Trying out the new chair

We took down the Christmas tree and rearranged the new furniture. Olivia and Garrett were enjoying Robin's chair and reading together.

Merry Christmas

It is hard being so far away from family this time of year. We missed you and wanted to share with you highlights of our morning. Enjoy!


Christmas Traditions

We love Christmas!! Every year we try to do things to help us celebrate Christmas.
Here are a few of our favorite traditions.

1. We put up our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving.
2. We go and see Christmas lights every year. This year we went to Thanksgiving point to see the lights.
3. We decorate gingerbread houses
4. We make treats for our neighbors, this year we made mint candies
5. We watch Christmas movies at home-- Miracle on 34th Street, the Santa Clause Movie, The Polar Express, The Nativity
6. We go and have the kids get their pictures taken with Santa
7. On Christmas Eve we make cookies for Santa
8. On Christmas Eve we read the nativity story and sing Christmas Carols
9. Every Monday in December we have a family home evening about Christmas. This year we made a paper Christmas trees to hang in the kids room and talked about why we have Christmas trees. We went and visited Grandma and Grandpa and got Christmas Ornaments, We made Christmas cards. Read a Christmas poem about the birth of Christ and put up ornaments on the tree that go with the poem.
10. On Christmas morning we open stockings then eat cinnamon rolls and have hot chocolate.
11. On Christmas morning after breakfast we open presents.
12. We have a nice Christmas dinner that evening- This year I am making ham, potatoes, green beans, rolls and having pie for desert.

Early Christmas Presents

We got a phone call at 7am this morning telling us that our Christmas present was about to be delivered. Here are two pictures of our two new couches and a rocker-recliner:

Gingerbread houses

After days of anticipation, we finally made gingerbread houses. We liked that everyone got to make their own. Olivia and Garrett had a blast.
We didn't have the music play automatically, but it's pretty good if you want to hear it click the little volume button on the slideshow.

Little Builders

So we followed Emily's example and took the kids to Lowe's to make projects. Today they made a little desk calendar thingy. Robin took pictures and Jennifer and Jeremy helped with the hammering and sanding. The kids did pretty good when they actually looked at what they were hammering. We're talking them back every few weeks and doing another project because the kids really had fun.

This would be fun to do with a class of students

You Be the Judge

Someone suggested that this purse would be cute with my daughter. The purse was one of those white elephant gifts that someone couldn't wait to give away. Well, I got it and despite my best efforts to trade, that's what I ended up with (Thanks Natalie!). Now, do you agree with me?
-Daughter with missing teeth cute? Yes
-Daughter with missing teeth holding a hideous purse cute? No

P.S. She loves the purse. She already put all her money in it and took it shopping to buy her aunt a Christmas present tonight.

Tooth Fairy's Going To Be Busy

It probably would have taken longer to lose the second tooth, but at school on Friday while playing she fell and hit her mouth which made the tooth really loose. Then we went to the movies and she was finishing the popcorn in the car when she took a bite of popcorn and the next thing we know she is crying saying it hurt. Then she was all smiles when she realized that the tooth had fallen out. We're glad she didn't swallow it.

We taught her the song, "All I want for christmas is my two front teeth." She is so cute singing it.

Tooth Fairy

Application Update

So, if you've been following this blog at all, you will know that I had an all-day interview to be an administrator in the Jordan School District a few days ago. Well, I got a phone call yesterday afternoon to let me know that I made it into the Administrator hiring pool. This was the best news I could get!

Next Wednesday, they will be calling me back for a secondary interview. They say this interview is only to ask questions to find out what I'm looking for and for them to get a better idea of what kind of school I would best fit in.

After that, I will just need to wait until around March for the district to know what their openings will be. The district has about 90 schools so there will certainly be openings.

This Friday I will also be submitting two applications in my current district (one for a principal and the other for an assistant principal). Needless to say, I would be fine with that!

Fun in the snow

Jeremy and Jennifer took the kids sledding yesterday (Robin didn't feel like braving the slick hillside). Everyone had fun!

It snowed!

The kids were so excited to wake up and see snow! They couldn't wait to put on their boots and go play. We taped a few minutes of it and thought we'd share it with you. Enjoy!

Fisher Price Nativity

We ordered our kids one of these nativity sets. It came last night and we opened it up. The kids have really enjoying playing with it and rearranging the set and it is fun to hear them tell the stories. It is great because they have been wanting to play with our ceramic set and I won't let them. Now they can play with this one. I saw one of these at the sitter's house and the sitter said that Garrett really liked hers. You have to order them online because the stores don't carry them. Which I think it is silly since it is the Christmas season, you would think they would sell. (fisherprice.com has the cheapest ones.)

My day

Today was actually kind of fun. In case you didn't know, a few weeks ago I applied to the Jordan School District to be an administrator. Well today I had an interview. It was an all-day event.
There were about 28 candidates there (they're doing interviews Monday, too so I guess they are considering about 56 people). BYU has an administration program called the LPP program where people get their Master's degree in one intensive year of internships and night classes. Apparently, everyone in the LPP program applied and was offered an interview. I had to stop myself from chuckling as I overheard some of their comments--they showed a complete lack of experience. For example, one of the questions was: How do you promote teamwork? I talked about how I have worked with good teams and bad teams and the kinds of things teams need to be effective. I overhead one guy quoting from a book he had read in his program and how interesting the book had been. Little things like these made me think that I might actually get hired.
All in all, I feel good about the day. I feel like I really got a chance to show what I know. They say they'll let me know around Dec. 17th if I will be called back for a 2nd interview.

Hard Decison

We got a dog not to long ago. We thought that our family was ready for one. We fenced in our yard over the summer. Olivia really wanted one. In Septemeber we went to the pound and picked a dog. We picked a 1 year old dog thinking that we would do better with a dog that wasn't a puppy.

This dog, ended up being more then we could handle. She had way to much energy. She was constantly jumping up on you regardless of how many times we told her not to. She destoyed lots of things (shoes, clothes, our apple tree, alarm clocks, garbage from the can, leashes.) She also had a problem of nipping at you when you tried to pet her or play with you. She was never mean but she did hurt Olivia and Garret on several occassions with her rough play. We decided that she was not the right dog for our family. We put an add for her in the local classified and yesterday someone called about her and came to see her. He took her. Olivia was really sad that she had lost another pet. She cried and cried. I felt really bad. I didn't want her to be upset but I also knew that we could not keep this dog.

We hope that Kaylee will have a bettter home with him than she did with us. The guy who took her has a farm with animals, has another heeler like Kaylee. Kaylee seemed to like the guy, his son and the other dog right away.

It will be a long time before we will try having a dog again if ever. If we ever get another dog it will have to be a smaller dog and our children will have to be a little bit older.

Elfed Ourselves

Here is what our kids would look like if they were Santa's little elves.
Click here to see them in action.

Hyper Kids!

Christmas Preparations

We put our Christmas decorations up today. It was kind of an all day thing as we stopped a few times to fix Jennifer's car (It's all fixed now thanks to a nice neighbor and a Checker Auto right down the road). It's neat having the decorations up and Christmas music playing. We love this time of year.

Thanksgiving

We had a big Brunner Thanksgiving yesterday. We met at a church where there was about 40 people there. We had some great food and enjoyed visiting. We cooked the ham, brought rolls, a green jello salad, a tossed green salad and the yams. I had never made yams before but everyone said that they were good. Olivia especially loved seeing Brent and Shayla. For those of you who don't remember Brent and Shayla stayed with us for about a month when they were waiting to buy their house in Eagle Mountain. Garrett loved eating the rolls.




(This picture Jere and Garrett are sneaking rolls before the blessing) : )

I took the pictures from Theresa's website. Thanks Theresa.

Baby Update

Robin had a doctor's appointment today. Everything's good. That's 29 weeks down, 11 weeks to go.

The microwave bit the dust

After 10 years of marriage, 3 apartments, 1 house, 2 kids later, our microwave that we got used from my sister for $20 when we got married finally died. It kept blowing the circuit and it didn't heat things very well. Now this microwave that has been apart of our lives, is now going in the trash.

Jeremy and I went and bought a new one. We were amazed at how quickly it would heat things. We hope it will last 10 years too.

Happy Birthday to You, You Live in a Zoo

Jennifer celebrated her 26th birthday. She had to go go to work all day, so while she was at work we went and decorated her car. When she got home we had a dinner and I made her a bat cake. Olivia was really excited for her and couldn't wait for her to open her presents. Olivia drew her a picture of a dragon and gave her candy from her tricker treat stash. We have had lots of treats lately from Olivia's Birthday, Halloween, and Jennifer's Birthday. Plus our neighbor brought over a cake too.

Halloween Costumes

Here are a couple of pictures of how Robin and the kids looked on Halloween before leaving in the morning.

The Mad Scientist

Here's something you can try at home with some dry ice. Something I didn't mention in the video is that you probably want to soak the cloth in the soapy solution overnight.

Birthday in a nutshell

We went to Chuck E. Cheese for Olivia's birthday. She got to invite two friends. We all had a ton of fun! Thanks to everyone who sent gifts!

Trunk or Treat

Here are 3 pictures from our ward Trunk or Treat last night. Robin was at a faculty party so it was just Jennifer, Olivia, Garrett, and me. Olivia was a snow princess, Garrett was a motorcycle racer, Jennifer was Poison Ivy (think Batman), and I was a mad scientist. I stayed with the van and Jennifer took the kids around.

After all the candy had been passed out we went into the church for a few other activities. We had donuts, decorated cookies, and did the fishing booth. Garrett was so mad when he got his prize from the fishing booth. He totally expected a real fish!
We all had fun. And just think, we get to do it all over again in just a few days.

Pumpkin Time

5 Day Weekend

So we are having 5 days without students and loving it! We spent all day yesterday "nesting". We went through our storage closet and took out everything that wasn't food storage. Robin went through all the baby clothes to find the ones we'll use with the new baby and to also find the ones we'll never use again. I went through our old college boxes and computer boxes to find books and things to either toss in the garbage or try to sell on eBay.

Today we made the trip to Deseret Industries. Here's a picture of what our van looked like:


We had 8 big trash bags full of clothes and toys. We can actually walk into our closet again. It's such a great feeling!

Is there room for one more?

Today I decided that I would tell my students that I was pregnant. I read them a book called Mr. and Mrs. Murphy and Bernard. It is a story about 2 animals and how there is just enough room for the two of them. Then one day a dog comes and holds up a sign that says, "IS THERE ROOM FOR ONE MORE?" They say No at first then as then story goes on they make room for him in their home.

So after finishing the book I told them that in my family, we were going to make room for one more and that we were going to have a baby in February.

One kid raised his hand and said, "Who's having the baby?"

I was a little surprised and said, "I am having the baby?"

Another kid raised his hand and said, "Does that mean you're pregnant?"

(I don't have the brightest class in the world.)

How about an $8 slice of pie?

Well, we had one pumpkin survive the harvest. We had 3, but the dog chewed up 2 of them. We decided that we'd pick the last (and biggest one) before the dog got to it. We didn't think it would last until Halloween so for Family Home Evening, we decided to make pumpkin pie.

Here is Olivia showing off how big the pumpkin got. Garrett never seems to get that he's supposed to look at the camera until the flash goes off. We seriously took 4-5 pictures and these were the best ones we got of him.


In this picture, we are removing the innards. Olivia and Garrett had tons of fun helping with this part.

The recipe we followed suggested that we microwave some slices for about 15 minutes. We fit about 1/8 of the pumpkin in the microwave at a time so we put the rest in pots on the stove. We boiled them all up for what seemed like a really hot time.


Robin scraped the soft part off the rind and I blended the chunks into puree. We ended up with about a gallon of pumpkin puree. Robin said it reminded her of baby food. We thought about doubling the recipe to make more than one pie, but decided to stick with the recipe and store the rest in the fridge and freezer.


Jennifer was really excited.


Good thing, too! We only used about 1/4 of all the puree and it still made 3 pies! The recipe wasn't clear about the order to add the other ingredients, so some of the spices didn't get dissolved (that's the brown stuff in the pies), but they sure tasted good!

By calculating the total cost of our garden and dividing by the amount of produce we got out of it, we joked that each slice of pie must have cost about $8. Oh well, it's been an adventure!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

With the cold weather and planning for Olivia's birthday, we've started thinking ahead toward Christmas. What is the plan this year? Are we doing the sibling rotations? If so, who has whom? Just wondering.

Baby update

Two More Pictures

Well, I don't know about you, but we sure weren't ready for summer to go away quite so quickly. Here's a look at the weather we had last Saturday:

Also, here's another car the kids made. We can't believe how big they are getting!