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:

Gratitude

I read quote in a the Yoga Journal today that said, "even the 'bad days' are filled with good moments" and decided to look for some moments I can appreciate about today. In the spirit of Thanksgiving... here are a few simple things....

*The sun always comes up, even when we have had a bad night.
*Antibiotics. (Bren has an ear infection, hence the bad night.)
*Rebates.
*Gas prices are down to 1.99!!!
*Brennan has a happy heart, even when he is sick.
*Kaeleb told us all about the true meaning of Christmas.
*Kaeleb's preschool teacher rocks. Among other things, she teaches them funny songs, like this one, sung to the tune of "Oh My Darlin' Clementine", which my fellow vegetarians will appreciate...

"Gobble, Gobble," Says the Turkey
"Soon it will be Thanksgiving time,
The way they treat me,
They're gonna eat me,
Guess I better run away."
Then all the kids bend their elbow and flap around the room. Very cute.

*The way my kids smell and their skin feels on my cheek....sigh....
*Our nightly family bedtime bowl of cereal.

P.S. Tell me some good websites for new backgrounds. I am getting jealous of some of your oh-so-fancy blogs and bored with mine.

Trick or Treat

Halloween Fun For Everyone. (Just making a rhyme.)

Here we have Luke Skywalker. I let his hair grow for 2 months but it was really short over the summer, so this is as close as we could come to Mark Hammil's "do" of 30 years ago.

We began the trick or treating early at Aunt Tammy's work. The school district office loves to have their families come trick or treating on Halloween afternoon. It's a good way to get a lot of candy in a short amount of time. We are all about time management.

Next up, our Baby Sith Lord in training. Brennan was not so sure about the whole people-looking-at-me-and talking-to-me thing, but as long as nobody tried to take the tootsie roll out of his hand he was pretty good.


In the column on the right you'll see the Jedi's trick or treating at the Jenkins. You'll notice that half of us are dark side Jedi's, that in no way symbolizes the family members in question, it was Kaeleb's request because, after all, what good is a good guy if there is no bad guy?


Post trick or treating at Tam's. We were tired kids. Yikes! It was only 8:oo. We had a great time trick or treating in Ivins, our old stomping grounds, and had a pizza party with the Robinson's. It was fun because it was dark.

Kaeleb was very methodical and deliberate about the whole trick or treat thing. It wasn't about the candy, it was about the process. The walk up the entry, the knock, the doorbell, (yes both, every time), etc. After we had gone up one block and back the other side he said "This looks like enough candy, let's go to 3 more houses and then be done." Only our Kaeleb would say that. He all but forgot about the candy by Saturday afternoon.

Brennan was really funny. He wandered around the yards and chased a black cat- we thought it was staged, but the lady of the house said it was a stray. He wandered around saying "cak, cak, cak, cak" (his word for cat)in a deep throaty voice. Then a truck drove by slowly with 2 big dogs in the back and Bren spent the next whole block saying "gog, gog, gog, gog". It didn't take long for him to figure out that he got candy when the doors opened and he very matter of factly walked up to each candy bowl and took what he wanted. It was very cute.

All in all we enjoyed ourselves quite a lot. We hope you all had a great night and look forward to seeing your pictures, too.