Our week

We had a busy week this week. Caden has a fun month at school this month. This week he got to dress up as his favorite book character. He chose Chicken Chuck-whom I have never heard of before this year. He found the book in the library and became attached to it. I will have pictures of that later.

We also started up our woman's group at church this past week. I'm excited to be back. I missed hanging out with my small group. The book we will be studying this session is Great Moms raising Great kids. It looks like a good book.

Caden also go a spring retainer put in on Thursday. We are hoping that he will just have to wear this for about 6 weeks depending on how fast his teeth move. We are doing this as a preventative of having braces later in life. The dentist told us that they are now doing this with under bites and baby teeth. When they get the baby teeth moved the permanent teeth will comes in behind and hopefully come down where the baby teeth left off. It would be great if this works and no braces in the future. The dentist mentioned told me that he could tell my kids weren't thumb suckers and paci users for very long because if they were it might have pushed his teeth out! So I guess the littlest Braun will be forced to suck his thumb or a paci so the teeth will pop out more! The dentist also made a joke about when the boys were getting their little toys/rewards/surprises after the visit-Colton goes and sits back there with Caden since I can't. The dentist said Colton was going for a toy shovel but they discouraged him from it. The reason is that last weekend Caden was trying to get berries out of a tree with his orange shovel and came down and whacked Colton in the head-big bump and almost-almost split open cut. I think it might have if it had gotten bigger. So he was sporting a bump and bruise this week. It is looking much better. I'm just glad we didn't have to make a trip to Urgent Care and get stitches. I've had enough of that with Caden.

We also had movie night on Friday and Saturday night. Doug took both boys to the location movie rental place and both got to pick out a movie-Snow buddies and Underdog-a weekend of puppies. I'll leave you with some pictures from January. I have to go and create Caden's Valentine's Day treats and plan Doug's birthday night-Caden has some pretty good ideas!

On January 22 Colton celebrated his 1/2 birthday! Caden thought cupcakes would be a good treat so Colton got to pick out which kind he want and the frosting. He went with sprinkles all the way!

Coloring is a BIG hit at our house-any art project is!

Pick yourself up off the floor.....

It's me again and no, February has not gone by yet. I just thought I would post some pics on how we spend cold days in doors. These are from January-you know-during that freeze we had. Caden and Colton love to dress up in the wrestling and Viking gear.

Sometimes all at once....
But many times they just share.....

Ahhh, yes, January......

You know January was such a cold month that I could not possible get on the computer and type. It was freezing I tell ya! But now that February is here and the thaw has begun......Let's recap shall we.....

Hmmm don't think I rang in the New Year but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who knows me. We have continued with MOPS and Colton is enjoying it but Caden would rather be in school all day. He tells me he just wants to read and write. His teacher tested him on his backpack books-which are books that they bring home every night. He was on level A and was hoping to move to level B but she tested him on level C and moved him right up to level D! He was a happy camper because the level C was "way to easy" according to him. I'm so happy he likes to read.

I had a leadership retreat in the middle of the month with my small church group. We went up north to a lake cabin. A couple from our church owns a home up there and so graciously offered it to us to use for the weekend. It was a great weekend. The focus was prayer. We watched Jim Cymbala and did some personal and group prayer. Lots of good food-there were 4 of the 7 that are pregnant so we had plenty of yummy-ness to go around.

Colton is finally potty trained. He no longer wants to wear pull ups or diapers. We do put them on at night but he would rather wear underwear. There are some mornings he wakes up dry but there are some where he doesn't and I'd rather have that pull up on. Now if he would just go by himself-he like an audience-mainly me.
We also got Colton's 2 year (ummm 2 1/2 year) pictures taken along with a brothers session. If any of you did not get the password and want it let me know and I'll email it to you.

I've started going to a bible study with a group of woman from my MOPS group. I missed the first session because of my sciatic nerve acting up but hope to make it this Tuesday. We are reading the book Having a Mary Heart in a Martha world. So far I like it-although I'm only on the second chapter.

I had my 28 week doctor appointment at the end of the month and the active little guy is growing right on schedule. He did not like the nurse pressing around for the heartbeat though-she stayed a little too long and he gave her 2 strong kicks to get away from the tummy, which is probably better than me kicking her for getting too close to the belly button. I cannot stand when they get close. Good thing my doctor knows to stay away from that area!

On the last night of the month we had bowling night. Caden spelled out bowling on the calendar-he's been having a hard time in school with anxiety and making choices- so we pick a treat and he gets a letter for each good day. He has been doing better though. We've only spelled out movie and bowling and he has seemed to forget about it. I'm not sure what brought it all on but the month of December was hard on him. But never fear the "old" Caden is back!

Here are some pics of how we spent the freezing month of January....

Art time is a big hit at our house...both boys love to draw and color. We have art galleries all the time.

Sometimes playing all day is such an exhausting experience
We love cars and trucks and anything with wheels...all my "boys" do...
Thanks to Aunt Jackie we have another Viking outfit in the house-good ole Tommy Kramer in the house. Caden likes to wear it which is a surprise because he still states he doesn't like the Vikings.
Pics of bowling to come next time...still on the camera:)

New Year's Resolution..........

What New Year's Resolution? Jackie wanted to remind of one I had. Something about posting once a week.....hmmmmm must be the pregnancy mind.....yep I'm going with that:)
Since January's been kind of slow I'm going to recap December-well Christmas. Oh before I forget I need to post the kids and Santa photoWe went to our bank. They offered a free 8x10 and free juice and cookies-who could pass that up? Colton was wide eyed the whole time.

The boys had a lot of fun this Christmas. We did our family Christmas before we headed out to do the big parties. We got a birthday cake for Jesus.

The boys decorated their own tree so they thought that they should have their own presents under them. Caden put his gift from his teachers under there and then he and Colton made some pictures for us and wrapped them up. They also each decorated a plate. Caden put all of our names on it including Matthew-who he and Colton have named the baby. I feel sorry for they baby when he comes because he is going to want to know who this Matthew kid is. Colton also went around wrapping up old toys to give us. It's the thought that counts right?Both the boys got 2 Eric Carle books. Colton loves his Brown Bear, Brown Bear. He even reads it to us at night.

Caden got his own ipod shuffle. He loves listen to our ipod so we thought this would be a good gift especially when we travel. He was so excited and happy when he saw what it was.The Saturday before our Christmas we took the boys to Target and they got to pick out a present for us and for each other. They both had a good time doing that. I think that will be another tradition. It was one of the activities I put in the advent stockings.

Colton was more into unwrapping this year. He finally understood what was under the paper.

They both thought their football slippers were cool. Colton's were too small and I have yet to take them back. Oh well I guess baby boy number 3 will enjoy them!

I caught Colton with my camera and was in the process of telling him that my camera is not for him to touch unless I'm with him and as I'm doing this I'm going through the photos he took and look what I found....I guess he wasn't the only one taking pictures when I wasn't looking....

Once at the Brauns the kids performed Away in the Manger....

Opened presents......

Reading together.....

Posing for pictures.......after I took this picture Colton said do one of our backs.....so they turned around for me.

There were many outtakes before I got one with all four eyes open!

Played with the leftover paper and ribbons.....

Hung out with family....

Woke up Christmas morning, opened stockings and spent some more time with our cousins....

Then we headed to South Dakota and opened more presents and spent more time with family.

I still have the after affects of my cold and sinus infection. I'm told that it may linger. I'm not sure if its pregnancy related or not-I'm betting it is. I had a dr. appt. on the 28th and little boy Braun is growing right along schedule. He is an active little dude-moving and kicking. He really gets going when all is quiet at night. I think he's wondering were the screaming and crying of his big brother are. It's weird how you forget the feeling of when the baby moves. Slowly rolling his way across the tummy and then power kick. I wonder how you can preserve that memory? More to come on what we've been doing in January......update in ummmm February? just kidding-I think.

And onto December we go.....

I'll have to look back on November and see what happened because it flew by too fast. So we are going to move onto December since we have a few days left. December 1 was a busy day for us. We got to see this precious little miracle..

We started our Advent stockings
And we also got to start unwrapping a Christmas/winter book each night. And since I had more than 25 both boys got to open one for a few nights. Although I must say Colton did very well on the taking turns.The activity for the 5th was to put out your shoes for St. Nick's day on the 6th. Caden remembered from last year and was excited telling Colton all about it. It was cute to hear him explain it to Colton. Caden even tried to get away with putting Mom and Dad's shoes out there and also a pair of my shoes for baby brother:) Don't they look thrilled with their goodies?

Next came the activity of getting and decorating the tree. Daddy and the boys went out and got the tree while I was doing some Christmas shopping on our sister's shopping trip with Doug's sisters.

And of course Caden had to decorate his tree also but that brought tears when Daddy was trying to put it together and "snap" went the base, even duct tape wouldn't hold that tree together. In all fairness I have had that tree since college so it was getting past its prime. So Caden inherited my little trio set of trees. I think he did a good job decorating.

We then had Caden's singing concert on the 19th. He did a good job. His class got to be the Christmas trees. Doesn't he look so happy in the first picture? They sang their songs and then we headed to his classroom for some juice and cookies. Isn't his teacher cute? Looks like she could be one of the kids.
We then had to get teacher gifts and bus driver gifts ready. Caden's bus driver got a gift certificate to Pizza Hut along with a custom wrapped chocolate bar. His speech teacher-which I forgot to take a picture of-got some antibacterial soap from Bath and Body Works along with a custom wrapped chocolate bar and his kindergarten teacher got a basket full of goodies. We went to her classroom wish list and grabbed some of the stuff on it: antibacterial wipes, easy reader books, foam sticker letters and Caden said she loved pink erasers so she got a package of those. We also threw in some B&BW soap and the chocolate bar.
Next we decided to go out sledding in the blizzard! The boys had fun but I took the pictures and then headed straight for the van. Colton joined me after a few runs down the hill. Caden probably could have gone forever.
Colton enjoyed going down with daddy
And even tried it by himself once...ended up in the snow!
Caden came back to the van with snowflakes stuck to his lashes. Look at those red cheeks.
We ended the weekend with a wrestling tournament. Caden did well. He ended up with 2nd place in his weight.
Come back after Christmas and we'll see if I can have an update:) I told my sister that my New Year's Resolution should be posting at least once a week on the blog-but then I had to remember that most resolutions run out by March so I guess we'll see. Have a great Christmas! I'll be seeing many of you soon.

Happy Late Halloween

Here are some pics of our Halloween. The boys and Doug went out to a few houses in the neighborhood and then came back and both Caden and Colton handed out candy. Some kids made out great when Colton was at the head of the candy giving line-he gave hand fulls-and we still had some left over. We shut off the lights at 8:15. The biggest thing of the night is probably when the firetruck comes and hands out glow sticks. This year they must have had extra because after we went to the truck they came back around to the houses and walked to the doors and handed them out to the kids.

Caden also had his nursery rhyme celebration in school. He had to pick a rhyme and recite it infront of his class. He did great. They then paraded around the school to show off their costumes. While we were walking to Caden's class Colton was following behind me while the older kids were coming out of their classrooms and there must have been a scary costume in the mix because all of a sudden I hear Colton start to scream and come running up behind me. They should outlaw those scary costumes in schools. Colton had fun in Caden's classroom decorating a cookie and then playing with Caden and his friends.