This Brud's For You

 The Wise Men took a little train ride.

 They presented the boys with some "gold" and told them about its significance as a gift to the newborn king.

 They made snowflakes and left some paper and new scissors for the boys to make some, too. We had fun cutting a bunch that afternoon and hanging them up on my back door.

 New toothbrushes (that were sorely needed) to encourage lots of smiling (and better dental hygiene).

 Grandma Brudnicki got to help out with Saturday mornings Wise Men since Dustin and I were celebrating our 13th anniversary. She hid some candy canes around the house- the boys loved this.

 Family game day! It's not a new game, but it is a favorite. (Mason thought they were hilarious playing this game.)

 On Monday they left the boys some items to make bird feeders. The boys loved making these and we've been enjoying the wildlife coming to eat (mostly squirrels).

 So I totally thought the Wise Men's suggestion to have a "Free Hug Day" was going to be met with rolled eyes, but they all excitedly hugged each other and Mason is still randomly hugging me and yelling "Free Hug Day!!!" L-O-V-E

 We did some quiet reading of the Christmas story with the oldest boys, since the little ones needed to go to sleep. It was nice, nonetheless.

And on our last morning (Christmas Day) the Wise Men finally found their baby Jesus, and encouraged the boys to continue to seek for him everyday. In hind sight, I could have spent less time on this, but for a first time tradition, it went really well. I'm glad I spent the time I did on organizing it. The rest was pretty simple. And I think it gave us opportunities to talk about the Savior, service, love and kindness, that otherwise might have passed us by this month.

Thanks to those of you who commented on my Wandering Wise Men posts. I hope to be doing it all again next Christmas!

When we saw the Wise Men last Monday, they were singing Christmas Carols at the piano. We had fun that night making cookies for FHE and singing carols while the cookies baked.

 On Tuesday the Wise Men stopped for a snack and made all the boys lunches for school the next day.

 On Wednesday the Wise Men left the boys a whole bunch of jokes to make them smile and invited them to share them with their friends. My personal favorite joke was "What did one snowman say to the other snowman? 'Do you smell carrots?'" (I printed the jokes off here.)

On Thursday they had a little Wise Men conference and got together with all our other wise men. (This was my favorite thing they've done so far!) They encouraged the boys to be friendly and kind to people they did not know that day.

On Friday the Wandering Wise Men met up with a little mouse friend who brought them this cute book.

 On Saturday they cleaned the stove for mom and encouraged the boys to help out with the Saturday cleaning chores.

 On Sunday they made a gratitude list and asked the boys to write in their journals. (Unfortunately this one didn't get done since Carson was sick that day.) *But we did end up doing it later in the week!*

And today (Monday) the Wise Men folded all the boys laundry and put it away for them! 

So far, the boys really enjoy looking for the Wandering Wise Men each day to see what thing they'll do next. 

Since last year I've been thinking about starting a new tradition at Christmas for my kids. I think the Elf of the Shelf is funny, and I liked some things about it, but not all. My kids don't believe in Santa, so it didn't seem like it would fit with the way we celebrate Christmas. I had also read some ideas about "Kindness Elves" or "Christmas Angels" but I had come across someone's idea to have little wise men that they would move around and suggest activities that would promote kindness, service and charity. But it wasn't an idea that had been hashed out completely, not something that you could just print off and do. So I decided to flesh it out myself. And so, on December 1st it began.

The "Wandering Wise Men" arrived in a present with a note that said, "We are the Wandering Wise Men and we are traveling from the east, using the light from the star as our guide. We are searching for our Savior, Jesus Christ. In order to find him we will need to become more like Him on our journey. It is our hope to receive help from you along the way and maybe we'll even end up helping you, too!"

Every morning the boys find the Wandering Wise Men in our house with a little note about what they are doing or something nice the boys can do that day. Here's what week one of our new tradition looked like:

 Day 1: They built a Lego house to sleep in so that they would be well rested for their journey.

 Day 2: They were enjoying one another's company and suggested we have a fun evening spent together with our family.

 Day 3: They were writing letters and gave the boys paper to write to their cousin Victoria who is serving a mission.

 Day 4: They brought the boys a movie.

 Day 5: We went to our ward Christmas "Breakfast with the Wise men."

 Day 6: They brought the boys stickers to make cards for their Primary teachers to thank them for teaching them about Jesus all year.

After our successful road trip this summer, we decided, what the heck- lets do it again! So off to St. George we went for a week of fun with Grandma and Grandpa Jensen. And lucky us, we got to spend part of the week with my brother, Eric, and his family.

The driving part of our trip had to be condensed due to the time we had allotted for this trip. So it was a quick (did I say quick? I mean long) 2 days in and a full 2 days back. I only took one picture of our drive out- going over the Glen Canyon Dam (I think). I wish that I had taken a picture as we drove through west Texas. Everyone was out harvesting their cotton, and it looked like it had snowed in the desert! But I was driving most of that day, so I didn't think it was safe to be taking photographs.

 We also spent a fair amount of time letting the kids play on these rocks around the walking trail by the pond. My boys are always very happy in a place with rocks. Big rocks, little rocks, any rocks. Hours of endless fun!

Hudson and Brant were my favorite. They were funny towards each other. It was like, "Hey, there's a little person my size…cool." And then the next second it was, "Hey little person my size, that's MY toy! This is where I want to sit! These are the buttons that I'm playing with!" There were a lot of little shoves and pushes, and tears, but I could not get over how funny it was.

 Of course, my mom and I spent a good amount of time getting the food ready for Thanksgiving. I know she never wants to do it again (at least a big turkey…and definitely not crockpot mashed potatoes) but I enjoyed spending time with her in the kitchen cooking. And the kids all really enjoyed the desserts!

  

 

 

We also took our boys, plus my 4 year old nephew Cohen, to a fun indoor glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course. The boys had fun and Cohen was so cute- he had never been golfing before and was just so tickled the whole time.

 

All in all, we had a fun trip. Thankfully we didn't run into too much holiday traffic, and we all made it home safely. A big thanks to my parents for having us, and Eric and Stephanie for coming and letting the cousins have such a wonderful time together.

I don't have any pictures from Halloween this year. It was kind of a crazy night, since Carson ended up getting one of his awful headaches and spent the afternoon/evening laying in bed and throwing up. But luckily, we got dressed up for our ward Trunk-or-Treat a few nights before and I had the time to snap some pictures that night.

From oldest to youngest: Carson, A.K.A. "Harry Potter." Carson finally finished the HP series this summer and naturally wanted to be Harry for Halloween. The costume wasn't too difficult to pull off, but it was the one that required the most effort this year.

Jensen, A.K.A "Captain America." Easy Peasy. Shield=already owned. Sweatshirt=found at Target. Sweatshirt bonus= he actually needed a new sweatshirt! Pants= blue sweatpants that I sewed red fabric to the bottom of. DONE! (And he loved it!)

 Mason, A.K.A. "Rex" from Toy Story. Since I was reusing Jensen's old Buzz Lightyear costume for Hudson this year, I hoped that Mason would like to be Woody. Nope. He wanted to be Zurg- Buzz Lightyear's sworn enemy, but I couldn't find a Zurg costume and that was too overwhelming to make. So Rex became the second choice. He loved this costume, even if he didn't really end up wearing the headpiece.

 Hudson, A.K.A "Buzz Lightyear" and me as "Jessie" from Toy Story. I loved that I could reuse these awesome costumes that I spent so much time on 5 years ago. Hudson didn't really want to have anything to do with this costume when I got it out for him. So the days leading up to Halloween we played with it, tried it on, the big boys cheered for him when he was wearing it, the big boys kept calling him "Buzz," we watched "Toy Story," etc. I was still fearful he would freak out when the time came to wear it. But when it came time to get everyone dressed, Hudson stood in front of me wanting his costume on just like the big boys. Whew!!!!

 The 3 younger boys and I ended up having dinner and trick-or-treating with some friends in the ward on Halloween night, while Carson and Dustin bunkered down at home. And lucky for Carson his sweet younger brothers were happy to share their haul with him the next morning.

Mason has been getting to do some fun things lately. I don't know how families have all their kids involved in different activities at the same time. Sometimes I feel exhausted with just one kid doing an activity! This is the first time Mason has gotten to do a team sport. He's playing soccer at the YMCA. They had their first game on Saturday and it was kinda funny to Dustin and me. If you could have picked any of our kids, as babies, to play sports when they got older, the obvious choice would have been Mason. He was big, fairly well coordinated, and seemed like he'd make a good athlete. Well, the jury is still out on this one. Turns out, he's not that "in" to sports or being competitive. And he's on the whiney side when it comes to toughness. But at least he seemed to enjoy running around with a bunch of other little kids on the field. The only time he actually kicked the ball during the game was when he got to do the kick-off. We're going to have to go over the objective of this game with him. :)

 Mason has also been loving his pre-school class at MDO. He's also loving that our neighbor goes to his class (and I am LOVING the carpooling!) He's in the Monkey class.

I purposely didn't cut Mason's hair when the other boys got their hair cut so that I could give him a little "mohawk" for Crazy Hair Day. As Dustin pointed out to me, I didn't get it even on the middle of his head. In my defense, he's not usually super cooperative about hair cuts (still) and I never have to worry about where the middle of his head is, since normally I'm shaving it all off! ANYWAY, I colored his hair with a little sidewalk chalk and water and he thought it was great.

 Mason is a funny little boy. He loves nothing more than to sit next to me and play with my hair. Still. But get on his bad side, and you'll be sorry you went into the same room with him. Just ask any of his brothers...