Monday, January 23, 2012

Missions

We interrupt the update posts, to share with you what we really have been doing, not what we did do. The boys, Jeremy and myself were enjoying a little cuddle time yesterday morning. It was so fun, as that doesn't happen very often. We started singing primary songs. One of the ones we sang was "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission". It was such a fun song for them to sing. After we sang it, I asked each of them where they wanted to serve their missions. This is how it went.

Mom: Where are you going to serve your mission?
Dagen: New York (Your York)
Rykin: California
Easton: California

Mom: Who are you taking as your companion?
Dagen: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (what a smart little boy)
Rykin: My Boys (his brothers)
Easton: He told me "Mom you know who, we talked about "her" earlier." I informed him that he would need to serve a mission when he is 19 and he would have other Elders as his companions.

Mom: What are you going to teach?
Dagen: About the gospel, about Jesus Christ
Rykin: About Jesus Christ
Easton: To help people learn about Jesus Christ

Mom: Are you going to take anything with you?
Dagen: Jesus Christ
Rykin: Buster (his little stuffed dog)
Easton: Scriptures

Rykin and Easton answered their questions later that night, as we were traveling back home from Grandma and Grandpa Brown's home.

I love my boys and it was such a fun little interview to do with them. They are so cute. I can't wait to see where they really go on their missions. I think I might make it a tradition and ask them each year. It will be fun. For my record, Dagen -6 . Easton -8 . Rykin -3

Friday, January 20, 2012

Jan - March 2011


Our dearest family and friends. I know it has been a long time since we have updated our little family blog. We have had a lot happen within the last year. Dagen was able to do a 100 days poster for school. He chose to do 100 airplanes.


We celebrated our sweet Dagen's 6th Birthday. He was so excited to wake up and find streamers and balloons covering his room as well as in our frontroom. He was so excited to get his gifts. New shirts and a remote control dunebug from Mom and Dad. How thankful we are to have him in our family. He is so sweet and such a loving boy. Thank you for being our sweet little Dagen Boy.



Easton had a play at school. It was called King Bidgood's in the Bathtub. It was really cute. He was one of the fishermen. He did really good and we were all so proud of him.


We welcomed our sweet little boy Travan to our family on the 18th of March. We also had a sweet family friend Anna come and live with us to help while I was not feeling well when I was pregnant with him. The boys loved having Anna and enjoyed her while she was with us. She helped with doing things around our home that I wasn't able to do and one of those things was help with 3 energetic little boys.


I had an appointment with my Midwives on the 17th of March. I was really hoping that he would come on that day. It is a special day as it is my Grandma's birthday also. We went to the appointment and I decided at the last minute for them to check me and see if I had dialated or anything. I had and I was a 4. I was so excited. We got home had the boys go to Jeremy's parents home and off we went to walk and walk the stores. My contractions weren't steady enough for them to break my water, so I walked and walked. It was probably around 9:00 we went to the hospital. I said I was having contractions, but they weren't close enough. Sure enough they were, I just wans't feeling them like I had with the other boys. They got me to a room, and I was so thankful for the midwife that was on call. I loved her. She was so good. They put the monitor on me and my contractions showed to be close enough so they could break my water, in which they did. They broke my water and with the other boys, it went very quick. So, I was all excited to have this baby on St. Patricks Day. Travan had other plans. He was born just shortly after midnight. We didn't have a name picked out for him, which was different for us as we had one for the other boys. We did have a list and went down our list and called him by all the names. This one seemed to fit him the best and we are so blessed to have our little Travan in our family. What a joy he is and the boys love him {a little too much sometimes} tons.

We also had the fun opportunity to have my sister Whitney come as well as my nieces Delanie and Melissa. The boys had a blast with them when they were here. They played and played to their hearts content. They were bummed they couldn't always play with them because they had school, but loved having them here. They came up to visit us and see baby Travan. We sure are thankful for the time they got to spend with us. We love you Arizona cousins.

Delanie, Aunt Whitney and Easton loving on baby Travan

Big brother Easton holding sweet baby brother
Our sweet little Travan

Two sweet boys asleep in Daddy's arms

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Christmas with the Brown's

The month of December brought our little Tiny Jingle the elf back from the North Pole to watch the boys and help determine if they were naughty or nice. We put up our Christmas tree, made ornaments for it, and then it fell over. We told the boys to be careful, but boys being boys really aren't that careful with things, at least ours aren't, and knocked it over being as the stand wasn't that sturdy. That sent Jeremy to the store to get a new stand. Luckily he found one and we were good to go with having our Christmas tree set up. The boys enjoyed rearranging ornaments and moving them to all once spot. It was such a fun thing to watch them do that. Sometimes, there would be ornaments all over the floor, a certain little boy liked playing with them. Luckily, none of them were breakable. We went and looked at the lights in Spanish Fork and the Salem pond. Enjoyed having a great Brown Family Christmas Party, with a cereal exchange as well as a gift card exchange and the kids gift exchange. It was lots of fun for the little kids. We ended up with cereal they are so excited about and ones they don't get too often.

Christmas Eve brought so much excitement for the boys. Especially Easton he was so excited. We started our morning out by getting Daylight Doughnuts. It certainly was a fun treat. Then, we had a few more little things and errands to run. We got those done. Easton kept asking what time it was a when we were going to open our presents and watch our movie. We had a special dinner. Talked about what is going to be happening later that night. There was so much excitement in the air. We watched Luke 2 on DVD and enjoyed talking about what gift we could give our Savior for the coming year. It was was such a nice little talk and such a great blessing to be thinking about what we could do. We tied it in with receiving temporal gifts and spiritual gifts. We are so thankful for our Savior and the gifts He has given us. They got to open their pajamas, which is a tradition for them. We went with a sports theme this year. It was fun to pick out each of the boys jammies. They were so excited. The boys went to bed reluctantly, but not before leaving Santa a treat. A doughnut and celery for the reindeer. They also left notes for Santa thanking him for their gifts. It was so sweet to see each of them work on their notes.

Christmas morning arrived very early. Easton was up at midnight and then every hour after that. His excitement was unbelievable. He was so excited that we finally gave in at 5 am. Not what we normally do, but he had woken his brothers up and it was so hard to tell all of them to go back to bed and wait 1 more hour. The boys each walked down the stairs and were so excited to see that Santa did come. We were blessed with many things. It was fun to see their excitement and the joy that was on their faces.

We later went to Grandma and Grandpa Brown's home. It was lots of fun. We got their early and was helping prepare the food as well as do a few things around their home. Dagen and Rykin decided to help with the dusting. Dagen has become quite the little helper lately. Which we are very thankful for. It was so fun to see them working together. Jeremy and I later came home to make some cornbread muffins and then took them back over for the dinner. We enjoyed family and visiting. Grandma and Grandpa spoiled the boys with nerf type guns and new outfits. The guns have been played with nonstop at our home. I can't believe how much they love these guns. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Brown for the gifts. All in all we had a very good Christmas. Can't believe how fast it came and went. We look forward to an exciting new year for many things to come. We have so much to be thankful for and many blessings we have received. We hope each of you also had a most Merry Christmas. We do apologize for not getting a Christmas card out. We wanted to, but with being pregnant, and not feeling the greatest, it just wasn't in our cards this year. We didn't even get an updated family picture. Hopefully we will have one for next year. We love you all and wish you a most Happy New Year.


Dagen scored some Monster Trucks from Mom and Dad. He was so excited.

Easton was super excited to get 2 games for his Leapster from Santa.

Rykin enjoyed the fruit snacks and treats that were left in his stocking.

Jeremy spoiled me with two movies I have been hinting at for a while. Mary Poppins and
The Sound of Music. I was so excited.

A tradition for Jeremy is to get a calendar of our family from the boys.

Our November

November started out as a crazy month. We hadn't really announced that we were expecting baby #4. We actually found out what we were expecting on the 12th. It was an exciting day. It also happened to be my sister Whitney's b.day. So, Happy Birthday Sister. We sent the older boys to school that morning and Jeremy, Rykin and I went to our appointment. We really were excited and nervous at the same time. During the weeks before Dagen would tell us that he wanted a sister and if we were to have a brother, well then we would have to give Rykin away. We kept explaining to him that when Rykin was born, we didn't give him away. It finally clicked with him and he changed his mind saying he wanted a baby brother. It was so funny to hear him talk about how he was so excited to have another brother. Easton, he was good either way, but he did want a sister. Rykin, he didn't understand what we were talking about. He was cute though, at the appointment he was very protective over me and wondering what was going on. We are a family of all boys. Yes, we are having another boy. I am not going to lie, it was tough news to swallow, but we are so excited and thankful the baby is healthy. Now we are on to choosing a name, we have used all our other names on the older boys and are having quite a time trying to come up with what to name this little guy. So, if you have any suggestions for us, please let us know. We really do feel blessed to be expecting another boy.

We had the opportunity to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving. It was so fun. A very quick trip, but one that was so fun and worth it. We started off our trip by going to Kayenta and spending the night at Jory and Chani's. It was so fun, although Dagen got car sick, we did enjoy our time with them and seeing their sweet baby girl Mikelle. We can't believe that she is now 1 year old. It seems like the last time we saw her she was just a baby and it was at her blessing. My how time flies. Thanks Uncle Jory and Aunt Chani for you loving hospitality to us especially as we arrived there so late. We love you guys.

Once we got Dagen situated for the morning, we got our things ready to go and headed down to Grandma & Bumpa Rhoton's home. It was a long drive, but we made it. We arrived and enjoyed visiting with family. The boys couldn't wait to see their "bestest friends" the next day. It wouldn't come fast enough for them. They enjoyed the weather and being outside and playing. One thing they really enjoyed was the dirt and playing outside. It was so nice for them to enjoy the weather and be outside. It made us realize we really do need a back yard for all these sweet boys. When our "bestest friends" came over the boys were elated. It was such an exciting time to see them reunite with cousins and enjoy spending time with them. We sure do miss them.

We had Thanksgiving on Friday instead of Thursday. It was kind of funny, we ended up doing dutch oven on Thursday. Jeremy and Bumpa did all the work. It was so yummy. It was kind of fun waiting for Thanksgiving. Easton had 3 of his teeth pulled. Whitney, "Aunt Mena" pulled out two and Uncle Kamm pulled out the other one. He will never forget that. Yes, the tooth fairy did come and left him a whole $9.00 for all his teeth. He wrote the Tooth Fairy a note and let him know that he was at Grandma and Bumpa's home instead of his own. It was so cute. He was so excited to see that it came and left some money. A little disappointed that it didn't take his teeth, but it was so funny to see how excited he was. Gotta love the excitement of something so magical. Friday, we had Thanksgiving and saw more family come over. It was so fun to see how everybody has grown and families are changing. It was truly a treat to be able to spend time with them. We miss each of them and can't wait until we see them again. On thing we did on Thanksgiving was had a stick horse rodeo. It was so fun to see everybody outside enjoying the things we did as kids. It was so fun. What a great idea Mom. We also had some other activities that we did. The girls well the nieces made friendship bracelets from a kit Mom had and the boys played ball, catch and the little boys threw a ball at a target. It was so fun to visit with everybody and enjoy those sweet memories that were made. Thanks Mom and Dad for all the hard work you put into entertaining all our families.

Saturday started off early. Whitney went through the temple and received her endowments. It was such a neat experience to be there with her and in such a beautiful temple. We were at the Gila Valley Temple. What a blessing it is to have the temple closer to them so they are able to attend more. It truly was a beautiful day and Whitney looked beautiful. Congratulations sister. What a blessing it was to be able to attend with you. Jeremy stayed and helped watch kids so I could go through with her. It was such a sweet thing for him to do. Thank you honey. I owe you one. Later we went to a Mexican restaurant. It was so good and was nice to see all my boys and meet up with family. What a fun day it was.

Sunday, we decided to head home. What a crazy time to head home. There was a big snow storm and we got caught in it. We so a few accidents on the way and I just kept praying as Jeremy drove that nothing would happen to us. We had lots of people check in with us to make sure things were okay. Thank you all for your love and concern for us. It was a long trip home due to the snow storm. We finally made it and were so glad to be home. What a blessing to make it safe and sound. We truly are thankful for the opportunity we had to go to Arizona and be with family. It was a blast and we had a lot of fun.

Easton at Uncle Jory and Aunt Chani's home "before teeth being pulled"

Rykin just looking cute as Aunt Chani took his picture

Dagen in his element as he was loading dirt into the wagon, with cousin Daya.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Iron Man, Buzz Lightyear and a Chunky Monkey

This year for Halloween the boys decided they didn't want to do the group thing, so we went with what we had and could get. The only way Dagen could be Buzz was if Easton got to pick his costume and he had a list. We were at a store and they had costumes 50% off I remembered on his list was Iron Man, luckily they had one in his size. I think next time I am going to choose, there were much cuter ones. I don't think I am ready for this whole I want to be and masks, but, he most certainly was. He loved it. Glad it all worked out. We of course had to do our annual Halloween photo shoot. They loved it. I had to bribe Rykin with some candy to put on his whole costume. He was such a cute little chunky monkey. Dagen, well he makes a super cute Buzz with glasses that make his eyes pop. They truly are hard to resist. I gave in and gave each of the boys some candy. It was fun to take their pictures. Such handsome little boys we have. We attended our ward Halloween party, and then went Trick or Treating on Saturday with cousins and friends around our neighborhood and of course to Grandma and Grandpa's. They truly loved every second of it, especially the "candy" part. Who wouldn't though right?

Our Mr. Iron Man

Buzz Lightyear thought he needed to pose by this car.

Our little Chunky Monkey in all is cuteness.

All 3 of our Handsome little boys. Oh, how we love them.


Pumpkin Carving

This is the first year since Easton was a baby that we have carved pumpkins. The boys had so much fun. Rykin stuck his hand in the pumpkin once and that was it. Of course when we were trying to think of what to carve, Easton had to have Batman, Dagen had to have a scary face and Rykin he couldn't decide so, we just came up with our own. Jeremy was so good to carve their pumpkins. I am so thankful we were able to do it this year and hopefully we will be able to continue it as a tradition.

Rykin peeking in at what Dad is doing.

Dagen, scooping out the "guts" of the pumpkin.

Easton, still isn't sure if he likes to do this part of pumpkin carving.

A successful pumpkin carving time.

It is good to know they love each other.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

School . Lost Tooth . Glasses

The boys have started school. Easton is in 1st Grade. Dagen is in Kindergarten. They both love school. Which is a blessing for me. Easton was excited to know some friends from kindergarten were going to be in his class. Dagen was also excited to know that he would have a friend in his class. Easton started one week before Dagen. Easton could not wait for school to start. He was so excited. He would get more recesses, get to bring a lunch and enjoy time with friends. He is a little social bug. When I go and pick him up he is talking and laughing with other kids. I love that he is so happy at school. I haven't heard one complaint from him yet. Hopefully that lasts all the way until he gets done with college.

Showing us what grade he is in.

All summer long he had a loose tooth. We would have him wiggle it a couple times a day, but this tooth just wasn't coming out. We thought since his friend had pulled his, he would want the same. Nope, he was content just having a loose tooth. I was tired of just having this loose tooth and Jeremy had already worked on it as much as Easton would let him. I finally told Easton that he needed to get it pulled. If he wouldn't let us pull it then the dentist would have to pull it. "No way" he replied. So, I started wiggling and twisting and pulling. Finally got the tooth to come out. His reply when I pulled it "that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be". Hopefully the next teeth will be easier and not take as long. He doesn't like pain or blood. I think that is why he never wanted it pulled. Needless to say, the Tooth Fairy was very generous to him. He got a whole 3 dollars!


After the tooth was pulled.

Dagen has started Kindergarten. I took the boys to the open house and well, the whole meeting the teacher didn't go so well for Dagen. He was so scared. I had to pick him up and take him to his teacher. Dagen would always say hi to her when we picked up Easton last year from school. He would give her hugs and tell her he was so excited to be in her class. We even had a special meeting for him where he got to tour the school and see his teacher as well as other educators that would be working with him. He was so excited to go to Kindergarten. I asked him why he was not even talking to his soon to be teacher and his reply was "I got shy around all the kids" Oh, dear I thought, this is going to be a rough year. We had a meeting with her again, and he was just fine. In anticipating his first day, my emotions were running high and I took him and Easton to school 15 minutes before the bell rang. Easton was fine going by himself, I walked Dagen down to his class room and her door was locked, but she knew the situation and let us in. Dagen was able to spend that one on one time with her and it seemed to help. She had to go to the mail room and took him with her. I didn't tell him by, I just let her know I was going. It was one of the hardest things to do. I wanted to just hug him and tell him to have a good day. But, I knew that if I did, he might have a hard time and was so willing to go with his teacher. Later the kids came and she said that he stayed by her. His little friend Max, who is his special helper showed up and he was so excited. Dagen is doing so well with the adjustment, it truly is a blessing. I can't believe he is in Kindergarten. Where did the time go? I am sure I will be saying that same thing a few years down the road again, as Rykin gets to go off on his own.


I love that his teacher is holding his hand. She really is so sweet with him.

Dagen got glasses, prism lenses. So, that means no prescription. He has perfect vision. It is to help him put his head the right way and to not use his peripheral vision. He was so excited to go to the eye doctor and to get fitted for his glasses. We learned so much from this new eye doctor that was recommended to us by a friend. We are so blessed and feel that this will help Dagen a lot. We feel our prayers have been answered and we can already see a little change in how he holds his head and also as he is learning how to write. Really, our hearts are full of joy and happiness and thankfulness for finding this great doctor. Dagen does go to vision therapy once a week. He loves it, he gets prizes. We are so happy for him and the progress we have seen so far. What a blessing. Plus we think he looks so handsome in his glasses. Of course he wanted yellow ones, but they didn't have any so he picked out these blue ones. They definitely make his eyes really blue.

He loves his glasses. He was so excited to take a picture with them on.