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.