Odds & Ends

So, I thought I needed to update our blog with a few of our comings and goings. This blog is a little backwards, because I forgot that you need to do your last pictures first and your first pictures last. Oh well! I can't believe that we are already into the middle of December! Time has gone by so fast. We are going to Utah for two weeks for Christmas and New Years. Camren's birthday and my birthday are also going to be squeezed into those two weeks as well. I am not looking forward to the 23 hour drive. I have been praying for dry roads and good weather while we are travelling. Any of you that wish to join in that prayer, our family would appreciate it! :)
There was a little girl that asked Tori to race down the hill at recess with her. Before she asked Tori, she had covered up a hole in the hill with snow. Tori didn't know this and ran right over the ditch and fell and sprained her ankle! We took her to the Dr. and she ended up having an air cast and crutches for the week. I cannot believe how mean some little girls can be. Tori has taken it all in stride though. She is a tough little girl, and a very nice one, I might add. :)


This is Brahnson. Why does he have bows in his hair? He lost a competition with Tori of who could get their area of the kitchen done the fastest!

Thanksgiving was very fun and stress free this year! The pictures are a little smudgy, but you get the idea! My really good friend and I decided that we didn't want to make the whole Thanksgiving meal for just our families and then have to clean up everything. We decided to do it at the church and invite any other families that didn't have families around to join us. We each had our assignment and dinner was done and cleaned up by 4:30 that afternoon and we could go home to clean houses. We decorated so it was a little more "homely". One family brought gingerbread cookies for the kids to decorate as one of that family's traditions. We had an art and crafts table, a game table, and the other half of the gym to play basketball. We had about 30 people there. It was great. We will totally do it for next year.

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I can guarantee I won't be having a new post before 2010! I hope you all have a very safe and fun holiday! We are so grateful for all of our wonderful friends and family! We love you!

Tori and Jorden's birthday and Halloween

Well, we had a busy October! On October 14 our #4 turned 6! Our #3 turned 9 on Oct. 16. We combined the birthdays on Jorden's birthday and did pie and presents. We had our dear friends the Flentjes over for that part. Tori and Jorden also had their next door neighbor friends here as well. We are not big cake eaters in this house, so I asked them what they wanted me to make for their birthdays and they both wanted pie. We had butterscotch, pumpkin, and banana cream. On Tori's birthday, Chad and I took both of them out to dinner to their favorite place, Hu Hot. That is a local Mongolian Grill. We had a good time.

We had a good time at at Halloween! We had a ward Trunk-or treat the night before Halloween and it was absolutely chaotic! I don't really like having to get kids ready twice in one month! The kids had fun and that is what really matters! Right?

Sydnee was a lady bug! The hat part was a little big. Maybe she'll be able to be a ladybug next year too! Sydnee could not get enough of trick-or-treating! She was on her feet practically the whole time and kept saying "More Candy! More Candy!" She would go up to the door and say "Trick-or-treat!" and then would say "Thank You!" when they gave her some. Some of the people would ask "What are you this year?" and she would say "TWO!!" It was very cute! Maybe, you just had to be there!

Jorden and Tori both wanted to be vampires!

They were both very patient while mom was trying to figure out the make-up!

They both got a lot of comments when they were trick-or-treating!

Camren wanted to be a Ninja! He likes anything that has to do with swords! Go figure! The mask was a little tricky. Brahnson wanted to be a 70's Disco Dude! He had a youth Halloween party and the mom didn't know who he was when he came in. He wanted to stay home for part of the time and hand out candy. Nobody came! Chad said he only handed out to two trick-or-treaters! Oh well! More candy for us! We may just save it for Christmas. The kids go sooo much candy! It is absolutely sickening! We had a good time. The place where we live has an 8:00p.m. curfew for trick-or-treating . We live across from a retirement home so we went there last. We went in and they had a carmel apple dipping station and the dipped whole apples in carmel and then the kids could roll it in toffee, pecans, or rainbow sprinkles. They also had hot cider and a Halloween scene and took pictures. The kids then went a round a little circle and the residents handed out candy while they told all the kids how cute they were.


We hope that all of you had a very Happy Halloween! We are looking forward to the holidays! I wish that we were going to be around more of our family, but that is what you get when you live so far away. We have been so blessed here with a wonderful ward and lots of great friends. It makes it a little easier not being around family as much as we would like to. We love it here during this time of year. It is so beautiful! We haven't seen the snow yet! But, I know it's coming and I have a feeling we are going to see a lot this year! Meanwhile, we will just enjoy the 50's weather and the gorgeous colors all around us! We hope all is well with all of you! We love you all!

*FYI*I don't know how this is going to look on the blog once I hit "publish post", but at least you can see the pictures and read what we have been doing. I am not very good at this blogging thing yet!

Happy Birthday Brahnson and the First Day of School

I can't believe that I am a mother of a teenager!! Brahnson turned 13 on September 1. We had one of our favorite families from the ward over for dinner. Brahnson chose to have breakfast casserole, scones w/ honey butter, and orange julius for his birthday dinner. Instead of cake he wanted banana splits. We had a good time.

Despite his mother's protest, he got an air soft gun with a protective mask and bullets. Our friends got him various gifts including 9 of his favorite kind huge candy bars, Hersheys Cookies and Cream bars.

The day after Brahnson's birthday was the first day of school. We had a lot of "firsts" this year! This was Camren's first time in Middle School, it was Jorden's first day at Kidnergartin, and it was my first time having only one child at home since only having one child. That is why Sydnee gets to have her picture on here too. I get so much more done, but the day seems so much shorter to me. I am really glad that Jorden has all day kidnergartin. It has been fun to have just "mommy and Sydnee time". I have to think of enough things to keep her entertained though. I don't want her watching a bunch of T.V. We have made treats, colored, drew on the sidewalk with chalk, read stories, had extra long tubby time, and of course go on walks to the parks that are around us. It has been very fun! All of the kids are getting on very well in their schools. Jorden loves Kidnergartin, Camren loves middleschool, Brahnson is loving middleschool a lot more as a 7th grader than he did as a 6th grader, and Tori got secret admirer gifts the first week of school. She found out who it was and told him she just wants to be friends, but thanks for the flowers and cards. We have had a great beginning to this school year! I pray that it lasts all year!

A New Blankie!!!

So, all of my kids get very attached to their blankies. It starts from almost day 1 and continues. Jorden seemed to have gotten the most use out of his blankie, as you can see from the picture. We have been trying this last year to see if we could talk him into giving it up and we have not been too successful! He loves this blankie and whenever we would talk to him about giving it up he would start to cry and be so sad! He used to take it in the car with us, but we had to put a stop to that about two years ago, but it was just plain embarrassing to have it with us. If he ever lost it for a day or two he couldn't sleep. He was very attached. Chad had a few days off this week and decided that it was high time to retire his blankie!

So, we took Jorden to the fabric store and let him choose out his own material and loved that! He first chose dinosaurs, then sharks, but then he saw a pirate one and loved that one. His favorite color is green and so the back of it had to be green. We brought the material home and started on the blankie!




















I should say that Chad started on the blankie, because I don't sew! Jorden helped a little bit too. Chad even quadrupled the batting in it to make it really soft. I helped tie it and then we showed it to Jorden. Chad told Jorden that if he wanted the new blankie he had to trade him his old blankie for it!Jorden wasn't sure if he wanted to do that! He said with big puppy dog eyes, "But, I love my old blankie." I told him that now that he was going to kindergarten he needed to get rid of his baby blankie and have a big boy blankie! The deal was the deal. Jorden had to trade it in to get his new one. After alot of discussion, he finally did it! The old blankie went into the garbage! I asked him how his first night was with it and if he liked his new blankie better than his old one. He said no, his old blankie was better, but he still liked his new blankie. I think he likes the idea that he is becoming a big boy now!

A Little Sad, But Very Glad!!!

Well, first for the sad news... We have decided that we will not be able to make it back to Utah as a family this year. We have had some unexpected medical bills, pay cut, and just the whole economy thing hit us more than we have liked. I am grateful that we can pay our bills, but we don't have as much wiggle room as we once did. My kids were really sad when we told them, but they understood. This was going to be Tori's first year going to Cedar City, that made it a little harder for her, but she said that she can wait until next year. Hopefully, we can get family to come to us. I keep telling people that we are only an hour away from the Water park capitol of the world! :) Anyway, I have been so homesick! I tried not to get to sad about not being able to go, but I wasn't doing a very good job. If the subject came up, I would totally break into tears! I am typically not like that!
Now, for glad news... My husband saw how sad I was and really felt that I needed to go and see my family, even if we can't all go. He asked me if there was a time in August that I would like to go. I couldn't go during Cedar City, because I wasn't going to go without my daughter. Then I realized that I could go for BYU Education week! I told Chad about that time and he thought that was a great idea! He got online and found an unheard of good deal to fly out of Madison to SLC. Usually you have to go to Chicago or Milwaukee to get good deals on flights. He purchased it and even made it so that I can be in Utah for 12 days! He is going to take the week of education week off (using his vacation) to stay home with the kids! I am so excited!!! I feel bad that not everyone can go, but we will try to go back some other time as a family another time. I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR MY HUSBAND AND LOVE HIM SOOO MUCH!!!! THANK YOU HONEY!!!!!

Happy Birthday Chad!!

Happy Birthday to my best friend for the past 14 years! Today is Chad's birthday! I am so grateful for everything that he has done for me and our children. He is the best husband and father that anyone could ever ask for. I asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he said a chess set. Well, I am not a good chess set picker outer so, I told him that he could go and find one that he wanted and get it for his birthday present. I then asked him what he wanted for his birthday dinner. He said he wanted omlettes. I don't make omlettes, but he makes awesome ones! So, he made everyone omlettes for his birthday dinner. I then asked him what kind of dessert or cake he wanted. He didn't want anything! Well, I had to make him something! We are not big cake eaters here, so I made him homemade doughnuts and he seemed to like those. We sang him our family birthday song and we also had our adopted "family" here for dinner as well. It was a great evening. I am the luckiest woman alive to be married to Chad. Happy Birthday Honey! I love you with all my heart!! :)

Answers To Prayers

Tori came to me, a few months ago after a hard emotional day at school, and said that she didn't feel like she had any really good friends her age at school. She explained to me that she played more with the boys because the girls acted dumb. They weren't very nice a lot of the time either and only wanted to play what they wanted to play and wouldn't play what she wanted to play. She asked me what she could do about it. Taking the opportunity to teach, I told her to start praying for friends. I told her that Heavenly Father wanted her to be happy and have good friends. I also told her that she should pray for good friends that were nice and she would get along with. Tori started praying for friends that very night and has kept it up. Lo and behold, she has two new friends that are her age and will be in her grade living on both sides of her! They moved in within a couple of weeks of each other. She has gotten to know one of them and she is very nice. Her name is Courtney. They can play for hours on end and not have one problem. The other friend, Anna, on the other side she hasn't met yet. She will be here this week! I have talked to Tori and made sure that she realizes that Heavenly Father has answered her prayer and that she should make sure that she says thank you to Him. I love it when you have those opportunities to teach your children that prayers really are answered and how much Heavenly Father loves and knows each one of his children. I am also so glad that I have Tori for a daughter and that she does her best to choose the right and to be kind to everyone. I love her dearly!

No More Pain!!!

We just got back from the doctor, he concurred that Brahnson had Bursitis. We don't know why he has it or what caused it, but at this point, I don't care. Brahnson is not in anymore pain and he can sit down! The doctor gave him a cortisone shot and it had almost an immediate affect! We were so excited that he could actually sit down in the car, we had to make a stop at Culver's to get a shake to celebrate. I am glad that the doctors could rule out all of the major stuff, I just wished they would have tried the simpler stuff first. Thanks again for all of your concern and prayers! Love you all!

We Know the WHAT, Just Not the WHY!!!

So, the doctors and the physical therapist think that Brahnson has Bursitis. They don't know why, because bursitis is not usually seen in 12 year old boys. They are either seen in pregnant women, athletes, or geriatric patients. Brahnson doesn't fit into any of these categories. Anyway, they are treating the symptoms that they can locate. He has pain in his trochataric (SP?) part of his hip. We have to go twice a week and they put this medicine on an electrode and place it on his skin and the electric current pushes it through his skin to the place that it hurts. He still can't sit down after two treatments, but the therapist said it may take a few more to notice any difference. So, as his mother, I am glad that they are doing something for his pain, but I still would like to know why he has this. We will continue our escapades to other doctors next week and hopefully find some more answers! Thanks for all your concern and prayers for his behalf! I'll keep you posted!

Brahnson's Pain

Brahnson has had a pain in his hips for about the last three weeks. At first, Chad and I chalked it up to growing pains and told him it would go away in a few days. Well, it didn't go away. A week ago Sunday, he could sit through church and was okay. His pain was a little annoying, but no big deal. By Wednesday, he couldn't sit down without having extreme pain. We decided to take him to his pediatrician, who then referred us to an Orthopedic Surgeon, who then ordered an MRI, put Brahnson on anti-inflammatory medicine with heat and cold packs, after that the doctor had him go to Physical Therapy, and is now back to doing another MRI on Monday. Brahnson is still in pain and cannot sit down. The Physical Therapist thought that he was in too much pain to have him move him around. So now, they are going to do another MRI to look at his whole spine. The pain still might be from growing really fast that parts of his body can't keep up. They don't know right now and neither do we. Brahnson can stand for a period of time or he can be flat on his tummy. Either position, he has not been able to attend school. He has been doing his work at home by standing next to the counter in the kitchen. He has also been allowed to play way too much Wii. He doesn't have a problem standing for that! It is sad that he has to be in pain and nobody can explain why. He is a tough kid though. I have to admit that he and I butt heads quite a bit, but having him home with me hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. He is actually a lot nicer to be around, than he was when he would go to school. We love him dearly and hope that we can figure out what is going on so he won't have to be in anymore pain.

End Of The Year Concert

Ever since Camren was little, he has always had a little song going on in his head. He would even dance a little when he walked. As he has gotten older, nothing has changed. Camren loves music. Camren has taken up the violin. His school that he goes to has a great Orchestra program. He has had orchestra twice a week with one of those times we have to take him to the Middle School at 7:25 in the morning and then they bus him to his school. He has enjoyed it and practices on his own. Chad and I were really surprised at how much he practiced and kept up on it. We really thought that he would have gotten tired of it and not practiced. He proved us wrong. He loves playing the violin. Hopefully, this summer, I will have more time and I can help him improve to get ready for next year at Glacier Creek Middle School.

This is Camren's friend Jordan Futch. He goes to a different elementary school, but in our ward. He is also in scouts and Sunday classes. We see him every time Camren has a concert.

Camren's teacher Mrs. Corry. She was so good with him. He was the only 5th grade orchestra student and so he got one-on-one lessons with her once a week. She said she was amazed with how quickly that he took to the violin. We are very proud of what he has accomplished in such a little amount of time.

Sydnee's Birthday #2 and 2 New Callings

Sydnee turned two on May 24, 2009. We have really enjoyed having Sydnee in our family! She has certainly kept us on our toes! She has us all wrapped around her little finger. She has been a very bright and loud spot in our family. We love her dearly.
We went to our friend's house and had her birthday party. Their kids were so cute! They wanted to give something to Sydnee and so the looked around their house and wrapped up toys that they thought that she would like. She has been playing with everything that she has gotten non-stop!
Along with Sydnee's birthday, Chad and I got new callings. Chad is serving as the Secretary in the Young Men's and I am serving as the Enrichment Councilor in the Relief Society Presidency. I have never served in the Relief Society Presidency, but I have been the Enrichment leader. I am excited to try some fun things and stir things up a bit in this new calling. I was sad to say good bye to the Cub Scouting program. I will miss seeing all those cute cub scouts every week. Chad and I are both grateful to be able to serve our Heavenly Father in anyway we can, even if it means that our lives are going to get more than little bit busier.

"MY PRESENTS!!!"

"Barbie Diamond Castle! My favorite!!"

1, 2, 3, BLOW!!!

She was happy to get her own piece of pie!!

Sydnee loved her birthday pie!!

Choosing the Right

We are so very proud of Camren. Last Friday, a student brought in a movie that the teacher thought was rated PG for the class to watch. When Camren asked what the movie was rated, it was discovered that the movie was actually PG-13. Camren told his teacher that he was not allowed to watch PG-13 movies. The teacher and Camren tried to get a hold of us to see if it was okay, but was unable to. Even if they would have been able to get a hold of us, the answer would have still been no. The teacher asked the principal and he thought because there was no nudity that it would be alright. The entire class had their hearts set on being able to watch a movie in class as a reward for some class accomplishment. The teacher told Camren that they were going to watch the movie in class and if Camren didn't want to he could go into the library and do his homework or read. He chose to go to the library. He sat there for 21/2 hours by himself busying himself with different things. He told me later, tearing up, that it was hard to be in there, but that he just kept telling himself, " I know, I am doing the right thing. I know, I am doing the right thing." A couple of his classmates came up to him and told him that they couldn't believe that he couldn't watch PG-13 movies and that they could watch rated R movies. Camren also over heard a few of his classmates say that it was a funny movie, but that there was a lot of swearing. The movie was called "Get Smart". Chad and I have never seen or heard of this movie. Camren was glad that he didn't participate in that movie after he had heard about how much profanity there was in it. I felt bad for him that he had to go through that, especially at school.
Chad was really upset! He was ready to go down to that school and give the teacher a piece of his mind. I told him that I would handle it, because I would be more tactful and wouldn't say things that I would regret later. I wrote her an email expressing our disappointment that this movie was shown to a bunch of 11year olds and made her aware of Camren's feelings about it. She called me that day and profusely apologized. She said it was the wrong choice to make and that it would never happen again. She told me that she just loved Camren and admired that he would always do what was right. I accepted the apology and assured her that we didn't bear any hard feelings towards her. She later spoke to Camren and apologized to him as well. She really is a great teacher and I hope that Tori gets her when she gets into 5th grade.
Chad and I took Camren to Chilies for dessert and let him have his own white chocolate molten lava cake for a reward. We told him that we were proud of him for standing up for what is right even when you are the only one. We teach and talk to our children a lot about this concept and emphasize how important choosing the right is. We also point out that sometimes making the bad choice will make us happy for that very moment, but will feel us with regret and bad consequences later. It would have been fun for Camren to watch that movie with his class, but when hearing all the profanity, it would have hurt his spirit. Camren was very glad that he was able to be strong and make the right choice. Love You Camren!

A Whole Lot Of Just About Everything!!!

So, I haven't blogged for a long time, and I thought I would do just one big blog to catch up! First of all, I can't believe that it has been almost a year since we moved to Wisconsin! We really have adapted well. The most important thing to me is that my kids are totally happy here. They wish that we could see more family or that more family would come and see us, but they really do love it here.

I kinda just uploaded pictures and then I was just going to write about the pictures, so I don't know what this is going to look like when I am done.

I am so shocked when I look at my kids and see how big and old they are getting! Brahnson is going to be a teenager in September! That is totally unreal to me!

Jorden's favorite thing to do is smile at the camera!

Sydnee has been learning how to do her "happy face" and her "sad face"!

Easter was fun this year!

We told the Easter Bunny to not go overboard with our kids Easter. We loved the idea that he chose to do buckets and shovels instead of baskets.

Sydnee really got into it! I think her candy was gone the first day!

Brahnson was happy to get his marshmellow Peeps! He traded a lot of his candy to get more. Mom likes them too, but dad can't understand why we do.


All in all, the Easter bunny did very well. We also invited a family from our ward that has two kids. We thought that we would ask the Easter Bunny to remember our friend Margaret too. That is why there are so many Easter buckets!
General Conference is always another holiday that we look forward to. General Conference has always been a fun thing in my family growing up and because I can't be there with my extended family we do everything they do plus some! One of the extra things we do is that we do a chocolate fountain. It has become a favorite with all members of my family. We also do our traditional "General Conference Breakfast" which includes; breakfast casserole, homemade scones with honey butter, and orange julius. We also do "General Conference Bingo" with candy for the markers and candy bars for the prizes. The minimum you have to have to get a candy bar is three bingos! One bingo is just too easy! It is an exhausting day, as you can see from Jorden's picture, but very fun. Sydnee totally loved it! I think she got more on her than in her

Everybody got into it! Having traditions like this make memories. My kids, with everything that we do for General Conference, actually sit through all four sessions quietly! Even Jorden! Chad and I think it is so important for them to hear the prophet's voice and then have them feel the Holy Ghost testify to their hearts that what they are hearing is true. We have a DVR now and we put General Conference on our DVR. For Family Home Evening each Monday we play one of the talks and discuss it. It has worked really well for our family. I am so happy that we have the gospel in our lives to help us teach our children the way that Heavenly Father wants them to live. We have also started to get up at 5:30 in the morning to read family scriptures together. We are doing it a different way this time. We have gone through the Book of Mormon cover to cover several times as a family. This year we are taking it verse by verse and pondering why Heavenly Father wanted that particular verse in the Book of Mormon. Sometimes we read three verses sometimes we read more or less. We started this I think in December and we are almost finished with first Nephi chapter 15. We have found a lot of things that we have never thought about before in our scripture study. Our family has really benefited from this.

We went to the Madison Children's Museum. It wasn't the best Children's Museum that I have been to, but my kids were glad to get out of the house.

Jorden liked the Dinosaurs!







The older kids liked the crane!

Sydnee liked it all and if you asked her to show you her teeth this is what you got!

Brahnson just liked being silly! Sydnee would not get into that fish's mouth!



Anyway, this was the biggest blog that I think I have done yet! We are so grateful for all our friends and family that comment and do blogs too. We are looking forward to a busy summer. I am so glad that the kids are back on the tradition school schedule instead of year round school. We are going to be spending about 5 weeks in Utah this summer and staying at different family's' homes. It will be over a year since our family has seen most of our family. We will be there from July 1-Aug. 10th. Chad will be there off and on during that time. Hopefully we will see you soon and hopefully I'll be better at blogging! Love you all!