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!