4 am rendezvous

Last night we were putting the boys to bed and Kyle laid Ethan down in his twin bed, which is in Bradley's room, just for fun. He stayed so we let him sleep in there to see what would happen. They fell asleep great! I have been waiting to do that because Bradley wakes up around 6:30 and Ethan doesn't wake up until 7:30 and that extra hour of sleep is really nice. I am nervous that when I put them together Ethan will wake up at 6:30 when Bradley does. But I figured we could try it out for one night. My prediction was right at least the part about waking up when Bradley does. The time was a little bit off. Bradley came walking into my room asking for cereal with Ethan following right behind him at 4 o'clock this morning!!! Luckily they both went back to sleep, in separate rooms, really easily.

Bunk Beds!

We got bunk beds for the boys. I really like them a lot. As we were driving home I was glad that we got them but for some reason I wasn't happy. Then we while setting them up I really wasn't very happy. Then I realized why. CHANGE! I am very bad with change. I always have been and probably always will be. Even when it is good change or not that big of deal. It just makes me really sad when my boys grow up. It wasn't as big of deal putting them in a toddler bed but BIG BOY BEDS! It was just hard for me to accept. But Bradley loved it!!! He helped us set them up and everything. When we were cleaning up Kyle told Bradley that he was really going to sleep good tonight. So then when I was getting him ready for bed he kept saying, "Me sleep good tonight." It was really cute.

Bradley going to bed. (By the way check out his "pillow". I had this pillow when I was little and saved it. I gave it to him when we put him in a toddler bed. I decided to wash the pillow part one day and it disintegrated in the washing machine. But he still sleeps on the pillow case. He can't go to sleep without laying it out flat. It is pretty funny. I asked him if he wanted a big boy pillow to go with his big boy bed tonight and he said, "No!" )

Bradley in his big boy bed.

We set the beds up like this for now since there is no way either of the boys are going to sleep on a top bunk. Ethan will sleep in the other bed once he is ready.

Toddler Bed for Ethan?

So, we are trying to get ready for the new baby by getting Ethan used to a toddler bed. I am nervous about doing this because he is not old enough to understand that he needs to stay in there but he is not young enough to not be able to get out like Bradley was. I took the side of his crib off to try it out. He did great the first few nights and during naps until last night. I was doing homework and Kyle put the boys to bed at 7. At 8 o'clock I hear Kyle talking to somebody. He comes in like 5 min. later and tells me that Ethan had come out of his room and crawled down the stairs with both of his blankets that he sleeps with. He is so sweet. We tried laying him down 2 more times then decided to just put his side back on his crib because he kept coming out with his two blankets. He would crawl down and sit there in the middle of the stairs holding both of his blankets and suck his thumb. It was adorable. Hopefully we will have this figured out before the baby comes. If not I guess the baby will be sleeping in a pack and play for the first few months of his life and that is just fine :)

This is him looking as content as can be in his crib after his nap today.

My adorable little boy! (and his blanket)

Ethan signing "I love you" to Bradley. (Yes, we know it is actually "peace")

Ethan and his Crib

Potty Training

I have been working with Bradley on getting him potty trained. He has been doing so good. I posted a while back that he went on the toilet but that was the only time that he had until about a week and a half ago. I had him sit on the toilet for a while and read him stories. He never went. Then the next morning I put him on again and Kyle called. I left him there to go and get the phone. While I was on the phone Bradley started yelling, "Help Mommy! Help me!" So I quickly hung up the phone and ran upstairs and he had gone a little bit by the toilet and then stopped. I got him on the toilet and he finished going!!! I was so proud of him. After he went I gave him a treat, sticker and we called Daddy to tell him. That entire day he would eat his sucker then say he needed to go again, go and get another sucker finish it and then go again. But every time he got up there he would go. I was so proud of him. He looked pretty proud as well. So, we have been working on that these past two weeks. He is doing awesome. Friday he had an accident free day!!! I was so proud of him. Then Saturday...well... I think he only made it on the toilet once. But hey, once is better than nothing. Then today we put a diaper on him for church and he still told us when he had to go at church and came home with a clean diaper!!! He is growing up so much. It is so nice to be starting him on potty training. I feel like there is actually an end somewhere :) At least with dirty diapers. So after all we may not have 3 in diapers at one time! Yay!

We are so proud of you Bradley! Way to go!

Hunter's 14th Birthday

Happy Birthday Hunter!!! I can't believe he is already 14! That is crazy. He is such a good brother to have. He always entertains the kids so much. They love him like crazy. We had a family dinner today to celebrate. Hunter got to pick the meal: macaroni and cheese, flaming hot Cheetos, corn and a very yummy salad. All I have to say is that the kids loved it. I feel like I was 14 just yesterday. Okay, well maybe not yesterday but not to long ago. Going to Saturday night dances with Bethany and hanging out with her none stop. It was a lot of fun. Hunter already went to one the night before. (aren't you glad your not 14 anymore :) jk it was fun.) He said he had a lot of fun and danced with a lot of people.

I made a cake for him. I really like to do that. I think that it is a lot of fun. This one was really yummy. I put reeses pieces in the middle too. It was very rich though. I thought Hunter would enjoy it. So...

Happy Birthday Hunter!!!

"Peter" Sandwich

This is Bradley eating his "peter sandwich (peanutbutter), strawberry chocolate milk, and left over hot coca chocolate". He didn't want me to take his picture...

...so he turned around...

...his "whatchya gonna do now?" face...

...Sesame Street always pulls through. (he got distracted and looked cute, little does he know he looked cute in all of them, ha! :) )

Family Reunion

So, last summer our family tried to organize a time that we could all go camping or something for a "family reunion". We never figured out a time so Kiera and I decided to organize an "official" reunion for the next year. Wow!!! You would think it would be a little bit easier but with everybody's complicated schedules it was far from easy. All summer we tried to organize a time and finally came up with the weekend after Christmas. We were going to go to Flagstaff and go skiing and stuff but that ended up not working out so we just cut it all down to one day, which happened to be two days after Christmas. It all turned out pretty good but boy was it hectic getting it all ready. It was definitely a big learning experience for Kiera and I.


It was a lot of fun. In the morning we went to the park and played a bunch of games. That was a lot of fun.

After the games we went to the church to have lunch prepared by Jen and Amy. It was delicious sub sandwiches. (yum! I love sandwiches when I am pregnant)

Kyle and I. (This is what I look like staying up until 2:30 almost 3 two nights in a row and the second night just staying at my family's house without my make up or new clothes. Thankfully Kyle did bring me a new shirt but Kyle looks nice and fresh with a nights sleep all by himself in a cal/king bed :) jk He did a lot of work too. He really helped out. I felt really bad actually because he took the week off and ended up just watching the boys most of it while I got ready for the reunion or else helping me. Thanks Kyle! Sorry your vaca wasn't all the "fun and relaxation" you were wanting but thanks for your help :)

After lunch we had a meeting to plan next year, which went really well. Then we had a break while Kiera and I got ready for dinner and everybody else got ready for the talent show, mainly my dad had to set up the sound.

Dinner was really nice. We had a program that everybody participated in which was really nice. We had all of the siblings share a memory about growing up and we had all of the in-laws read something (we would have had them share a memory but we didn't want to put them on the spot.) Then we had my mom and dad say things about why they wanted a family and why they are important. We had the siblings sing a song together, "Family", and we had the grand kids sing "I am a Child of God". It was really nice. Thanks for everybody's participation. It went really well. Then we ate dinner and then moved into the cultural hall for a ...

Talent Show

... TALENT SHOW!!! That was a lot of fun. We had a lot of participation. We had all of the kids go first because it was getting late and we wanted them to do their part with out being grouchy. They all were so cute. Bradley sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". It was adorable. He did a very good job. Everybody did. Kyle hosted it.

Michelle and Hunter sang "Loathing" from Wicked and Bradley was on the side of the stage with Kyle. Kyle said that he was singing the entire song with them so he decided that I should come up with Bradley and sing a little bit with him. I did. Bradley did very good. It is so funny. He really sings a long with the cd whenever I listen to it. Today at Breakfast he just started singing it. He is such a funny and cute little boy.

Everybody did really good. The night before Kiera, Michelle and I stayed up making a lip sink up to "Leader of the Pack". It was a lot of fun.

The boys did the Oompa Loompa dance from the newer Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was funny. Jason and Jeremy also played the guitar. They did really good.

Mom and Dad sang the song that they sang at their wedding. It was really nice, unfortunately my mom stopped the video camera right before they went up. They did really good. They sounded great. My dad also sang another song with his guitar and my mom did some gymnastics :) (You had to be there:). It was a lot of fun. Everyone did awesome!

Now there are a few things that I learned from this experience of planning a reunion. They are:

1. Have more people that live in town helping.

2. Don't plan it at Christmas time. There are already to many things going on.

3. Delegate more.

4. Get as much done before as possible!!! (like months before)

5. If at all possible, don't be pregnant :)

6. and finally, have a better attitude and don't get stressed, well at least get stressed less (there is bound to be stress).

Over all I am pretty please with the way that it turned out. I think the kids all had fun and it seemed like the adults at least pretended to :). Everything that we did went pretty well. We did run out of time and didn't get to everything but I sort of planned on that. (Things always run longer than you plan.) We all got to spend time together and got to know each other better and that was our goal for the reunion. We did come across some stumbling blocks but we got through them and hopefully learned from them and will know how to avoid the things that went wrong this time for the next time. Thanks for coming everyone and participating. It was fun. I hope you all thought so too.

Christmas Morning

Christmas morning Bradley woke up at 5:45! (I thought kids weren't supposed to do that until they knew what happened Christmas morning. I think we got gypped a year.) We went and showed him what Santa brought then put a movie on and went back to bed. Ethan woke up around 7 so we brought him down and showed him. They got a slide that Santa worked really hard on and they each got a tent and some other little things.

Ethan in his tent. I don't think he really knew at all what was going on.

Bradley loves Elmo so he got Elmo slippers and this huge Elmo. (He loved them both!)

Ethan under the slide.

Bradley and Ethan going down together. They loved the slide. It was so funny. After breakfast Daniel, Kyle and Kemp moved the slide upstairs in the loft and Ethan was in his highchair still eating and he just busted into tears when they picked it up. I guess he thought they were putting it away or something. So, we hurried and got him cleaned up and showed him that he could go upstairs and play with it still and he was happy. It was very cute and very funny. At least we know he really liked it :)

We called Briggs, he is on his mission, that morning and talked to him for a while and then Kemp, Daniel and Richard came over to watch the boys open their presents. It was a lot of fun.

We had Bradley pick out presents for everybody this year so he was really excited to see everybody open their presents. It was funny. We got Kyle his present and it was the first present under the tree. When Kyle got home Bradley showed it to him and Kyle asked him what it was and Bradley says, "Clothes." So, we told him that it was suppose to be a surprise so then he would say, "Surprise, clothes." It was cute.

Bradley opening his present (surprise, clothes)

Eating strawberries and waffles. It was very yummy!

AND!!! Surprise to me! I got a minivan! Yay!!! We were shopping for one so it wasn't a complete surprise but Kyle made up a story that somebody already bought it and I was totally bummed because it was a pretty good deal and it was the van I wanted, Honda Odyssey. Then the Saturday before Christmas he made up the story that he had to help his Dad and that was very inconvenient for me because well come on it was the Saturday before Christmas, we had a lot of things to do but I let him go but he had to take the kids with him. Which that actually worked out really good for me because I got all of the things done that I needed to a lot faster then I would have. But now I feel bad. Sorry Kyle. Kyle had Kemp drive it out Christmas morning. He wrapped the keys in huge box stuffed with grocery bags. At first I thought it was going to be jewelry or something because it was small and if it was jewelry and he was putting this much effort into hiding I thought it must have been expensive! (That would not have been a good thing. I am not much of a jewelry girl. I mean I like it but I hardly every wear it so I wouldn't want much spent on it.) So I started to get nervous but then I pulled it out and saw it was keys and knew instantly what it was. I was so excited. I love it. I really do. I was a little hesitant about getting a minivan because well it is a minivan, but I love it!!! Yes, I extremely feel like a mom now but heck I have almost three kids I think that qualifies me as a mom! I love it! Thanks Kyle!

Christmas Boys

My boys. I got them matching shirts. I wasn't going to but it ended up being that way and they look cute. (by the way Ethan isn't poking his eye out it just looks like that.)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went over to my mom's house. It was fun. We exchanged gifts and had dinner. It was nice. Everybody was here this year. It was a lot of fun.

Jeremy, Laura, Amy and Reanna. This was our first time to see Laura. She is a year now. Reanna, and Laura, were so much older and grown up. They are beautiful little girls.

Kiera, Craig and their family and Jason and Jen.

Mallory, Justin, Eldon, Karyn and Kent.

Mom, Michelle, Dad, Hunter, Mallory and Bradley in the background. All of the kids sure like to play with Hunter and Michelle. It is like a crazy house when all of us are there but it is sure fun. All of the cousins sure have fun playing together. I can get Bradley to do anything if I say that the cousins are going to be there.

Zoo Lights

Kyle and I took the boys to Zoo Lights. It was a lot of fun. The neatest part was by the monkeys. They had a bunch of lights that flickered to music. It was pretty impressive.

Christmas Family Night

We had the Nielsen Family Home Evening on Sunday. It was really nice. Carolyn put together a really nice program like she always does. Of course we had doughnuts after and after that we all know who came to town!!!

SANTA CLAUS!!!

This is Bradley desperately holding on to Michelle because he didn't want to sit on Santa's lap.

This is Ethan getting a candy cane from Santa. Bradley saw that.

So he decided it was okay to sit on his lap if that is what he had to do to get a candy cane.

In the end he looks pretty happy. Ethan looks like he doesn't really know what is going on.

PS

Shantay is engaged to be married in Feb (I think that is what I heard) to Santa

Congratulations Shantay and fiance!!!

Christmas Pictures

Bradley and Ethan


This is the only one that I got of them both smiling. (On the couch with stuffed animals go figure)

He just wasn't smiling at all but that is what I expected. But he still looks cute.

Bradley did great!

The Nativity

Merry Christmas!

Ethan

I have been having a hard time with Ethan lately. He has been extremely grouchy. I took him to the doctor about a week and half ago but they said that he looked fine to them. I am guessing, well I know, he is teething. I hope that is what this is all about. It has just broken through so hopefully he will feel better and be happier. He is such a sweet little boy.

He has really been a daddy's boy lately. He is just loving Kyle. Kyle will walk through the door after work and he will get so excited. It is cute. He is so Funny. He gets in this mood where he will try to hid that he is having fun and he will try to not smile but a little smirk will creep threw. It is really funny.

He has been having a hard time sleeping the past two nights and tonight Kyle got him out of his bed because he was crying. I came down and told Kyle that we should try to lay him back down. So Kyle said to him, "Do you want a drink of water before you go to bed?" and Ethan just lets out two little grunts. Then when we would just say, "Do you want a drink of water?" he would say, "Ya" (that is the only word he knows.) It was so funny. He is really understanding us. Every time we would say anything about bed he would just let out two little grunts but if we just said water he would say ya. He is so sweet.

Funny Story

Bradley has started throwing tantrums right off. He used to talk to me a little bit first but now he is busting in to tears the minute he is frustrated. Kyle and I have decided to tell him that if he needs or wants to cry he can go to his room until he is ready to talk. So, today I was putting lotion on the boys and Bradley wanted to play with the bottle. I told him that I didn't want him to because it would end up all over the carpet. Immediately he started bawling. I talked to him for a little bit but eventually I told him that if he couldn't talk to me that he was going to have to go to his room until he could stop crying. I tried to make sure that he knew that once he stopped he could come out but I wasn't sure if he understood that. So I left him in his room holding his blanket crying. (I felt really bad.) I stood out side the door and kept saying to Ethan (really loud), "Once Bradley stops crying he can come out." After a few minutes he was still crying so I went in there and explained to him again that if he could stop crying and talk to me about what he wants he could come out. He did and we resolved it and we went out in the loft and played with their toys.

Like a half an hour later, we were still playing in the loft right by Bradley's room, Bradley says to me, "I go cry my room." He said that a few times and then goes into his room and closes the door and starts pretend crying and says, "Waaa, I want lotion, waaa!" It was really funny. Then he came out and said, "All done crying!" with this huge smile on his face. I guess he got the point.

Christmas Lights

Bradley and I put Christmas lights on the bushes today. It was a lot of fun. In the middle of it we took a little break to put Ethan down for a nap and have lunch. I had previously put jackets on the kids because I was a little chilly but it really wasn't that cold. So, after lunch I am doing things in the kitchen getting ready to go out and Bradley had already made his way out there. I come out and he had put Kyle's beanie on. I thought he looked adorable. He is such a sweet little boy.

Cousins

Kiera came down for Thanksgiving so while she was here we all, well Kiera, Karyn, me and our kids, went to the zoo. It was a lot of fun (especially the part of getting rained on).


Here they are. Pretty good picture of a bunch of kids I have to say :)




And here is a pretty good picture of a bunch of flamingos.