A Good Day to Fly to Texas!

So the weather here is similar to the game conditions at Lambeau field yesterday, suffice it to say it is cold and we have lots of snow, not the snowman making kind, but deep dry snow. And now that I mentioned Lambeau, I need to say that the game yesterday was majorly upsetting! I was really looking forward to watching the Packers play in another Superbowl and stop those cocky Patriots! (although the Patriots have reason to be cocky) Unfortunately, Tyne had to go redeem himself in overtime, what's that all about anyway!!!? Greenbay just couldn't get it together yesterday, or more to the point, Greenbay's defense couldn't get it together yesterday and seriously those refs could have tried to not be so biased against the packers!!! the only flags thrown were against them! But, my complaining will not change the outcome, so back to the point of my first sentence:
It's really cold here, which in all honesty, I really don't mind the cold. I used to be a warm weather girl, then I had kids and it's all about the cold weather & big clothes! It's probably a body image thing....sigh! :) Jas has been having to go out-of-town more for work so far this year. Last week he went to Denver for a couple days (which I thought he had gone to Minneapolis, and when he called I had asked him if he'd called his cousins and he asked why he would do that and I said, "cause your in the same town as them" and he then told me he was in Denver, much to my surprise, and then proceeds to say something to the effect of, way to pay attention to where I am, yadda yadda yadda....:)) and then this week he leaves for Dallas today thru Thurs. He'll be gone for the duration of the really cold days. I had asked him if I could go and he said "You'll never see me." and I just had to say it, couldn't help myself, "Point?" He didn't think I was so funny. :) He goes to MN for a couple days in the first week of Feb. He's racking up the frequent flier miles! :)
The boys bundled up and headed outside this morning for a little while. Cody wanted to play football in the snow. Unfortunately he didn't put his football away before the snow came, so he was out there with the snow shovel trying to find it. By the time he did find it, Tyler was cold and came inside. Poor Cody. It actually took longer to bundle Tyler up, than how long he lasted outside! :) If they head back out later, I'll have to take pictures and post them.
For now though, tata!

"Hosted Parties"

So I have a really hard time passing up a good deal. Back in Oct. I ended up going to a couple "Lia Sophia" parties (it's a jewelry line) and at the first one I went to, she gave me $25 off to host my own party. I couldn't pass it up. Besides, as we all know (whoever has had to go to one of these type parties, or hosted one of your own) the only way to really get a lot of stuff for a decent price is to host a party of your own. So anyway, I am going to be having one of these parties on the first of Feb. Which when I reminded Jason about it, he proceeded to go into "Why would I agree to have one of these?" etc, etc. So I reminded him that I have Christmas money I can use AND it's only a few days (12 to be exact :)) before my birthday, so if he was still wondering about what he was going to get me (seeings how he didn't do anything the previous year, I reminded him (and it was even my 30th!!!! what a stinker)) that I would be able to pick some stuff out for him! Very thoughtful of me, I thought!!! So, anyway she gave me a website to give to people if they want to go and take a look or even get any. It's pretty good jewelry and they really stand behind it and will replace/refund any damaged or broken whatever at no cost. Unfortunately it can be a little pricey! The promotion for this month(s) is buy two items, get 2 items at 1/2 off (half off the most expensive items). So anyway the website is: www.liasophia.com/blingo
The boys are onery as ever, as I sit here on the couch typing, Tyler is on the other end watching "A Pup Named Scooby Doo" laying down kicking my legs. It's not even a concious act, he is just always doing something to be a stinker! It's too fun, cause then I get to be a stinker back!
Well, Tyler and I need to go get Cody from school. So bye for now.
(p.s. yes Kelly my hair is darker. I went brunette(sp) at the end of spring last year and I chopped a lot off too. Thought I'd see how the other half lives........so far, not that differently:), but I do like the color change, it's fun. And yes Jason likes it, in fact it was his idea, he's been trying to get me to darken it for years!!?)

A month and a half later........

Wow, the past month (+) has been busy. Not an excuse for not posting news, but busy non-the-less.

We all had a fabulous Christmas. The boys were excited about everything they got (which can always be embarasing(sp) if they receive something they don't want and state that fact in front of the giver....I try to teach them to be polite about all gifts and then wine to me later if they are truly unhappy about it, but sometimes they just can't contain themselves!!! :))

We read the Christmas Story on Christmas Eve to the kids while they drank hot cocoa and wore their new pajamas (the jama pants the boys are wearing are ones I made, they have little christmas fish in each of the squares).

After we read the story Kailee and Cody were composing a letter to Santa, when we heard a boisterous "HO HO HO" from outside the window. The look on Cody's face was commical!! He dropped his crayon and with a deer-in-the-headlights look ran to the window and very "Elf the movie like" yelled "Did you hear that?" So Bree says "I'm sure Santa's waiting at the top of the mountain for you guys to go to sleep so he can come leave the presents." Immediately Kailee yells "To our beds." At which point the babies (Kyra and Tyler) sprint to the bedroom and pull the covers over their heads. Cody is still peering out the window and notices a red light in the sky and is sure it is Rudolph's nose. Dave (my bro-in-law) then puts his face up to the window from the outside gazing in at Cody. It was too funny, Cody doesn't see Dave at first, he thinks it is his own reflection in the glass (Jas was standing right by him asking if he saw him, Cody thought he was asking him if he was seeing Santa.) So Dave turns his head a quarter turn and that's when Cody gave off a shrill little cry and jumps about a foot back. It scared him pretty bad, he laughed at first but then all the emotions kinda kicked in a he needed a little hugging (to hide the crying, poor kid!!) We then looked around and realized the babies were still gone and Bree went and checked, they were still under the covers in the bedroom (wide awake of course). It was seriously too funny. So when Dave came in the house, Cody asked him if he was the one that said "HO HO HO" and Dave almost verbatum(sp) of what Bree said, said "No, I think Santa was up on the mountain just waiting to be able to come in."

We went to my parents house Christmas morning after opening the presents from Santa and opened more presents there and had a very yummy brunch! It was a wonderful holiday, it's so nice to be with family and see at least some of them.

To the WI/MN/OR folks out there, we really wish we could have seen ya over the holidays, it sounds like you all had a really good time. We're hopefully shooting for a trip back there sometime this coming summer! Anyway....Happy New Year everyone (or as Cody and Great-Grandpa Brunner like to say have a Crappy New Year.)

The Newest and Cutest!!! :)

The Broder's family!! Matt, Kietra and Baby Emma!!

Daddy! Matt thinks this is a funny picture because he thinks Emma has a look of "terror" on her face about him being her Dad! :)
Mama and Baby Emma leaving the hospital!!

Emma gets to finally wear a real outfit now that she's going home from the hospital, never got to before because of all the monitors she was on!

Isn't she beautiful!!!

Odds and Ends....

Thanksgiving week. Always a relaxing week for me. We spend it in Glendive at the Mullendore's. Jason hunts with his friend Jess (a pal from the highschool days that he is still in touch with). The boys and I hang out at the house with Don, Geri and Jenna, playing games, taking walks, trying out new recipes, going bowling (after much cajoling and begging from Cody) and all sorts of other leisurely type stuff.
Tyler's birthday was super fun! That kid is a riot. "My want a new bite (aka bike)." "My don't like that Mom, discusing (aka disgusting), yuck." "My need to go poop, we don't eat my poop, it discusing" Why he ever thought eating and poop were ever connected is beyond me!! (although I suppose they are in a way, just not how he thinks of it). I took pictures of his firetruck cake and blowing out the candles and will have to post them when we are home in Billings, don't have the pictures on this computer. Jas, Cody and I gave him LeapFrog's "My First Computer" for his birthday, it's super cute and he absolutely loves that he has his own "pooter" now. The little games he can play are supposed to help with numbers, letters, the keyboard, mouse use and basic computer skills. He really doesn't get the whole thing yet, but when I sit and help (only a little though, cause he gets awfully P.O.'d if I try and do too much) then he somewhat understands. He'll definately be able to grow into it!
My sister Kietra had her first baby the day after Tyler's birthday! After a long day and a couple hours of pushing, Baby Emma joined the family on the 15th, weighing in at 7lbs, 12 oz. She is super adorable (of course) and I can't wait to meet her. She had some gunk (that's the official term mind you) on her lungs and then her white blood cell count became elevated, so she ended up having to be in the NICU and on IV antibiotics for a week, not what ya want to hear after nine months and one week of pregnancy. But on this Thanksgiving evening Kietra and Matt were able to take her home finally!! And she is now doing fabulously, the doctor told them that Emma made his job look easy and that he did a great job because of how good she was doing and looked! Love ya Broders and can't wait to meet the newest!!
We're setting up the Mullendore's Christmas tree tomorrow, always an interesting and highly enjoyable experience, I'll take pictures to post! Later for now. Hope you all had a Thanksgiving full of love, thanks and family!!!

A little explanation

So I am at work this beautiful Sunday morning and just reread what I posted yesterday afternoon and realized I need to explain a few things. First off, I didn't spell check or read through what I wrote, so my appologies for the misspellings and rambling. (blogger was the one who "errored" me not bogger :)). Some of the pictures need to be explained.....The one of Tyler and Rascal were backwards, "then" is on the right and "now" is on the left. The picture of the boys and the dog outside in the snow was them out on our covered patio that we now enclosed. It is wonderful. We put in 4 big 5'x6' windows and french doors. We mounted a big flat panel TV on the wall. We learned a few new building techniques too....we tiled for the first time, which we will do again if we HAVE to, but definately have gained a new respect for those who do it for a living! On of the pictures is the outside of the house before and after the addition. (the after picture has the boys playing in the leaves.) I have more before and after pictures of the addition I'll post later.
This past year has been a whirlwind of "projects". Jason needs projects and now that we are home owners, he gets to use the house for these projects. So.......we've: finished off a room in the basement for his office (first time sheetrocking(sp) and laying pergo floor), we tore out a woodchip/uneven flower bed type thing and then bought half a ton of river rock and lined almost the entire perimeter of the house with it (looks much nicer now!!!), got a new central air conditioner, got a new dishwasher (only had to leave Jason home one week by himself to convince him of that), started a new garden, enclosed our patio (adding about 250-300 square feet to the house), built a doghouse (for normal people not a big deal, for Jason....completely insulated with sub-flooring, tiled roof, linoleum(sp) inside and weighing so much the two of us almost couldn't move it!!:)), new ceiling fan in the bathroom (the old one was vented into the attic, not outside...not smart). And many more minor things that I just can't think of right now. It has been too fun, unfortunately we will exceed our tax write-off amount for home improvement, we should have saved some of this for 2008. But who am I kidding, I think Jason is talking about building a second garage out back for next year.....sigh!!! :) (once again, not going to spell check, so forgive me for any difficult reading)

Then and Now.........

Oh what a difference a year makes.
Last week I eeked out an hour and a half to update on here all of the things that had happened. And I hit publish post and bogger said "error" and it all erased, so that is why it has been even longer now since my last post.
This past week has been one of the busiest to date. It was parent teacher conferences at the school on Wed., Thurs and Fri. So all of these days were half days for the kids. Which no big deal for me.....except, the PTA was doing a Scholastic book fair in the Library all week, so the previous Fri. was spent setting it all up. And then helping with it throughout the week and then taking it all down on the next Fri. Because of our school having just reopened our school's library shelves are a little barren. So the PTA let the library keep all proceeds to turn right back around for books/supplies/etc. We ended up making about $1200 for the library! It was a huge success, our librarian has been at this for many many years and told us this was more than double she's ever made at any other school.
Ok, so that was just one thing last week. The PTA also puts on a Potluck for the teachers on Thurs night when the teachers have to stay until 8pm. And as I posted before I was in charge of this. And though I made lots of phone calls and had lots of stuff lined up, I still of course worried that stuff wouldn't show and there wouldn't be enough. So after two days of making stuff and getting things all lined out, Thurs came and I RAN the whole day!! But, it was all worth it and the potluck was such a huge success, the teachers will also be fed all next week too (and that is not even including the two lasagna's we put in the freezer for future use!!!!). Cody's conference was also on Thurs. and needless to say it went fabulous. The kid and his teacher just really connect this year and they both adore each other! It seriously makes me puddle up whenever I talk to her about Cody because she just can't say enough about him! He is loving 1st grade to say the least!!! His favorite subject is math (of course) and Mrs. Niemeyer has to give him extra challenges because he just picks it up so fast (I attribute this to letting him always be the banker at LIFE :))! I volunteer in the mornings on Mon and absolutely love being able to be in the classroom and see the dynamics of all the kids in his class, it's seriously too fun! He has a really good group of kids in his class. Cody also had a Scout Pack meeting Thurs night and in my delirium, I had signed up for snacks. What I was thinking at the time, I really don't know. So on top of all the preparations for the potluck, I also baked about 6 dozen cookies. I am actually loving being this busy with the boys!
Tyler is finally potty trained. About three weeks ago, I put underwear on him and for some reason this time he decided that this going on the potty is the cool thing to do. We went out and bought him a whole bunch of new underwear and there has been very few accidents since!!! :) And for about the past week and a half he's even worn underwear to bed and stayed dried through every single night!!!!! He is looking forward to his birthday with the enthusiasm and excitement only 2-year-olds almost 3-year-olds can!!! Everywhere we go he tells us "my want that for my birfday!!" What a kid! To say I am nervous about his 3's is almost lying, because nervous is putting it mildly. The boy has stubborn down to a capitol "S" and oneryness vies for competition!!! WOW! But he is so much fun!!
Anyways, Cody is extremely mad at me, because for the past half hour I keep telling him "in a minute" when he comes in and asks when I'm coming out to "fire-up the lawnmower" so he and I can mow up the leaves. The pictures are in tandom with the one on the left from a year ago and the one on the right from now, enjoy...............