Silly Musical Graphs

some videos

First up we have Christian just after he started singing the alphabet song by himself. This was taken on the evening of May 6th, in the car as we were coming home with our three free KFC meals that Oprah.com had the coupon for (Tony was still on his way home from work & picked up his own). It's a little hard to hear at first because the windows were down, but then the sound quality gets a bit better. Buddy only misses letters E, M, N & O. Great job Christian! And great job to Faith for taking this video!

And this one's from May 16th at Sam's Club. As we pass a big screen TV display, Christian gets the idea that Faith should dance with him during the closing credits to the end of Madagascar 2.

Yep, that's just how I remember it . . .

If you've given birth, you have to read this "Dooce" entry. It definately brought back (not so happy) memories for me!

My Mother's Day Gifts

First, Christian's offering which, you're not going to believe this ;) , he made entirely by himself. I think it's supposed to be a card since it's colored on cardstock. I love his cutting job! (And the other 80% of the paper, which Buddy threw away as cutting scrap, had really cute drawings on it as well.)





Faith made me this darling card at school. It's so sweet that it has her school picture in it!

At home, Faith made me this neclace with Pixos, which are little round plastic beads that stick together after you spray them with water. Christian has a play-doh fettish as of late, and smeared some metalic silver clay into it. I guess he just wanted to not be left out of contributing to this gift.

Faith also drew this cute ballerina which is two-sided and has cardstock in the middle.

This wasn't a gift for me, but Faith made it a few weeks ago and I wanted to share. It's a robe for her Webkinz! She thought up the pattern, cut it, and hot glued the belt loops all on her own! I didn't even know what she was doing until she showed me the finished project. I tell ya, this girl is very independant and self-motivated when it comes to things she wants to do. And I'm only a little freaked out that my 7 year old got out, plugged in, used, unplugged, cooled & put away a hot glue gun without my knowledge.

Pioneer Woman had pictures of baby calves (sorry, a bit of redundancy there) on her blog yesterday and now I'm dying to pet/hug/nuzzle/snuggle one!! Here's what she had to say about this particular pic:

Did you ever used to blow spit bubbles when you were young?

No?

Oh. I didn’t either. Never blew spit bubbles in church, never blew spit bubbles at piano recitals, never had to be told by my mom to stop blowing spit bubbles. I just wanted to see if any of YOU did. And now I know you didn’t.

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And that’s great, because I didn’t either!

May Happenings

I finally got some pics edited to blog about! This first one I took May 6th and it's kind of hard to tell what's going on in it. Christian had gotten a hold of a spool of white thread and thought he would make a giant art sculpture-type-thing with it. He wound the thread around a bunch of bar stools and things on the counter, and then managed to hang a glue stick from it. Sounds like someone is turning out to be creative like his sister :)

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Later that day, my sister brought over their puppy, Tiff, for her first haircut. (Remember this little fluffball from Christmas?) She was really pretty good for it!

On May 8th, the sickness curse struck our family yet again and Christian was running a fever. By the next day, Faith was sick, too! Here the kids are, in the middle of the day, down for a nap with their "barf bowls". Tony & I were both suffering from some nasty allergies that week, so we were a pretty pittiful bunch of souls!

By Mother's Day the kids were both feeling better, so we visited the grandparents and brought gifts of homemade fudge. (I'll have to get the recipe posted soon--it's incredible!) I didn't manage to remember to take pictures besides this one, Buddy sure loves his grandmas!

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I had a wonderful Mother's day and got the cutest gifts from my kids (pictures coming in the next post). I love being a mom and feel very privileged to be able to stay home with them every day. Thank you Tony for working so hard to make it possible!

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On May 12th I went out to dinner with the fabulous ladies that I was in the 6th Ward Primary presidency with. It was so much fun chatting and laughing with those gals, I can't wait to do it again!

I should mention that I have a new calling--nursery coordinator! I'm so glad to still be in the primary, and I really look forward to doing some fun things with the tiny ones. I'm especially excited to do music time with them!

On the 13th, Faith told me that she noticed a bird coming out from behind our satelite dish. We got on a ladder and found this nest with four little chicks! They'd been there for awhile because they were already all feathered out. On Memorial Day we checked on them and they were already gone :(

Early May 14th I left for a PTA conference being held on the BYU campus. Faith made me this letter to remind me how much they each would miss me :D

I ended up having a lot of fun with our PTA board ladies, even though some of the seminars were less than thrilling. The first day I went to a class about getting people involved in their child's education and one about the School Land Trust program. We then met up and went to lunch at the Brick Oven, which has great salad and pasta bars. My last class was about an online membership program. We went to dinner at PF Changs. I'd never been there before and I loved it! After that, we stayed up too late playing Phase 10 and being silly.

The next day I had a really neat class about increasing membership and then one about PTA awards. After that, there was a general meeting where we got to hear from motivational speaker Chad Hymas, and that was an absolute treat! We skipped out on the presentations and instead spent a long lunch at T.G.I.Friday's. The last class was called "Music and the Brain" and was taught by Michael Hamblin. What great information! Did you know that most children under 14 are kinesthetic/tactile learners (they learn best through movement and exploring the environment)? We did a fun clapping game to "The Lady With the Aligator Purse" and soothing (& tiring!) movements to "Kumbayah" as part of the seminar.

The conference certainly did its job--motivated me to do a good job in my positions in membership and grants next year. I hope everyone reading this who has kids in school will become a PTA member!! It really is a great organization which does a lot for the children with a small amount of money.

I got home Friday night and on Saturday the kids spent a lot of time playing our new Wii game "Wii Ski & Snowboard". It's hilarious to watch Christian play this and try to avoid crashing into everything!

Faith's team won their soccer game that day. The regular season is over, but they have one makeup game on the 30th.

When my mom came over to watch the kids while I was at PTA conference, she brought an awesome gift. These two containers of tiny caterpillars and a butterfly pavillion!

Here's how big they were on the 17th,

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. . . . . . . . . . and the 19th,

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and the 22nd. In this one they are getting ready to make their chrysalises. I will post more on them in a week or so ;)

Speaking of new pets, Faith got this Beta fish and named him Grape Juice.

When I was editing this picture of his fish bowl, I noticed a pair of sneaky little eyes on the lower left. Come on, Dusty, say it with me "Fish are friends, not food!" (~name that movie~)

You can see him better here, he's getting sooooooo big!

And finally, Christian doing his favorite activity again--cooking. This happens to be lemon poppyseed muffins.

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We've had a great month of May at our house!

Cool Chip Bag

I'm not a chip lover (and am trying to not eat any right now while I'm losing weight!), but Sun Chips are my favorite chip and I will love them even more next year:

Totally loving this shirt

(image is linked)

My favorite Cake Wreks Mother's Day cake:

Nothing too exciting has been going on lately in the Braegger household. We have been loving some great spring weather going on around here, though! Faith and Christian have been playing outside every day, and this pic was taken after Little Buddy flooded our garage floor with the hose and then splashed around in the water in his socks. Faith, in a futile attempt to protect herself from the crazy hose wielder, got out her umbrella :)




Last Sunday we had some wild weather with high winds and hail. If you look closely, you'll see the remnants of a tumbleweed stuck on Crumpet's leg.



Faith is busy making a miniature, two floor candy store out of this cardboard and paper. Seriously, what will she think of next?


Some pics of the cute flower planters we got a few weeks ago: here's the little one hanging by the front door (the giant blue thing is an Aqua Globe to help keep it moist) which we planted ourselves,



the urn of white Geraniums,

and the terrific hanging basket.

Because Faith learned to ride her bike without training wheels, we thought we'd better get her one that was her size. At ToysRUs, Christian found something that he would love!

Here's Faith with her first new bike--details on her second in my next update. Christian looks a little miffed that it's not his!

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I lost my cell phone and replaced it with this one. I hate getting expensive new gadgets, so I got the cheapest one that seemed like it would hold up. My cousin Derek works at the T Mobile store, and I always get whatever he tells me to!

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Here's Christian after he finished off the end of a giant Sam's Club bag of frozen blueberries. Seriously, he was even bluer in real life than he looks in this picutre!

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And here's Faith on her old, small bike showing off her new "two-wheeler" skilz:

If you haven't played with a virtual spider lately, you should really check THIS out! It's an amazing little guy that will follow your pointer or you can grab it by the leg and drag it across the screen. If you want it faster, bouncier, or smaller you can adjust many features on the right hand bar as well.

I also loved the links to videos of people using it to tease their cats, here's an example:



Have fun!

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

The week before last was "TV Turnoff Week" for the elementary school, so Faith and Christian went Monday through Friday with no TV, computer, or video games (but Tony & I managed to sneak some in). On Tuesday, Buddy begged and begged to make cookies, so I helped him make these:

Cranberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies


1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Crisco shortening
1 & 1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 Tbs. milk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
3 cups oats
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup Craisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream butter, Crisco, and sugars together. Mix in eggs, milk and vanilla. In a seperate bowl, mix flour, soda, and salt. Mix dry ingredients into wet, then stir in oats, chips and Craisins. Drop by large tablespoonful onto greased cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.


My first cookie sheet full came out great. This was using my air-bake pan that has the double bottom with air between to prevent over-browning. Next, I put in my two regular cookie sheets full, so I reduced my baking time by two minutes to compensate. Two minutes before that, I smelled smoke and found that those suckers had already burnt! I even scooped them up and plopped them upside down on the cooling rack to show how bad they got it.

Note to my mom--when you ask me in a few months what I want for my birthday, I will not remember this and say that I don't know. Could you please put down on your calendar or list that I need another air-bake cookie sheet or two? Or instead, my friend Jenn suggested maybe trying a baking stone. My cookies & little cookie monsters will forever thank you!

And, although they did turn out very good, I later came across this recipe at My Kitchen Cafe that I may need to try next time. Also, I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate, so I think I'll leave that out and just double up on the craisins.

I only ate one cookie the day I made them and two the next day, I'm doing pretty well sticking to healthy foods. I'm now down 19 pounds, yay me!!

A good article

I'm definately not a "breastfeeding nazi" but I consider myself somewhat of a "lactivist". I've had this blog entry from PhD in Parenting saved in my favorites since March and wanted to share what I thought was a good response to another blogger who is offended by women who breastfeed at restaurants:

Here is what it comes down to:

*I want to go out to dinner with my family. I want to feed my kids at the restaurant. This means the baby will be breastfeeding. I do not want to put a blanket over my child’s head.
*You want to go out to dinner with your family. You want to feed your kids at the restaurant. You do not want to explain to them why my baby is drinking from my breasts. You do not want to put a blanket over your child’s head.

You don’t want your child to see me feeding my child. Why is that my problem? Why should I stay home while you go to the restaurant? Why should your kids eat at the table, while my kid eats in the bathroom? Why should my child have to have a blanket over her head instead of you putting a blanket over your child’s head?

If you don’t want to see me breastfeed, it is YOUR problem, not MY problem. Period.

Kim and Rachel, I totally thought of you girls when I saw this! Click where it says "share" and you can copy the embed code to add to your blog. Enjoy!!!

since Easter

While Faith was on spring break, I went into the optometrist at Sam's Club for a check up. I was glad that Faith was there to keep Christian busy during the long appointment, and both kids were really very good and mostly quiet. One exception was while I was answering the "lens one, or lens two" questions behind this thing.-->

(I learned while trying to find a picture of one that it's called a phoropter. This blog is nothing if not educational!)
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Christian started in with his, "mom------mom------mom." I kept telling him, "Quiet, Bud, and mom will be done in just a minute." and finally the doctor told him that he needed to wait until mommy was done. After a hundred more "mom"s, I finally said, "WHAT, Buddy?" and he replied, "Mom, wook wike wobot!" (translation-"Mom, you look like a robot!")

Next, the doctor put on crazy specs on me like these which have interchangable lenses, but he put a black plastic piece in the left side while he checked the prescription for my right eye. After a minute or two Christian blurted out, "Now wook wike piwate!" (Now you look like a pirate!) After that one, Faith, the doctor and I all cracked up!!


On April 14th I found this cat toy on clearance for $7 (regular price: $18) and just couldn't pass it up. Faith had been wanting something like this for Dusty and was just thrilled.







She even made him a matching pirate's hat!

A couple of weeks ago, we had gotten these barstools and I forgot to take and post a picture.
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It was the weirdest thing. First of all, they are from Target and our dining set is from RC Willey, neither of which carried the opposite item and they are not marked as being from the same company (which I'm pretty sure they are since they're nearly identical.)
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Secondly, was the way we got them. I had seen them in a Target ad about 8 months ago when they were on sale for 15 or 20 percent off the regular price of $90 each. I, of course, decided to wait until they went on a better sale. I scoured the Target ad each Sunday only to find that these never went on sale again! I checked on-line a few months ago and they weren't even listed, so I was afraid they had been discontinued.
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That particular Saturday at the beginning of April, we went out to eat at the Bountiful Chuck-A-Rama, which is unusual because we don't eat out very often and if we do go to Chuck-A-Grandma's (as Faith calls it), we go to the Riverdale one. We stopped at the Centerville Target on the way home and happened to find my barstools being clearanced out for half price!
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When we asked an employee for a flatbed cart to wheel them out, he remarked that he was surprised and glad to be getting rid of the stools so quickly since they had been in the back room for awhile and he'd just put them out a few hours before! Luck like that just doesn't usually happen around here! Even better was that my mom paid for them as a gift to us!!! I should have entered the lottery that day :)



On the 15th, we had a blizzard most of the day and the snow finally started sticking around 1 pm. This is crazy Utah spring!






That night I made omelets for dinner which Tony, Christian & I thoroughly enjoyed (Faith doesn't care for eggs and didn't really touch hers). The next morning, Buddy wanted to eat Faith's for breakfast since he loved it so much! Here he is with a gigantic bite.


On April 17th our primary had a talent show activity. Faith brought this picture of Olivia for the display table because she decided that art is her best talent. I think this drawing is amazing!
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Some of the other kids sang, played piano, did karate, jump roped, played kazoos, and one even showed his talent for burping. Afterward, they got medals, light sticks (for letting their talents "shine"), and giant cookies. It turned out to be a really fun activity and all I really had to do was make the invitation and call half the families with a reminder!
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On a sad note, just this past Sunday I was released as the Primary first counselor. Yes, I was only in the presidency since November, but the president had been in for three years. (Interesting note: I was the third person to be first counselor in this presidency that I know of because she lost one who got called to be Young Women's president and another when the ward split this last time.) I hope I get another calling in the primary, I think I'm too used to the action and would have a hard time sitting through a three hour block of church without it!



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After the activity, I couldn't get the kids to leave the church grounds! They ran up and down the little hill and collected lots of dandilions. I played with this pic a bit--cropped it extra close and desaturized the color--and thought it turned out pretty cool.






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Then, the little monkeys climbed up on the hood of the car and didn't want to get off. It seriously took us an extra 30 minutes or more to get on the road after that activity!
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On the 18th our family headed over to J & J Nursery to get some flowers and such for our front and side planting beds. I love this pose of Buddy's, it reminds me of a "keep it real" rap star pose!




We picked mostly budget-friendly petunias, but also got some snap dragons, marigolds and geraniums. (We later stopped at WalMart and got two rose bushes and four peonies.) We also bought large and small hanging baskets and an urn of white geraniums. The kids loved the koi pond and could have spent another couple of hours staring at it!


Also at Walmart, Tony picked the kids up some gardening gloves in thier favorite colors. Christian had fun playing outside, and Faith was a big help planting the flowers. Next up will be a vegetable garden, as soon as we get a non-stormy weekend!!

The next day after church, I let Christian spend a minute or two watering our new flowers with his long lost friend, the hose sprayer. Unfortunately, it took him way longer than two minutes because it was just so darn fun.
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And I say "unfortunately" because little Buddy's mom is not so great at remembering the sunscreen at the beginning of spring, and she needs to work on that now that she has a child with skin just one nano-shade darker than an albino. His arms got kinda crispy and his face looked rosy, but it could have been much worse.

Tony's 38th birthday was the 20th, so we celebrated the day before at the parents' houses. My mom made Tony his favorite dessert, Chocolate Lush. (You can find the recipe for it HERE.)

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He got money, fun cards, and a shirt.

I don't write often enough how much I and the kids love that guy. He's a wonderful, caring husband (and believe me, I know how hard I am to put up with!), works so hard for our family, and is the cutest, sweetest, funnest dad ever!!! We love you soooooo much, happy birthday Ton!!




The night of the 20th, Christan was doing his best to talk me into letting him fall asleep in my bed (good try, Buddy!) while Faith rounded up items to take to school for a time capsule that she was putting together in her class.
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They were each sealing their items in a #10 can, not to be opened until high school graduation. She wanted a recent picture, so I took this one that very night and printed it out for her. Tony and I each wrote a letter for the project and I gave them to Faith in sealed envelopes.
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After school the next day, Faith asked what we wrote in the letters. I told her that it was a surprise and that she would find out when she got to unseal the time capsule.

"Is it the Easter Bunny's phone number??"

"No."

"Is it Santa Claus's phone number?!?!!"

"No."

(Very dejectedly) "Oh."
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And lastly, here is a video of Christian singing "Happy Birthday" to himself (because he always wishes he were the birthday boy) and blowing out a hot glue stick "candle":