Kyle Brandt-So Mom Won't Forget These Things

We love how he says hammer-burger and thinks every drink needs to Sprite or chocolate milk.  

He is recently been enthralled with Legos much to Cayden's chagrin and mine because now they are all over the house.  

He is in that rough stage where he sometimes still needs a nap but if he takes one then he won't go to bed until really late.

Since we have 1:00 church he will usually fall asleep on my lap in the middle of the meeting and then he gets a 20-40 minute power nap which is just enough to get us through until bed time.  

He loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, going to story time at the library and going to the park.  

He is really an obedient child and doesn't throw too many massive fits.  When he does throw fits though he will stand in place and scream at the top of his lungs.  

He was on a grilled cheese kick there for a while and ate one every day and sometimes more than one.  

He doesn't like the crust on his sandwiches.  

He loves to have grits for breakfast and if he is not starving I can get him to wait the 15 minutes or so it takes to make them.  

He loves pink cookies from Wally's-the Granny B's kind.  He calls it Wa-wee's.  

He loves loves loves his brothers and tells them all the time that he loves them.

He will just randomly run up to us and hug around the legs and say I love you mommy or I love you daddy.

He has to hold my hand while he's falling asleep.

He likes to wear his ball caps and remembers to put one on most times when we are getting ready to leave the house.  

He doesn't like me to leave and I go back and forth about sneaking out or telling him and making sure he knows that I will come back.

He loves to read books.  He really likes the Llama Llama books and since they rhyme he can finish the sentences.  He really like a book called Little Blue Truck as well that we renewed for as long as we could from the library until we had to give it back.

He loves to sing I am a Child of God and asks me to sing the temple song to him usually every day.

He wants to say his prayers by himself.

He is not the most compliant and attentive during home evening.  It is hard to teach the older boys with him jumping all over the furniture and all over every one else.

He pretends that he is a puppy named Bella and crawls around and sniffs the ground.

He is quite imaginative and plays with his toys and makes up stories about what is going on.

He told me this afternoon after he had a nap that he wanted peace and quiet.

He has said the word d*** it a few times when he has dropped something wonder where he got that?  

He knows who the prophet is and likes to carry around a little pendant that the prophet's picture on it.

He wears 3T pants and 4 t shirts.

He has a second pair of "spiderman" shoes that he wears in a bigger size from before.  They are easy to get on and he can usually get them on himself.  He could get his flip flops on by himself over the summer.

He carries around calculators and call them his phone.  He took a big magnet off the fridge that was the size of an Ipad and called it his Ipad.  He was quite upset if anyone took it away from him.

He throws every toy he can in the bathtub-sometimes toys that shouldn't be thrown in the bath tub.  

He likes to stand at the kitchen sink and do dishes-which translates into let the water run and empty the bottle of dishwashing soap into the sink.

He likes to help make dinner and just climbs right up on the counter and tries to help.

If any of the boys have friends come over he calls them HIS friends.  Cayden's friend and his little brother came over and he grabbed the little brother's hand who is 8 and said "Your my best friend.  Want to see my room?"  He gets quite distressed when Cayden tries to lock him out or keep him out of his room.  

He calls his big toe his thumb toe and his other toes finger toes.  

He adds "er" to the end of lots things to turn them into nouns like his lemonade-er, his hot dog-er, 

He started singing songs about a troubador.  Not sure where that came from.

He didn't want to wake up from his nap and he so he told me that he needed peace and quiet.

He likes to make "machines" and calls his inventions a "double decker" whatever  hotdogger or bigger hot chocolater.

He call the tall barstool that he likes to sit on "the bigger chair".  If you get him the shorter bar stool he will remind you that he needs the bigger chair.

Right now the kid will not stay off of the counters.  It is driving me up the wall because I constantly find him and hear him climbing on them and I'm afraid that he is going to turn on the stove or get down the knives or something.  

He has of late been concerned about loud noises.  He doesn't like the hair dryer or the fans.  I hear him quite often say "what was that noise" and half the time I can't hear anything.

He has been the easiest of all the boys to potty train!  Yay!

Obamacare Consequences

This is Gladys, our very awesome nurse at the UMC Diabetes Clinic.  The clinic was shut down as of September 30 because of the Obamacare mess.  This is one of the few diabetes clinics in LasVegas and one of even less that takes low income patients.  We were so blessed to find Dr. Flynn a few years ago and this is where she worked.  Luckily, (tender mercy) Dr. Flynn was able to move to another doctor's office across town that has nothing to do with UMC.  200 people lost their jobs and many quick cares and this office and others were shut down.  We didn't get a picture with Dr. Flynn because we will still get to see her in the other office but we will miss Gladys!  She was sweet and funny and patient and always entertained and engaged Connor and was kind to Cayden.  She gives nursing a good name and we were glad to have met her.  Thanks for nothing Mr. Obama.

Scout Advancements

Caleb and Cayden  had a Court of Honor on Sunday October 25.  They are both doing really well in their progress. Cayden got his Star rank and 7 merit badges and Caleb got 4 merit badges.  Caleb only has to do his Eagle Project now and he will be finished.  Cayden worked really hard at scout camp over the summer and was diligent in going to some merit badge pow wows the ward had put on so he was able to pass off a lot of stuff.  I am very appreciative of the our boys scout leaders who are so diligent in helping them get these badges and progress.  It is a monumental task!

Connor is 1 merit badge away from being totally done with scouting.  ONE!!!  He did his Eagle Project last December while he still had a few merit badges to work on.  He loved doing the project.  If manual labor is involved that kid is in!  His leaders in 1st ward have worked very hard to get him to complete these remaining badges.  The last merit badge is either hiking, biking or swimming.  He started the biking a few years ago and never finished it because of the last few rides that were 20 or so miles long.  He started swimming last year and never finished it because he would never go swimming with us-because he always wanted to work.  He started hiking in September and did 3 ten mile hikes in about a month but since then he has flat out refused to go hiking.  He still needs 2 more 10 mile hikes and a 20 mile hike.  His dad has planned several time to take him but Connor always has a reason to not go and if we push him like we did a few weeks ago it ends up backfiring and he goes to meltdown mode.  I have been so frustrated about the whole thing because he is so stinking close to being done with this and so many people have worked so hard to get him here.  He is not the average scout and so it has taken greater effort and more time and many more people to get him to this point.  I have been praying about what to do about this because we are down to less than 2 months to get this done.  All merit badges and the project have to be done before the scout is 18 or it doesn't count.  My answer was to go back and get the swimming merit badge.  He had worked on that previously and it would only require 1 outing and not 3 like the hiking would.  We figure that we can drag him if we have to 1 time to the Mesquite pool and that would be much easier than trying to get him on 3 more hikes in the next 2 months.  Hopefully this will be over soon so we can stop worrying about it!

Quickly I'll Obey

In dealing with a very independent and busy 3 year old I have had to resort to various tactics in getting him to cooperate without me getting mad.  I was trying to put him in the car seat a few weeks ago and he was running around the garage and wouldn't get in the car.  Finally I started singing the song "Quickly I'll Obey".

When my mother calls me
Quickly I'll Obey
I want to do just what is best.
Each and every day.

He jumped right in the car and got in his seat and after I buckled him in we were off!  What an epiphany!

I had been praying for a few days about what to do to get CAYDEN to obey.  Sometimes that kid has serious selective hearing and I sound like a broken record all day long trying to get him to do something.  So as I sang that to Kyle I wondered silently if that was my answer for Cayden.  Well after school I tried it and it worked marvelously!  He was a little slow at first to catch on but like usual I would ask him to do something.  Then if he didn't respond right away I would just sing "quickly I'll obey".  After 2-3 times of me repeating that song and not repeating my request he caught on and went and did what I had asked.  It's not like I'm asking him to do anything hard just the usual tasks that need to be done: put away his backpack, take off his shoes, practice his piano etc.  I kept doing that for a few days and he was very compliant.  By about day 3 the novelty had worn off for Cayden anyway and he just went back to selective hearing.  I swear with that kid I have to mix it up.  So other days we resorted to checklists so I wasn't a broken record and on some other days it came down to outright bribery.

Kyle on the other hand still likes it and will obey a little quicker when I sing the song.  He especially likes to "obey" when I say "go get on the bed so we can change you".  He will run to the bedroom, climb up on the bed and lay down and say "I obeyed!"  He really is a pretty compliant child most of the time.  When I sing the song to him it's because he is running around and trying to get away from me not necessarily being deliberately disobedient.

I know that Heavenly Father will answer our prayers even for things like this if we ask him.  I write this down so on those days-like today when I am wondering if my prayers get answered I can read this and remember that they do.

PF Changs Drummer

Dad brought home PF Changs for dinner one night and Kyle thought it would be fun to sit on the counter and use the chopsticks for drum sticks.  

Halloween 2014

BBQ Master

Don and his friend Kyle Heiselbetz competed in their first BBQ contest at the fair grounds during the Logandale Fall Festiva on November 1.  They had to make 4 different kinds of smoked meat-brisket, chicken, ribs and pulled pork.  There were lots of rules and technicalities that had to be followed but they had a good time.  They borrowed the Bishop's Traeger smoker and spent many hours getting ready and watching the meat and many more hours prepping it for the judging.  For being first timers they did really great.  They took 4th in ribs and they got a medal, a certificate and even some cash!  They also placed in every other category but one and I can't remember which one it was. It was quite amusing because since they were the newbies they were getting lots and lots advice from the more seasoned competitors.  Don and Kyle were very gracious about all their help but it was quite funny that they placed higher in most categories than those guys that do this all the time.  I never got a picture of Don and Kyle together.  For weeks after that these guys were in cahoots to take this show on the road and go to different meat competitions.  The name of their team was Smokin' and Jokin'-very apropos.  

Getting "advice" from the neighbor competitor.