What's up!

It's about time I guess that I update everyone on what we've been up to. Robert's new job at Dyno Nobel is sometimes a little "explosive" but he hasn't blown up yet, so I guess things are going well. He's learning a ton and has just started studying for the CFA exam. He has about 2,000 pages of material to study before the first part of the test in July, so wish him luck. There will be another 2 tests each a year apart. He's learning it for the sake of learning for his job though, and the studying has actually be very helpful for him on the job. He does a lot of forcasting for the company and budgeting and general management.

Ethan is playing basketball and seems to be getting better. He's pretty quick. I wish he would hang around the basket a little longer to get the rebounds though. Someone tosses the ball up to the basket and before it's swooshed or not, he's down at the other end of the court. He's doing really well in school and still loves math. I've started having him work on a website I found called coolmath4kids when he doesn't have other homework. He's been going through all the Algebra lessons and really enjoys learning about it. The only thing at school he's not really motivated for is writing, so we're trying to work on that a little too. He enjoys Scouts. There are a lot of boys his age in the neighborhood and lots of Merit Badge classes available in the area, so he's been working some on that. He and Ashlee also have been working hard on a snowfort in the backyard. Although, with the rain the last couple of days, I think they'll have to start over again when it snows again.

Ashlee is combing her hair!!!! That has got to be some sort of accomplishment. She actually asked me to put her hair in a pony tail this morning and didn't complain too much. I'm so glad my little girl finally wants to be a princess. Speaking of, she's been working on that too. She bought a book about Princesses and has been trying to act more the part lately. She's doing really well in violin. We've been practicing a lot. I need to find her a bigger violin though because she's really outgrown the one she's on. She loves Activity Days and playing with friends. She's been very motivated lately to get up early and get her chores done before school starts. I told the kids if they had everything done before 8:00 every morning, I'd double their allowance. So far, it's only working for Ashlee. She's turning out to be quite the early riser. She's also doing Ballet and will hopefully start a Jazz class soon. I've also started teaching the kids piano formally in the last couple of weeks instead of the sometimes lessons I was doing before, so they're actually starting to progress.

Kyle is learning to control his behavior under the influence of sugar. We had a little mishap last week at school after I had let him take some hard candy to school in his lunch, and we decided sugar probably wasn't a good idea for him. Well, after a week of abstinance, I finally let him bring a few oreos yesterday, and he told me this morning that yesterday after lunch, he sat really still in his desk and folded his arms the whole afternoon. I think it did the trick, but we're still going to watch the sugar intake, because it does make a difference for him. He's also been trying to walk a little faster to and from school, instead of lingering and picking up snowballs on the way. It was a little frustrating for Ethan and Ashlee to wait for him all the time. I guess I could have told them it was payback, but they shouldn't expect payback for another 15 years or more. All in all, I think Kyle is making progress. He's also becoming quite the math wiz. He keeps telling his teacher to give him harder math to do. He is really into sports. He's been playing basketball this month and wants to start Spring soccer as well. I'm glad he's so motivated.

Ammon is finally potty-training! I'm expecting this process to last for the next 4 months or more, but I'm hoping by the time the baby comes, he'll be doing pretty well. For a while I thought I'd just wait until he was ready and just trained himself. Well, not going to happen. The first Sunday of the year, when he was sitting in a Sunbeam class, I thought. This is really embarrassing to send a Sunbeam to church in diapers, so I decided it was time. You'd think I'd have the whole potty-training thing figured out by now, after doing it 3 times, but I guess, it's my toddler trial, I still need to figure out. The soft stools haven't made it very easy either. Speaking of, After the endoscopy, the doctor's found nothing. It was somewhat of a relief, but still, I'm wondering what is causing the soft stools. Maybe he'll just grow out of it? The doctor said to treat him with Immodium, which works sometimes. Oh well. Other than that, we're having a fun time hanging out with eachother during the day. He likes to have me play with him, which I do for a little while, but he also plays pretty well independently too. He's really funny, so I laugh everyday. I love 2 and 3 year-olds.

My calling in the church is currently Jr. Primary Chorister. It's been really fun. Not at first. I have to admit, I wasn't thrilled with the call, but I decided to pretend to really like it, and it worked. Now, I look forward to coming up with new ways to teach the songs. I volunteer at the school a little and always have a project or two going on. I have to have several projects because I lose interest so easily. I wish I could just finish a project and moving on, but I like to jump from one thing to the next. It's so much more exciting that way.

So, I guess this blog was more of an informative blog. I hope it didn't bore anyone. I ran into a friend from high school at Costco yesterday. That was weird. She actually recognized me and remembered my name. Her name is Minette. We figured it has been 18 years since we've seen eachother. I feel so old!!! I can't believe I'm going to be 35 this year. Life keeps marching on. Love you all. I'm a little nostalgic thinking today about all the friends that have touched my life or my kid's lives. I hope you know that I think about you all often.

I have not fallen off the face of the earth

So, I know it's been a few weeks since my last post, but I thought I should let you know that I am still around. The holidays come upon me and I just get swept up with the festivities, not to mention all the projects. Why is it that the ideas don't come to me until a week or two before Christmas? Well, I've been doing some woodworking, sewing and baking, but it has really been fun.

I have also decided to start teaching piano lessons again. I've been trying to practice more to get prepared for that, and it's been really great! I love playing the piano. I'm hoping to find a few students soon. So far I have 3 of my kids and 2 nieces signed up.

Big news! Robert has a new job. He gave his resignation to PWC today and will start at Dyno Nobel in Salt Lake on January 12th. We are really pleased with how everything has worked out and know that we have been truly blessed. Robert didn't want me to put anything in our Christmas poem until he was for sure things were going through. The company is an Australian company that deals in explosives and fertilizer. He'll be doing some new things and is excited about the opportunity and challenge. The stress really melted with this news. I'm really glad his schedule will be a little more predictable.

Robert's 37th birthday was pretty amazing. He got the news about the job at about 11pm, the night before, and the next morning he was able to go on a tour of Jerusalem. He happened to be in Israel for a project for work. It was pretty exciting. I'll get him to send me some of his pictures, and post them soon.

We also celebrated Sinterklaas on December 5th. This is the Dutch version of Santa Claus. We each got books and chocolate letters from Sinterklaas. It's fun to have extra traditions even though it requires a little more work. We've also made a couple of pretty cool gingerbread houses. We made 2 this year and let the kids work on one while Robert and I worked on the other. I'll let you guess which one is which.

All the Christmas cards got sent out yesterday along with all the packages, so things have sort of eased off. Now if I can just get all the sewing projects done... Of course, there's always something more.

So, here's the update on Monkey #4. We took him to Primary Children's Hospital this week to have an endoscopy done. It was pretty involved, but he was a real champ. When we got to the hospital, they asked if he'd like to have a visit from the "Grizzlies" (the hockey team). They brought him a teddy bear and talked to him for a little bit. That was kind of cool. He wasn't really sure what was going on though. They put him under General Anesthetic, so he didn't feel much of anything. He was only a little mad at me when he woke up. I think he was more mad because he was having a nice nap and I was getting him up. The insides look pretty good. I'd post some pictures, but it might gross some of you out. They took biopsies of his small intestine, stomach and esophagus to check for what might be going on with his digestive system. We'll get the results tomorrow morning, so I'll have to post those when I get them. I think he has a gluten intolerance, but we'll find out tomorrow.

Well, if you can't tell, I'm really tired and going to bed. I'm sorry if some of this is incoherent. I'm sure most of you can understand the daze I feel I am in, as most of you are in that same Christmas Daze of little or no sleep.

Happy shopping, project-ing, and wrapping!

It's a .....

I haven't posted in a while. My excuse is an internet connection that isn't totally reliable, but it does work, so my other excuses include, being engrossed with the 3rd book of the Inheritance series, Brisingr. This one got a little long and a little gory. I made it through because I thought it was a triology and I would be finishing the whole thing. What a rude trick, the last page says to look for the concluding story in the 4th book. Oh well. I like reading easy novels every once in a while to lighten me up a little. Now, I'm starting on "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs. So far it's pretty interesting. The author is an editor for "Esquire" magazine and lives in New York. He attempts to live the Bible as literally as possible for an entire year. It's interesting to see him trying to interpret what the bible says. I think I'd have some real difficulty. Robert and I have been reading the Old Testament together. I told him the other morning that I think the Old Testament was totally fabricated because I just can't believe some of these stories in it. We just read a story about some guy who has a concubine. He stays with her family for a few days, then they decide to go home. It's pretty late, but they find lodging in a city held by the tribe of Benjamin. Well, the men of the city come to the house and want the guy for their own pleasure. Well, the man of the house tells them not to take him, but gives them his concubine instead. They rape and ravage her and send her back nearly dead. The guy wakes up the next morning, finds her dead on the porch, so he cuts her body up into 12 pieces and sends a piece of her to each of the 12 tribes at which point they go and annhialate the tribe of Benjamin. Well, 300 men escape and suddenly the other tribes realize, "we can't totally kill off an entire tribe," so they go to a nearby country, kill everyone except the virgins, and bring them back to the 300 men and give them to wife so the tribe can be propagated. True story, found in the final chapters of Judges. Now, somebody explain that one to me.

Well, enough on the bible. I'm kind of rambling. The other thing I've been working on is a desk for Ashlee. We bought a roll desk from my sister and brother-in-law which I have been refinishing. I thought woodworking might be sort of fun. Well, I decided today, it's not... I am not having fun sanding this incredibly stiff stain off this incredibly old desk. I guess it may be worth it when it's all done. I'll post some pictures when it's done. At least Ashlee will have a place for all her little things that are currently taking up residence on her floor and in her closet.

The other little bit of news I have is that I got to see our baby on Tuesday. It was a little shy at first. We had to shake and poke it quite a bit to get it to let us see anything. Well, the good news is, it's healthy and growing as it should. I had her take a real close look at the umbilical cord and no problems thus far. All the fingers and toes appear to be there and no extra limbs, so that's good. Well, to make a long story longer, it's a boy! Yep! I get to raise 4 boys and 1 girl. You can imagine that the girl was a little disappointed. When I told her, she went in her room and sobbed. I tried to comfort her. I told her that since she's the only girl, she gets to inherit all my girly things when I die. That kind of perked her up a little. I also told her that we can spend some quality time together since we're the only girls doing girly things. Well, she's sort of over it now I think, and we're all excited to welcome this new little one into our home. Somehow, I know this is our last one, so I'm really savoring all of it and having a wonderful pregnancy.

I love you and hope I didn't bore you to tears with this post.

Busy October

I thought I'd share some photos from this month. The kids had a great time trick-or-treating with their cousins. A couple of my brothers and my sister came out with us. We had a ghostly dinner that was great fun to prepare thanks to Family Fun Magazine.

We also had a fun time at Cornbelly's in Lehi. It's a huge maze of maize. This year's maze was carved in the shape of David Archuleto, Utah's Idol. (Kind of funny, I know.) Anyway, that was great fun. We lost Kyle in the maze for quite a while and I was a little worried about him. Funny story though. I was writing on everyone's water bottle with a sharpie as we were getting out of the car and I thought, maybe I'll just put my cell phone number on Ammon's hand if he gets lost, someone can call me. Then I thought, I'll put it on Kyle's hand too. Sure enough, after a while, he found a nice family who asked if he was lost. He showed them his hand and asked them to call. It didn't take too long to find him after that. I was grateful for that bit of inspiration. It's a pretty big maze and I wasn't looking forward to organizing a search party.

Things are plugging along pretty well. We enjoyed the warmest Halloween night in Utah in a decade or more. I guess we brought California weather with us.

We love you all.

Weekend Memories

I just thought I'd update on the Brouwer family. We had such a fun time with my Provo siblings and their families last night. My brother, Jim and his family live and work at Aspen Grove in the mountains. My sister, Emily and her husband, Craig and my brother Scott and his wife Karissa are going to BYU/UVU. They all came over for dinner and we had such a great "adult" conversation together. I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you, but I've felt a little isolated from my family, especially the younger ones because we are so far apart in age. Emily is 12 years younger than I am, but now that they are older, I feel like we have so much more in common and our conversations have more substance. You can say what you want about being from a big family or raising a large family. I got all sorts of comments when I was younger. One girl accused my parents of over-populating the world and using precious resources. Growing up in a large family wasn't always easy. I think we all felt a lack of attention from our parents. (Really, what kid doesn't!?) But, what we lacked in attention from our parents, we certainly received from our siblings. And now! I wouldn't trade any of them for anything. They are really amazing people and I'm just so glad to live close enough to some of them now to really get to know them. Most of them were really young when I left home, it's fun to get to know who they have become. I know it wasn't always easy for my mom and dad to raise us all. (I think I was probably the most difficult teenager.) But, thanks Mom and Dad for doing an awesome job at it!

Okay, away from the soliloquy on the family. Now, I can move on to my amazing husband who didn't complain at all about me taking all of Saturday off. I went to a really great Enrichment Activity at the church. I made several Christmas gifts and a few cute things for my house. It was nice to get to know some of the ladies at my church too. Then, I got my hair done and met up with Robert's family for dinner. During all of this, Robert took the kids to Ethan's 2 Lacrosse games and to the BYU football game. He didn't complain about it at all, and I think the kids had a great time with their dad, and I definitely got some great R&R.

I've been researching Lactose Intolerance and Coeliac Disease for the last couple of days. I'm concerned that Ammon might have Coeliac. I won't get into the gorey details, but it's an intestinal disease that affects the villi in the small intestine. If it is, he'll have to go on a lifetime gluten-free diet. Not much fun, I'm sure. I'm going to have him tested at the doctor. His stools are never solid. I've had him milk-free for a long time, and dairy free for the last couple of weeks and it hasn't helped him all that much. Not much fun potty-training a consistent diarrhea kid! :-0 Anyway, I'll keep you all updated on his condition. We've recently switched to ricemilk instead of soymilk because I've heard that might cause problems as well. I didn't know when I signed up to be a mother, I'd automatically be drafted to doctor/researcher.

Anyway, great memories! I love you all. I'll get some pictures on here just as soon as I find the camera. I know it's buried here somewhere!

Traveling Salesmen groups

We just got solicited, again, by the magazine salesmen. They came by yesterday and I turned them away. My husband was around today and they hit him up. They almost got him too. Luckily, I've done a little research on these groups. They are generally black teens who say they are from inner-cities. They are generally trying to get out of the ghettos and gang problems. Sometimes they are trying to get points to get their kids back out of foster care by holding down a steady job. (That was the story today). They all have a well-rehearsed story that tugs at your heart-strings. It makes you almost want to buy from them. The fact is that most of their stories are well fabricated. The people that are getting rich off these scams are the magazine companies and the teen sales pushing companies.

The industry is riddled with exploitation of youth, mysterious deaths in van-rollovers, hiring of known felons, rapes, robbings and worse. When you are supporting these kids, you are actually supporting an immoral industry that is promoting slavery once again. There are better ways for these kids to get out of the slums.

Anyway, I just thought I’d give you something to go by, since I’m generally a pretty good sucker (or have been in the past), I’m afraid I’ve gotten pushed into these scams a few times. But NO MORE! If you’re interested in finding out more, check out this website: Magazine Scams and Rip offs

For all you crafty people

Okay, so I've never claimed to be creative in the decorating sense. Most of my house is still picturless because I can't decide where my pictures should hang. I generally leave those decisions to Robert because he usually does a better job at it than I do. So, I have a dilemma. Some of you creative, crafty people might be able to give me some ideas.

Our family has a list of about 10 family mottos that we made in a Family Home Evening at one point. We put them on a really ugly posterboard with marker that I had hanging in our home in Danville. I'm ready to update our look. I've thought about putting them on 10 different wooden plaques with vinyl lettering or toll painting. Just putting the vinyl lettering directly on the wall. Maybe the vinyl lettering on the wall interspersed with framed family pictures. Maybe I could hire one of my very talented sisters-in-law or a couple sisters to make a caligraphy artwork for me to frame and just hang on the wall. Does anyone have any suggestions?