connection here from "oh so long ago" and far away. Kaeleb really loves Owen.

So, that is the last few weeks of our lives in a nutshell. Can't wait to read all of your blogs and see how you are doing!

Let it snow....

Ah... It's (finally, amazingly) beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Yes, folks, the event of the year! Actually, the event of every 2 years or so- it snowed!! We were so excited! On Monday we got a whopping 1/4 inch of snow, with which we made the 5 inch snowman pictured below.

Wednesday night began the downpour which dumped a good 3 inches on our front lawn. (Get this- St George shut down completely, school got canceled, it was quite the event.) Our next attempt at a snowman was vastly improved.

Next, you'll see the first of a massive snowball attack launched by Kaeleb at me.





This little bit of joy got us all excited for the winter wonderland we will be enjoying up North next week. The snowman we build at Grandma's will be GINORMOUS. We wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Gearing up for Christmas

As you may infer from the recent lack of bloggage, we have been super busy preparing for and celebrating Christmas. (We had a fabulous Thanksgiving which I fully intended on blogging about... but I haven't had a spare moment in between all the shopping and random Christmas parties.)
In fact there is very little time for bloggage at the moment but it is eating at me, so here are a few pics to at least prove we are still here.
First, our tree. We are becoming obsessed with adding more and more ornaments. There are more than when this was taken. And I am getting more tomorrow. They are on sale at Krumpets for 38 cents each.
Then, some of the funny places I have found Brennan this month: