Pre-Christmas Fun

This whole month we've been busy getting ready for Christmas! Here are some pictures to show you what we've been up to.

Porter and I decorated this gingerbread house together. It was a premade kit because I had already made a whole bunch of gingerbread for the Trail Center's gingerbread display.

Peyton, like any toddler, has been playing with all of the Christmas Tree ornaments, which thankfully are not breakable.

Lynn has been sporting the sweetest looking sweaters. Here is the one we found at The Salvation Army for an "Ugly Sweater" party. So much fun!


We decided that we were going to have a little Christmas morning of our own so that we could give the kids the presents that wouldn't fit in the suitcases to go to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Porter enjoyed this Star Wars ornament from Peyton.

The boys are always wanting me to built forts or tents, so we got them this igloo tent. Peyton especially loves it. Porter said, "I always wanted one of these!"

Lynn made us breakfast bacon, eggs, English muffins, and juice!

This is the quilt that I made for Lynn. I decided that I wasn't going to spend any money on his present, so I got some old jeans and tee shirts and this is what the finished product looks like.


Here is Porter opening his and Peyton's Spiderman scooter. We decided to get them a few presents that they can share so that they don't get too possessive of their things. So far it's worked out great!


Now that we've had a Pre-Christmas with our own little family, we are ready to spend the real Christmas day with extended family!

Dodgeball Champs?!?

Well, two sports...two championships. I would have never thought it could happen. I've only dreamt it might happen or wished that I might be as fortunate as my fabulous intramural athletic inlaws (Kim and Kerry) that win all their sports. This years been great so far. One of my law student friends asked if I would like to play dodgeball with them. I thought that sounded like fun and it was. We ended up making it to the B league finals and won. The funny thing is the team we played made it the finals because all the teams on their side of the bracket forfeited. I don't think that they were very good, but none the less we still get the beloved intramural championship t-shirt.

Disco

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We Are The Elves

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Pedodontists are special people

I was just thinking of funny things that have happened to me recently and I thought I would record one for the ages, just for fun. In the not to distant past I was fulfilling my rotation in our school's pediatric dentistry clinic. Each time I performed my rotation I have had a blast. Usually the kids are great, the staff is great, and the I enjoy all the faculty in the department as well.
Anyway, the other day on my rotation everything was going normal and great as always. Shortly after I arrived I was assigned to a patient and an assistant, after which I logged onto the computer to review all the important information regarding my patient. I was quick to notice a note in the history that this particular child was wiggly and began to cry while they placed a couple sealants. With his age and history I began to wonder how this visit would unfold.
The child was brought back to the chair and I tried my best to help the child feel comfortable by performing the tell show do technique. The child seemed to be Ok for the most part. As I talked with the child I noticed something in his mouth, a piece of candy. I explained the need to take it out. Of course the child didn't want to do that, but after some persuasion (you'll get it back when we're done) it came out. We placed the child back in the correct position and started to get the final things ready. I turned back to the child and once again there was something in the mouth. Yep, another piece of candy. Again, we convinced him, after some persuasion to take it out and sit back again. I think that happened one more time. We tried to keep the child's hands out of his pockets so no more candy would appear. We placed protective sunglasses on and started the nitrous protocol. Both of which we had to keep repositioning because the child would only sit still for short periods of time. As soon as the nitrous started working the patient was anesthatised and a rubber dam was placed. Knowing that our time was limited we tried performing the procedure as quickly as possible. With all our efforts the child ended up pulling the rubber dam off the mouth three different times, two of which there appeared another piece of candy. Needless to say by the final stages of the appointment the child started to whimper and squirm more than before. To our relief the simple filling was complete and restored after about 20 minutes, which seemed like eternity. It was an experience that re-enforced my decision to not persue a specialty in pedo. I love kids and most of the time they can be the best patients, but experiences like this one remind me why I prefer adults.

Second Annual Conestoga Branch Pinewood Derby!

Well, I can't believe it's been a year since the last Conestoga Branch Pinewood Derby. I got the idea from Brad Belcher, my father in law, last year as an idea to help all men in the ward have an activity. He said from his experiences with an adult pinewood derby it worked great. So, we tried it last year and it went pretty well. Thus, we tried it again this year and I have to say it was a great success. We had lots of people out to participate and quite a few less actives as well. I think the best part of it all was getting to work on the cars with my boys and others.
One evening while I was helping a group get started on their cars Porter asked me if he could make on. I said, "Of course!" He then decided he wanted a ninja turtle car. At first that kind of worried me because Porter has a tendency to get upset if something (art work) doesn't turn out the way he thinks it should; but I agreed and started by just drawing a ninja turtle outline on the block of wood. That passed his approval; I passed the first test. I put off the carving part for a couple of days because I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off making a block of wood look like a turtle that Porter would actually like. Finally, a couple days later after Porter continued to ask if we were going to work on his car I decided to give it a try. After a couple hours in the garage a turtle emerged from the wood and I thought it looked pretty good. I quickly cleaned up my mess then ran upstairs back into the apartment. I excitedly showed the car to Porter and to my relief and excitement he thought it was awesome. We then spent the next hour working together on the paint job. One might not believe it, but Porter painted probably 80% of the car. He did a great job. I was impressed. He has a good eye for detail and an relentless desire for perfection.
It was pretty fun to listen to Porter and his excitement for his car. For the next couple of days he kept asking me when the derby was going to be followed by "My turtles going to win!" I was excited for him too, but then the thought came to me; "what if he doesn't win? How's he going to handle it?" We had some great talks about winning isn't everything and how he might act if his car doesn't win. He seemed to understand that it would be ok if he didn't win.
The Derby day came and Porter, Craig, Erin, Peyton, and I all went to the church early to get everything set up. We set up the gym but we couldn't find the track. We made some calls and found out the track was in a closet on the stage. To our surprise the closet was locked. I was pretty worried, because the only key I had was to the clerks office and it didn't even work because they changed all the locks on the doors recently. We started to worry a little. I thought I better at least try my key, just in case. To my surprise the door unlocked and we were able to get the track out. I tried my key in other doors and sure enought it didn't work in any lock I tried. I felt pretty blessed.
We got everything ready to go; track, food, awards, etc. People began to show and Craig became our MC. The races began and to my surprise Porter's car did really well. He won his pool without a loss. So, his car moved onto the championship bracket. He made it all the way to the finals without a loss. I began to think that he might have a chance of winning. He was pretty proud of his car too. He raced his good friends car in the semi finals and won. It was so cute to see his friend come up and congratulate Porter and tell him he did a good job. (Of course that won Kane the sportmanship award. Well deserved!) Anyway, Porter's car ended up getting second place and to my relief Porter was still very happy and went and cogratulated Mark Stewart. I was pretty proud of him. He still won a award...the most creative design. It was a ton of fun and everyone had a great time. The car is below.

Thanksgiving 2008 with some friends.

The Cookie Monsters!

Our boys love making cookies. Porter loves to help measure the ingredients and placing them in the mixing bowl. He actually gets upset if I try to sneak an ingredient in before he has a chance. Peyton loves to find the bag of chocolate chips and eat as many as he can before Mom or Dad decide he's had enough. All in all we just have a great time being together. Oh course eating the cookies when they're done isn't to shabby either.

Flag Football, what's next?

Well, this coming Tuesday night we play UNO's flag football intramural champion for the Omaha University's cup. It's at 8:30 PM on the UNO football field. I guess UNO has won the last two meetings. We'll see how we fair on Tuesday. It should be fun. Then on Saturday we head to Lincoln for the Flag Football regional tournament. It too should be fun with a lot of great competition. I was surprised to find out how involved this flag football affair here in the midwest. I had no idea. As long as everyone stay healthy it should be a good time.

We Finally Did It!

Brundo's Dean Team won the Creighton All-University Flag Football tournament. It's been one of my dreams and goals since my freshman year of undergrad at Rick's college (back in 1998). Now, ten years later the dream and goal finally became a reality. I wrote the goal down about a year ago and got some guys together that had the same dreams and goals. It took most of the season to get all of us playing well together. The last three games our team really started to gell. In fact we beat the only undefeated team (Pacman Jones) tonight 20 - 0 in the championship game. It was incredible. Big thanks to Dean Brundo who sponsored our team (he paid our entry fee and our bought our t-shirts we designed). Great playing by James Boone, Justing Frandsen, Tyler Boss, Matt Larson, Matt Godfrey, Brady Powell, Mark, Spencer, Devin Matsumori, and I guess I have to throw my name in there too. Last year I was our go to guy on offense. This year it didn't work out that way, I became the go to guy on the defensive line. I started rushing the quarterback in the last game and did pretty well and loved it. Now, that's pretty much all I play. Anyway, it was a blast and the goal was accomplished. Everyone played great and had a great time. The best part about it was Erin as able to come and watch the last two games. Porter got to watch our game yesterday and Andrew came tonight. It is always nice to have family and friends around to support you.

If you don't already know....we decided!

So, after much praying and fasting, and a few interviews, Lynn and I decided that we will be going to The Ohio State. He has decided that he wants to specialize in Prosthedontics. For those who don't know what that is, it's anything to do with fake teeth like dentures, implants, crowns, bridges etc. The residency is three years long, but we hope that it will all be worth it in the end. We are excited to start on a new adventure and go to some awesome football games. We are also excited to be close to more church history sites. We plan on taking weekend trips to all of the exciting places in the east that we can. They say that Ohio is in the midwest, but it really isn't. It's totally eastern United States. So, if anyone is interested in visiting we will be moving out there in May or June.

The Week in Review

Where has this week gone? We've had a great week, but it went so fast. Here are a couple of highlights from this week:

1. Visitors from Idaho!

Lynn's Uncle Brent and Aunt Marcie and their girls drove through on their way to Michigan. They had intended on only staying for an hour or so, but we convinced them to stay the night! We stayed up way to late talking and then woke up the next morning and took them over to the Winter Quarters Trail Center. It was so nice having family come visit!


2. FHE
So, anytime Porter wants to do something as a family he always says, "Let's do Family Home Evening when dad gets home!" This night wasn't actually family home evening, but Porter wanted to play video games as a family. Peyton thought he was playing too, but he wasn't.

3. Branch Halloween Play Group

The kids had a lot of fun at the play group. They colored place mats, decorated cupcakes, made haunted houses, ate mummy dogs, and did a little trick or treating. This is only the first of our Halloween festivities.


4. Dance, Dance, Dance



We often take time in the afternoon to turn up the music and dance! My kids have got some rhythm. Porter pushed repeat on "Ice, Ice, Baby" like 6 times. That was what he was dancing to in this film. I think he is trying to break dance. Totally sweet!

Jennifer and Jessica's Baptism

We have been getting to know an investigator of our church named Jennifer for the past two months. She is a single mother of 4 and is in her forties. We've gone over with the missionaries and helped teach her, we've had her over for general conf., we've had her over for dinner, and family home evening. She is an amazing woman who has an incredible life story. We have been fortunate enough to become good friends with her and her family. Last night she and her daughter Jessica (17), got baptised! Jennifer asked our family if we would sing. So, I picked a song the whole family knew, "I Am A Child of God." The spirit was so strong through the whole baptism and there were a lot of people there to show support. While we sang the song, I couldn't help but get tearry eyed because of how strong the spirit was there. Porter sang so well! He knew every single word of each verse, which was good because by the end of the song when I was supposed to be doing a solo I couldn't sing. He chimmed in and sang through until the song was over. It was the most precious thing in the world. There was hardly a dry eye in the room. It was an incredible experience and we were so blessed to be able to participate in Jennifer and Jessica's special day.

Here are a couple of pictures of us during FHE.

Right to Left: Andrew, Jennifer, Peyton, Porter, Me, and Jessica

Porter, Me, and Jessica

The Beard Experiment

Fall break came around and I just didn't want to shave. So, naturally a little facial hair appeared on my face. It didn't go away and eventually it was fairly thick. I thought I'd trim and and see how it looked. I thought it didn't look too bad so I left it. At school I was pleasantly surprised with all the good reports I was getting. In fact the dean of the clinic came up to me and proceeded to tell me he thought it looked pretty nice and how his beard never looked good. Somehow, he then told me about his mustache he had in dental school that was thin and looked "awful." So, he colored it red to better match his hair and it actually stained his lip red for a couple of days. Anyway, it always surprises me the attention I get when I do things that are a little more extreme. It was fun, but now it's done. The scratchiness won out in the end. Maybe at Christmas I'll give it a try again.

Cheesers!!!

Do you see any resemblances? Porter and his dad look a lot alike don't they?

Great Fall Break

So far we've had two days of Fall Break from school. I think this is the first break in school that Erin and I haven't packed our suit cases and headed out somewhere. We were very close yesterday to doing so though. I looked at her and said "We should just head for home." She got all excited and actually started packing. Not too long after she did she came back into the living room where I was figuring out the time and gas it would take to head to Utah or Wisconsin and she let her more realistic self take over when she said "I don't think we should go." We both looked at each other and agreed that it would be really nice to see some family, but we also agreed that it probably wasn't the right thing for us to do this time. Our friends stopped by and visited for a while. I think that helped break our home sickness a little. They thought we should just go, in fact they said we should go early in the morning. We all laughed and thought it might be fun. They left when their little girl was starting to get fussy. Erin and I put in our movie (Iron Man) and finished out our day with that. No sooner was it done and Erin was asleep, as always when we stay up to watch a movie together, I heard Porter make some weird sounds in his room. I ran back and he told me he needed to throw up. I picked him up and ran to the bathroom where sure enough he unloaded in the toilet. He ended up throwing up several times that night. I think that Erin was inspired with her denying our adventure to somewhere. All that throw up would have been in our car and it would have made for a long horrible drive. So in retrospect we're glad we stayed here. We spent most of today cleaning up our house (carpets and couches) and letting Porter recover. By the way he's doing fine now.

I thought I would throw in a couple of college football predictions as well:
BSU 38 -- Southern Mississippi 24
BYU 46 -- New Mexico 24
(Both of which I believe to very achievable, possibly understatements it both BSU and BYU play at their potential)

Daddy's Birthday, big 28

Animal Olympics

Porter's Pre-K class had a family fun day last Thursday. Porter was so excited to have Peyton and I there in his class with him. We got to do a variety of activities that involved animals. We made the Olympic rings out of Nilla Waffers, read stories, counted animals, sorted animals, and colored a picture of an animal. Porter had fun and didn't want to leave, which suprised me because he claims to not like school. His teacher is so nice and I know that he enjoys her class even if he says he doesn't.

Porter and his teacher

Porter just took a cookie without asking and was running away.

Peyton loved exploring the classroom. Porter made sure that he didn't get into any trouble.

Porter coloring. Peyton eating the crayon.

Birthday Pictures

My birthday was a very relaxing one. I'm grateful to have been able to sleep in on Sunday morning. We went to stake conference and then came home and just hung out. Lynn made us a simple, but delicious lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup. I didn't eat that whole plate of sandwiches just so you know. Later that night we went to the Zech's and had cake and ice cream. It was a great day. Thanks to all for the birthday wishes and gifts.

RESULTS

BSU 37 Oregon 32
BYU 44 Wyoming 0

Wow! Can you believe it? I'm amazed and very happy.

My College Football Predictions

BSU 32 Oregon 24
BYU 49 Wyoming 14
What do you think? Crazy or possible?
I think the BSU prediction is a want more than an actual prediction. Go big blue.

First Flag Football Game of 2008

Brundo's Dean Team (pic pending)


Man, I love sports. Especially one that I get to play. I don't know what it is but sporting events just get my adrenaline running. All day long I was anxious in anticipation for our game. This year I think I'm even more excited than year past; we all hope to be to do very well. We gathered the most athletic people we knew from the dental school and pt school and formed our team. We have a team full of very quick, very fast, and very football savy people. I don't think I've ever played on a team with the potential we feel we have. We all agreed that we need to play in the most competitive league (Creighton's Elite League) so we could best prepare our team for the All-University tournament at the end of the season. (The all-U tournament doesn't really take in account which league played in, it just takes the top 30 teams or so and placed them in a huge tournament. The winner moves on to the regional tournament)
Anyway, I was so excited for our first game, it was crazy. Finally, 9:30 PM almost arrived. I got ready (actually I was dressed and ready about 3 hours prior to the game) and headed to the baseball fields to meet up with my teammates. To my surprise President Wilkenson was there watch us. I felt honored that he took part of his very busy schedule to come watch our silly game.
The game started and it started out as a very sloppy first half performance on our part. It was kind of frustrating. We had a couple of turnovers and allowed them to score a touchdown. I think we were all a bit shocked that our "stacked" team was loosing and we were playing so poorly. We decided to change our defensive plan for the second half and we knew that if we kept it simple on offense we'd do Ok. Our defense was very good the second half. I believe they had maybe 1 first down the whole half. Our offense was much better. We scored and tied the game very quickly at 7-7. We then moved the ball up the field several times and came so close on two other drives to putting it in the end-zone. Both times turning the ball over on downs. The end result was a tie 7-7. We weren't too happy, but concidering it was our first game we were pleased to pulled off the tie. It was sure fun though. Now, I can't wait for the up coming game in a week.

Seen and Heard

Heard:
Porter- "Mom, do you know that Jesus loves us?"
Me- "Yes, he does!"
Porter- "Yeah, he thinks I'm pretty cute."

Seen:
Peyton crawling down the middle of a table at the church before a funeral dinner.

Heard:
Porter: "Mom, tell my teacher that I'm not hungry or drinky (meaning thirsty)" (He says this everyday in fear that his teacher will make him eat snack at school).

Seen:
Peyton walking around the house with Lynn's BSU hat on backwards. (for some reason he loves it and every time he finds it he puts it on his head)

Seen:
Peyton and his friend Emmett trying to give each other a high five, but completely missing and hitting each other instead.

Heard:
Peyton saying "car" for the first time!

First Football Party of the Year

What a day. Almost every team I want to follow won. BYU smashed UCLA (59-0) and sadly there was little national media attention praising BYU's outstanding game (Boo on ESPN). BSU beat Bowling Green (spelling?) in a fairly close game (20-7); good news is BSU's defense played pretty well. Nebraska (I have to be a Nebraska fan now that we've lived here for a couple years) won as well.
They best part of the day was having over a couple of friends to watch the big USC/OSU game. The Lords, Frandsens, and Zechs were all at our house at kick off time. We had pizza, soda, wings, candy, and peach cobbler (thanks to the Zechs for the peach cobbler). The guys just kicked back and talked football, the wives talked about something (girl stuff?) and the boys (literally the boys because none of us have a girl) ran wild in and out of Porter's room playing turtles, transformers, star wars, and who knows what else. It was a good time. I think everyone decided we should do it again, maybe next week. We'll see.

Peyter Skater

Peyton is mister personality. He loves to hide in tents, try to touch the computer while Porter is playing, and get into a lot of mischief. Like most kids he loves to throw his food all over and get into the toilet. I have to follow him around all day long. He is our little daredevil who loves to climb on chairs to get up on the table. He also loves to throw toys around the house. He usually grunts as he throws. Poor Porter is always dodging toys especially in the bathtub. We call him the "Wackasaurus" because he loves to wack things. He is a sweet boy too. He likes to give hugs and will usually put his head on my shoulder and say "awwwwwwww."

Peyton loves broccoli! So one day after dinner we caught him with a whole mouth full. I'm pretty sure that he spit it all out onto the ground after he was finished with it.

Here he is after he just spilled craisins all over the ground. He even helped me pick them up and put them back into the bag.

Peyton doing what he does best...climbing!

Peek-a-boo!

Omaha Air and Space Museum

Porter, Peyton, Craig Chambers, Maddy, and I all spent a Daddy/Kiddie day together this past Labor Day. Craig wanted to go to Air and Space Museum and we all that would be fun. So, we went. Porter had a blast. Actually all the kids had a blast. Even Maddy as the lone girl in the back seat laughed most of the time. I reality she probably felt pretty special due to the fact that she was the only girl with four other guys. That's like a girls heaven isn't it?

Our adventure started out with everyone hungry, so of course we went to McDonalds; Porter's choice. I was just happy to eat something for the first time during the day.

When we first got there Porter got really excited. As we were just about to enter the Museum Porter turned and looked at me with the most elated look on his face and said: "Daddy, this is like we going to a real museum." I had to laugh and I said: "Ya, it is." All the way through the exhibit he was talking telling me that that plane was really cool or that plane was really big. He had a great time. As did Peyton. Peyton mainly stayed in the stroller and laughed a Porter and Maddy.