It's a good life.

I am just going to start off with some cute pics of the boys.

So this week for FHE I did a little lesson on emergency preparedness with the boys. I have some backpacks for the boys to grab under their beds.  We talked and walked through it all and then started discussing what to do if there is a fire and earthquake and such.  Drew with his blanket and thumb in his mouth really starts to get this concerned face and asks, "when is this going to happen?"  In order to comfort him I tell him that it isnt really going to happen, we just need to be prepared.  His response was, "so you were just trickin us?" He said in a quiet, kinda "that was totally rude" sorta tone and eye brows raised.  Hee hee. It was funny. 
We had parent teacher conference for Jensen this week.  His teacher said he was doing great, mostly.  She couldn't tell me what level he was reading on.  As she would test him he would get most the words wrong. She would go down a level and same result, until she was down below average and was still getting the same result. He has been doing the same thing at home and we decided that he just tries to go fast.  He doesnt care if he gets the words right he just wants to be fast and done.  Hmmmm, that is weird, my child going 100 mph.  Oh, Mrs. Paepke,that is how we function.  She also said that he should be able to sit and read for 15 min and he cant sit still for 5 min.  Also something I already knew.  At home while reading he is doing summersaults on the couch and laying upside down with his head bobbing off the end. Needless to say we have some reading things to work on, but he is very smart and enjoys math.  He just doesn t have the patience for reading, at least not yet.  It reminded me of a story my mom told me of my brother Alex.  When he was in first grade his teacher said during their reading time at school he sat in the back rolling his head in circle for half an hour. Although she told my mom something is wrong with him.  Alex claims that he really thinks he has ADHD and I am waiting for one of Jensens teachers to tell me he has that, but I think we are just going to deal with it.  No testing or labels, we just have to figure out how to help him learn skills and how to be successful.....at least that is the plan for now.
I got a call from Jensen's teacher this week.  Whenever I see the school calling I get a little anxious.  I have had calls before telling me Jensen has been sent to the principals office, yes, he is only in 1st grade. Luckily, Jensen just fell in the mud at recess and needed a change of clothes.  I was happy to go see him and change his clothes.  Then about 2 hrs later, when he returned home from school he had mud all over him again.  Must have had so much fun at recess.

This weekend we went to Kalli's cabin for Joels 30th birthday earlier this month.  We went with all the Smith siblings, except Jon and Melissa (they live in DC), whom we were missing more than ever this last weeknd, and no children.  We just stayed over one night and played games, watched movies and played in the snow.  It is hard to believe that we found snow, but we did, high in the mountains.

Of course getting pulled behind the 4 wheeler was fun, but not good enough.

They had to build a jump and Justin was the first to test it out.

Well, I did a better job of taking pictures this weeks so I could tell you about them, although i am thinking that if this is going to be journal style I need to talk about how our week went too.  Still just new at this whole plan but hopefully I can just get better and better at combining the two and this will be great.
This week we have been dealing with sickness.  I feel like we just keep going from sickness to sickness for like 2 weeks now.  We have all had this eye infection thing that only really lasts a couple of days but apparently is super contagious because we have all had it.  Which means we go no where and do nothing and for us that is torture. :) Poor Breckers had it the worst, but I think just because he doesnt understand and rubs and rubs.  His poor eyes were so red and swollen, he looked terrible, but I didn't get a picture of that.  Then Drew got it pretty bad and had to stay home from school. Justin and I kinda started the whole infected eye thing, and then have had sore throats that keep us up at night. Then Drew was throwing up last night.  I dont think I have slept all the way through the night in like 2 weeks.  I keep hoping that we can shake it all and get healthy again soon.
But I did promise the boys we would go to gym cats this week because they have done such a great job with their study time since getting back to school.  We have been dying to go for a week and when this whole sickness hit it pushed us back a day but then we souped up Drew's eye with neosporin all day and night and went on Fri. It is so fun.  The kids get to jump in foam pits and swing on ropes and rings and jump on tramps and be in "boy heaven". After taking them to gym cats, Justin and I decided that we wanted to play too, so we went on a date that night to a place called Airborne.  We went with Kylee and Russell and were there with all the other 15 year olds.  It was so much fun.  The floor is just lined with trampolines and they even go up the walls.  We jumped from tramp to tramp.  Then there is also this area to jump off the tramps into foam pits.  Justin was doing double front flips and all of his cool snowbarding tricks. We played for an hour and got a great workout.  Super fun!!!!
So, I will get  onto some pictures that talks about the rest of the week.

Breck has been doing this for a couple of weeks, almost every morning when I brush my teeth.  Its so funny.

We were taking down our Christmas lights in Jan. instead of June this year. Yeah us!!  We beat the snow (not hard to do with the driest winter in Utah history), but didnt beat the cold. Breck was freezing but wanted to stay outside so he just sat on the porch like this for like 20 min.

We had a picnic in the front room this week.  It was Drew's idea.  The sun shines through our sliding door and is so warm and perfect for a picnic.

The first real snow of the year!! The mountains apparantly got quite a bit, but we just got a light dusting.  Although first sign of snow and Justin and the boys got all decked out and went out while it was snowing This view is from our house.  It was amazing with the reflection of the mountains.  I cant believe we live here.

December fun!!!

Well, I guess I need to take more pictures during the week so that I will have some to show when I talk about our week. So I will show some from December, which will be good to have documented anyway and give some updated pictures of the boys.

So we stayed at our friends house in St. George while we were playing in the co-ed toys for tots tournament with Benchwarmers (Our slowpitch team made up of all our friends, so fun). They had this sweet loaded wagon.  Of course the boys were in heaven. 



We ended up winning the tourney out of like 84 teams.  The championship game was close and the last three outs were awesome plays. We are reenacting the last out where Justin and Beaner were both going for a ball in the gap, Beaner called it and they both went sliding past each other and Beaner caught it.  It was amazing!!! Go BW!!



Before we did Breck's first big hair cut.  It was sad, but time.  We thought the sucker would be a good idea to keep him entertained.  He loves suckers. Turns out it just makes the hair stick all over and in his mouth....DUH MOM!!!



After the haircut...so cute!!!



The boys have really been into angry birds. They want to
play every time they get the chance and it seems like
we are the only ones that dont have an i phone or tablet
or something.  We are lame.



Breck got all these cute little baby toys that light up
and make music when you drive or push buttons....didnt even look at them. In fact, to this day hasn't even touched them.  He went straight for a football that Drew got and then played all morning on the super shot basketball hoop we got.  By the end of the day he was making baskets. Incredible!!!

And finally, Snowboarding.  Since there has been no snow yet, the driest December in Utah history, Justin needed to get his fix in by taking the boys up.  So a couple of different times, Justin and I took the boys up to Snowbird and went snowboarding.  It was super fun.  This is Jensen 3rd year going up so he is good.  He cruises down the hill without falling.  Drew is still learning and Justin is so kind and patient as he tries to teach him.  By the time Drew had finished his first run, Jensen and I had been down 2 1/2 times, but by the end of the night, Drew made it down only falling twice.



Cancun pictures

Cute!!!!

They had these great bed things we could lay on and enjoy the beautiful view.

This is the view of our pool that walks right out onto the beach.  The ocean was warmer than the pool.

The water was so beautiful.  The sand was white and the water was so blue and clear.  When we played in it you could look in and see your whole body.  We could see fish, and we didnt even need to go snorkeling.

There were iguana's everywhere.  If you look you can see 4 Iguana's in this picture.  This was just a rock sculpture next to our pool.  It was pretty cool.

Basically a summary of what I did!  It was heaven!!!




Volleyball

sandcastles








looking for crabs













And a summary of what Justin did!!
What a great trip we had.

Cancun Baby!!!!

Justin and I went to Cancun for our 10 year anniversary in Dec.  We were gone for 7 days, 6 nights in paradise.  We have never done anything like this.  Our trip usually consist of a weekend of softball in St. George, which is super fun, but just not as exotic.  Our honeymoon was 7 days but only in Heber in the wintertime. Again, paradise but not exotic.  It was everything I could have hoped for.  We spent days just laying on the beach.  Justin would have gotten bored of course so he read an entire book, built a sandcastle, played with a volleyball, looked for crabs and lizards and sea shells (just as a "little kid" would do) but I just sat, and sat, and stared at the ocean, and soaked up the sun, and sat, and slept, and sat, and soaked up the sun.  Didnt think about anything. It was so wonderful.  Then we also escaped the resort and got a little activity and culture.  We drove through the town of Playa Del Carmen and was able to see the city on our way to two different excursions.  Tour 1 we went snorkeling with sea turtles, then cenote snorkeling (in a cave), then ziplining through the jungle and then repeling.  It was super fun and cool.  Tour 2 we had a guided tour through some ancient Mayan ruins called Tulum and then spent the afternoon on a beach called Paradise Beach, and it was.  We loved spending so much time together and we were ready to see the kids again by day 6 and 7.  Ten wonderful years!!!! It has gone fast.  I feel lucky to be married to such a wonderful man.

New Years Resolution!!!!

Well, I know all of our three followers will be excited to hear that I, Breanne, have started a new year's resolution to blog this year of our life.  I am really wanting to use this as a journal.  Hopefully you will all enjoy updates more frequently than once every 18 months.  Sorry about that. :)  As you can see this will be a challenge as we have had a hard time posting. Also, I have never blogged before.  Justin has been the one that started this and so often updates it. But I am really going to try and now that I have started, I have verballed my commitment to all (3) of you and dont want to let you down.  Now, I can't guarantee that they will be long or exciting but it will be some documentation of our lives and that is a good start.  I hope to create a life long habit.  So here goes.....