Brayden's Preschool

We got to Washington in September and I immediately started looking into preschools for Brayden. I didn't feel good about any of them, and after much stress decided I was okay with him not attending preschool and my focus needed to be on other things, like unpacking. Since we are feeling a bit more settled and Brayden has mentioned preschool more often lately I decided to attempt having preschool twice a week at our house. I spent about a week figuring it all out, and mapping out what we would learn over the three months I would try it. When the first day came Brayden could hardly stand it. We invited a friend of Brayden's to join us and Sophia was pretty excited to. Here they are on their first day. I could hardly get Brayden to stand still so this was as good as it gets.
They had a great time fishing for letters and painting. I just hope I can keep up on it.

Daddy's Treat

Jared has been working a lot lately. He is waiting on one more guy to get security clearance before he can start working, so they have been a little short handed, meaning he has been working later than normal. On Friday he called and asked if he needed to pick anything up for dinner. I did need him to pick a few things up, and I told him to get a treat for dessert. Well Daddy brought home a very special treat...sundaes! He got the waffle bowl, chocolate syrup, caramel, and even cherries. The kids loved making them as much as they liked eating their special treat.

Mt. Rainier

Jared is the Young Men's basketball coach for our ward, and the games are on Saturdays. So Saturday he had a game and after the game we decided to drive up to Mt. Rainier last minute. Mt. Rainier is always so beautiful when we get to see it on a clear day, and we have been talking about getting up there this winter so we thought why not. We headed up and the kids slept most of the way up. We spent most of our time in the lodge. Then we came out to get into the car and Brayden wanted to go climb on the snow. Most people come up to sled, but we weren't really prepared for that, and since we didn't leave until late afternoon we thought we could just check it out and save the sledding for another time. Brayden was not very happy that we spent all our time in the building, as he called it. So Reagan and I sat in the car while Brayden and Jared played in the snow. I thought it would be a few minutes, but it was more like 30 minutes. Brayden had a blast even with the Popsicle finger he had when he returned to the car. It will be fun to get up there again soon and do some sledding. Here is Reagan inside the lodge. This is her new smile face.
This is me with the kids in front of Mt. Rainier.Daddy and Brayden having fun in the snow.

Sunbeams

Sunday was Brayden’s first day in primary as a sunbeam. I was a little disappointed that his first day in sunbeams wouldn’t be in our own ward, but Brayden didn’t seem to mind. Kira was with us and my parent’s primary meets in the Chapel. So Brayden, Kira and I were in the very back, because we didn’t know where there class was. The sister conducting asked if there were any visitors and Brayden in the very back row raised his hand (I am not even sure how he knew to do that), once she noticed him in the very back she asked Brayden and Kira to come up on stage. They sang “Here We Are Together” and they put Brayden and Kira’s name in the song, they both thought that was so awesome. After the song they went and sat with their class, and then they were off. Hailey and I watched from the door as Brayden helped Kira and sat right by her, she was a little nervous about being in primary. Brayden seemed very helpful and he was excited to be in primary. After we got home from church the kids played primary all afternoon. We had to find the song they sang, and we would have to pick new name so we could keep singing the song. It was very funny and I am really happy that Brayden loves primary. While I was helping Brayden get to primary it was Reagan’s first day in nursery without me, she isn't old enough, but since my mom is one of the nursery leaders they let her go;which made it easy for Reagan to have a good time. We’ll see how she does when we get back to our ward and there is no brother or anyone she knows. Here is Brayden ready for sunBEAMs!
Nursery here I come! (love the smile face)

Shooter Guns

Brayden has a love for "shooter guns". I tried for the first few years to not expose him to them, but I gave up. Now Reagan thinks they are pretty sweet too.

Brayden is 3

It is really sad to me that I haven't posted in my blog for a long time, really since Reagan was born. I am really going to try and do better. It is also sad that I haven't posted about having Reagan, but I can post about Brayden's birthday...I do love my children equally.
I can't believe that Brayden is 3, it has gone by so fast. I am amazed at all he can do. He can go potty like a big boy, he sleeps in his big boy bed, he eats breakfast without a bib and rarely gets dirty, he can also make mommy a treat, gets his own treat by climbing up the pantry shelves when I forget to shut the door all the way, and he can catch a fish with his bare hands.
Brayden has been talking about his birthday for about 2 months. He has a little confusion about his birthday. He thinks the cake is called "birthday party". So most days when he would describe his party he would tell me what kind of cake he wanted. Up until about a month before his birthday he would tell me he wanted a pink cake with a Jesus candle on it. Not sure where he got the Jesus candle. Every once in a while he would describe what he wanted for his birthday. He would say, "I want everyone to hide and then when I come in, yell surprise." He comes up with the funniest things sometimes. Luckily, he has been into fire trucks and we decided on a fire truck cake. We had a small birthday party to celebrate Brayden' turning three. We had the Wester's and Hardy join us for a BBQ dinner. The kids had a great time playing outside while the hamburgers were cooking. After dinner we had the fire truck cake that I decorated myself. It was a lot of fun and I didn't even mind that I was up until 1 decorating it. Brayden was super excited and throughout the day he was caught sneaking a few bites. By the time the party came we were missing most of the B and a little of the R in his name, we were also missing frosting from the window and the ladder. I finally got smart and moved the cake on top of the fridge. When Brayden woke up from his nap and didn't see his cake he said, "Where is my birthday party?" I am happy to say that Brayden didn't try to grab the candle this year, so we didn't have to attend to any burns.After we had cake Brayden opened presents. He was more than excited to open the biggest present first. He couldn't look at the camera for once second while I tried to get a picture. He was more than excited to find an excavator tractor or as he put it, "It's my very own excavator!" He also loved the dump trucks, construction hat, ball, airplane, Kid's National Geographic magazine subscription, and the paddle balls.

Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful Christmas. We took advantage of not have a bowl game and did some really fun things together as a family. We made a Gingerbread Train, rode the little train at the mall to see all the pretty lights, slept underneath the tree, and made lots of holiday treats. Christmas morning Brayden was pretty excited by all his gifts, especially his bulldozer and his Thomas the Train. Here he is later in the day still riding his Thomas the Train.