Easter Cuties

This year, the Easter Bunny brought the kids new church clothes. The boys all got suits and Sydney got a new dress in her favorite color. She was so excited it was modest enough that she didn't even need to wear a little white tee shirt with it. It's hard to find little girls' dresses with sleeves...but that good old Easter Bunny came through!  I never bought the older boys suits when they were little, and what a mistake that was!  Jakey was just killing me in this little 3-button number...he said he looked like Daddy and now he could go to work like Daddy (which we thought was funny since Tim never wears a suit to work...).

And don't even get me started on Little Miss--she LOVES purple and was so excited to see this dress on Easter morning! 

Here's our little stud, Ryan looking oh-so-dapper.  Can't believe he'll be 12 in 2 1/2 months!!!

And of course, Brandon, the teenager.  I had to tell him to show me some teeth in this picture--he thinks he's too cool to smile wide.  But those teeth are too nice not to show off. :)

Here they are all together.  The difference in heights is pretty funny.  Our kids are pretty spread out age-wise, but it's been perfect for us.  Love them all so much and wish they would stop growing!!!

Kid Pics

Today I took some shots of the kiddos.  I figured what's the point of having a nice camera if I can't save a little money and take my own pictures of them.  I haven't had much time to edit them yet, but these are some of my favorite shots after just a little bit of work on them in Picasa.  This first one of Brandon and Ryan reminds me of 2 elders...not long til they'll be that old!

I just love Jakey's lips in this one!

My girly-girl.  :)

Brandon wanted to bring his guitar and take some cool guitar shots.  He looks way too old in this one!

Ryan the stud. :)

All four of them...lovin' the older boys' dressed-down ties look!

This next one is probably my favorite of all of them together.  Jake was just not in the mood for pictures this time around, so this is as good as we got!

This one here makes me laugh because of Syd's face.  She was cold and not very happy that I suggested they take their shoes and socks off for a couple shots.  Such a mean mommy I am...

I still have some work to do before I'll get any printed, but I'm pretty happy with the results.  Now I just need to find a time when Tim can join us and we can do the whole family...kinda hard when it's getting dark at 5pm.

Halloween!!!

 Dear Blogger,

Sometimes I really hate you.  This week I have wanted to try and catch up on blogging, but I don't really have all day to wait for my photos to upload...so now my family will only get to see these 3 pictures that would actually load...sorry family.

Moving on...Halloween was Monday, and the kids had so much fun dressing up.  These pictures are actually from Saturday when we had our ward Trunk-or-Treat.  I'm always too busy on Halloween to really take pictures...

This year, after quite a metamorphosis, Sydney finally settled on a cowgirl costume.  (For those who care, she initially wanted to be a wolf, but not just a wolf costume--she wanted Tim to shoot a wolf, then skin it for her to wear over her head like a cape...not my daughter...  Then she decided she wanted to be Captain Jack Sparrow, but I steered her away...I'm not a fan of my children cross-dressing.  Then she settled on Ninja, but after looking through the Halloween costume bucket she found Brandon's old chaps and vest (which were both too small, but what do I care??)).  We just bought a hat and bedazzled it to girlify it a little.

Jake recycled Ryan's Buzz Lightyear costume that I made 8 years ago.  I was glad to get another use out of that one, seeing as I spent more time on it than I'll be confessing here on my little blog...

Ryan recycled his Grim Reaper costume from last year...no cost yet again...perfect!

And Brandon decided to be "Up Dog."  What is Up Dog, you might ask?  When you find out, let me know!  Apparently it's a phrase that middle schoolers use..."That's really up-dog."  Whatever...  The best part was that his costume was also free...he used my Silhouette to cut out a dog shape w/ vinyl and stuck it on a black arrow and taped it on a t-shirt.

I was really pleased w/ my Halloween costume budget this year....$5 for a cowgirl hat.  They had fun and got plenty of candy.  And on Halloween night when I was watching Jake trick-or-treating w/ Sydney and Ryan and his little shoes would light up and he was just so excited, I took a mental picture and just smiled.  He's the perfect age this year.  He understands how it all works, but he's not yet snotty like my older ones, thinking, "Just give me the candy."  He's truly overjoyed w/ each little piece.  And it's sure made him want to do better w/ potty training since there's once again candy in the house that he can get as a reward.  Bonus.

School Days

Today was the day.  We got our routine back.  I've missed being on a regular schedule so much!  And the kids have been driving each other crazy the last week or two.  We were all ready for today.

Tim went in to work a little late so he could give the kids their Father's blessings once they woke up this morning.  Always my favorite part of the first day of school--pretty sweet!  Then we tracked their growth on our makeshift growth chart, also known as the inside molding of the pantry door.  Brandon is getting crazy tall...I only have about a half inch on him now.  He'll probably pass me up by the end of the year!

Sydney is now our lone elementary-schooler.  She doesn't seem too sad about that, either.  She picked out her own clothes for today, and I didn't even intervene and try to get her to wear something different.  Gotta let go a little, right??  She really wanted her hair in 2 pony tails, and although it's still probably a little too short for that, we made it work.  Dang, she's cute!  She was most excited to wear her new tennis shoes!

 Ryan starts middle school this year--6th grade!  That means he and Brandon are in the same school for this year and he gets to start wearing uniforms.  He has already started practicing for cross country--a new adventure.  I've been so proud of him for trying something different!  He seems to be really enjoying it, too.  A friend of mine with a cross country child said they had shirts last year that said,

"My sport is your sport's punishment." 

Haha!  Brandon would agree with that statement!

 Here's our almost-high-schooler.  I told you he was getting crazy big!  He was also super-stoked to finally be able to wear his cool new shoes, too.  And this is the last year he has to wear uniforms.  He has started football practice and is loving it as usual.  In less than three more months, he'll be 14...and going to dances...ugh!

I can't say I shed any tears when I dropped them all off this morning, but I think that's partly because I still have my little Jakey Bear here with me.  So thankful for that!

Carpet Angels

I cleaned the carpet a couple of weeks ago.  I always do that after the kids go to bed, so it can dry overnight without being stepped on for 8-10 hours.  The kids woke up to an empty family room, and this is what they did right away.  I thought it was pretty funny.  Carpet angels, we called them. :)

 What's cuter than Buzz Lightyear jammies??

 Well, those Little Mermaid ones are pretty cute, too...

Easter

Going through the few pictures I took, I'm realizing I have no pictures of Sydney in her Easter dress. I'll make her wear it this week again and take a picture then. She and I went on a girls' night out to shop for it. She's a size 7 now, which means she is no longer grouped with little girls...her size is in the 7-14 "tween" category. Yikes! I helped sway her a little from the more "mature" dresses, but for the most part, she picked it out on her own and I love it. It's black and white and so darling...pics to come soon, hopefully.

This year we went to my sister-in-law Tammy's since her son Daniel was giving his talk before he leaves on his mission. It was fun to have a mini-Bryson-reunion and the kids loved seeing all the cousins. We had an egg hunt, and Jake had such a great time. I had found these great sand buckets at Michael's for a dollar and used my Silhouette to put their names on them...still love that thing!




Sydney going at it.






A Bryson tradition is the silver/gold eggs. They each have a dollar or two hidden in them and are hidden especially well. This year, Sydney found one and it had a gold dollar coin inside. She was so excited!


You can also see that we cut her hair. About a week ago I was cutting the boys' hair when she started begging me to cut hers "short." I told her to think about it for a while and if she still wanted to, then I would. Once that girl makes up her mind, there is no changing it. So now we pretty much look like twins. I think we'll both get A-lines pretty soon...it will be fun for summer.

They're Here!!

Well, they've been here about 2 weeks now, actually. That's just the awesome blogger that I am. It takes me a little while.

On Wednesday, April 6th around bedtime, as I was reading Jake "Dinosaur Roar" like we do every night, Tim hollered from the garage for me to come out there. I didn't know what he wanted and I still had songs to sing and Sydney to tuck in, so I didn't exactly hurry. When I got out there, he said he thought Molly was in labor and had her in the crate we had built for the pups. We hadn't thought she was due until the following Monday. It was a surprise, for sure.

It didn't take long before she birthed the first one, a black male. He was breach and didn't make it. It was so sad. We tried and tried to rub him and revive him, but it wasn't meant to be. She had another one about 30 minutes later, and it was o.k. And so cute! I hadn't ever seen newborn puppies and wasn't prepared for just how little they are. Just darling!

She kept going off and on all night. Tim wanted to be there for EVERYTHING, so we stayed out in the garage with her until 4am. By that point she had birthed 5 puppies, but both black males were stillborn (the breach one and one that was--we think--just too big and took too long in the birth canal). So we had 3 live puppies, and it had been almost 4 hours since the last one had been born. We were so sad that that was all we were going to get, but what could we do? We were exhausted and Tim had to leave for work in about 3 hours--yikes--so we went to bed a little sad and disappointed, but proud of Molly for how she had done.

At 7am, I went to check on her, and found that 2 more puppies had been born in those 3 hours. Then she had another one while I was taking the kids to school. I thought surely she was done. I kept checking on her every 30-40 minutes. When I checked at 11:30, there was another one! I was shocked! When I called Tim to tell him, he didn't even believe me at first. But that was it. She was finally done. Poor thing pushed out babies for 15 hours!

In the end, we had 7 healthy puppies--5 yellow (3 male, 2 female), 1 black (female), and 1 chocolate (male). She has been an awesome little mother and despite her recently diagnosed case of mastitis, seems like her old self again.

The kids have just been beside themselves with puppy love. Even little Jake, who doesn't like Molly at all, just loves them. And when he has one and I try to pet "his" puppy, he says, "No touch. My puppy." Oh, how that kid makes me smile. And don't get me started on Sydney. She goes straight for the puppies after school each day. She's in heaven.

So far, we have presold 2 puppies, so only 5 more to go. If any one's been looking for a great dog, let me know and I'll hook you up. :)









Yesterday they began opening their eyes and they got even cuter!

Yellow Belts

First off, a disclaimer as to why there have been no blog posts from me in a month: I repainted the entryway, family room, kitchen, and dining area over the last several weeks. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time now, but just never took the time or jumped in. Well, as part of my New Year's resolutions, I jumped in! It looks awesome and I'll post about it soon, but for now, I need to play catch up on what we've been up to over the last few months.

Ryan and Sydney had their first karate belt advancement tests in December. Pretty much nothing cuter than those 2 in their uniforms...especially Sydney with the bow in her hair... They are both doing an awesome job in their after-school class and love it. In fact last week, I asked Sydney if she still thought karate was better than dance, and she just rolled her eyes like she does and said, "DUH, of course!!!" (No offense, Ashley, if you're reading this...that's just Syd!) So I guess the lessons will continue. This is the 2 of them when we first got to the gym. Here is Ryan doing a kick. So focused.

Sydney preparing to knock this guy's socks off.

I love this shot of her side kick!

Another kick from Ryan.

We found out once we were there that each child was going to be able to try and break boards that night. That made Syd pretty nervous since they had never tried that before. It just made Ryan super-anxious! Here he is getting instructions on just how to do it. I remember something about it being very important to have your thumb on the outside of your fist...

Here's his practice, just to make sure he has the form down.

He did it!

Now my girlie gets a little instruction...

And of course, has to bow.

I love her expression in this one!

I didn't get a good shot of the break, but she did it! None of the other kids as little as her were able to break their boards with their fists. I wish I could say I was surprised, but she is just one tough cookie! She's so satisfied with herself in this photo!

Now to try and break one with a kick...she was successful in that too, as was Ryan. They both pretty much rocked!

Not the best angle, but this is Sydney being presented with her new yellow belt. Gotta love the guys covered in tats. And here's Ryan getting his new belt. He can't wait to advance again and break more boards!