the one about my cousin Brooke

I suck at blogging. I am so sorry that I just can't get my blogging life together. It seems to be the last thing I can find time to do. Blogger drives me crazy because it is so slow at loading pictures and I hate fighting with it for hours! I have no patience! Excuses, excuses. I know.

A couple months ago, I went to SLC to see my cousin Brooke and her new baby. While there, she told me that she was going to stop reading my blog because I never update it. I promised her that I would blog the pictures from that weekend. Well, of course, time got away from me and here it is, mid-May and I am barely getting to it. So sorry Brooke! She told me that the last time I posted a picture of her, it was very unflattering (SO NOT TRUE!) and she wanted me to post a new one that looked better. Go to this post, scroll down a bit and see that it was a good picture of her and her hubby!! She is adorable!!! Anyway, with this post, I am hoping to redeem myself to my FAVORITE cousin, and hopefully win her back as a blog reader. Besides, I am excited to show off her cute baby!

I come from a small family. My Dad only had one sibling, a brother, who he married later in life and he and his wife never had children. My Mom only had one brother and he and his ex-wife only had one child. That means I only have one cousin. Yes, just one. Brooke. My grandparents only had three grandchildren, therefore, we all got lots of attention. Growing up, we were all very close. We lived near each other and did everything together. I always thought Brooke was so cool. I wanted to be with her all the time and I thought she was the greatest thing ever. I was crazy jealous of her. She was a few years older than me, and I know I had to be totally annoying to her, but she was always sweet to me. I got to go on a few trips with my aunt, uncle and Brooke and they were all so good to me. They still are! Brooke has accomplished a lot in her life and I am so proud of her! She has a great job as a paramedic and is married to a math teacher! She never seemed to want to have children, but finally got to a place in her life where she needed to be a mommy. Her sweet baby Moses must be the luckiest kid ever because Brooke is the BEST MOM! It has been so much fun to see her transform from "super strong independent career woman Brooke," to "gentle kind nurturing motherly Brooke." They are just the cutest little family and Moses is the most beautiful, perfect baby I have ever seen. (Well, maybe the 2nd most beautiful and perfect baby I have ever seen!) ;) I LOVE my one and only cousin and I am so proud of her! And I am really mad that she lives 2 1/2 hours away so I can't love on that baby more often.

Here are the pictures of our trip to meet baby Moses. My uncle is a collector of all things weird. He has this creepy puppet, "Jerry Mahoney." I think it is hilarious, but Brooke is totally creeped out by it! She was throwing a total fit when we took this picture. "Get that away from my baby!"
"Grandpa" Kim and Moses
Four Generations

the one about Brycen and costumes

It was my sweet little nephew Brycen's 1st Birthday on the 10th. We went over to his house and had a fun little party! We had pizza, cake, presents and lots of laughs! Here he is getting his cake. Isn't he adorable???
Now this might be one of my favorite pictures of all times. It was taken at the party and I think it is darling!!! Quayd and Talia. ahhhhhhhh.....

Now, on to the "costumes" part of my post. Two years ago, I bought Quayd a bunch of Halloween costumes at the after-Halloween sales. He has LOVED having them for dress up stuff. He and Brennen (and sometimes Brayden) wear them all of the time. Quayd's other friends love them too!!! (Quayd and Kasen)
Brennen, Zoey and Quayd
Quayd and Brennen go trick-or-treating at my mom and grandma's houses all year long!

They have also come in handy for different dress up activities at school. (Kindergarten-Fairy Tale day) Ha Ha, that reminded me that Shae was having a Superhero assembly on the first day of school and needed something to wear, so she came and hit the costume bin.

Here is a picture from early this October. Quayd, Brayden and Brennen had a 4H activity where they had to go trick-or-treating for canned foods to donate to the food pantry. Danette and I didn't have their costumes ready, so we just let them rummage through the costume bin. Brayden even found some things to use. I have started to notice the costumes are getting super small. They don't button up anymore and they are all high-waters. I went to "the marts" (Wal and K) on Tuesday and hit the JACK POT! Costumes were 90% off! I got so many costumes for them and the most expensive one was $1.99 and the cheapest was $.49. I got home before they got off the bus so I laid them all out on my couch. I intercepted them in the driveway and told them I had a big surprise in the front room. They took off RUNNING! You would have thought it was Christmas morning. They were THRILLED! They were tearing into them and trying them on before I even made it back in the house. It was so awesome that I was able to get them so many new ones. And I only spent about $20.00. Here they are in some of the new costumes. Brayden and I are OBSESSED with aliens, so he snatched this one right up! The only rule is that they have to stay at my house and they have to keep them picked up. Otherwise, it is a free for all! The best $20.00 I have spent in a long time! :)

the one about Easter

We had such a nice Easter weekend. It was very casual and not very exciting, but that is fine. We have had lots of stress and craziness lately, so a nice quiet weekend was PERFECT. On Saturday, we got up early and went to the Dinosaur Museum for an Easter egg hunt. This is probably our favorite egg hunt. The kids get to go through the museum and find eggs. When it is all finished, they turn in their eggs for prizes. Not a ton of candy, like most of the egg hunts and it is fun and different. Brayden went with us (Brennen was with is Grandma) but he was too old to hunt eggs at the museum, so he helped Quayd. Quayd doesn’t really need help anymore, but it was fun for them to go together. Quayd even let Brayden get one of his prizes. This is right before it started. They were at the first of the line!

After this, we went to the baseball park for another egg hunt. All of the eggs are real, and the kids don't just love that. They break it up in different age groups and in each group they have one plastic egg. If you get it, you turn it in for a big prize. Brayden found the winning egg in his group! Quayd met up with his friends Rylan and Jeff. They hunted eggs together and had a blast.
After this, we went to Grandma Lane's Church for their egg hunt. Grandma loves it when we can go to this and it is a lot of fun. They hunt for mostly real eggs, but a few candy ones too. After the egg hunt, they have lunch at the Church. We always have fun when we go to this. Grandma with all of the big egg hunters!
We got to see Brynn and her sweet boys. Beau'D loves Quayd and they had fun playing together.

Saturday afternoon consisted of a nice, long nap. Then I made a nice dinner and we just hung out for the evening.

Sunday morning, we were woken up to a phone call at 8:00 am. It was Brennen calling to see what Quayd got from the Easter bunny. Quayd was still asleep, and didn’t wake up until almost 9:00. And that was because we woke him up! Quayd was so excited to get up and see if the Easter bunny came by. Of course, he did!
Quayd got 2 Nintendo DS games, some clothes, some tech deck mini skateboards, a kite, a jump rope and a special note from the Easter Bunny. This is what it said:

Dear Quayd,
The rest of your gift will be well worth the wait,
You'll share it with two other boys who are great!

You will get it for sure when the week is complete,
but you must promise to be really sweet!

My basket was already full to the top,
but here's a hint... it'll make you go Hop! HOP! HOP!

Happy Eater!
Your friend,
The Easter Bunny

Brayden and Brennen got the same note! Since our trampoline was totally falling apart, and we had to throw it away, the boys are sure it is a new trampoline. I guess we will see what the rest of the week holds! ;) The Easter bunny also hid eggs for Quayd to find.
There were TONS of them and they were all over our living room! And, all filled with Quayd's favorite candy. Laffy Taffy, Jolly Ranchers and mini Snickers. (or as he calls them, "sneek-ers!) Brett and I had to laugh, because you could tell that Quayd was an only child by the way he hunted for eggs. He totally took his time and after he found one, he opened it up, looked at its contents and marveled at how the Easter Bunny knows just what he likes. Quayd was in NO HURRY through the entire egg hunt. It was so funny.

My Grandma had a special egg hunt for the boys this morning, and Quayd found the prize egg.... $10.00! They also got a few other eggs with money and candy. Brett, Quayd and I had lunch with my mom. She cooked a ham for croissant sandwiches and made deviled eggs, and I made potato salad. It was so nice with just the four of us and we had a great time. THANKS MOM!!!

We had a nice nap this afternoon, then went to Aunt Debbie's at 5:00 for dinner. It is our family tradition to play Bingo at all of our parties. This one was no different. Brett is always the Bingo caller, and there are prizes for both kids and adults. It is so much fun! They do cool prizes too, but there aren't very many, so you don't always win. We didn't win anything at Christmas, but we all did awesome for Easter! Brett won a $30.00 gift certificate to Canton City and a $30.00 gift certificate to Casa Rios. I won $30.00 in scratch and win tickets, but I only won $3.00. Bummer. And Quayd won a $20.00 bill! It was cool, we were all super excited!

It was such a nice Easter and I am so glad we had peaceful and fun weekend together. Now we need another day to recuperate! Quayd and I get one, but poor Brett has to go back to work. Somebody has to pay for all of our Easter fun!!!

the one about my superstar soccer player

I just have to throw this in real quick..

Quayd is an AWESOME soccer player!!!!! He has scored one goal at every game so far, but on Saturday he scored 4 goals!!!!!!!

I love this picture! Its sorta blurry, but you can see how Quayd just kicked the ball and the goalie is trying to stop it. It went right in the goal! It was awesome! I am so proud of Quayd. He is working so hard, he practices every day and he is quite the little player.

He had some fans at this game. We had company in town, Melanie & Konner and Megan and Molly (I will blog all about that later) and they were able to come to the first part of the game.
They got to see Quayd score once. Also, Ga and Pop came. (Ga is looking lots better!!!)

This picture cracks me up because you can see the little bit of attitude on Quayd's face. He thinks he is pretty cool!

the one about a funny picture

I was going through pictures the other day and found this one from this last summer. Brennen and Quayd must have dressed up as superheroes every single day. Then they would go from door to door (Only my mom's, grandparent's and brother's houses) trying to scare everyone. One day, I was trying to catch them being sneaky. They were trying to scare Ga. Of course this is posed, but I think it is so funny!!

the one about Christmas 2008

Phewwwwwww....... It's finally over.

I don't know what my deal was this year, but I just never really got into Christmas. We had an amazing time, everything was perfect, Quayd was spoiled, I was spoiled... seriously, everything was perfect. But I am SO GLAD its over.

On Christmas Eve, we always go to my Grandma's and have dinner and gift exchange. We have done it for as long as I can remember. I always look forward to it. We always have a great time, awesome food and perfect gifts. This year did not disappoint. We had turkey, ham, funeral potatoes, veggies, rolls, and lots more. My Grandparent's, Mom, Brother and his family and me and my family were there. Ten people total. Quayd got a bunch of those magnetic things. One set is even a roller coaster thing and he was in seventh heaven! He also got a mini table-top pool table. It is super cute!!!! I got a nice new digital camera. My camera has finally had it, so that is why there are no pictures. Anyway, it was great!! Probably the best gift was having my grandma home, and doing MUCH BETTER!!!!

After we got home, we got everything ready for Santa. We were all so tired, so we all went to be around 9:00. Quayd was so tired that by 9:30 he was sound asleep. Brett and I were crazy tired too, so we "took care of a few things" and we were in bed by 9:41. I don't remember anything after that until 7:00 am. Then we woke up to find this......

Quayd did well from Santa, as you can see. He got a huge dump truck that was clear full of goodies. He got a bunch more of his favorite mini airplanes, a globe, tons of space ships, a firetruck set, a gumball machine, a wii game, a Nintendo DS with 4 games and a bunch of other stuff. It is so hard not to spoil him. So instead of fighting it, we just go for it and spoil the crap out of him. He is such a good boy though, he deserves every bit of it. I am so excited, because Quayd and Brett surprised me (sorta) with and iPod touch!!!! I wanted one so bad and I was sure there was no way we could pull it off, but good old Brett came through for me. It is such a cute story. Last week, I had a NASTY stomach flu. I felt horrible and I had been throwing up and pooping for 2 days straight. I had asked Brett to stop and get me some Sprite on his way home from work. He came home and asked Quayd to go with him to the store. I really didn't think much of it. I just assumed that Brett was trying to get Quayd out of my hair so I could rest. Later that night when Brett was in the shower, I was putting stuff away that he had bought at Wal-Mart. in a bag of goodies, there were some brand new ear buds, pink. I thought it was weird but I didn't want to say anything in case it was a surprise. I seriously LOVE surprises and I love to be surprised. (However, I HATE to be startled, so don't ever try to surprise me by hiding and shouting, "SURPRISE!" That would just take all of the good stuff out of the surprise.) So Brett gets out of the shower and comes into the kitchen and says, "Oh. I got these for you. I know your iPod ear buds hurt your ears." That was it. I was like, "Bummer." Anyway, fast forward a bit.... The next morning, while I was putting on my makeup, I was charging this no-name brand mP4 player that Brett won at work. I had come to terms that I was not getting my iPod touch. Quayd walked into the bathroom and asked, "Mom, what is that?" I said, "It's sorta like an iPod." Then, so innocently, he says, "Oh. Like the one me and Dad got for you?" I just sat there. I asked, "Did you and Dad get me an iPod?" He got really upset, shouted, "MAYBE!" and ran out of the room. I felt so bad for finding out and even worse that he was upset that he thought he ruined the surprise. I never said another word and just pretended like I had no idea. I told Brett the story, and although he was disappointed, he agreed that we wouldn't tell Quayd about the mess up. So they wrapped it all up for me and put it under the tree. When Quayd gave it to me today, he was SO excited. (seriously, so was I!!!) He still has no idea that I knew and he was so proud to give it to me. I have played with it all day. I got all of the songs that I could ever desire on it. It is SO COOL!!!!! I love it. Thank you so much Brett and Quayd. I love it so much. It means so much to me that you would go to all that trouble to stash money and secretly buy it for me. Brett, I love you. You are the best!!

We were able to relax for a few hours before heading to Gleneita's. Brett had a nap and Quayd and I went next door to see what Brayden and Brennen got. They too, did well.

We went to Gleneita's at 10:00 am. This year we decided to draw names so it cut WAY back on the cost of gifts. We all still left with nice stuff and it was great. Talia took pictures for me since my new camera wasn't charged yet.
We were just relaxing on the floor while all the kids ran around us.




Isn't Branson about the cutest thing you have ever seen???





Cory, Quayd and Branson wrestled forever!! I don't know who had more fun.



Beau'D had this flat ball that he kept wearing as a hat. What a nut!




We had such a great Christmas. Tons of wonderful memories, laughs, gifts and everything else. I am so grateful for my awesome family, wonderful husband and beautiful son. I am also grateful that Christmas is over for a whole year.

Now, we are preparing for our annual trip to SLC to the Jazz game with the Galley family. We are leaving around noon Friday and coming home on Sunday. Wish us luck!!!