hailey

Another beautiful neice...

nuggets

Josh won tickets in an auction that was a fundraiser for his football team to put lights on their field, so he and Jeffrey headed to Denver this afternoon to watch the Nuggets play the Sacramento Kings. THIS is where they sat- holy moly, what great seats! And a trip to the concession stand is worth it, because you burn a million calories climbing the stairs to get there. :)

uno, dos..

So Josh and I were totally amazed yesterday when Brecken had three balls, and while throwing each one said, "cuatro, cinco , seis..." Yes, he counted 4, 5, 6 instead of 1, 2, 3, but where did he learn the Spanish numbers well enough to say some in order? I'm telling you, the kid is a genius. :)

getting caught up

I realized there were quite a few movies on my little camera that I haven't gotten posted! So here they are.

This one is from December! (Actually, the next few are!) This is a house in Marco Island that had it set up for you to pull up in front of the house, tune your radio in to a certain station, and the music matched the light show. I know it's a bit hard to see, but pretty cool anyway.

This next one is from Disney World. There is an AMAZING light show called the "Osbourne Family Spectacle of Lights". It's the best Christmas light display I've ever seen. It was started by this dad that wanted to give his little girl all the lights he could at Christmastime, and then the neighbors started complaining about the light and traffic. (It was set up a bit like the one in Marco Island from the previous video.) He had to take the display down. Disney caught wind of it and brought it to Disney World. AMAZING to see. If you ever have the chance to see it, DO IT!

Here's a quick 360 degree view of the one section of street I was standing in at the time:

Brecken reading books with his Papa:

another beauty

I got to shoot another beauty yesterday. I'm 3 for 3 on good looking seniors! It was SOOO cold and SOOO windy so we didn't get to do everything we wanted to, but we got some good ones, none-the-less. Here's just a few of my favorites. I LOVED the color ones, because with such a dreary, dead-looking day, her bright colors totally popped. I think she liked the black and white ones best though. But since it's my blog, I posted my faves. :)

This fence was one she and her brother and cousins always played on when they were kids, so she wanted some pictures with it now that she's all grown up. Click on it to make it bigger if you want:

"whoa! big movie!"

We took Brecken to his very first movie theater last night. He keeps seeing the commercials for Monsters vs. Aliens and saying, "That's my favorite one!" so last night we decided to give it a go. He was so excited. He got his own little bag of popcorn and a little 7-Up and he was tickled to death. We sat down and the previews came on and he kept staring at the screen and squealing, "Whoa! BIG movie!!" The 3-D glasses were a bit big, so he didn't want to keep them on, and the beginning scared him a bit. But after hiding his face in my arm, the scary part was over and he watched the rest of it. I was impressed- I was figuring we'd have to leave halfway though because he got bored of sitting still! But he did great! We didn't get back from Rawlins until almost 10:00, but he fell asleep in the car and then slept hard all night. I was hoping that would be the case, instead of him waking up afraid of monsters! :)

hiccups

This morning we were watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. In this particular episode, Donald had the hiccups and therefore couldn't sing in the singing contest unless they went away. They did several home remedies to get rid of them, and Brecken did everything with them. Jumped, turned around, counted to 3, and when Donald said, "My hiccups are gone!" Brecken turned to us and said,

"My hiccups are gone! They're in my bum now!"

I had tears, I was laughing so hard.

my new senior

I went out with this beauty yesterday to get some senior pictures for her. Isn't she gorgeous? And even though the wind was blowing SO. HARD., we managed to get some great ones. I had so much fun! I can't wait to go out again after this storm blows through and the wind dies down so we can venture out farther than the wall. :)

brecken's camera

One of the very first pictures he took the night he opened his camera:

The TV in our hotel room before we flew to Florda- TVs are important!:

Papa in the airport:

Grandma in the airport:

TV in front of his seat on the airplane:

The elephant in the living room of the house we stayed at in Marco Island:

We thought this Santa and flamingo-reindeer blow up was fun:

The boats in Marco Island:

The Christmas tree at Disney World:

Taking a picture of his mommy taking pictures of the middle school basketball team:

One of Daddy's games:

Daddy:

Grandma Lennie:

Papa Craig:


Regional Basketball:

Taking a picture of Papa taking a picture of Brecken:

Grandma Lou's kitchen:


Not bad for a two-year old with a Fisher-Price digital camera!

Brecken to his mommy tonight:

"I love my wife. I love my MOMMY wife."

I love that kid.

in the potty!

I asked Brecken this morning if he wanted to go sit on the big potty. He said yes, so off we went. This is a regular occurance in our house. He will sit on it for what seems like hours but nothing happens. This morning was a different story though! He went potty!! He actually missed the toilet because things were aimed different ways (it's rough to be a boy) and it went all over the stool in front of the toilet, but he DID it! For the first time ever!! I made a huge old party out of it and then he cried because his stool was wet. :)

We had a couple fever-free days, and it's back again this morning. Low fever 100.0- but still a fever. And a cough. Have I mentioned how much I can't stand this dang virus?!

oinkies

Preface: Oinkie= pig in Brecken's world.

Mommy: What does an Oinkie say?
Brecken: Little pig, little pig, let me come in!!

taco body

I do Dance Dance Revolution in my elementary music classes once or twice a month. It's a really fun way to work on steady beats, since the closer to being exactly on the beat means you get more points. I keep track of all the points and give awards to the high point winner from each class at the awards ceremony at the end of the year. The kids LOVE it.

Today was a DDR day. We did the song "Funkytown". We got to the "talk about it, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it" part. One of my 1st graders said, "Mrs. Sandlian, what is a taco body?"

I love it.

flying an airplane

On the way home from picking up Brecken from daycare today, we saw a big airplane at the airport. Brecken LOVES LOVES LOVES airplanes. He got all excited and said,

"I want to fly the airplane!"
Me: "You do? But I don't think you're big enough yet."
Brecken: "I'll bring my car seat!"

What a smart child to figure that out. :)

Brecken got sent home from daycare yesterday with a 103 fever. I'm so sick and tired of this virus he has. By the time I got home, his eyes were completely red and streaming water out them, and his nose was super runny too. He was totally and completely miserable. He had a fever at 1:00 this morning when he woke up, but then when he woke up at 6:45, the fever was gone! He made it through the whole day at Amy's house today. His eyes right now are a tiny bit watery, but NOTHING like yesterday. Hooray! I still hate this virus and I hope it turns to Spring soon so it will go away.

state basketball

Josh and I took Thursday and Friday off to enjoy one last weekend of basketball. Our first stop was in Casper to watch the Encampment boys and Saratoga boys play back to back games in the first round of State Basketball. Good games, but both teams came out on the losing end. Saratoga did go on to win 5th place though.

After the games, we went up to Worland so we could watch my cousin Cody play in the 3A West Regional Tournament. Josh's brother Jeffrey was also up there with his girls team from Lyman. We had a good time- my grandma lives there so we stayed with her, and my mom and dad came over too. Again, both of our teams came up on the losing end. :( Neither one made it to State, so we'll get to enjoy a weekend home this coming weekend. That will be nice! Brecken will be sad though- the boys lives for basketball and popcorn these days.

macey

For the first time ever tonight, we had a high schooler over to babysit Brecken for us. We've never had to do that before because 1) there is not a lot of places to go here in Saratoga, and 2) we've always had adult friends invite Brecken to their house when we go out on the very rare occasion. But tonight, two couple friends of ours invited us out to the Saratoga Resort to watch the Cowboys play on TV. So we asked one of Josh's players, Macey, to come babysit. She and her boyfriend had come over to watch the Superbowl at our house for a little while and B fell in love with Macey. He cuddled right up to her and brought her book after book to read. For him, that's strange. Great, but strange- he's NOT a stranger lover! She was awesome with him. And so was her boyfriend- I wouldn't mind both of them coming over to babysit, but Hayden left tonight for Casper for state basketball, as he is one of the stars on the team.

Anyway, Brecken was so excited to have Macey come play with him. She had barely gotten in the door when he grabbed her hand and dragged her downstairs where all his toys are. Josh and I were left in the dust looking like a couple of rejects. :) We went downstairs to tell her the pizza was on the counter and where to find our phone numbers and found Brecken taking anything he could find and saying, "Look at this, Macey!" It was quite hilarious. So we took the opportunity to sneak out.

When we got home a couple hours later, he was still playing hard! Macey told us the great news- he never cried! We had expected him to freak when he realized we were gone, since this was the first time anyone's ever come to babysit him! But I guess they went upstairs to eat dinner and he said, "Where my mommy and daddy went?" and she told him we'd be back and he said OK and continued eating. YAY!!! I'm so glad. And when Macey got her shoes on so Josh could take her home, Brecken cried and said, "Macey no go home! No go home!!" I'm super glad he liked her. I told Josh we'll have to go out again next week. :)

The best part? She's a freshman. Three more years of fabulous babysitting! :)

"get the bike from the garbage."

It was SOOO nice outside today! It was the first day in months we've been able to go outside to play without being blown away or freezing to death. So, out we went. We only needed sweatshirts, even- that's how nice it was. On our way out, Brecken told me "Get the bike from the garbage." Garbage and Garage are easy words to get mixed up. :)

So, the boy with his bike was able to ride again.

in the pink

What a fun weekend we had with the Pink games! No official number yet, but we think somewhere between $4000 and $5000 was raised. Awesome! And to add to the awesome-ness, Josh's girls WON both games!! The one against Hanna was a nailbiter, but we pulled out the win- by ONE. Phew. Yesterday afternoon his girls beat Encampment by 11. We're on a two win streak going into Regionals this weekend! :)

The Hanna girls were wearing the same pink t-shirts that were handed out at the UW pink game last weekend. They wore them as their warm-ups and the coaches were wearing them with dress pants. The Hanna boys wore pink sweat bands around their arms. The Encampment girls wore pink hairbows in their hair and pink socks, too. The pink socks looked fabulous with the red shoes. :) The girls' coaches wore pink dress clothes. And ALL the players, boys AND girls, showed up in pink dress clothes- pink dresses, pink shirts and ties, etc. The Encampment crowd showed up in a lot of pink, too. How awesome.


Both nights had a 50/50 raffle, in which over $800 was raised. Friday night, one of Josh's girls won it. And she gave it back to be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. What a good girl. Yesterday's winner did the same thing.

The head ref from yesterday donated his proceeds for reffing back to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. That was classy.


A ref that they've had throughout the season, but didn't ref this weekend, had bought 12 t-shirts for the ladies in his office. He also gave $50 to the 50/50 raffle but didn't want tickets. This past Wednesday, he came to practice and told the girls what they need to do to draw the fouls in their favor instead of against them. He told them they were ALMOST there and if they did these things the fouls would work for them. He was right- it worked this weekend. He did one other amazing thing this weekend, which I'll get to.

The woman who donated the jerseys got presented with a framed, signed one of her own. She was shocked and amazed. That was fun to watch.

They also had a framed, signed jersey to auction off yesterday. They did it yesterday because Encampment people have money and they love giving it away. (Encampment School has a cake auction each year and last year made a new record for total funds raised in an hour and a half of selling cakes- $14,200.) They figured the Encampment people would get in on the bidding, and sure enough, they did. The jersey was not auctioned off once, not twice, but THREE times. I was in awe. The ref I talked about earlier won it first. He donated it back to be auctioned off again. The second time, it was won by an Encampment couple. They also donated it back to be auctioned off again. The THIRD time, it was won by another Encampment couple, who then donated it to Saratoga High School to be hung. I had some serious goosebumps going on by the end of all this. :) I think the final total for the jersey was somewhere around $1400. Wow.


All in all, it was a great weekend. I'm excited for this to become an annual thing. The Encampment girls' coach said she's thinking of getting white jerseys with pink trim, so they can wear tem when they play Saratoga again this weekend next year. Fun!

Some more pictures of the fun:

"You called WHAT, ref?!" :

pink panthers

This weekend's basketball games will be a little different- the Saratoga Lady Panthers have teamed up with the Women's Basketball Coach's Association and are doing a "Think Pink" weekend.

The "Think Pink" weekend raises money for breast cancer research and all money raised this weekend will go to the Wyoming Chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. A framed jersey will be auctioned off at the game on Saturday, and a 50/50 raffle will be done. A generous grant from the Gretchen Swanson Family Foundation made it possible for the team to buy pink uniforms for this weekend, which will be worn each year during the "Think Pink" weekend.

We're pretty excited about this- Josh has been working since last fall to make this happen. The school made t-shirts that say "Pink Panthers" on them and they have sold like hotcakes. Even Encampment is getting into this, since they come to play Saratoga on Saturday. The Lady Tigers are rumored to be showing up with pink socks and pink hairbows, and the Encampment crowd is planning on wearing pink to the game. The Saratoga boys are even getting in on the action, by wearing "Pink Panther" t-shirts as their warm-ups. I think that's fantastic!

no, my child is not dramatic.

OK, so maybe he is.

Note to self- do not eat another one of Brecken's chips without asking. Dinner tonight was a Mexican-type dish that tastes fantastic when scooped up with tortilla chips. I took one of Brecken's and ate it with gusto, because that usually makes him laugh and then take one himself and eat it. Anything to get the kid to EAT, right? Apparently it wasn't funny tonight. He BURST into tears. Huge ol' crocodile tears. "My chip! I want it!" he kept wailing. It got to the point where he had to go sit with Daddy in his chair and snuggle and calm down. "My chip! I want it!" Josh kept telling him, "Buddy, Mommy didn't know you wanted that one so she ate it. It's in her belly, so we can't get it back." Man, if looks could kill.... Brecken made me feel incredibly guilty!! TEN MINUTES of crying. It was quite something. We had a whole bag full of chips, I gave him some of mine, he had a million on his plate, but he wanted that ONE. The one that was in my belly.

Nope, not dramatic at all. :)