Birthday Minecraft-ing Style

It hardly seems right that Jensen is 7! When we originally started planning his birthday party, we hoped to be able to do something off-site and super easy for me (since I had some other events going on) but when those plans fell through, he decided on a Minecraft Birthday Party. Fortunately, I found lots of resources, via Pinterest, and most of them had great printables, which made our party so much more manageable. 

Here's Jensen with his banner, creeper (which we attempted to knock down with Nerf guns, but that proved to be quite a challenge!) and his wolf (which the kids had to throw bean bag "bones" into his mouth to tame him.)

 I loved that Jensen chose the easiest cake we saw on Pinterest- with no prodding from me! It was cute and SO EASY. And yummy.

 I don't normally go to the trouble of doing theme food, but the ideas were so fun that we couldn't pass it up. It was probably my favorite part of the party!

 Jensen got very nice presents from his friends. It was all stuff he loved (games, Legos, science kits, candy, cash!) and as I was cleaning everything up, I loved reading all the kids cards that they had made for him. I love when kids make their own cards, in their own handwriting, with their own artwork. You can't buy that kind of precious! 

 On Sunday I gave Jensen his present from us. He's been taking some of my old scriptures to church, but he didn't have a proper bag, so he was (clearly) excited to receive this and take his scriptures to church in a real scripture case!

Monday was his actual birthday, and even though it felt like we had been celebrating the whole weekend, we went out to dinner. And I got to take my standard once-a-year-birthday-photo with Jensen. I love this boy so much. He is such a wonderful person and I know he's going to be successful in whatever he does in life because of his hard working and happy attitude!

The 2015 Pinewood Derby

So Carson had his second Pinewood Derby in January. We had some scheduling conflicts this year, so Dustin went with Carson to the Pinewood Derby and I went to the temple with a special young friend who was going through for the first time. 

Dustin didn't get to go last year (because he was fishing in a tournament) so this was his first year to attend in our new ward. They really put on a good show for our boys. 

Carson did a little research this year, prior to building his car, on the scientific ways to improve the speed of a pinewood derby car. So armed with his new knowledge, we were able to come up with a plan to make this year's car the best that we could. Well, the research and plan paid off.

 Here he is with his friend. I love that they're both clutching the first place trophy!

And here's the closeup of the Jazz car and his trophy. Carson and Dustin have already been talking about things they want to do next year. :)

Wandering Wise Men Week 3

Well we did it! We finished off our Wandering Wise Men. My boys had fun with this and I think it helped us do some things that would have gone to the wayside this Christmas season.  So here's what the last 10 days looked like at our house.

 The Wise Men took a little train ride.

 They presented the boys with some "gold" and told them about its significance as a gift to the newborn king.

 They made snowflakes and left some paper and new scissors for the boys to make some, too. We had fun cutting a bunch that afternoon and hanging them up on my back door.

 New toothbrushes (that were sorely needed) to encourage lots of smiling (and better dental hygiene).

 Grandma Brudnicki got to help out with Saturday mornings Wise Men since Dustin and I were celebrating our 13th anniversary. She hid some candy canes around the house- the boys loved this.

 Family game day! It's not a new game, but it is a favorite. (Mason thought they were hilarious playing this game.)

 On Monday they left the boys some items to make bird feeders. The boys loved making these and we've been enjoying the wildlife coming to eat (mostly squirrels).

 So I totally thought the Wise Men's suggestion to have a "Free Hug Day" was going to be met with rolled eyes, but they all excitedly hugged each other and Mason is still randomly hugging me and yelling "Free Hug Day!!!" L-O-V-E

 We did some quiet reading of the Christmas story with the oldest boys, since the little ones needed to go to sleep. It was nice, nonetheless.

And on our last morning (Christmas Day) the Wise Men finally found their baby Jesus, and encouraged the boys to continue to seek for him everyday. In hind sight, I could have spent less time on this, but for a first time tradition, it went really well. I'm glad I spent the time I did on organizing it. The rest was pretty simple. And I think it gave us opportunities to talk about the Savior, service, love and kindness, that otherwise might have passed us by this month.

Thanks to those of you who commented on my Wandering Wise Men posts. I hope to be doing it all again next Christmas!

Wandering Wise Men Week 2

Here's a little update on what our Wandering Wise Men have been up to at our house this week.

When we saw the Wise Men last Monday, they were singing Christmas Carols at the piano. We had fun that night making cookies for FHE and singing carols while the cookies baked.

 On Tuesday the Wise Men stopped for a snack and made all the boys lunches for school the next day.

 On Wednesday the Wise Men left the boys a whole bunch of jokes to make them smile and invited them to share them with their friends. My personal favorite joke was "What did one snowman say to the other snowman? 'Do you smell carrots?'" (I printed the jokes off here.)

On Thursday they had a little Wise Men conference and got together with all our other wise men. (This was my favorite thing they've done so far!) They encouraged the boys to be friendly and kind to people they did not know that day.

On Friday the Wandering Wise Men met up with a little mouse friend who brought them this cute book.

 On Saturday they cleaned the stove for mom and encouraged the boys to help out with the Saturday cleaning chores.

 On Sunday they made a gratitude list and asked the boys to write in their journals. (Unfortunately this one didn't get done since Carson was sick that day.) *But we did end up doing it later in the week!*

And today (Monday) the Wise Men folded all the boys laundry and put it away for them! 

So far, the boys really enjoy looking for the Wandering Wise Men each day to see what thing they'll do next. 

A New Christmas Tradition

Since last year I've been thinking about starting a new tradition at Christmas for my kids. I think the Elf of the Shelf is funny, and I liked some things about it, but not all. My kids don't believe in Santa, so it didn't seem like it would fit with the way we celebrate Christmas. I had also read some ideas about "Kindness Elves" or "Christmas Angels" but I had come across someone's idea to have little wise men that they would move around and suggest activities that would promote kindness, service and charity. But it wasn't an idea that had been hashed out completely, not something that you could just print off and do. So I decided to flesh it out myself. And so, on December 1st it began.

The "Wandering Wise Men" arrived in a present with a note that said, "We are the Wandering Wise Men and we are traveling from the east, using the light from the star as our guide. We are searching for our Savior, Jesus Christ. In order to find him we will need to become more like Him on our journey. It is our hope to receive help from you along the way and maybe we'll even end up helping you, too!"

Every morning the boys find the Wandering Wise Men in our house with a little note about what they are doing or something nice the boys can do that day. Here's what week one of our new tradition looked like:

 Day 1: They built a Lego house to sleep in so that they would be well rested for their journey.

 Day 2: They were enjoying one another's company and suggested we have a fun evening spent together with our family.

 Day 3: They were writing letters and gave the boys paper to write to their cousin Victoria who is serving a mission.

 Day 4: They brought the boys a movie.

 Day 5: We went to our ward Christmas "Breakfast with the Wise men."

 Day 6: They brought the boys stickers to make cards for their Primary teachers to thank them for teaching them about Jesus all year.

Day 7: The Wise Men were singing Christmas songs at the piano.

So far the kids have enjoyed doing this. And I've tried to keep it really simple so that I don't become stressed out about having to keep up!

Thanksgiving Road Trip

After our successful road trip this summer, we decided, what the heck- lets do it again! So off to St. George we went for a week of fun with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen. And lucky us, we got to spend part of the week with my brother, Eric, and his family.

The driving part of our trip had to be condensed due to the time we had allotted for this trip. So it was a quick (did I say quick? I mean long) 2 days in and a full 2 days back. I only took one picture of our drive out- going over the Glen Canyon Dam (I think). I wish that I had taken a picture as we drove through west Texas. Everyone was out harvesting their cotton, and it looked like it had snowed in the desert! But I was driving most of that day, so I didn't think it was safe to be taking photographs.

I also didn't take any pictures of the first part of the week that we spent at my parents house. We just kinda laid low, grocery shopped, the boys played in the leaves in the backyard, etc. 

But the second half of the week we spent in a nice condo. One morning we took all the kids down to the playground, and to a pond to feed the ducks.

 We also spent a fair amount of time letting the kids play on these rocks around the walking trail by the pond. My boys are always very happy in a place with rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, any rocks. Hours of endless fun!

Our boys didn't really spend much time playing with Eric's kids this summer when we were in Idaho, so it was fun to see them interact this week. (How cute are these guys?)

Hudson and Brant were my favorite. They were funny towards each other. It was like, "Hey, there's a little person my size…cool." And then the next second it was, "Hey little person my size, that's MY toy! This is where I want to sit! These are the buttons that I'm playing with!" There were a lot of little shoves and pushes, and tears, but I could not get over how funny it was.

 Of course, my mom and I spent a good amount of time getting the food ready for Thanksgiving. I know she never wants to do it again (at least a big turkey…and definitely not crockpot mashed potatoes) but I enjoyed spending time with her in the kitchen cooking. And the kids all really enjoyed the desserts!

The day after Thanksgiving was my dad's birthday. This was the best we could get with 7 squirmy kids!

We also went and hiked around the red rocks in St. George. The kids had so much fun (ROCKS!!!!) and it was a good way to get out and do something fun with everyone (minus Mom, whose knees would not allow her to come).

  

 

 

We also took our boys, plus my 4 year old nephew Cohen, to a fun indoor glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course. The boys had fun and Cohen was so cute- he had never been golfing before and was just so tickled the whole time.

 

All in all, we had a fun trip. Thankfully we didn't run into too much holiday traffic, and we all made it home safely. A big thanks to my parents for having us, and Eric and Stephanie for coming and letting the cousins have such a wonderful time together.