At Last...

One of the great trials of Hayden's young life thus far has been the stubborn persistence of his two front teeth.  Being nearly 8 and not having lost a single tooth is almost too ghastly to mention.  When all of his second grade class has lost one or more teeth already...well, you can imagine the turmoil of his poor little soul.  However, Hayden has endured this hardship fairly well, with only the occasional, "Why ME?"

On Tuesday when Jeremy and Hayden went to the dentist for checkups, Jeremy asked Dr. Waite to just yank Hayden's front teeth out on the sly and put him out of his misery.   Not wanting to tramatize him, Dr. Waite didn't pull, but instead wiggled them around a lot to hopefully speed up the process.

So imagine my surprise when I see a beaming gap-toothed Hayden walking towards me when I went to pick him up from school that day.  He proudly told me that Ashton, a classmate, had backed into him and knocked his tooth right out.  He reenacted the scene, going into great detail about the amount of blood lost.  He walked around the rest of the day, flaunting his gaping hole like a badge of honor.  After giving it some thought, he wondered if he could ask Ashton to knock his other tooth out. :)

Express Yourself

Bridger is an expressive little guy.  Sometimes when he is talking I don't hear much of what he says because I get so wrapped up in the crinkling of his face, the arching of his eyebrows and the finger-pointing and gesturing involved.  He talks non-stop it seems and has recently used new words like  "aksully" (actually) and "whomunis" (humongous).   Never a dull moment with this one!

Snow, Glorious Snow

The day the boys have been waiting for finally arrived on Friday...a Snow Day.  Nothing brings children more joy then the cancellation of school or an excuse to stay in pajamas all day long.  And there really is something so cozy about being tucked safe and sound in your warm house while the storm rages outside.  I baked some bread and Jeremy amazed us with his culinary prowess by making a pork roast in the pressure cooker all by his little self. 

We received over a foot of snow, with the drifts in the backyard going up to Hayden's shoulders.  The boys were in heaven when it finally stopped snowing and blowing long enough to go out and play in it.  However, no one enjoyed it more than Finley, who bounded gleefully about, crashing through the drifts.  I think these pictures speak for themselves.

Parkin' It

When we hear it's going to be warmer then 40 degrees around here, we practically break out the shorts.  Yesterday was supposed to be in the 50s, so we headed to Black Forest for a hike.  I'm not sure what we were thinking, since the trails were still covered in snow and anything not covered in snow was an oozy mud pit.  We decided against the mud pit and went to Black Forest park instead.  Hooray for 40 degrees in January!

Not sure what Jeremy's doing here...

Christmas 2011

Christmas time has come and gone but the joy remains.  I'm typing this as I hear screaming coming from upstairs.  It's been 2 full days of  Christmas toy bliss with no trips to the outer-world.  All the family togetherness may be finally getting to them. Yesterday, I made them run laps in the backyard to get their wiggles out. :)

We've had a lot of fun this December doing all of our Christmas traditions.  One things the boys particularly enjoyed was the 12 Days of Christmas.  We picked a family in our neighborhood and for 12 days we secretly left treats (along with a poem) on their doorstep and ran.  It was fun to make up the poem and pick items that would go with each day.  Some days, our items and poem were a bit of a departure from the original 12 Days of Christmas poem.  For instance, here is Day 7 (we gave Swedish Fish):

Seven swans a swimming, yikes, that would be cold,

But good for the circulation or so we’ve been told.

The swans have all flown south and couldn’t be got,

But fish are swimmers too, and Swedish ones are hot!

And here's Day 8 (Milk Duds):

Eight maids-a-milking, what a taxing chore,

After all that work, we’re sure they’d want to snore.

So we won’t give you the maids, but what about the dairy,

Here’s some tasty Milk Duds, now go and be merry!

Like I said...quite a stretch, but we didn't see eight maid-a-milking laying around anywhere, so we did what we had to do.  Don't judge us.:)

We made some reindeer ornaments with the boys thumbprints.

And some Christmas trees out of sugar cones, frosting and M&Ms.  Bridger was suprisingly precise in his placement of the M&Ms.

The Elf on the Shelf (aka "Fred") made his debut at our house this year.  Fred is a special Elf that watched over our family every day and at night, would fly back to the North Pole and report to Santa.  Each morning the boys would wake up and look to see where Fred was hiding.  The first night, I caught Gannon out of his bed at 3am.  He wasn't entirely awake, but he kept saying he wanted to see Fred flying. :)  I LOVE Fred.  I really, REALLY do.  Best motivator ever.  Fred inspired the boys to be good because he was "watching" them.  Sounds creepy but very effective. :)

  

This is Gannon washing the dishes so Fred could see his good works and report it to Santa:

It snowed about 12 inches last Thursday and so we really did have a white Christmas.  We went sledding on Christmas Eve and the boys had a blast.  The only problem was that at the bottom of the hill was a playground with lots of equipment, so Jeremy and I had to stand guard at the bottom to make sure no one did a header into the slide.  Bridger tried once with both Jeremy and I, but decided he wasn't the biggest fan.  Maybe next year. 

We put cookies out for Santa and Elf-sized doughnuts (Cheerios dipped in sprinkles) out for Fred the Elf.  And of course, carrots out in the backyard for the famished reindeer.

Christmas morning Hayden and Gannon arose bright and early - 5am.  They were as quiet as could be, but we could hear their whispering and made them go back to bed until 6:45am.  They opened stockings and played with their presents from Santa and then we went to Sacrament meeting.  Trying to get 3 boys ready for Church and out the door on Christmas morning is a near impossible task.  Even more difficult was getting them to settle down through Sacrament.  We only made it half-way through before I had to take them out in the hall.  But not before Bridger let loose with a goodie that entertained the congregation.  We were taking the Sacrament, when Bridger announces for all the world to hear, "I pooped, Mommy!"  In a quiet chapel, this rang out like a fog horn.  Booming.  And then, in case the entire room didn't hear, he clarified, "Mommy, I did it. I POOPED. YAY!".  Everyone around me was cracking up.  The entire Brewerton family was in hysterics.  Brother Brewerton told me later, "That was awesome.  Thank you so much!".  Anything I can do to bring Christmas cheer to one and all.

Here Comes Santa Claus

Santa and Mrs. Claus made a personal visit to our house yesterday.  The boys were ecstatic.  We had planned to go see Santa at the rec center that very same day, but no longer needed to since Santa (our sweet home teacher) apparently makes house calls.  It was cute to see Hayden explaining to Gannon that this wasn't the "real" Santa but one of his Santa helpers because "that beard is really fake".

A few family photos

I know I've already posted the most important photos from our photo shoot (Jeremy and his Love), but here's a few of the rest of us non-furry family members.