Logan the Wolf

We had the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet last week.  Logan earned his Wolf!

Here he is receiving his award.  He also got 1 gold arrow and 3 silver arrows.  He put in a lot of work to earn his award (and so did I)!  It has been fun this year being able to work with him at Scouts.  But we are both ready to move on.  He moves to the Bear Den next month and I might someday get a new calling.  Of course, my next calling could be worse and I might want to be back in Scouts...

Nope.  Probably not!

Well, with that attitude I'll probably be stuck in Scouts forever!

The theme was "Celebrate our Scouts" so we had each of the boys share a talent.  Logan played the piano, of course.  He loves to perform, but doesn't like to practice!

Good job, Logan! 

Skiing, Part 2

We went skiing...again.  Can you believe I went again?  As if I didn't get enough punishment last time, I decided to go for round two.  Shocking, I know!  

This is us going up the first gondola at "The Canyons".  Yes, that's right.  "The Canyons"...where the rich people ski.  And you definitely have to be rich to ski there!  (Fun trivia: this is where Tony Danza broke his leg) We figured up what it would have cost for us to go with out the free passes we had.  What cost us $55.00 would have been $300.00!!!  Good grief!  Thank heavens Josh traded some guy work for the ski passes and Ally had some cheap rental coupons!

Here we are going up the "High Meadow" chair lift.  This was the beginner hill-perfect for me!  After a few trips down it, with the kids flying past me of course, Josh decided I was ready for the intermediate hill.

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.

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I was NOT ready for the intermediate hill!

Ugh.  

There were definitely tears involved.  And a few "it's a good thing these were free passes, because I'm NOT enjoying this" uttered.  And a couple of trips walking down hills in just my ski boots-without skis.  There was also one incident involving a fence post (ow).

After that I took a break at the ski lodge and let Josh and the kids have their fun on the intermediate hill.  What took me an hour to get down, took them twenty minutes.  I did enjoy sitting in the sun (it was a beautiful day!) and sipping my $3.00 Coke.  By the time they came back to get me, I was ready to try the beginner hill again.  I ended the day with my skiing confidence somewhat restored.  I've decided to stick to the beginner hills-forever!

Logan and Ally are sure getting better and better at skiing!  Logan was like a little bullet.  He hasn't learned to fear it yet.  Ally is more cautious, but can be just as fast.  I think my problem is I've got way too much fear of falling!  This was one of our gondola rides back to the van.

Look!  I'm smiling at the end of the day!  I think I was just relieved to have it over with! (I also hadn't realized my face was sunburned and I looked like a racoon.) Will I be hitting the slopes again?  Only time will tell...

Boxes & Bows

Since I was complaining about making Valentine Boxes in my last post, I thought I would show what we came up with this year. I really didn't have much to complain about. I even had fun helping Ally make hers (gasp).  I guess I've just been feeling pessimistic lately about some circumstances in my life that I can't control and it came out in my blogging-bleh. Anyway, I talked Logan into using the box he used last year (yay!).

An awesome "Braegger Trucking" box. Logan and Jensen handed out little airplanes this year.  I get so tired of the kids bringing home candy for every single holiday, that I don't like to give it out anymore.  Doesn't it seem like kids get WAY more candy than we did as kids?  It was always a special treat.  Now it's just expected.

This is the back of Ally's box.  She spent a lot of time on it!

The front of the birdhouse.  It turned out way cute! Those are hair clips in front of her box.  She made one for each girl in her class.  She put this poem on the tags:

Flowers shine

You're divine

Please do be my Valentine!

Some of the girls asked her to make them more.  She said she would-for a dollar a piece!  That's my little entrepreneur!

February, Smebruary

February is another of those months that seem to drag on and on.  Most people are looking forward to the Super Bowl or Valentine's Day.  Not me. We are NOT football people. At all.  Talk about a boring game.  It's hard for Josh to sit still that long. Seriously. He is happiest when he is busy working on a project. Well, it's probably a toss up between that and a nap.

I'm not really sure why, but I can't stand Valentine's Day.  I don't need a holiday to force me into telling people I love them.  Hopefully my family knows that I love them by the things that I do for them everyday.  And I don't think a day goes by that I don't tell them I love them anyway.  And then there's the Valentines for my kids classes.  That means a TON of work for me.  My kids aren't happy with just a cute little envelope or mailbox.  It has to be something elaborate. In years past we have had a giraffe, butterfly, frog, semi-truck etc. I am so not looking forward to this years boxes. Just call me the Valentine's Grinch.

Boy, this is turning out to be a cheerful post, huh?  How about I share a little from our lives for the last couple of weeks to finish up.  Talking about my kids always makes me happier.

This is Jensen's prize winning Reflections entry. He won Honorable Mention at the Counsel level! How many different fruits and vegetables can you see?  Ally also won Honorable Mention for her musical composition and photography entries.  Proud night for the Braegger household!

 Holden loves his blanky (on the right).  I had been trying to find a "back-up blanky" for quite a while so I was excited when I found the one on the left.  Holden even liked it, too.  However, about a week after I bought it, I lost it.  I have no idea where it went.  Good grief!  I can't win!

This is Ally preparing to get her ears pierced.  She was a little (okay a lot) nervous and was squeezing my hands really hard, jamming my wedding ring into my other finger.  It hurt.  And I'm ever so grateful (I'm being sarcastic, in case you were wondering) to my best friend Gwen for capturing it in a picture.  I can't believe I'm putting it on my blog....

Here are the cute brave girls with their matching earrings.  It took Ally a while to settle down afterwards, but she eventually got around to being happy she did it.  She had never asked me to get them pierced-ever-but decided to do it with her BFF Katelyn.  She said she was always too scared to get it done, but figured it would be okay to do it with Katelyn.

Cute Holden story:  Grandma Carilee had some snowpeople lined up for Holden.  She pointed to them and said "brother, sister, Mommy, Daddy".  Holden pointed at them and said "brother, sister, Mama, Josh".  Ha!  He refuses to call Josh "Dad".  It's been two months now.  It kinda bothered Josh for a while, but now we just laugh.  He's such a funny boy!

Skiing!!

As if ice fishing and basketball games weren't enough for one day,

we decided to take the three oldest kids night skiing too.  Talk about a full day of fun! 

This is Ally going up the tow rope.  She and Logan are good little skiers!  I hadn't been skiing since before Josh and I were married.  I decided I didn't really like it back then so I was a little nervous about going. I was expecting Josh to help me learn again, but he had his hands full with Jensen.  I waited at the top of the "bunny hill" for a half hour waiting for him to come help me.  I finally had to just go down by myself.  This is what I discovered: skiing is terrifying!!!  I can't believe people do it for fun.  I was not enjoying it at all and there may or may not have been a few naughty words uttered in the process.  Ugh! 

Yes, Logan and Ally were MUCH better skiers than me.  By the end of the night I was making it down the bottom half of the "bunny hill" without crashing.  Logan and Ally would wave and ask if I wanted to race-ha, ha.  They thought they were so funny!

Jensen was a good kid to tough it out.  He definitely made progress and hung in there until the end. This picture was taken while we were waiting for Josh, Ally, Logan and Todd (our nephew) to come back from the "big hill".  They took forever because the lift operator didn't notice that Logan didn't get off the lift at the top.  He got sent back down the other side!  This is dangerous because all the weight is on the up side so the down side is much higher off the ground and there are NO SAFETY BARS!  I'm glad I wasn't there to witness it first hand!  He was very scared, but held on tight to the side and made it down safely.  I hope the lift operator got a serious talking to! Not cool!

Logan did end up going on the big hill again (brave boy) and by the end of the night we were all exhausted.  You can tell the kids and Josh had tons of fun.  As for me, I'm still not a huge fan of skiing.  But I'll probably go again because the kids and Josh enjoy it and I love to be with my family!

Ice Fishing

I consider myself a "fishergirl".  I grew up as my Dad's fishing companion and can definitely keep up with the guys when it come to fishing.  However, my Dad was not an ice-fisherman.  So I had never been-until yesterday!  Josh's cousin Shelby invited us to go with him and we were ready to give it a try.

We had to wake up early on Saturday morning to get a good place on the reservoir.  The kids were pretty excited to go, so things went pretty smoothly getting out the door.  This picture of Holden depicts his feelings about ice fishing.  This was taken before we even walked onto the ice.  I should have known he was going to be a little fishing-maniac!

We thought he would just play around while we were fishing, but we were WRONG!

He knew exactly what he was supposed to do (I blame the fishing game on my ipod touch-he loves that one).  He demanded his own pole and his own hole.  He would stick the tip of his pole in the hole and grin like crazy!  Then he saw us putting bait on everyone else's poles.  He had a tantrum until we put some on his.  He can be quite demanding (in a very loud, two year old way!).  By the end he was releasing his line and reeling it in like a pro. 

Ally enjoyed it, but wishes her cousin Kylah would have come.

Jensen had lots of fun and didn't want to leave.

Just imagine Holden saying: "Fish. Where are you?" Too cute!  He was REALLY into it!

He was not a happy camper when we left.  He and Jensen both cried.  But Ally and Logan had basketball games to get to.  We didn't catch anything this time (Holden probably had something to do with that) but this is definitely on my list of things to do again!

The January Blah

Here we are, right in the middle of January.  I call it the "January Blah".  I hide in my house and dream of nice weather.  The kids usually have colds (as we do right now) and are tired of being cooped up.  There's not really anything to look forward to.  No holidays or birthdays in our family.  Josh's work is slow, so there's not money to do anything fun (like Disneyland, sigh). It's just blah.

We decided to take Holden's binky away a few days ago.  He sleeps wonderfully at night without it (yay!).  But he won't nap without it (aughhh!).  It was pretty pathetic the first couple of days.  He would walk around the house with tears in his eyes saying "Inky, 'ere are yoooh".  I felt like a mean Mommy.  But he seems to be doing okay.  He hasn't mentioned it once today. And we can see his cute face!

Here's our cute binkyless Bubby.

Holden has developed a new obsession: MY ipod touch!!  I don't really like him to play with it (he already deleted some stuff) so I have to keep it hidden from him.  But when I need a few minutes of peace I get it out.  It's amazing how quickly kids are learning things these days!

A rare moment of brotherly love.  They enjoy being cowboys together.

Jensen has watched Ally and Logan bring home trophies through the years and has been asking when he would get his own.  Well, they had the Reflections awards assembly yesterday and his dream came true!  I told him I didn't know if he would get a trophy, but he was actually a school winner in the Visual Arts category.  He was so happy to finally have a trophy.  He didn't even realize (or care) that he was a school winner.  He just wanted a trophy!  Way to go, Jensen!