Counting Down

The kids had an awesome Christmas. Unfortunately, everyone was hit with the flu bug the week before Christmas, including Alex.  He didn't even really celebrate his birthday on his birthday.  He had gone on a field trip to the museum that I helped chaperone, and was so wiped out afterwards that he fell asleep by 5:30pm and never woke up till about 2:00pm the following day.  The kids all had fevers for at least a day, Benjamin was knocked down for most of a week.  He missed the last 3 days before Christmas break, but is back at it like he was never sick.

My in-laws are celebrating 40 years of marriage this year and have invited the whole family to go to Disney World.  They are paying for a good portion of the trip and have planned the whole thing, such it should be a fun week.  The kids have started a countdown, but it seems Alex is the only one truly counting down.  He has crossed each day off so far and has been waking up early to do so.  Unfortunately, 6:00am is a bit too early for him to wake up to do so and hopefully it will grow old fast because 3 months of 6:00am wake-up calls will not be pretty for him.

Here's a pic from Alex's Day After Birthday...He wanted a Stanley Cake, so Mommy piped on a picture of Stanley and Dennis the Goldfish.

Good Karma

It's been a while again. Not sure where the time flies, but we've continued to stay busy.  Last week, Elizabeth met with a family looking for a babysitter.  They live on the "nice" side of our subdivision.  Our houses pale in comparison with the size of these houses! She played with the girls for about an hour and the mom gave Elizabeth $10.  Somehow, on the way home, it got stuck in the depths of her coat pocket not to be found...until today! Amazing! We thought for sure that it blew out of her pocket and felt so back we gave her $10.  Not knowing this, Grandpa also gave her $10 and now she has the original $10 as it came out of her pocket as she was searching for her gloves this morning.  There seems to be a hole in the lining and it got stuck somewhere deep.

Today, I also went to the bank to cash a check as Grandma likes us to do our own Christmas shopping.  I was going to take $60 in cash and could have sworn that's what I wrote on the deposit slip. Somehow, the teller misread it and gave me $90.  I was confused and stepped back, but asked her to make sure she was giving me the right amount of change.  I was right and I'm not exactly sure how they would have discovered a $30 error.  Hoping the good karma comes back to help me sometime soon.

Cute story...Elizabeth, Caryn and Alex attend Sunday School every week. We usually hop along and hang with Benjamin.  Last week, we walked through Kmart and looked at toys and Christmas stuff.  As we found lots of toys and Benjamin held all of them, he kept saying, "Me want these!"  I told him that Santa was always watching and that he'd have to ask Santa for them.  Being the 4 yr old he is, he held tight to the toys and looked up to the sky whispering, "Santa I want these!"

Getting ready for Christmas here.  These are the two pics we sent out this year.

Memory Walk

We had a great time at the Memory Walk for the Alzheimer's Association this year until the ride home.  Luckily it wasn't our fault, but it's still an inconvenience.  Our van is in the shop this week.  The total damage is well over $2500. We'll be paying something because the insurance only pays 75% of exhaust work because it is part of the car that needs maintenance/replacement during the course of having a car.  The shop has said it shouldn't be more than $50, still more than I care to spend on something that was not our fault, considering we had stopped a good 2-3 seconds before the other driver slammed into us.  I have been extremely careful since, putting on my brakes to back-off other drivers.

First accident involving another car for either of us.  We hit a raccoon that cracked our front bumper the year we got our van, and I had an accident back in college when I was student teaching.  That was the worst winter ever. We had at least 7 snow days and the day I hit a guardrail happened to be one of them, just didn't hear about till I got to school.

 It's been awhile.  Where did the summer go? We had a HOT summer and spent lots of time loving our new house.  The kids have had fun playing in the basement that was nice and cool all summer.  We have missed a few birthdays, a 1st Communion and the 1st day of school.  It was eventful.  All summer Mommy and Daddy worried about the kids and how they would adjust to their new school. So far, through two months, they have thrived...meeting lots of new friends and being at the same level if not above everyone in their class.  Our latest addition is a trampoline in the backyard that a neighbor down the street was trying to give away.  Well, our kids jumped at that opportunity and hounded us until we were able to get together and move it down the street.  The kids are loving it, but fighting over "turns" on the trampoline as Elizabeth likes to jump more than everyone else and likes to do it "alone." 

Here's a few pictures to catch us up throughout the year.

 Caryn's 1st Communion happened May 6.

 With the Godparents~Uncle Joel and Aunt Sharon                            

 Here's a Big Four Year Old~~Benjamin

Caryn wanted an Ice Cream Cake...we found a recipe on Pininerest.

 Our big 1st Grader graduating from K5. Alex had a blast with Mrs. Springer

 Benjamin is definitely a "Ham" and enjoyed everyday of K3.  This year, he's gotten to go to school with Mommy as Franklin does not offer K4 and he's a smart one!

Waiting for the bus on the first day of school at Robinwood. 

Alex's Birthday and Christmas

Alex's Birthday and Christmas happened as we were in the midst of moving.  I had started packing as much as I could before Christmas.  As Alex opened his birthday presents, they went from his hand to a packing box.  Same thing with the Christmas presents, they were opened and packed in moving boxes simultaneously.  It was a very different kind of Christmas. Our tree was up the day after Thanksgiving, which just happened to be the same day we accepted the offer on our house.  That put things on the fast track to move, since our house was sold, but we had no house to move into.  The day after Thanksgiving we viewed 10 houses and then again that Sunday, we viewed 10 more houses.  We had gone to several open houses during September and October.  The first open house we went to was on Labor Day weekend.  It was an amazing house, but I didn't get too excited because it was priced about $20,000 above our limit.  Turns out, after a few months and several price decreases, the house ended up well below our $250,000 limit and we were able to buy it!  LOVE THE HOUSE! It is on a lot and a half, has three bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, living room, family room, dining room, awesome deck and patio and a sweet backyard with no backyard neighbors besides the high school, which is far enough back and the fire station, which has turned out to be a great neighbor.  We have a fireplace, an attached garage, which has quickly become a favorite part of the house.  We have a sidewalk on our side of the street, most of the city does not have sidewalks at all.

Our kids have continued to attend Mary Queen of Saints and we've continued to attend Holy Assumption since Caryn will be receiving her first communion in a few weeks.  I've been hanging in West Allis a lot since I go straight to the gym after dropping everyone off at school.  I stay there a few hours and then run errands to Target, Menards, Sams Club, Pick n Save, etc. till Benjamin is done at 11:30.  Then it's off to home for lunch and back to pick the kids up after school.

It has been an eventful first few months of 2012.  Here's a few pics from Alex's Birthday and Christmas, we'll have to steal pics from Claire's iPhone for the first months of the new year, since the camera looks to be empty.

Alex's 6th Birthday

Our last Christmas in West Allis...dressed up for the Christmas Concert

Caryn had one front tooth missing till Christmas Eve...Hailey too.

Christmas Morning

Caryn lost her second front tooth Christmas Eve

The Brefka grandkids

Benjamin had a great time opening presents

Elizabeth got a Hippo and did not want to share, turns out everyone got a chance to get their picture taken with it.  Aunt Melissa

Uncle Walt, Melissa and Grandma B

Grandpa B

Uncle Steve

"Moves Like Rodgers" seemed to be the Christmas gift to get this year.

Easter will come sooner than 6 months...promise.  Just didn't have our camera, so we'll have to steal from others.

Halloween in April

 Considering I haven't checked this blog for awhile, thought it time to catch up.  The one reader we have that is interested in our lives and "goings on" pestered me enough to realize that I haven't updated any of our blog since school started.  So here's a few pics from Halloween??

Ben was very into Captain Hook at Halloween time so he carved a pattern of Captain Hook and dressed up like him.  We had gotten the hook in Disney World and found a cheap pirate costume online.

                                      

Alex was a pirate too.  He was more into "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" too.  But he wanted to be Jake.

It was chilly and rainy when we carved pumpkins, thus we did it on the porch.

Auntie Jenny brought her pumpkin over to show us and we all got in the picture.

Two Pirates, Supergirl and a Kitty.  (Cousin Hailey playing the part of Elizabeth)

Grandma and Grandpa R with all the grandkids. 

Here's our clan...Elizabeth was bacon!!

We've had quite the last few months.  We put our house on the market since the interest rates were so low and we wanted to move out of West Allis since we had no ties to it anymore after G-ma and G-pa moved to Grafton.  So, right around Halloween, we had someone interested in our house.  Not long afterward, we had an offer.  Moving over the holidays was quite an adventure.

School Days

Can't believe the kids have been in school long enough to get progress reports already.  Everyone is doing fine. Benjamin loves going to school and has been talking a bit more everyday.  He has been screened for speech and will start receiving speech once a week in November.  The speech therapist was concerned about his hearing and he had it tested this week as well.  He well get it retested soon as he didn't "pass" the initial hearing test.  Could be part of his speech problem; he doesn't speak the beginning sounds of words and maybe he doesn't hear them.

Alex and Benjamin headed to the Pumpkin Farm last week. Just a few quick fall pictures as we have had some awesome weather in October.

Alex rode the ponies, Benjamin would not get close

Holding a little chick was fun, again Ben stayed back

The closest I'm coming to an animal

Benjamin-3

Caryn-7

Elizabeth-10

Alex-5