Logan's Birthday

So Logan had a birthday last month and I'm just barely getting around to blogging about it.  Yes, I'm pretty awesome.  So here goes...

It was a friend party year and I let him invite who he wanted so he invited his friends Carson, Will, Taden and Caleb.  Notice how Holden is squished in there with them?  He was their little shadow the whole time and I was so impressed with how these boys treated him.  They were really cute and tolerant with him.  Bonus points for them. :)

If you know me at all, you know I am not a fan of having Birthday parties at my house.  I am all about paying someone else for the pleasure of entertaining the children.  So we headed back to the bowling alley for another fun evening.  They were allowed free drinks and made sure to take advantage of it.

My handsome birthday boy. Ten already!

Ice cream for all.

I forgot to take the cupcakes to the bowling alley so we had them when we got home.  St. Patrick's Day cupcakes (it was March 16th).  Then the boys watched a movie and I took them home.  It was relatively painless and Logan had a ton of fun with his friends-mission accomplished!

Cinderella Pictures

There was no filming of the production allowed (darn it!), but they were able to take pictures during the dress rehearsal.  So we have a few (or 470) pictures of that night.  I promise I won't subject you to all of them!

The official cast photo.  This photo will hang in the foyer of Heritage Theater for years to come.  Ally is front and center (and mousy). :)

Here's Ally in the opening scene.  The Prince and Cinderella bump into each other in town.  Ally is a towns person. 

Lionel is announcing the ball.

The girls doing their little dance during "The Prince is Giving a Ball".

Go Ally!

Finale of the song/scene.

Awe.  She's so mousy.

The transformation scene.  Glowing white mice dancing and changing into horses.  I guess you had to be there...

All the maidens trying on the glass slipper.

Ally getting caught by the Prince after stealing the shoe and running around the audience.

Singing her heart out at the wedding.

Taking a bow.

Out With the Old and In With the New!

After six years and nine months, 118000 miles and lots of memories, we decided it was time to get a new family car.

Holden was getting pretty tired of our old van.

This was our 2005 Honda Odyssey that we bought brand new in 2005.  If I remember right, it had 36 miles on it when we got it.  When we sold it, it had 118,201 miles on it.  Holy cow, that's a lot of driving!  We have been talking about getting a new car for about a year, but the timing just never seemed right, so we just kept waiting.  Besides, Josh was adamant about NOT having another minivan!  We were not sure what we wanted that would fit our family.  There aren't a lot of choices for a family of six.

Inside the van. 

 We talked with numerous dealers and found out what they would give us for our van and we weren't very happy with the amount they were offering.  So last Sunday (March 4th) we decided to put it on KSL (online classifieds) and see what happened.  Well, that was the day we went to the cabin for the night followed by our ski trip to Beaver.  We had just gotten back in phone service when Josh's phone rang.  In the mean time the kids were begging Josh to drive by the Logan Temple, something we never do.  So begrudgingly he went over and parked by the temple while he talked on the phone.  

His conversation was kind of comical and coincidental.  The guy wanted to look at our van.  He said he lived in Logan.  Josh said "we're in Logan, where in Logan do you live"?  "Right by the temple".  Josh says "That's where we are! Do you know Lonnie McCollough (our cache valley realtor)?"  The guy said "He's my next door neighbor".

Life can be funny sometimes.

Anyway, by Thursday he was the new owner of our van.  And he paid us two thousand more dollars than the dealer was going to!

And FYI, I was the one who did the actual paperwork and selling of the vehicle.  Josh ended up not making it home from work in time to help me so I did it all.  It was stressful, but I was proud of myself at the end of the night.

So that left us with out a vehicle.  What were we going to do?

Buy a new one of course!

Here it is!  A 2010 Chevy Traverse.  It's what they call a crossover.  We were kind of picky about the options that we wanted it to have (leather etc.) so we didn't really get the color we wanted and the miles were a little more than we wanted, but it is a very nice car! We even ended up with a tow package that made Josh happy. :)  And the price was great.  We ended up being able to put about half down!  It stinks to have a car payment again after three years, but we just refinanced our mortgage and our savings on the mortgage are about the same as the car payment.  So it all worked out.

Here's the inside of the Traverse.  Not much different that the minivan!  It even has a sun roof for the us and the kids.  It does not have a DVD player though.  We didn't really care because we were so sick of the kids ALWAYS having a movie on.  Even to drive to church!  We'll pick up a cheap one for our long car trips.

So now you've heard the story of our new car.  If you didn't get bored half way though and quit reading, that is!

Our Stage Star

Ally always comes across as shy, but one of her favorite things to do is act.  When we found out about auditions for Heritage Theater's showing of Roger & Hammerstein's Cinderella, she was excited to try out.  I didn't really think she would make it, but out of the fifty kids who tried out she was selected to be a child/mouse. Yay!

**As a side note I should probably mention that the director is my Visiting Teacher who she has taken theater classes from.  But still it's very cool that she thought she could do it. :)

Here she is in front of the Cinderella sign.  Isn't she the cutest "child" ever?

Here's her good friend Kayla who's Mom we have been able to carpool with to practices and performances.  And let me tell you, there have been a lot of practices and performances.  Three practices a week starting in January with 16 performances starting the end of February. Whew!  She has been a busy girl!

The cute little Cinderella carriage out front of the theater.  It's a really neat place to go to for plays.  She loves performing.  Her favorite parts are "The Prince is Giving a Ball" and the shoe scene where all the woman are trying on the shoe for the prince.  Ally sneaks up, steals the shoe and runs around the audience!  So fun!

The funnest part has been having friends and family come see the show.  Thanks for coming Aubrey and Katelynn!

Here she is greeting the guests after the show.  As a proud Mom, I think she does a great job.  But I have had many people tell me that she has great stage presence and their eyes are naturally drawn to her on stage. That's my girl!  It has been a very enjoyable and memorable experience!

We Skiied the Beav

It finally snowed!!! And what do the Braeggers do when it snows?  Hit the slopes! Wahoo!

This has been a lame winter for skiing and we were all excited to finally go again.  We stayed Sunday night at the cabin and then left Holden with Grandma and Grandpa so we could go to Beaver Mountain.  This is where I learned to ski back in Seventh Grade.  It's also where, in Eigth Grade, I swore I would never ski again!  Funny how life will change you!

I was able to be Jensen's ski buddy for most of the day.  We are pretty much on the same ski level although it won't be long until he is better than me.  Old age puts a fear of falling in me so I go slow on purpose!

Look!  Ally and Logan are smiling together and not fighting-weird!

Ally brought her friend Breonna for her first time and Josh was over on the magic carpet trying to teach her.  We all took turns helping her and she was doing really well by the end of the day. She even made it down the big hill!

My cute skiing kiddles.

Cute Ally.  Notice how nice and sun shinny the day was.  It was BEAUTIFUL.  We spent most of the day with our coats off or undone.  Unfortunately we forgot to put on sun screen. (Bad Mom moment)  Ally, Breonna and I got fried!  Everywhere we went people kept asking if we went skiing. Ya think? :) We still have "goggle face" and it's been a week. Lesson learned!

This picture makes me laugh.  Believe it or not Logan isn't trying to hit Jensen.  It was so windy at the top of the mountain that Jensen was getting blown down the wrong part of the trail.  I told him to stop and sent Logan over to help him.  This was him trying to help him up, not hurt him. Funny.

It was one of my favorite ski days ever!

Jensen is Seven!

As our tradition goes, we let the Birthday child pick a place to eat out on their birthdays.  Jensen's birthday was on Sunday this year so we all went out to eat on Saturday March 3 instead.  Jensen's choice?

Chuck-A-Rama!

Both sets of grandparents were able to come and fifty (yes-fifty dollars just for the six of us!!!!!) dollars later, we were all fed and happy.  Well, Josh wasn't very happy about the bill.  But Jensen was in heaven and it was his special day.

Grandma and Grandpa Naylor brought over his present before we went to eat and he was SO excited.  It's just what he wanted and he was thrilled!

While we were getting ready to leave, Holden was having fun jumping over presents.  Grandpa was being a tease and they had lots of fun together.  Almost everyone got in on the present jumping action, too bad I didn't get pictures!

Sunday morning came and we told him he could open his gifts before church if everyone hurried and got ready.  Of course Jensen was ready so fast he forgot to shower and spent the rest of the day with rooster hair!  He got a new snow tube, the Nerf gun he wanted, and...

...rollerblades!

After church we headed to the cabin because the kids were out for Teacher Prep the next day.

Grandma was smart and remembered to buy some cupcakes the day before.  We all had a cupcake, sang to him and he played his new Wii game for the rest of the night.  It wasn't a very exciting birthday, but I think he was happy. :)  We love our Jensen!

It's Been Awhile!

Hello!  Sorry I've taken a hiatus from blogging, but there really hasn't been anything blog worthy around here. Winter is always so boring!  I usually spend my days reading, cleaning the house, wasting time on the computer (hello Pinterest!) and then driving the kids around after school.  We haven't even been able to go skiing because there has been NO SNOW this winter!  We did go once more in January, but it was SO cold that we spent a lot of time trying to keep warm in the snack bar at Powder Mountain.  On the way home it was zero degrees. Too cold for skiiing!

Nimbus has grown up, and the excitement has gone away, too.  We still like her but she somehow doesn't seem to get the attention (i.e. food, care) that she used to.  I think if we could find a good home for her we might give her up.  Any takers?

Jensen lost his first tooth!  It was closely followed by his second.  Doesn't he look cute?

Logan is always busy playing with friends and he thinks he is so grown up.  He is turning into a handsome boy!  He was not into Valentine's Day this year.  He didn't want to give anything out or make a box.  I had to twist his arm to get him to do it.

Speaking of Valentine's Day, here is my/our creation of a box for Jensen this year.  He is loving playing basketball this year and wanted a basketball box. It was super easy, but turned out so cute!

And I totally deserve an "Awesome Mom" award for his Valentines.  Thanks to Pinterest, I found this cute idea and I actually made it happen. Yay me!  I had a cute border around it, but when they printed it got cut off.  I thought I did pretty good job of getting the wording on them because that's not really my thing.  But enough tooting my own horn...

How about I brag a little about my Ally instead?  She got invited to the Council level Reflections award ceremony in January.  That can mean that you won first place or you were an honorable mention, and after last year we figured she probably got honorable mention again.  But we were surprised when right off the bat they announced her as the first place winner in Dance/Choreography. (Not really a huge surprise because I think she was the only one to enter it-but that doesn't guarantee a first place win because they use a point system to judge them.).  Anyway, she was a little red in the face and had just sat down when they called her name for first place in Musical Composition, too!  She was even redder by that point and tucked her trophies behind her while she was sitting on the stage.  We figured she was done at that point because the rest of the categories were tougher competition, but they called her name again for first place in Literature!  Josh and I just looked at each other and shared a proud parent moment.  Ally on the other hand was so embarrassed!!  They took pictures of the winners at the end and she refused to hold her trophies!  In fact, I was never supposed to mention that night again, but I can't help but be proud.  It's unusual for a kid to win the top prize in three categories.  Go Ally!

I said I would post a picture of Ally's "new" room so here it is.  It really fits her personality perfectly and is super cute. 

So that about wraps up our past few weeks.  I hope you enjoyed the catch up.