Brayden and Grandma Brown

I was just going through my pictures and I just wanted to put a quick post up about my Grandma Brown and Brayden. For as long as I can remember Brayden has always found it important to go and give Grandma Brown a hug whenever she is around. He wants to help her and asks about her often when we are at home. All of my life I was really close to my Grandpa Brown. I loved spending time with him and I was his girl. He had red hair for as long as I can remember.

I find it really special that Brayden has the red hair that my Grandpa Brown had and has such a special relationship with my grandma. The picture tells it all :).

Exercise Boot Camp

My sister and sister-in-law have been doing an Exercise Boot Camp for the last little while. With a transition right now their trainer has been able to come over to my sister-in-laws and do exercise workouts for an hour. My sister called me on Monday and begged me to come and work out. I keep really busy and keep on the move, but not in the exercise department.

I had things going on during the week, but Rick and I decided to go today. The kids got to play with their cousins and watch a movie while we worked out. Holy cow!!! I was exhausted by the end and had muscles that were sore that I didn't even realize were being worked.

The worst part was realizing how exhausted I was the rest of the day. Good thing I didn't have alot going on today. Rick was the same way. I guess it was good to have a day to relax.

A part of me doesn't want to go tomorrow, but I am also excited to start getting in shape. Rick commented that he looked forward to the day that the workout didn't wear us out. I am sure we will get there. Then it will be worth it :).

I will write tomorrow on how it goes.

Mom Sanity Tip:

I have been content with where we are at in life as far as exercising and eating right. We can still do activities with our children and enjoy life. Today I went because of my sisters persistence. It actually felt good inside knowing that I had made an effort. I know that Rick felt the same. Our children were excited to see us working at it and they wanted to participate today.

If you have been wondering what to do or when to start exercising or making that change in your life start today. Take just a few minutes. Do something. Include your children. Their support makes it worth it. We will see where it goes from here, but it does feel rewarding to have made a start.

Rick's favorite saying

For a long time my brother and sister-in-law have had a saying up in their house that Rick always comments about. It definately fits my brother to a T. The other day we had cubscouts over at my brothers house and I asked Rick to take pictures of the boys. As I loaded the pictures onto the computer I noticed that he had taken a picture of the saying. I thought this would be a perfect time to share the saying:

This is my Mom Sanity Tip for the day. Enjoy every minute and live life to the fullest!

Chuck E Cheese General Conference Reward

For Family Night on Monday we went to Chuck E Cheese since we owed the boys a trip there. We usually go twice a year and that is right after General Conference. For every bingo they get from watching conference they get a Chuck E Cheese token. They earned alot!

We had alot of tokens left over from the last time we went, but we needed somemore. I went onto Chuck E Cheese website which is http://www.chuckecheese.com/ and found that they had great coupons. I didn't have to look through my ad's or pay retail price for tokens. While I was in there I found that they have certificates that you can print off for Potty Training, Completing your homework and many more. They are fun and colorful and when they are filled for 2 weeks the kids can redeem them for tokens. We printed off one for each child, filled it out and were able to additional free tokens.

The birthday club is great too! They send a certificate the month of their birthday and they get a free mini cheese pizza.

We definately can't afford Chuck E Cheese at regular price, but with a few coupons and certificates it can provide fun for hours! We were there over 2 hours.

Mom Sanity Tip: Become familiar with the internet. We don't go anywhere without me checking for a coupon or specials on the internet. I just go to www.google.com and type in what I am looking for. If I want a coupon I type the company name and coupons or discounts. I usually find some kind of savings or somewhere I can go for savings. It's worth the few minutes on the internet!

Birthdays, birthdays and more birthdays. . .

Megan Zachary Emily Julia

My brother, Scott

On the 2nd Sunday my family gets together to have dinner, have FHE (we rotate the different families taking turns) and then celebrate all of the current months birthdays. Due to my brother and brother-in-law being out of town in November we did all of October's and November's birthdays. That is the Sunday that we take our gifts for everyone over so that we don't forget anyone throughout the month.

In September I had just completed the carnival so I didn't take the time to get the presents together so we had September, October and November birthday's to give out. It was crazy! I was worried about missing someone and unfortunately, I missed one, but we recouped and made it right really quick.

Zachary is turning 6 in about a week. I can't believe it! He was very excited to get his presents from grandma.

Then came the big bonfire for dad and mom. Their birthday's are only 3 days apart so we agreed to let them blow out the candles together. You can see for yourself what kind of fire we had, but they did it together and they got them all.

To help keep my mom's sanity both of our families have gone to doing everyone's birthdays on a specific Sunday. We love being together, but sometimes it can become alot of time and hard to make it to everything. My family is on the 2nd Sunday and Rick's family is on the 3rd Sunday. It works out really nice!!!

If you have a fun way your family celebrates birthday's please share. I would love to hear your ideas.

First Snowfall

It has been a VERY crazy week so I haven't had a chance to blog about the week. Sunday morning we woke up and the kids were peaking out the blinds cheering that there was snow on the ground. They were dying to go play in the snow. The weather changes so fast that I told Rick that I had to get pictures before we left for church or we wouldn't have a picture of the first snow fall when we got out of church.

When we walked out from church the boys were very disappointed that the snow was gone. It has still been REALLY cold, but no more snow on the ground, just frost.

Here are the pictures of the first snow fall: