Merry Christmas, it's Powell Baby #4

Soooooo here is a picture of our newest at 9 weeks but today I am 14 weeks (3 1/2 months).  I am due June 28th, 2011!  Sorry I lied to a few of you up to now :) wanted to make it a surprise.  Don't know what it is yet but pretty sure it's usually a boy! Guess we'll see.

Letter to John and Cathryn

OK, first off John, we never wished you a happy birthday so Happy Late Birthday! I have also attatched a letter that Tyler wrote you. He talks again about snow boarding with you down that sledding hill when you get back. He is funny.

Cathryn, here is how I am going to be celebrating your birthday. I will be teaching TWO classes in a row! And then I will come home and die because I will be so tired. My friend who teaches the class right before me next tuesday will be out of town and so I am doing both kickboxing/step and then piyo. I hope you have a great birthday....I think you might be getting LOTs of stuff in the mail....so watch out. I have been pretty busy with vinyl lately so that is my life. Teaching classes, doing vinyl and mostly taking care of kids, house and family.
Here are some things happening around here. We had stake conference this last weekend and guess who we sustained to be an Elder? Dallas. That was cool. I don't think he was there, but still. Is he getting married?
Brian got called to be in the stake youngs mens' presidency. Here's the interesting thing about that for us. We have been looking to find a new job for him and so we have been open to the idea of moving, even out of state. He just needs a new job. But now with this calling and the fact that they just gave him a bunch of things to do at work, we are guessing we are staying here a while. Which is fine with us! We pray everyday that we will know where we are supposed to go and what we are supposed to do, we kind of felt like this might be telling us we are going no where soon.
Ever since Tyler got his new scriptures from getting baptized, he wants to read them every night. He read scriptures before but not with this kind of dedication! He loves that he has his own set it's very cute. He insists on starting in Genesis and does not like the idea of skipping around or skipping ahead. So we have been reading every word of Genesis lately.
Brandon did a little sharing of his "Me Box" last Friday. All this means is that he put together some things he wanted to share with his class in to a box that he decorated. Well, he had me print off some pictures that he likes. One was of baby Benson, him playing baseball, us at the Chritus in Salt Lake and some others. Well, I was there when he presented the box and the picture of Benson was his favorite by far next the one of Jesus. He told the class that he loved Jesus and that Benson was his favorite baby. It was soooo cute.
Some things about Ethan lately....he saw a plane flying over our house last week and asked me if it was going to China? I did not know he even knew about China.
Then he came up to Brian on Sunday and said,
Ethan: "Dad, I EVER lost a tooth!"
Brian: "You did?"
Ethan: "Yep, EVER!" Isn't that funny? He just hears the boys talk, he has not ever lost a tooth.
He comes with me to Brandon's classroom when I volunteer and he tells all the kindergarteners that he is 5 and that he is big. He also comes to whisper to me often, "Mom, I am being good. I am being quiet. I am a good boy. I am big."
So far this morning he has been talking about "bum cheeks". He and Brandon play a game called hotel....I am not totally sure what it is yet but they are for sure imaginitive and entertaining.

Well, I have to go but I hope you have a great week and Cathyn a great birthday.

Love, Marnae

"Kick Buttowski"

So I don't know if you have had your kids watching DISNEY XD but my kids love it.  I don't let them watch much TV but when they do they really like this channel, Phineas and Ferb, Zeke and Luther, and mostly the above, KICK BUTTOWSKI.  He is a self-proclaimed "Suburban Dare-Devil" and he is a little brother of an older brother and it is a funny show.  ANY-Hoo Brandon decided that this is what he wanted to be for Halloween.....my first thought was, where in the world am I going to find that costume?  It's not like Batman or Spiderman.  Well, we had a helmet that was perfect for it in the garage, cleaned it up and added a red stripe with my vinyl.  I went to the fabric store and found a basic "suit" pattern.  Bought red, white, and yellow fleece so he would be warm and sewed up a pretty sweet costume.  It was perfect for Brandon because he is our little dare-devil and he is our little brother to Tyler for sure.  He isn't really really small but he is isn't tall either, he us just kind of comapact and cute at 5 yrs old!  I was proud of my work and Halloween turned out great.  Tyler was Ghost Rider and Ethan was a motocross guy, he wore the size 3 moto gear that we bought for Brandon three years ago.

I hope that these pictures bring a smile to your face because they do mine.  He is such a funny, cute kid.  He is our challenge a lot of the time, but he is fun.  That is Sam our neighbor next to him, they play all day every day and he was a white Ninja.  These pictures are from all weekend long.  Friday night we went to a church party and they did a "trunk or treat".  The next day we went to a party up at some friends house and they did some really fun games.  One of the boys up there had a "whoopie cushion" cosume that Tyler just had to try on.  They played a bunch of fun games but the most popular was wehre they had to search through saw dust for coins.  The dad of this family tossed probably a couple hundred dollars of coins into the pile and the kids took age level turns searching.  Brandon didn't really care about the rules on age level, he searched every turn and we couldn't really get him to quit!  They each found about $13.00 they LOVED that.  The next day being Sunday we just went around our little neighborhood for about an hour (Brian and I have bad memories of being held hostage indoors on Sunday Halloweens so we allowed a little but if trick or treating, so there).  It was a fun filled, busy, tiring weekend!

 We borrowed this from our neighbor, Ki, Sam's older brother who Tyler often plays with. I don't think I would ever spend money on a costume like this, but it was free for us!

 Lame, mom made him wear a coat so you can't see his cute shirt.

Now, here is what I have held out on.  Brian and I went to the church Halloween party dressed as each other.  I wore his motocross grear and he wore....a workout outfit of mine.  Here's the funnier part, we got a friend of ours to do it with him.  Shayla (Perdue) Caldwell is married to Chase, and he is FUNNY.  I approached him about dressing up with Brian and he could be his wife Shayla cause she works out with me somethimes.  I made sure they had the capris and the cute workout shirts and sweatshirts.  They were nervous but they did it.  We even found wigs for them.  I did not get a picture of Shayla and I but she was a fireman.  I did however get a picture of the two crossdressers.  Shayla's dad is the stake president here in Redmond and so our stake president walked by us at the party and was somewhat disgusted (he knew we were going to do it, it was funny)  We joked with him later this weekend at stake confrence about whether or not he was going to be addressing crossdressing or not.  It was pretty funny.  

   

Almost Halloween

Ethan has been running around asking if Halloween is here yet and then checking the windows to see if it is coming...Here are some pictures of our trip to a pumkin patch with Brandon's class.

 brandon holding baby bunny

 pumpkin patch with view of smith rock

 Ethan singing in the car

hayride

Well here are some things that have been happening around here.  The other day Ethan's friend Jonas was coming over to play and I told him about it.  He told me that "Jonas is not a bum-face.  He is a nice boy."  I looked at Ethan and just thought...ok?  That is all there is to that story.  I thought it was really funny and Ethan says things like this all the time.  "Mom, we don't say faout (fart), it's not a nice word.  I am a nice boy and I don't say faout."  He also told us today the Heavenly Father died on the cross over and over after church.  I wish I could remember more but that is all that comes to mind right now.  I need to get on here more often I guess while I am remembering what he says. 
We did get to the Pumpkin Patch yetserday to get some huge pumpkins.  It was windy and cold for the first time since school started.  Halloween here is typically about 30 or below, so cold.  Living here you have to get used to the fact that it is mostly either hot or cold.  Not a lot of in between.

Paige and Patrick came over last weekend as well as my parents and Tyler got baptized.  He was excited, Brian baptized him and confirmed him.  It was great.  The next day we hiked around Smith Rock and it was so fun.  We don't go enough considering we live 5 minutes away.  Here are some pics! Ok, so Brandon usually doesn't let people take pictures of him and the other two boys are not always very compliant either.  Wellllll, last weekend we had a breakthrough.  They all loved that Paige was taking their pictures.  I am sooo excited about this fact.  I have been sad for a while that they will not pose for ANYTHING, let alone a family photo.  So here is the new colllection!  Ethan has discoved his happy face that's for sure.  We also went swimming up at Eagle Crest Resort where my parents stayed which is always fun. There are some pictures of Brian and Patrick shooting guns as well.

Funny Boys

So I do hesitate to share most of what happens around here but I know that there aren't a ton of people that read this....and I hope that you don't judge me when you do!  I am about to share some funny stuff that just seems to happen around here with three boys.  I try so hard to teach them good manners, polite....things I guess.  Anyway we'll see if it ever actually takes.  Here are some things that happen to me on a daily basis and I only share because this is my only record of it.  I dont really write in a journal cause I have carpal tunnel and typing actually hurts less! So here goes.  Not all of it is offensive.

I can't believe how fast time is flying by. The boys are really liking school. Brandon REALLY likes it. He loves to learn. Tyler does too but not like Brandon does. Brandon wants to write all day long. Letters and numbers. Brandon and his Grandma Carla are like pen pals now. He had her send him something in the mail and he got it today, his eyes were so big and so was his smile. He ran home, opened it and made her something that he immediately mailed back to her. So cute. She drew him picrures of Souki and River (her dogs), and a frog. It was awesome.


Luckily no one was around when Ethan learned to ask me this particular question....."hey mom, wanna see my butt qwack?"

Yep, that is what he learns from two older brothers. Nice.

He says tons of funny stuff of course, he thinks he is 8 like Tyler. He rides a scooter really well now and I am so afraid for his safety. He thinks he is so old and industructable. He also does MANY tricks on the "twampoweem" that are very impressive. I hear these words most of the day, regardless of the current activity,

"Mom, watch!" "Mom, did you see dat?" "Mom watch dis!" "I was like....oh and den I went ohhh!"

I get the same from Brandon and sometimes Tyler too. It's all very cute. After about an hour though it gets a little old I have to admit.

ok here is a rare one of mom, Marnae

                                                  Brandon Loves to fish as do the other boys

                                                               Brandon and Dad

Well, even though it is almost October we have been going to the lake, fishing and waterskiing and wakesurfing and we LOVE it!!! Here are some Pics. This is a blurry picture of Brian and he won't like it cause there are better ones on his mom's camera, but I think it's not so bad!  I have only one picture of myself but for the record, I waterskied and wakesurfed and wakeboarded all summer long!!!  It's ok, don't love pics of myslef anyway. This one above is from earlier that my sister Piage took in McCall, Idaho at our family reunion which was soooo fun!

3 and 8

August 25th Ethan turned 3 and we had a big cul-de-sac party with tons of friends and family.  We played carnival games and had cotton candy!  My friend Courtney has a machine and she came and made it for us.  It was so fun.  The kids had a blast.  I decided to have a big party for Ethan but also because it was the end of the summer and we wanted to have a big party anyway so this was a fun excuse.  Ethan did really well considering there were seriously like 50 people here. 

Tyler did a smaller party last week (his birthday was September 19th, turned 8) with some of his friends and they went bowling and did bumper cars.  It was great fun as well.  Here are some pics. This morning Ethan said a few funny things like usual.  We saw a hot air balloon over by smith rock behind our house (we can see Smith Rock from our back yard!) Anyway it was at breakfast and the boys were eating and they saw it.  Ethan was so amazed and wanted to know what it was called so we told him it was a hot air balloon.  Well he now tells everyone all day long that we had an AIR HOT balloon in our back yard this morning!  So cute.  Right after that we took the older boys to school and they all three ride their scooters.  He jumped up on a curb just like the older boys do but he had to stop and tell me that he had "just GRINDED!" He learns all these terms from the other boys like "grind" and "table top" and "tail-whip".  I am not totally sure what some of them are or how they learned about them but Ethan doesn't miss a beat that is for sure.