Merry Christmas!

I say this every year but Christmas this year was a lot of fun! I just love this time of year and all of the fun family traditions that we get to participate in! Here is Luke on Christmas morning:

Austin woke up at 6:00, and he was ready! So we woke up Caleb and Dad, who both weren't quite ready to wake up yet (next year we will be waiting until 7)
This is a picture of all of the Bruun cousins. My mom gets them pjs every year. This year my brother Cameron, who is on a mission in Sweden, called at 8 am, so we were all at my moms pretty early in the morning!

I had to include this close up of Luke and his twin cousins, Colin and Trevin, I think it's so funny and he looks huge sitting next to them (they are 6 months apart)

On Christmas Eve after we read the nativity and sang Christmas carols we found some Michael Jackson music videos and decided to watch them. It was a lot of fun watching all of the kids dance to Thriller, and Bad! My favorite is Matt's Christmas turtleneck!

While we were having our Christmas program, Andy put his sister Katie (who lives in West Virginia) on video phone so she still got to participate! Here everyone is looking at her new little baby Beau.

Austins favorite present was his lego castle, he worked all day on the day after Christmas to complete it!

We were in quite a state of shock to realize how stinkin' spoiled our kids were this year! But then again we spoiled each other as well! Do you ever have years where you decide you are not going to get anything for each other? Well that's what we did last year and so this year we did the opposite and got each other too many things! But who doesn't like gettting spoiled every once in a while :). My favorite thing that Andy gave me were my blog books. He made and printed two blog books from the past two years and it was a huge surprise because I had never even mentioned that I wanted them! He also got me a laptop! His favorite present for sure was his apple tv. We have spent the past three days straight watching Battlestar Galactica!

We have had a great year haging out with family and eating tons of delicious food! Now it's time to stop eating so much good food and go on a diet!

"Family Fun"

On the day after Thanksgiving we headed up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square and to stay in a hotel for a night. We thought it would be a great way to spend time as a family. Well, as you might know, things don't always turn out as planned. We stopped at the Mayan to eat before heading up to SL and right when we were getting ready to leave Austin threw up all over the floor and my coat (after already taking him to the bathroom twice)! Well we just thought he had a fluke throw up experience and we continued on our way. We were just pulling up to the temple when we hear some gagging and a huge splash (we didn't think to even think to give him a barf bag)! So now Austin, his whole seat, the floor, and even the seat in front of him are covered in throw up! But determined to make to best of it we continue to the hotel, where I put Austins pjs on in the parking lot and we head up to the hotel (leaving the mess for another day and trying not to think about it:). Me, Austin and Luke stay at the hotel and rent a 15.00! movie while Caleb and dad head up to Temple Square. So while it wasn't the trip we had envisioned we still had a good time and at least we slept well-Caleb had his own queen bed while Andy and I shared the other, Austin was on a roll away and Luke in the pack n play.

Caleb refused to be in this picture with the boys

At least he got one with me

Here he is enjoying the lights with dad


These pictures are not part of the trip but I thought they were fun. Here is Caleb and Luke in 2010.



Here is Austin and Caleb in 2007. I didn't realize just how chubby Luke is until I see this picture of Caleb when he was the same age!

Luke update

Luke loves to smile, sleep and eat baby food! He has been a lot of fun and the boys love him! He is 5 months old.

SNOW!

It snowed a couple of days before Halloween and apparently I promised Austin that we would build a snowman. I didn't quite remember it that way but we decided to compromise and build some baby snowmen. There was hardly any snow but the boys still had tons of fun!

A Mother's Worst Nightmare

As a mom you have so many hopes and dreams for your children. You want everything in the world for them and you want them to be the best and achieve all of their dreams. Well, something that I’m really starting to learn in this life is that sometimes Heavenly Father has a different plan in mind.

Yesterday, we took Caleb up to Primary Children’s Hospital, after waiting almost 3 months, to see a pediatric neurologist. We found out that our sweet, funny, happy, blue eyed boy has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, or DMD. DMD is a genetic, degenerative disease that affects all voluntary muscles, and the heart and breathing muscles. Caleb will be in a wheelchair no later than 14 and most likely not live past the age of 30.

It was such an incredibly hard thing to hear. You never want to hear that your child is the one that will be different and possibly get teased and not be able to do the things that everyone else can. You never want to hear that the hopes and dreams you had for your child may not happen. I have gone through so many emotions but mostly sadness. Every time I look at his face, I can’t help but get a little teary eyed or simply burst into tears!

But I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Caleb was sent to our family for a reason. He truly is so happy and content with life, ask anyone who knows him. I also know that every moment in this life matters. Family is so important! I don’t care if I ever live in that big dream house or drive a Tahoe or have fancy clothes (yes, things I wanted before :). All I care about is making every precious moment count.

I want to thank everyone that has fasted and prayed for little Caleb and for our family. We have received so many texts, emails, and phone calls. We love you all so much and I know with your awesome help and support that it will be okay and we will be able to give Caleb the best life possible!

First Day of Kindergarten.............among other things

Today was Austin's first day of Kindergarten. I wasn't that sad sending him off since it's only three hours, from 8:00-10:53 (to be exact) but it was a little weird sending him off to the big school. I think the hardest adjustment will be getting him to bed early and waking him up early to be ready in time.

He was way excited to go and wear his new batman backpack. He loves his teacher, Miss Johnson. He enjoyed his first day and the only name he remembers from all the kids in his class is a girl named Megan. Should I be worried he can only remember a girl name? Hopefully not! Caleb will be starting preschool next week with Miss (Grammy) Tammy. He is excited to go.

Luke is three months now and smiles all the time. He has just started reaching out for things and he loves sucking on his hands. He refuses to take a binki, what a stinker! But he's a lot of fun and he sleeps through the night, so I can't complain!

Here is a picture I took of Caleb and Luke in matching shirts that I bought when Caleb was a baby. I have almost this exact same picture of Austin and Caleb. Maybe someday I'll post it.

Austin started playing soccer and he loves it. His cousin Jack is also on the team. They have a lot of fun chasing the ball back and forth hoping for a kick every now and then. It's pretty entertaining to watch, luckily they don't keep score yet!

Here's Austin and Jack in action. They are in the blue shirts, Jack is in red shorts and Austin in the black shorts. Austin helping Jack up, what a great teammate!

Happy Birthday Caleb!

So I keep thinking that I'm going to sit down and do a huge post and catch up on the past few months, but life with 3 kids is a little crazy and it's not going to happen. So I am just starting freash with Caleb's birthday. I can't believe Caleb is 3 already, time flies! Caleb is such a happy, funny little boy, he makes me laugh all the time. I am so thankful that he is part of my family of boys. We had his party at Dallin and Sarah's house and everyone had a ton of fun! Here he is going down the slide
Sorry about this random picture of Luke, I tried to put it at the bottom but blogger is not cooperating. It's a lot of fun to see Luke smile! Now back to Caleb's party:

The party guests

Blowing out his candles, Aunt Sarah made this cake and it was so cute! Thanks Sarah!

Checking out his train table from mom and dad

Other news: For everyone who doens't know about three weeks after Luke was born, we moved into a house in Orem. We love Orem and it has been wondeful to have space again and to send the boys out into the backyard to play! Luke is now 9 weeks old and is such a good little boy and his brothers love him. My little (not so little anymore) brother, Cameron, just left to go into the MTC and in 9 weeks he will be headed off to Sweden, we will miss him. We are having a great summer spending lots of time with both Andy's fam and my fam.

Luke Franklin

So I keep thinking I am going to have time to sit down and write a huge post about Luke and the story of his birth and everything, but so far time is something I don't have. Three kids is a lot of work!! But here are a few pictures. Austin and Caleb both love Luke and are very cute with him and they always tell me when the baby is crying. It has been a lot of fun, and Luke is a very good baby. He is 2 weeks old now and weighs 8lbs 9oz.

New Baby

This is Luke very sleepy



This is Luke awake. Well kind of....

I'll let Kayli type something fun when she is rested.

Our Little Graduate

Austin had his preschool program and graduation yesterday. He was so cute singing all of his songs and dancing with the girls, I can't believe he will be in Kindergarten soon, he is growing way too fast. I'm sure everyone feels this way when their first goes to Kindergarten, but I feel so old!

Here he is siging with his class. His class had 8 girls and only 4 boys, but he loved it!

Getting his diploma from his teacher Miss Tammy (Grandma)

Him and Jack, hanging out together as new graduates.

*One more week until baby comes. This was the last big event that I wanted to get done with before he came, so now I am just waiting and hoping he comes real soon! I am at the point where I am willing to get up in the night and deal with 3 kids, I am just sick of having him in my tummy and the sooner he comes the better, blah!!

Rare Moments

After a really bad day, I won't go into details, but this day was not my proudest as a mom, and my kids were not the best behaved (you know those days), I came into the family room to find this:

I just had to smile because this is such a rare moment, and they were both being so good. I'm glad I had a good ending to a not so good day.
Here they are another day watching a movie on dad's i-pad, Austin's new favorite toy!
Love you boys!

Dear Baby,

Ready when you are. Everything is set up and ready, just waiting on you. Three weeks left, although if you want to come sooner, I am perfectly okay with that!
Love, Mom

How to create michief during naptime

Step 1: stand on bed and open curtains to let in the light

Step 2: empty shelves of toys, books, and pjs

Step 3: put toys, books, and pjs into pack n play (and whatever else you can find on the floor and in the closet)

Step 4: be as happy as can be even when mom is yelling at you

Step 5: repeat again the next day

Side note: The pack n play is set up in Calebs room because if he doesn't stay in his bed for naptime (never does) then he has to go into the pack n play. I guess he decided if he filled it up with a ton of crap, then he wouldn't have to go into it, and it worked for the past two days because I have been too lazy to clean it out. But his weekend fun is over, today he will be taking a nice nap in his pack n play!