just, bre, and boys

It's been a fun week

2012-02-06T14:04:00.000-08:00

Drew finally earned his alphabet crown this week in preschool.Yeah!!! I'm afraid that he was the last one in his class. Mrs. Millington, his teacher, said he may get his blending badge (Blending letters, sounds) the same time he gets his alphabet crown. So he is progressing. We really practiced hard this week and it paid off.

Jensen has been playing this basketball season with his buddy Carter Cederholm out in West Jordan. That is quite a drive for us from Saratoga Springs but it was really fun to have them play together. Jensen got better and better. He was great at hustle and defense and made a basket almost every game.

GO JENSEN GO!!!!

It was Justins birthday this week. The big 32! Me, his parents, and my parents went in on a Kindle Fire for his gift. I was so excited to give it to him. He has really been into reading lately (nerd :)) and we dont have anything cool like that so........He loved it! On his birthday, he wanted to go snowboarding of course. He went up early and spent half the day shredding the mountain with his brother Joel and then we met him up at the Canyons in Park City for the other half of the day because he wanted to take the boys on the "big hill." I was kinda nervous about it, but got quick therapy when I went shopping with Breck. He said it went pretty well. The boys did great on the mountain, they snowboard like pros, they are just still little kids, so the getting on and off the lift and buckling and unbuckling the bindings and the " I'm cold" and " I have to go pee!" made things difficult. But what a fun dad, they are so lucky!.

This just sums up how mom feels everyday about 3. I get a second wind until about 8, woopie! I can see why moms need diet coke, I'm tempted to start drinking pop just for that reason. :) Breckers fell asleep on the chair just as I was finishing my workout. He was up early this morning. Cute little dude.

It's a good life.

2012-01-31T13:43:00.000-08:00

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.

2012-01-23T15:26:00.000-08:00

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!!!

2012-01-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-08T22:05:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2012-01-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2012-01-08T15:08:00.000-08:00

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.....

Breck Wakefield

2010-06-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

Breck Wakefield Smith

Bre was technically due on June 8th but due to the kid being up in her ribs for the last several weeks we scheduled an induction for Tuesday, June 1st. They said we were on a waiting list so we tried to keep our expectations low in case they couldn't get us in that day. We were supposed to call at 6:30 Tuesday morning. Before we could call, the hospital called us and asked if we could make it in by 7:45.

We rushed to get everything packed up, boys included. We dropped the boys off at Bre's mom's house and made it to the hospital at about 7:55 and they hooked her up to the machines and induced her. After a few hours she was still only at a 2 which is where she was when she got in so the Doc came in and told us we had a choice, we could be in for a LONG day, or we could come back another day when she's more ready. We weren't about to leave and come back after getting our hopes up and mentally preparing so we chose the first option.

Sure enough it took until about 7:00 pm until she was ready to have the baby. The nurse called the Dr. who had gone home for some dinner, and after he got back it only took 10 minutes of pushing before Breck was here. I could tell he was a little guy like his oldest brother Jensen. However, he weighed in a little heavier than Jensen at 6 lbs 7 oz and 19 inches (Jensen was 5 11, 19 inches, and Drew was 8 3, 21 inches). Everything went real smoothly and the nurses said the baby looked great!

The boys were so excited to see the baby. Drew had a hard time putting together the big belly for 9 months and the baby he was looking at. The first thing he said was "Mom, who's that?" They love holding him and helping, like pushing him to the washing room in this picture.

In the washing room before getting cleaned off.

A little background on his name: It comes from the Breckenridge ski resort in Colorado. We threw out the name "Breck" just before attending the 2010 Winter X-Games in Aspen. While at the games there was a skier named Bobby Brown (no, not previously married to Whitney Houston, or a singer, or black) who took the gold in big air and slope style, throwing down the first 1620 (4 and 1/2 spins) ever landed in competition. Turns out he had two big stickers on his helmet, one on top of the other, that read Breck (short for the Breckenridge ski resort) Smith (Optics). It was inspired. The middle name is my Mom's maiden name and the last name of one of my favorite major league pitchers, Tim Wakefied (a knuckle baller).

We were grateful for all the support at the hospital and for those of you that couldn't make it to the hospital but that still kept us in your prayers.

Here are newborn pictures of our 3 boys. When he first came out I thought he looked exactly like Drew but since then everyone thinks he's a Jensen clone. I think he's a good mix. You guys can decide. The top pic is Jensen and the bottom is Drew.

Here's my favorite news story while we were in the hospital. It didn't happen the day he was born, but it was the day after. We were watching the game live when it happened and I couldn't believe it. From the picture you can see the runner is clearly out which would have been the 27th out of a perfect game for the pitcher (player catching the ball) but the ump called him safe! It was all over the news.

But the real story is what happened later on. After the game the umpire admitted his mistake and apologized to the pitcher. The league comissioner decided to not overturn the call saying that it was part of the game. The next day there was a celebration for the pitcher's (nearly) perfect game where the fans, the players/coach, and the pitcher forgave the umpire. The umpire had tears at receiving their forgiveness. Proof that baseball is the best sport out there, and that we watch too much of it.

A Tip to all wives...

2010-02-03T19:37:00.000-08:00

...find out what your husband likes and suprise him with a big trip for his birthday.

Last Wednesday Bre told me to come home early to watch the kids cause she said she had a coaching meeting. When I got home she had all the bags packed in the car and told me I had to come with her. We drove to her parents house and she showed me the plane tickets and the X-Games schedule.

Turns out a few months ago she booked the plane tickets and hotel, contacted my cousins Regina and Derek, arranged for her parents and my parents to watch the kids, and let my boss know the days I'd be gone.

We flew to Denver on Wednesday and stayed with Derek and Regina that night. The next day we drove to a city right outside Aspen Colorado. On Friday and Saturday we hit up the games in Aspen. It was "sick" and I was totally "stoked" to be there. We watched the snowboard slopestyle, ski big air and slopestyle, snowmobile best trick, and snowboard superpipe. And yes, we did see Shaun White smash his face on the deck of the pipe in practice (if you haven't seen it, you should Youtube it). And as an added bonus, 50 Cent rapped for the 23,000 in attendance on Saturday.

We drove back to Regina and Derek's on Saturday night and flew back home on Sunday afternoon. It doesn't surprise me at all that Bre planned the best trip ever. Her only problem is that she will have to come up with something better for my 40th, sucker!

Our hosts Wednesday and Saturday night

A night shot of the ski big air competition

From left to right: slopestyle course, superpipe, and big air ramp.

Bored

2010-02-03T19:14:00.000-08:00

This is our new favorite thing. He'll sit like this for 5 minutes at a time. We need to get him a Wii or something.

The scratches on his face are just a result of being a little brother.

This hardly ever happens so we thought we'd better snap a shot even if it meant having the Truman Show in the background.

Shredding the Bunny Hill

2010-02-01T20:27:00.000-08:00

I took Jensen up to The Canyons for the first time last month. I was a little worried about how long it would take before he got bored but he really enjoyed it and lasted for a few hours. Although, I think he liked the gondola ride almost more than the snowboarding. I tried taking him down the normal hills but he was too fearless and would point his board strait down the hill so I decided that was not a good idea and took him to the bunny hill. He owned that. Drew was really upset that he couldn't go and screamed for a while but he settled down after we promised him he could go when he's 4. He reminds us about that often. Overall I'd say the father-son trip was successful and I'm planning on taking him again soon.

Watch him in action (oh and yes, I did bring gloves for him but he wanted to take them off so that he could grip the tow rope better)...

New Post!

2009-12-29T16:21:00.000-08:00

We hope you enjoyed looking at Bre's stitches for the last year. I'm recommitting to posting at least more than once a year. Here are the latest pictures from our family:

Jensen Snowboarding behind the fourwheeler; hopefully summer never comes!

Santa Snowman; hopefully summer never comes!

Christmas Ghosts!

Went in for carpet, but came out with stitches.

2009-02-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

Long story short, or at least shorter. We were at Granite Furniture and Drew was running around the store, crazy. He snuck into a supply closet that didn't have a door and knocked over two square bed frame bars that pummeled Bre's face as soon as she entered the room to see what destruction the dude was causing. As she left the room her face was already dripping with blood and it was easy to see that she was going to need to stitch it up.

We ran to the urgent care and 11 stitches, a tetnus shot, and a couple suckers for the kids, later we were on our way. After 5 days she had the stitches removed and the nurses told her that the Doctor did such a great job that the scar will be hardly noticeable. I think they were just being nice. The following pictures are not for the faint of heart, procede to look with caution...

Nice job, Doc!

5 days later, just before stitch removal. I can't notice a scar, can you? Just kidding, it does look great... considering. Kidding again, Honey!

First Suit

2009-02-09T20:50:00.000-08:00

Now we just gotta work on keeping his shirt tucked in. Handsome!

Is there something missing here?

2009-02-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

The reason we don't let Drew dress himself...

Winter Rules!

2009-02-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

Coats, gloves, hats, boots, $75. Used kid snowboard, $50. Getting "steezy" on the slopes like Dad for the first time, priceless.

Catching up after a 3-month procrastination

2009-02-09T19:44:00.000-08:00

Breanne fullfilled her once-a-year commitment of going up to ski at The Canyons with Justin! We were also excited to have our friends, Joey, Angie, and Ceder go up with us. I know I'm asking for more pink coat jokes by posting this one.

They have some large shoes (snowboard boots) to fill.

Jensen's first cavity filling. He did great, even before the gas!

Evil Eye

2009-02-09T19:34:00.000-08:00

It's been said that Drew speaks with his eyes. Take a guess at what he is saying in this picture.

Winter's close!

2008-11-16T10:22:00.000-08:00

Despite what it appears, Jensen did have a real fun time building his first snowman. Since then it's melted and he's looking forward to the next snowfall, Justin is too but for a different reason (snowboarding is CLOSE!).

Putting up lights on our tiny house was harder than you'd think. We're excited for Christmas!

Family Pictures Taken by Kalli

2008-11-16T09:57:00.000-08:00

These were actually taken in September, I just haven't gotten around to posting them until now. We're sure glad to have Kalli in the family...

Costumes

2008-11-13T17:49:00.000-08:00

1.21 jigga-watts!

Nobody calls me chicken.

Doc Brown and Marty Mcfly

Manny being Manny

Halloween

2008-11-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

We were on a tight budget this year so we had to improvise on our halloween stuff. I made these tombstones out of particle board and we got some styrofoam skulls and put them on some dowels that I sharpened and spray painted. We also bought the gigantic spider, which was a nice touch. Then we grabbed a dead branch from Grandpa Smith's, painted it black, put some purple lights on it, and stuck it in the ground. Last, Grandpa Nickle gave us a spotlight and we put some green bulbs in it. The neighborhood kiddies seemed to like it.

Reliving the glory days

2008-11-13T16:42:00.000-08:00

Me and some freind has-been-baseball players, now softball heros, scrimmaged the Kearns high school team at their new pro-style stadium. I just want everyone to see the swing that took a ball to magna. If coach would have batted me my senior year, we would have taken state. We smoked K-town, by the way.

Tooele Tournament

2008-08-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Justin had a tournament over the weekend (naturally) in good ol' Tooele. This one was different though, because there was no limit on homeruns. Justin has never played softball when worrying about when and when not to hit a bomb was not a factor. His team averaged about 15 homers a game and ended up taking 3rd place. In one game Justin hit 4 over the fence (305 ft fences) out of 5 at bats.

The tournament started at 9:00 am. and they stopped playing at 7:00 pm. Bre and the boys were good sports to go and support.

Chillin' in the shade at the fields

One eye

2008-08-24T09:19:00.000-07:00

On Monday night, while we were playing at the park, a mosquito got Jensen near his eye. A little while later his eye brow looked a little swollen but we thought it had gone down a bit before he went to bed. The next morning his eye was swollen shut. He didn't act like it hurt or was even bothering him, he just said "I can't see out of my eye." So we gave him some benadryl and all that did was put him right to sleep.

His eye wasn't getting any better so we called his Dr. who told us to bring him in. They said everything was ok (other than the fact that he can only see out of one eye!), the mosquito just got him in a sensative spot. They gave us some medicine and a couple days later it was back to normal. As it was getting better Breanne said to Jensen "look your eye is getting better" and he responded excitedly "then I'll have two eyes again." We're all glad we have two eyes now!

This is when he started to have two eyes again!

Trip to Disneyland!

2008-08-16T14:50:00.001-07:00

It's hard to tell, but we are sitting on the tea cup which was Jensen's favorite ride. His least favorite...Pirates of the Caribbean. After that ride, throughout the trip he would say "no more boats"

We took this one while Jensen was sleeping so he could see Elastigirl, from one of his favorite movies.

This one's just cute

Jensen loved running away from the waves at the beach. If there is ever an audition for a Baby Baywatch, I'm sending in this photo

Grandpa Nickle burrying the boys

Body boarding- reserved for the nerdy tourists, and Justin

Jensen and Dad standing on a ledge at the end of the USS Midway

Can't visit San Diego without going to the temple

Little Skater

2008-08-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

Jensen has been fascinated with skateboards since before he started on the scooter (2 yrs old). We've always kind of avoided it. While we were in St George, he found one in the garage of the condo we were staying at and went nuts. He was pretty good, too! We're thinking of giving in and getting a board of his own now, he's already got the hair for it.

Trip to Arizona

2008-07-23T15:50:00.000-07:00

Trip To Arizona

110 degrees in June

Jensen and Cousin Ella creating a life long relationship

D-backs 1, Royals 0, in 10 innings

Celebrating the walk-off solo home run in the bottom of the 10th

2008-06-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Last week Grammy and Grandpa Nickle took us to Heber City to visit Thomas. Jensen was in train heaven.

2008-06-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of brothers out for a drive in the Escalade.

2008-06-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

3 years old!

The Party was real fun. 4 of Jensen's freinds were there and they all enjoyed riding on his Grammy Nickles Thomas Train. He got a bike with training wheels (that he hasn't quite figured out how to peddle yet), a helmet, a thomas blanket, a thomas train set, bat and balls, a transformer, a car rug, clothes, a dart gun, some dinasours, and other cool stuff. Breanne did a great job as always, with a train cake and conductor hats for all the kidlin's. As soon as it was over Jensen said "I want more Birthday."

Thanks for all the presents!

2008-05-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks for pitching in for the mother's day present. This picture doesn't do it justice, there are quite a few. Now we all just need to pray for Mom's foot to get better so that she can plant them before they die.

2008-05-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Brothers?

n case you were wondering if his hair is still white

After this, we decided we probably shouldn't encourage it.

2008-05-12T20:27:00.000-07:00

Perfected

Not Perfected

2008-05-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

These are from our most recent photo shoot last week at Mom and Dads...

This one's my favorite

Due to his two calics (spelling?) spining in the opposite directions, it is either a fauxhawk or Alfalfa (spelling? again). We've made our decision

If you take enough pictures, you're bound to get one smile

Dinner- dirt. Dessert- a rock