Valentine's Day

I forgot to put in my post last week that on Tuesday night at basketball Brittney was telling me about the boys liking a girl on Thunderstruck so I asked Kolton if he liked anyone in the movie Thunderstruck.  He got all embarrassed and said he like Isabell and said he wants to go in the movie and hug and kiss and marry her.  It was funny.  Brittney said that Kade said they wanted to give her "juicy kisses." Haha. 

Thursday was Valentine's Day!! Thursday morning Kolton and I went to Little River Park with Jill and her kids.  While we were there Brady's parents came and brought Kolton some sugar cookies.  The kids all loved them! We stayed at the park too long (as usual) and had to rush home and get Kolton's backpack and grab a smoothie and run him to school.  Brady had a meeting to go to during lunch so he didn't get to come home for lunch on Valentine's Day.  Bummer.  At 2:15 I went back to Kolton's school to go to his Valentine's party.  His face just lit up when I walked in his class.  It was so sweet! They painted with toilet paper rolls, made candy necklaces, and made ice cream. 

 This is Kolton and his friend Zane. 

 After they were all done with their stations they sat down and were able to get their bags of Valentine's and look through them before school was out.  Kolton is really good friends with the girl sitting next to him, Ava.  He also really likes Zane and Jaycen who are sitting on the other side of him. 

 Our sweet boy on Valentine's Day.  He is just too cute.  After he came home from school we went to Brady's work and brought him brownie bites from Baked. Then after Brady came home from work we ate dinner (I picked up Earl's for Brady and got sonic for Kolton and I), had fruit pizza, and watched the Thunder get demolished by the Heat.  It was embarrassing. 

I sure do love Brady, though.  So glad he is my Valentine and will always be my Valentine.  We make a good team.  :)

 Friday morning we got up real early to go to Academy and stand in line to buy some ammo.  I went with Brady so I could buy a box too (you are only allowed one box per person).  Then we headed to Anadarko to fight the ticket Brady got when we went hunting in January.  We said a prayer as we were leaving to help us with this ticket.  When we got there they told him that he needed to go see the DA.  So, we went downstairs and in to the DA's office.  He also noticed on his file that it said "Braiden Brammer vs. State of Oklahoma." It seemed like this ticket was a much bigger deal than we thought.  When he went in to the DA's office to talk to her the way she reacted to his ticket surprised him too.  She told him it was a big deal and not good.  So, he explained what happened and that he wasn't trying to do anything illegal and is a law abiding citizen and hasn't had a ticket for anything in 13 years etc. etc.  After hearing his side she decided to reduce the fine to $25 and said it would be off his record in 30 days.  We were so grateful! I know it was an answer to our prayers! The whole ordeal ended up costing us about $40 instead of $250.  After doing research, Brady realized that this ticket is a misdemeanor. Glad it will be off his record in 30 days. 

 On our way home we stopped by Bass Pro so Brady could look around at hunting stuff (it is safe to say he is obsessed with it all).  Then we took a nap, woke up at 4:00 and went to the park to play baseball (Kolton had been asking for a couple of days so we told him we'd go on Friday afternoon since Brady would be off of work).  Then that night we went to London's basketball game. 

Saturday morning I woke up to a clean house! Friday we trashed the place (as usual when Brady has the day off) and the kitchen, especially, needed some work.  Brady woke up early that morning to clean it before I woke up.  It was awesome! I was so grateful! I hate a messy house so it put me in a good mood to start the Saturday! We then headed to Kolton's last basketball game.  I video taped it with our video camera (which we haven't used in years).  It made me realize I need to use it more often! It was sad knowing this was the last game. 

These pictures are from Brittney from the week before. 

 Saturday afternoon we went to Pierson's game.  Saturday evening we were supposed to go on a triple date with the Foys and the Himes.  The Foys ended up not being able to go and then about 45 minutes before we were supposed to leave Kolton got up on Brady's lap and he felt kind of warm so Brady took his temperature and he had a fever of 101.  I was so bummed.  We were supposed to go to the Cheesecake Factory and then to the adult session of stake conference and this was supposed to be our Valentine's date.  Anyway, I felt so bad calling Jill and telling her we couldn't go since the Foys already had said they couldn't go either.  It was a bummer.  So we got Kolton a redbox movie and forced him to lay around and watch the movie and get some rest.  He woke up Sunday morning fine with no fever or sore throat at all.  So, that was good!

Sunday night after we read scriptures and said prayer, we went to put him to bed he said he wanted to read the Book of Mormon by himself.  He said to me "I can't read but I'll just go like this..." and put his finger along the words.  It was cute.  So, I told him he could for a couple minutes and that I'd come in and tell him when it was time to finish. 

Monday night Kolton had a basketball party.  His coach wanted to do something special for them and give them their medals so we all pitched in and rented a bounce house place in Mustang.  The kids got to play for about an hour and a half and had a blast.  Some of us adults got up there and did it too.  The kids then ate some dinner and got their medals.  It was fun!

 Kolton made a list of things he wanted to take to basketball last week.  He sounded the words out entirely by himself.  I was impressed! Usually I say the words and he listens to the sounds and writes the letter he thinks makes that sound but this time he sounded it out himself without me doing it for him. He wrote: KARS (cars), CRACRS (crackers), BASGBL (Basketball), FOOTBAL GUES (Football guys).  I love it!!

Tuesday morning Kolton and I played LOTS of games of tic tac toe.   

 After school on Tuesday I called and texted Brittney and Jill and asked if they wanted to go to the park because it was so nice outside that afternoon and I knew Wednesday and Thursday were supposed to be cold and rainy.  We were there until almost 5:00 and Kolton had so much fun! We've been working with him this week to be nicer to his friends.  I've been so worried about him lately.  I want so desperately to have him be a nice, sweet boy to those around him.  So, we are trying to work with him to help him with that. I told him on the way to the park that it was a test to see how he could be nice to his friends.  He did a pretty good job! I was proud of him.   

Tuesday night we had basketball.  Brittney didn't want to come but she sent Kade with Sterling so the boys had a fun time playing on the stage.  And they had it all to themselves and got along perfectly.  It was great! Basketball was crazy (there was 20 people there).  That is just TOO many.  On the way home from basketball Brady and I were talking about how we wanted to go on a date and Kolton asked if he'd be babysat.  Then he corrected himself really quick and said "I mean BIGSIT because we're BIG!"  It was cute that he felt the need to make that distinction. 

Tuesday night my sister and her dance studio performed during the halftime show at the Jazz game.  I wasn't able to be there but I'm still proud of her for doing it! Her young women group came to watch her too!

Wednesday we woke up to snow.  Actually, when we woke up it was just raining but about 30 minutes later it had turned to snow, which was unexpected.  I had Brittney bring her kids over at about 9:00 so I could watch them and she could have a couple hours of alone time to do whatever she wanted.  The kids had fun playing basketball, superheros, and Trouble.  

 I fed them all lunch and then Brittney came to pick them up at about 12:40 to go to school. 

Wednesday night my dad came to visit.  Kolton was so excited and had so much fun with him! He got Grandpa to download a couple games to his new phone so he could play them, got many arm and back rubs, put together a puzzle with him, played basketball, ate ice cream, and cuddled.  It was fun having him come visit for a couple of hours!

And today we woke up to freezing rain so school was cancelled.  Its nice to just relax and not have to worry about taking Kolton to school.  He's loving his time too, to just play and relax.  Right now he's riding his scooter around the house and watching a Thomas the Train movie.  Oh the life of a 5 year old.  :)

And real quick...here's a picture of me when I was 4 1/2 holding my little brother Shawn.  It was fun to see this picture pop up on Facebook and see how much Kolton and I really do look alike. 

 

 

Love my boys!

So, Monday night, Brady had to close at the bank so he was going to not be home until after we had left for basketball practice.  Kolton and I ate dinner and then we left to go to practice.  As we were driving there he started complaining that his stomach hurt.  I asked him if we should go home or if he'd be ok.  He said he'd be ok so we continued to drive to practice.  When we pulled in to the parking lot he started moaning and so I told Kolton I thought we should go home because he obviously didn't feel well.  He agreed (which meant he really didn't feel good).  I called Brady and told him we were on our way home and good thing I did because he was driving over to practice to surprise Kolton.  Anyway, as we pulled in to the driveway Kolton totally threw up all over his seat and the floor of the car.  It was lovely.  I felt so bad for him.  He hates being sick.  I was so glad, too, that we had decided to drive home instead of go in to practice because that would have just been so embarrassing to have him throw up in the middle of practice.  Brady took Kolton inside and gave him a bath and I cleaned up the car because Brady just can't do throw up.  I will admit it was a pretty gross one.  Kolton dry heaved a couple more times during the night that night (we brought his mattress into our room) but was fine the next day. 

Here are some pictures of Kolton and I from Monday afternoon when we played basketball together outside.  He's so goofy! :)

 Tuesday I had to go buy some laundry soap because we ran out.  They didn't have any of the kind I usually buy and the cheapest one they had was $10.77 so I decided to finally try making my own laundry soap.  I didn't have the list of ingredients with me so I just tried to remember everything I needed.  It ended up costing me almost $13 to buy the ingredients and I still have enough of everything (except the bar of soap) to make another batch.  I'm thinking my batch will last me about 80-100 loads (which will last me about 8-10 weeks).  I usually go through a box of laundry soap every 3 weeks or so (its a small box) and it costs me $5.  So, this should be cheaper and it just felt good to make my own soap.  I felt like I was doing something to help our family.

Grating the bar of fels naptha was the hardest part.  My arm was so tired when I was done! :)

 The finished product!

I used 2 lbs borax

2 lbs super washing soda

1 1/2 lbs oxy clean

1 bar fels naptha

1/2 bottle of purex crystals (just to make the laundry smell good...after I use the other half of the bottle I may try using essential oils)

 I like it so far.  The first thing I washed was the dog's bedding and it didn't stink once it was washed so that's a good sign! I may try and make a liquid version once this is gone.  We'll see. 

We ended up having to do a police report for Brady for his identity theft that way he can have an alert on his social security number for 7 years.  He talked to our friend Jason, who is a detective for the Moore police, and he said that they really like to go after people like this so hopefully they find out who did this.  I'm just curious to see if it will be linked back to one of the car dealerships we visited because that's the only thing we've done recently where someone could have gotten our information. 

 I stayed with Madison Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night because Brady's parents were out of town.  We were all supposed to go over there but since Kolton had thrown up on Monday night we decided to keep him away from her so she wouldn't get sick. 

Thursday night I went and played volleyball with some ladies from church.  It was so fun.  I've never played before so I was pretty nervous and self conscious but I had a good time.  They'd cheer for me every time I'd hit the ball, so that was nice.  Haha. I only got hit in the face once with the ball, so that was good.  :)

Saturday morning Kolton had a basketball game.  Brady didn't have to work so he was able to come! Kolton played really well! There was a boy on the other team that was really good and Kolton's coach had Kolton switch arm bands with another kid so he could guard him and Kolton did really well.  It really made Kolton step up his game even more and he played 10 times better than he normally does (and he normally plays really well).  It was awesome to watch!

We came home after his game and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and then we went and did some shopping.  After that we came home and watched Star Wars.  Kolton wants to watch all three of them with Brady like they did with Lord of the Rings.  Both Kolton and Brady fell asleep during the second movie, though.  Kolton on the ottoman and Brady on the couch.  :)  

 

 Saturday evening I met some ladies at the church at 5:15 to go drive up to a leadership meeting by the temple.  We stopped at Panera Bread for dinner on the way and had a good time chatting.  Our meeting was really good and we had a member of the General Primary Presidency there, Sister Esplin.  We got home a little after 10:00. 

Aldi had strawberries and blueberries for $1.19 a package last week so I bought two of each.  Kolton has been begging me to buy him blueberries for months but I just can't bring myself to spend $3.99 on a tiny thing of blueberries.  I can, however, spend $1.19 so he was pretty excited.  :)

 

Sunday we had church and I did sharing time again.  We played a matching game to learn about the blessings we have received by coming to earth and receiving bodies. 

After church we took a nap.  Took us a while to actually fall asleep because of the two crazy boys in our family but it was fun. 

 After naps we went to Brady's parents house to celebrate Vanessa's birthday. 

Monday I cleaned (as usual) while Kolton played outside (as usual).

 After I was done cleaning I took Kolton to walmart to pick out some Valentines.  I toyed with the idea of making our own but I decided why spend more money and time for the kids to just throw them away, haha, so we just bought a couple packages.  He picked one out for the girls in his class and one for the boys. 

After school he sat down and wrote every one's names on their valentines and signed his name on them all.  It took him a while but he did a good job!

 Once we were done we went outside and, you guessed it, played basketball together.  The sky looked pretty crazy that evening.  We then came inside and called Shawn, because it was his birthday!

Brady had to close again on Monday so he met us at Kolton's last basketball practice.  Kind of sad.  Its been a fun season. 

Tuesday it snowed! So, Kolton and I laid around all morning and watched cartoons and I read.  It was fun! While we were laying there Kolton said to me, "Mom, you're beautiful.  Even in your pajamas, you're beautiful." It was too sweet.  What was funny, though, is that that morning, on the mirror, Brady's thing he wrote that he loved about me was that he thinks I look "sexy in pajamas." Kolton obviously had no idea he had written that because he can't read, but I thought it was awesome how they both said they love me, even in pajamas.  Kolton will make an awesome husband someday if he continues to follow in his dad's footsteps.  :)

 Tuesday night Brady played basketball.  Kolton's basketball coach came, along with his wife and son, Riley. He and Kolton sat and watched their dads play for a little bit and cheered them on.  It was cute. 

Fillings

This last month I started using ovulation predictor strips to hopefully help us get pregnant sooner.  I decided to go the cheaper route and buy the $20 ones instead of the $35 ones and I wish I wouldn't have.  I mean, they work, but you have to compare the lines to decide if you are ovulating or not.  The $35 ones had a digital screen that says "LH surge" or "No LH surge" so it takes the guessing out of it.  If I don't get pregnant this month then I think I'll buy the more expensive ones next month.  Brady and I were just talking the other day and I think this will be the first month where we will truly be disappointed if we don't get pregnant.  Obviously every month you are trying you want to be pregnant, but this month just seems more emotional.   

 Last month I got a couple texts/people coming up to me saying they saw Brady in the Moore Monthly so I had to get a copy to see for myself.  These are pictures from last year, actually, of an after hours business party that Brady's work did for all the businesses around town to come to.  They did one this year and they do it every year, but these pictures are from 2011, not 2012.  Anyway, still cool! My husband is famous!! Haha.  :)

 On Monday, the 28th, I got a phone call from Sprint.  They wanted to talk to Brady but he was at work so I took a message.  The guy asked me if Brady had opened an account on Sunday with them and ordered 5 iPhones.  I told him no and he said that an account, then, was opened fraudulently.  Great.  So, I took his number down and then called Brady and told him.  When he came home for lunch he called the guy back and talked to him.  He told him that the account was flagged for their fraud department because 5 accounts were opened using the same address but different people's names, social security numbers, and birthdays.  He suggested Brady contact the credit bureaus and put an alert on his social security number so he did that.  Then, on Tuesday, T-Mobile called Brady to verify that he was opening an account with them because an alert popped up when someone was trying to open account with his social security number.  He told them no and was grateful he had put that alert on his social security number. 

Tuesday we had storms.  Just rain and stuff, but we did have a tornado watch.  Its crazy...my family in Utah had tons of snow coming down at their house and then we had spring time weather and tornado watches. 

Tuesday night Brady had basketball.  We were there super late and didn't come home until almost 11:00.  Basketball didn't last too long (I think it was done at about 10:15), but President Cole locked OG's keys in our bishop's office and so he couldn't go home.  He didn't know whose keys they were so he locked them up.  It wasn't that big of a deal, except he didn't tell anyone that that was where he had locked them up and so we spent a long time waiting around trying to help OG figure it out.  President Cole had left his cell phone at home so we couldn't get a hold of him to ask and he lives 25 minutes away from the church so it took a while.  We ended up leaving and taking a young man home who had come to play ball and then coming back.  When we got back, OG had figured out where they were and the Foys were bringing him our Bishop's keys so he could get his keys out.  Such a pain, but at least he was able to figure out where his keys were and get them out. 

Wednesday, the 30th, was the 100th day of school for Kolton.  He had taken 100 snacks to school and got to eat some of them and got to wear this party hat that he made. 

 Kolton was pretty proud of his Thunder picture he colored. 

 Thursday I had to go to work.  I had a meeting from 2-3:30 that I had to go to so my plan was to drop Kolton off at school and go straight to work.  Then, Brady was going to take just a 30 minute lunch so that then at 3:20 he could leave work and go pick Kolton up and take him to the Foys and Brittney was going to watch him until I got back from work.  My meeting ended up being cancelled.  I did have to go over to Jerry's office and go over my performance evaluation with him and then got home at like 3:35 so Brady just brought Kolton home for me.  Then, I decided to invite Kade to come over to our house.  They played basketball the entire time and only stopped for dinner and to go to the store.  It was awesome.  At walmart they were too funny.  Brady went to look at ammo and there were some exercise videos at the end of the isle.  The boys started pointing out which one of the girls they'd want to marry and pointing out that you could see their belly buttons.  Haha.  It was funny.   

 We took Kade to the church with us because Brady was playing basketball again.  This time basketball lasted until 11:15.  It was crazy! Brady even got a super bad leg cramp at about 12:30 that night and I had to stand up in the bed and stretch his leg out.  It took about 15 minutes for us to get it to go away.  It wasn't funny but it was.  Haha.

Friday morning we went to the science museum with the Foys and Shantyl and her twins.  Kolton had a blast!

 We picked up Sonic on our way home, I dropped Kolton off at school, went and ate lunch with Brady, then went straight to Marcella's house to work on Primary stuff.  After I was done at Marcella's I went and checked Kolton out of school like 5 minutes early so that I could hurry and go get Jill's kids because she was feeling horrible.  I got to her house at like 3:40 and took her kids and drove her van to my house.  The kids had fun playing with each other and then I took them back home at 6:15 when Mark got home.  Brady went and dropped Kolton off with Madison because we were going on a date with Liz and Adam Smith.  They picked us up and we went to Iron Star Urban Grill downtown somewhere.  It was really good barbecue food.  We ordered a piece of chocolate cake for dessert and it was amazing!

Saturday morning Brady had to work.  Kolton had a game at 10:00.  He played really well, as always, and was so cute! I love watching him.  The coach from the other team was being so annoying, though, and kept getting in front of our players and they'd have to dribble around him in order to get to the basket.  In the grand scheme of things it wasn't that big of a deal, but it bugged me.  :)

After Kolton's game, we got Diesel and brought him over to breed with Missy and then cleaned the Xterra.  Once we were done with that we went and picked up the Himes kids at 2:30 so that Mark and Jill could get some rest because Jill still wasn't feeling too well.  We took them home at about 6:30 so they could go to bed and then we went to Walmart to pick up something to make for dessert for the next day.  When we got home we just lounged on the couch and watched the Thunder game. 

Saturday, Kolton blew up this balloon all by himself! First time ever! 

 Sunday we had church.  It was my turn in Primary to do sharing time so I did that.  It was on the 7 days of the creation.  The kids did a good job remembering what happened on each day.  We also found out at church that a sister missionary passed away.  Her and her companion were riding their bikes and an 18 year old hit them with his car.  One of them lived and the other died.  It is so sad to think about.  I can't imagine being her parents and receiving that phone call. We had a lot of testimonies shared that centered around the plan of salvation. 

After church we took a nap.  I slept for about 15 minutes and then got up and started making brownies.  Brady slept for about an hour and then got up and went and got Diesel again.  Kolton slept for about 2 hours.  He got up and played Trouble at the kitchen table while I made truffles.  He is so funny when he plays himself.  He is one color and some other person is another color.  He plays for the other person, but he can only win if his color wins.  Usually when kids play themselves they win no matter what because they are both "guys" but he just picks one and that's him.  Its funny.  He also helped me do the sprinkles on the truffles.  He loves to do that.  At 4:30 we left and took Diesel back to his house (he had already mated with Missy) and then went to the Himes at 5:00.  We ate delicious nachos with homemade salsa! Yum! And we sort of watched the superbowl.  I honestly didn't see much of it because I talk to much.  Haha.  The Ravens won the superbowl (that's who I was going for).  It seemed like the Ravens had it in the bag until the power went out for over 30 minutes and then when there were able to play again the 49ers seemed to have the momentum.  Fortunately, the Ravens held on and won 34-31.  One guy ran a kick off back for 108 yards (a record) in 11 seconds.  11 seconds! That is just crazy! Anyway, we got home at like 10:15 or so. 

 Monday morning came early.  :) I had to wake up at 6:30 to get ready to go to a dentist appointment for Kolton.  A long time ago when Kolton went to the dentist, Sterling said he had two cavities between two teeth that needed to be filled.  I kept putting off making the appointment for a long time.  To be honest it is because we don't have dental insurance so I needed to be sure we could pay for it.  Anyway, I finally just decided to call and make the appointment about a week ago for this morning.  We got there at 8:00 and Kolton got called back at about 8:15.  He was kind of nervous but not too anxious.  They put the gas on him and that's when I could see it in his eyes that he was pretty nervous.  His eyes got teary for a minute and he just had this look in his eyes that broke my heart.  The gas did seem to calm him down after a couple of minutes.  He started moving around and clapping and stuff.  At about 8:35 they gave him his shots to numb him up.  Kolton had to get 3 shots and he took them like a champ and did awesome.  I was so proud of him! He seriously stayed perfectly still while they gave him his shots.  Once they were finished he'd say "oww" but while they were doing it he was still.  Once he was numb (which was only a minute later) Sterling came in and I went in the waiting room.  That was hard.  I wanted so bad to stay with him and comfort him but I had to go.   

 Kolton was finished at about 10:00 and then we left.  Sterling said one of the cavities was a lot deeper then it was when he had come it to get his teeth cleaned last year.  We're hoping the filling will be fine and he won't have any future problems with his tooth.  He got to pick a couple of toys from their toy box which he was pretty excited about.  :) Sterling totally took care of Kolton while he was there.  Kolton said that he was so nice and funny.  Haha.  We're lucky to have him as our friend!

Here's Kolton's smile when we left the dentist.  Haha. 

 We went by Brady's work so he could say hi and we brought Brady a treat.  It just cracks me up. 

 Once we left Brady's work we went to the Foys so Kolton could play with Kade and I could chat with Brittney.  :) They played basketball, rode bikes, and drove their little car thing around.  Kolton had a good time.  Then, on the way home I got Kolton some McDonalds and a Redbox movie.  I decided to let him skip school today so he could just relax and hang around at home.  When we got home, before he ate, he could smile pretty much totally normal at that point.  He ate all his lunch and watched the movie and then fell asleep.  Once he woke up his mouth was completely normal. We played basketball outside for about 45 minutes and now he's playing Skylanders.  (Brady has to close at his branch today so he's not home...)

And proof that he doesn't eat candy.  Yeah, he loves his sweets...I'm not denying that but his bucket is in his room and its February and he still has Halloween candy.  Haha.  He also has a stocking full of candy hanging on the back of his door from Christmas still.  :)