HAPPY FIFTH BIRTHDAY BRAXTIN!!!!

Wow!! I can't believe my baby is FIVE!! That is soooo sad. However I hope to have one or two more eventually!! But for now Brax is my baby! He is such a cutie!

This morning I told him HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETHEART! He asked me if that meant he was five and I told him yes, but you won't officially be five until tonight (at 7:20 pm to be exact! Right now at this very moment he is now FIVE, how sad). Anyways, so then he said does that mean I get to go to Kindergarten tomorrow? Oh, how cute!! I am always telling Brax that he gets to go to Kindergarten when he is five. So of course to him he was five and is supposed to go to Kindergarten.:) Kids are soooo wonderful. We need to be more like them in some ways. So I explained that he needed to finish up preschool, then there would be summer break and then in August he could go to Kindergarten. He said oh okay, I would miss my teachers if I left.

I asked him later on in the day if he felt older and he said yup, lots!!! ;)

Here's another tidbit from the mouth of Braxtin today! Alex and I took him out to lunch for his birthday and we went to this buffet so the host asked us how old Braxtin is and I told him four, because it is a little cheaper and technically he wasn't quite five yet. Then right after I said he was four, Braxtin says NUH-UH I am FIVE (really loud by the way!). So then I had to explain again (and I did so kind of loudly) that he wasn't quite five until tonight. Then he said oh yeah I forgot about that! ;) Gotta love em'

A REALLY BIG THANK YOU to Aunt Jan, Uncle Ron, Aunt Cheryl, Uncle George and Grandma Hazel for the birthday cards they sent in the mail! They came right on time!!! :) You should have seen how excited Braxtin was to receive them! He wanted to spend all of it today, but I convinced him to buy just one toy he really really wanted and to put the rest in his savings account. He was just fine with that. So he bought himself a Ben 10 watch and a Speedracer car (okay so that was two things). ;) He was sooo proud to be spending is own money. Then he was given his change I held onto the bills and gave him the coins. As we were walking out of the store I went to grab his hand and he said, "I can't hold your hand I am holding my cash!" Alex told him never to forget to hold on to his cash before holding onto a woman! Ha Ha Ha! ;)

I asked him if he missed going to his babysitters and he said, "no I love being home with you!" How sweet! I am glad he enjoys it, because I enjoy it too! :)

He had had a really good birthday! On Sunday he gets to have his big party. Everyone is invited to our house for cake and ice cream at 4 pm!!

More Circus!!!

This was CRAZY!! The Circus had a cage and they started out with one motorcyle riding around in it, then two and then three!! I took a short video of it. It was amazing they didn't crash into each other!! The boys were begging to get a picture with them, but they didn't offer that.

The Circus!!!

My Mom and I took the three boys to the Circus on Tuesday night. They loved it!! It was crazy. You could ride the elephants for $8.00 per person and you could ride minature ponies for $6.00 per person (needless to say the boys didn't ride either one). Then during the circus a guy came around with these light up swords and the boys wanted one sooooo bad, but they were $10.00 a piece!! It was really sad though, both Romney and Braxtin had tears running down their cheeks. :( They did get cotton candy, popcorn and drinks!! They had fun seeing all of the animals and the tricks!

We had planned to go for a week and Baylen had asked if we could buy peanuts at the circus that he could eat!! I thought it was cute he would ask. After all peanuts and the circus do go together. Unfortunately they didn't sell any peanuts at this cirucs we went to. ;)

Thank for coming with us Mom/Nana!!!


Romney, Baylen and Braxtin in front of the elephants!!




The Elephants!!


The Bear!!


This guy was crazy!! He stacked these chairs on top of each other one by one and as it got higher it was a little shakey and a couple of times I thought he was going down! But he made it all they way and did a hand stand!!


A tiger, lioness, lion, a white siberian tiger and another tiger!! The boys loved this. They thought it was soooo cool that a guy would get in with them and that they would do what the guy wanted!!


The Boys and Me!!

My Project. . .

So I decided while I am currently not working I would start some projects. So I decided to make quilts for all five kids!! It is a lot more costly than I thought, but they will be very cute, very used and very worth it!! I started on the girls' blankets first, because the Hannah Montana material was running low and that is exactly what they wanted. So I am making the pink one for Lexee and the purple one for Halee. A HUGE thank you to my Mom and Granny for all of their help with the quilts!!! :)

Baylen earned his Weblos badge!!!

With a lot of work and effort on Baylen's part, the help of a great Weblo leader and of course Mom helped a little too. . . Baylen earned his Weblos badge!!! It was given to him at pack meeting on Thursday, January 15! I am soooo very proud of him for all the work and effort he has put in to getting this. Baylen also got to pin me. He was worried he was going to stick me with it so I just had him pin it on my hood strings. :) Baylen is just small steps away from earning his Arrow of Light Award too. Great job Bay! We are all so proud of you!

The rash of Braxtin!

It looks really bad, but it doesn't seem to phase him.

Here's an Update!!

I know that it has been a while since I have posted anything!!! So here is an update for everyone.

This morning I got up to get the kids ready for school and of course Romney was awake before me (he is such a morning person)! He asked me if he could wear his snow boots to school. I hadn't looked outside, though I know it had been snowing last night. I went to tell him I didn't think there was enough snow to wear them and then I looked outside and there was a ton of it!! It hasn't snowed in Redmond for a while and I was shocked!!! So needless to say Romney was super excited that he was able to wear his snow boots to school today!! :)

We are currently on our birthday streak. We had Halee's birthday in December; Braxtin's in January (coming up in a few days); Lexee's in February; Emmalee, Alex and Baylen's in March and Romney's in April!!!! So needless to say I am busy December thru April buying for Christmas, Birthdays, Valentines and Easter!! It gets crazy!

On Wednesday last week Braxtin's cheeks started looking dry. I thought they were drying out from the winter weather so I started caking them with cream to help them. I did this for a couple days and realized it wasn't helping it actually seemed to irritate his cheeks. By Friday it looked more like a rash, maybe an allergic reaction. So I gave him some Benedryl. By Saturday it had spread from his cheeks down his neck, back, stomach and arms!!! He didn't have a fever or complain of a sore throat and the rash didn't even itch. So I wasn't sure what it was. So first thing this morning I called and got him into the doctor. The doctor tested him for strep and it was negative. So the doctor thinks it is an allergic reaction to something? So he has to take Benedryl and hope that it starts going away. Oh and it is not contagious. Poor Brax thought, he has to have this rash for his 5th birthday!! I will post some pics of his rash later.

Not much else is happening in our boring, busy life. Hope all is well with everyone!!

Weekend Fun

We went to our niece/cousin's first birthday party over the weekend and the kids had a blast!!!

They made it through their first week. . .

So the boys have officially gone a WHOLE week of school since their change. Guess what. . . they (we) made it!!! I was so excited when they got home from their first day of class and said that they LOVED it! I was relieved as well. They both were excited all week! Romney has a truck load of homework to do each night, I couldn't believe it for first grade. He has to read a book-in-bag every night (not so bad), he also needs to read for an additional 30 min, do math concepts for 10 minutes, practice his spelling list nightly (they have quizzes every Friday) and he also has a 20 page packet that he has to do throughout the week and turn it at the first of every week!!! I mean some of it isn't bad, some of it is expected, but WOW!! It is okay though, whatever will be best for him. We have gotten used to it and have a routine and now it's not sooo bad. Bay doesn't have a ton of homework, just some math problems every night and he has to read for 20 min a night(I make him do 30 min, but he doesn't know it).;)

Back to school after break. . . but a DIFFERENT one!!

So today was Baylen, Romney and Braxtin's first day back to school after a very long winter break. They boys had fun during the break and it is sure going to be hard to get them back in the swing of things, but I am sure it will only take a couple of early mornings to make them realize they should go to sleep instead of playing!!!

So as the title indicates they are back to school, but at a different one! Yup, we finally made the move to Salina Elementary school after living in Redmond for almost three years now!! Now that I am no longer working in Gunnison it only made sense that they move from Gunnison Elementary to Salina Elementary. It was hard and will be hard for them though, at least for a little while. I took them to school at 8:00 a.m. and we went into the office (they have REALLY nice secretary's there) and they told the boys and I who their new teachers would be. Baylen's teacher Mr. Wood happened to be standing in the office and so he took us down and showed us where the classroom is and where Baylen would be sitting. Bay was really nervous, but he wouldn't say that, he was just really quite and looked at me like he felt lost. It made me sad and I couldn't tell him I knew how he felt, because I grew up in the same town my whole life went to school with the same kids my whole life so it was harder not knowing how he felt. I could tell he didn't want me to go right away so I hung out for a little while and then Romney, Braxtin and I left Bay in his classroom and went back to the office to find out where Romney needed to go. As luck would have it Romney's teacher Ms. Anderson was in the office making copies!! So while we were waiting for Ms. Anderson's copies to finish we met the Principal Mr. Shepherd, he seems really nice and interested in the kids. Once her copies were finished she walked us down to the classroom. Romney was nervous he held my hand the whole time we were in the school and when we got to his classroom I could feel cold sweat on the palm of his hand. He and I were both looking around the room, me hoping I could see just one kid from church that he might know and him just wondering who all the new kids were. I spotted a boy who had been in our Ward and had just recently moved out, Romney kind of remember him which eased him a bit. Then the bell rang and I had to go. Romney gave me his nervous, but I'll be okay Mom smile and I left. :(

It was weird for me not to know everyone at the school or the layout of the school or anything for that matter!! I was used to my kids going to elementary where I had gone and knowing all of the teachers by name whether they had been there when I went or just people I knew. It will take some getting used to for all of us, but in the end I think it will be the best thing. Maybe I/we can finally feel like we LIVE in Redmond (Sevier County) and not just own a house here. If that makes any sense at all.

Happy New Years Everyone!!

This year for New Years we took the kids sleigh riding up the mountain with Grandma Great, Grandma Becca, Papa Ray, Aunt Amanda and their cousin Becca. They had a blast!!! I was expecting it to be really really cold so I got the kids in thermos, snow suits, doubled up their socks, they wore a shirt,sweater and coat. They also had sweater gloves and then their big heavy winter gloves and their beanies on!! Funny thing is is it was WARM! What!?! The kids, Alex and I ended up taking our coats and big heavy winter gloves off, because we were sweating!! So all in all it was the perfect day to go sleding!!! Everyone had their crashes though and some were worse than others. Braxtin's BIG crash was when I was driving the four wheeler with Alex behind on the sled and Braxtin wanted to ride the four wheeler with me so I let him get on. We pulled Alex up to the top then he wanted to sled down without the four wheeler pulling him and Brax wanted to go with daddy. As he was getting off the four wheeler he pushed the gas and was in a position that if he let go he would fall and even though I had the break on the four wheeler was MOVING with Brax dangling!!! I was so freaked out I didn't know what to do so with one had on the break I took the other and flug Brax off as far away from the four wheeler as I could. I thought he was going to be really really hurt, but he wasn't it just scared him to death and me as well. Alex said that he thought I had ran over his leg, but in the end Brax was okay except for me who wanted to cling to Brax and make sure that he was really okay. Next time I will put it in park, but I hadn't because Alex was just unhooking the sled and last minute Brax wanted to go with. Then Rom's bad crash was when he ran into a fallen tree branch and smashed his hand, I thought his fingers might be broke the way he was crying, but he just smashed it really good. Halee was sleding down the hill at a really good pace and ran into a rock and hit her knee!! She had a good cry, but in the end she was just fine. Lexee's crash was the sled tipping over and scaring her nothing huge. Never heard anything from Bay about crashing, of course that doesn't mean he didn't. He's a tough nut and probably wouldn't say anything unless he was bleeding!! There were so many pictures I liked and they all had so much fun that I wanted you to see all of the good ones so I made a slide show!! Thank you to my friends from the Bradshaw Blog for the idea!!:)

It just keep going and going and going. . .

So like I was saying on one of my last posts, Christmas has been like the Energizer Bunny this year. Christmas Eve kids opened presents, Christmas Day kids opened presents, the day after Christmas kids opened presents and then the next day Saturday, December 27 Alex's parents came over, since they had gone out of town this year for Christmas, to bring the kids presents from them!!!! So needless to say I am super glad Christmas and opening presents is over with until next year. I mean don't get me wrong I LOVE the meaning of Christmas and I do like Christmas it is just nice for it to be over too. ;)

THE CONCERT!!!

Halee and Romney were sooooo very excited that Santa brought them both guitars this year that they wanted to do a concert for us! Halee and Romney practiced all day, I am not joking either. I heard them in the other room discussing dance moves and the whole works!!! Halee and Romney both tried to talk Baylen into joining their band for the concert, but he just said no thanks and stayed in his room while they put the concert on. Oh well, they did try. Braxtin and Lexee got excited and wanted to be part of the band. So Lexee borrowed Baylen's guitar and Brax used Romney's keyboard! Halee and Romney were put out at first by Braxtin and Lexee, but in the end they all had so much fun!! It was way cute to watch.