Here is our kitchen that we are able to now use and live in and love.  It is amazing and we absolutely love it!  (if you’ve forgotten what our old kitchen looked liked, just scroll down a tad)  There are still paint touch ups to do and a few odds and ends to wrap up.  Oh, and the outside of the house (front, one side and back) need to be finished.  But we are over the hard stuff.  We do need some new furniture to go with our cute new spaces, but that will have to wait a while.  We are very happy with how it turned out!

The study.  Still need a shelf on that wall.

Study

Nook

Categories: Family
3 Comments »

Our little 5-year-old Meg lost her first tooth!  She messsed with it until it was ready.  Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle….”is it ready yet?”  She lost it on a Saturday but waited to put it under her pillow until the following Friday night, after her show and tell day at school.  And when the tooth fairy came, he almost got caught.  “Dad, why did you take my tooth and leave a dollar under my pillow?” Apparently she was pretending to be asleep.  Brig assured her that it wasn’t him, he just thought he heard something and went in to check.  Phew! Its still all good here in tooth fairy land.

Categories: Family
No Comments »

Thought I would post some before and during photos of our kitchen/dining/study/living room.  We have been under construction for about 2 months now.  I have been pretty good about living without a kitchen, but I’m starting to get antsy and annoyed with our “multipurpose” room.  It’s impossible to keep the house clean during the remodel.  The floors constantly have white stuff on them.  Thankfully we have a big enough family room to put our temporary kitchen in.  I love having the fridge right next to the TV and the dining room table and chairs behind the couch and all the food exposed and readily available!  I have been doing a lot of crock pot cooking and using the burner on our bbq.  Surprisingly we have kept our eating out to a minimal (much to the chagrin of the children).  “Chicken and rice again?”

In just a few short weeks we will have a kitchen again.  I can stop using the bathroom sink and laundry room sink to do the dishes in.  Ah, life will be a bit easier.  We do feel very blessed that we are able to do this remodel.  The old 70’s galley kitchen was nasty and tiny.  When this is done it will be beautiful! We love, love love our new house!  Despite our construction zone.

Multipurpose Room

Old Galley Kitchen

Old Dining Room

Old Living Room and Fireplace (which is gone)

A few weeks ago

The kids thought it was pretty cool that they got to go underneath the house.

Current kitchen looking from eat-in dining area towards island

Kitchen looking into living room

The study (old galley kitchen space)

Still a lot to do like painting cabinets and walls and installing floors, appliances, lights, trim, etc., etc., etc.  But its coming along and is a big improvement from what it was.  Many thanks to our friend and contractor Ryan for taking on this big project.

More to come…

Categories: Family
5 Comments »

Yes, I’ve done it again. I’m so far behind I don’t know where to begin.  I’ve been a bit busy, so everyone just back off alright!  This weekend we are heading into our third move in 8 months.  Life has been crazy, but we feel very blessed to be able to be moving into our own home.  It’s funny how things work out.  Needless to say, its been quite a summer.  Moving, looking for a house to buy, buying a house, moving again.  We also had a few fun things thrown in there somewhere.

I feel I just have to journal how hard its been over the last year or so.  Not unbearable, just hard.  Moves and difficult children.  I guess its taken its toll on everyone.  For some reason, the kids have been so disobedient and hard.  Can I say hard one more time?  Brigham and I have talked about this change we’ve seen in our family and we aren’t sure what to do about it.  Too much yelling and fighting and arguing.  Everything is a fight or a threat or a struggle.  Not enough compliance and respect.  We are trying some things to improve this, trying to be better.  More regular family scripture study.  Its easy to put that aside with busy schedules.  Hopefully we can have more peace in our home.  I’m not writing this for sympathy, just so I can look back in the hopefully near future and say, “phew, glad we got through that!”

Now, a quick recap of our fun, crazy, busy summer.

Maisy became a cyclist

And a brushing fanantic

A fun trip to Yosemite with the Wises

Me and the boys did a midnight hike up Half Dome

Hung ten in San Diego with the Reeders

Maisy loved the beach.  She wasn’t afraid of the ocean

Meg, the butterfly.   We had many more pics of this trip, but they’re on Brig’s computer and I can’t get them right now.  We had a great time hanging out with family at the beach house and even took the kids to Disneyland where they rode all the scary rides, even Meg, and loved it!

Our good friends, The Dahl’s came to visit.  Emma and Mckenna, back together again.  We didn’t have a ton of time together, but we made the most of it.  Took a little hike up Mt. Diablo to Rock City.

We also went to the beach in Santa Cruz.  We love you Dahls!

Meg getting ready for her race!

The kids did swim team for the first time this summer and absolutely loved it!  They had practice everyday, and never wanted to miss or take a day off.  They had meets on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.  It was a huge time commitment, but worth it.  It was fun to watch them improve throughout the season.

Meg coming in for her finish.  Her specialty, breast stroke! She wasn’t the fastest, but she had perfect technique that allowed her to make the finals at conference. (7 kids got DQ because of illegal kick) And she’s 4!  So cute to watch.

The Coop-dog getting competetive! He worked hard and really improved.  At conference he got 4th in freestyle and 7th in breast stroke. He wanted to swim butterfly at conference, but it was on a Sunday.

Cooper also got the “Spirit” award at the end of the year.

Emma improved so much throughout the season too.  She improved her strokes and decreased her time.  Her age group, 7-8 was a tough one, but she almost made finals at conference.

Emma also got the “Spirit” award.  My kids have spirit!

We also did a weekend in Tahoe with the Wises.  So beautiful and lots of fun!  I’ve decided I would like a house on the lake, and a boat.  Can someone make that happen please?

Hmm, I’m the only adult who would brave the cold water with the kids.  It actually wasn’t too bad.

Meg practicing her breast stroke

Cold Cooper!

Emma could stay in the water for hours

Coop, Ollie and Sam getting warm

Last but not least, Cooper celebrated his 7th Birthday!  He got another personalized skateboard (since the one he got for Christmas was stolen).  He was very excited.

It wasn’t his year for a big party, but we did go bowling with the cousins

Emma, Maisy, Sophie, Oliver, Sam, Cooper and Meg

We also had a little family celebration at the San Francisco Creamery, and another little party with the grandparents to celebrate Sam and Cooper.  I think he had a fun day.  Cooper is still my little man.  He is sweet and funny.  He makes us all laugh.  He is really starting to become all boy.  He loves all sports and even watches Sports Center.  Look out, here comes another Brigham!

Well, there you have it.  A little recap of the Wise goings on!

Categories: Family
9 Comments »

Maisy turned one yesterday!  I can hardly believe it.  My how the time rushes by.  We are still unpacking and getting settled in our new house, so we just celebrated with a little banana cake.  She loved it and ate it all up.

We sure do love our Maisy.  She is so much fun.  She walks, runs, climbs, gets into everything, has a  mouth full of teeth, gives hi-5’s, puts underware and other pieces of laundry on her head and walks around the house laughing.  She is a character.  We love you Maisy.  Happy 1st Birthday!

Categories: Family
4 Comments »

Where would we be without mothers?  Obviously not here.  Besides bringing us into the world, moms do so much for us.  I am so lucky to have such wonderful mothers in my life.

First of all the GG’s – the Great Grandmas.  My grandmas have been a wonderful blessing in my life.  I have great memories of visiting grandma’s house or having them visit us.  Whether it was bringing cookies or making pancakes with powdered sugar, there was always a special treat from grandma.  Of course before they were my grandmas they were my parent’s moms.  They did a great job raising them.  And now they are my kids great grandmas.  My kids love to see them.  To have a story read to them or just to show them their latest trick.  I am so grateful for my Grandma Jean and Grandma Nettie.  Love you both.

What can I say about my mom?  She has been there for me since the beginning.  Always there to encourage and support me and she continues to do so.  She has worked so hard for 30+ years to teach me things that will make me a better person.  As you get older you start to realize more of the things that were done for you.  I see how crazy our schedules are with our kids and I realize what it was like for my mom.  It’s understandable why she could have forgotten to pick me up from soccer practice.  Don’t worry mom, it was only a 3.6 mile walk home .  I distinctly remember that experience, but what I don’t remember is the countless times that she was there to pick me up.  I guess we tend to remember the abnormal situations.  That’s why moms get taken for granted so much.  They do so much for us all the time that we don’t notice, or just expect.  Thanks mom for all of the things you have done and continue to do for me.

My wife is a wonderful mother to all of us.  Like I just said, there is so much that she does for us that goes unnoticed or unthanked.  There is the eternal laundry, cleaning, taxiing, organizing, somtimes cooking , early mornings with the babies, checking homework, helping at school, and love and support for all we do.  Kristin is an incredible mother.  We are so blessed to have her.  She keeps the family on track.  I don’t know what I would do without her.  I love you.  Thank you for all you do.

Thanks to all the mothers in our lives.  We love and appreciate all you do.

And click here for a little Mother’s Day humor

Categories: Family, Pictures
1 Comment »

Going back in time a bit, I feel I need to cover some of our Easter activities.  We decorated eggs and had a couple of Easter Egg Hunts and all of that, but we also concentrated a little bit more on the true meaning of Easter.  One of our friends  is working on getting his book on Easter published and gave us a copy to try out with our family.  It went through and told what Christ did each day, the week of his crucifixion and resurrection.  It was cool to go over that with the kids.  They were totally into it.  Its fun to see them excited about learning the gospel (though I’m not going to lie, each Sunday Coop asks if we can just skip church one time.  “It’s so boring!”).  But they truly were interested in learning about what happened to Christ.  It was good.

Here are some pictures of our first Easter Egg Hunt at the little park in our neighborhhod. We have a really cool neighborhood called Walnut Knolls (which we may be leaving soon, but thats a different story).  The neighborhood gets together for different activities and holidays throughout the year.  The A. Wises joined us for this hunt.

Oliver and Meg

Easter Morning.  They look cute here, but after comments of, “Is this all we get?” and tantrums over not finding the “ugly” egg, our morning was ruined.  So much for a Christ centered day in our house.

Another hunt in the A. Wises backyard

Coop’s been having a hard time finding his “real” smile in photos lately

Categories: Family
3 Comments »

Too busy?  Yes.  Too tired?  Yes.  Too many other priorities?  Yes.  Does American Idol count as a priority?  I think so.

Where do I start after I’ve slacked for so many months?  Perhaps I’ll start with my baby, who is quickly becoming a toddler.  My little Maisy is only 11 months old, but walks and climbs like a pro.  I put her on  the little trampoline at gymnastics yesterday and she was practically jumping!  Bending the knees up and down, almost catching air.  She is nuts.  Very cute and sweet and busy.  She loves laundry for some reason.  She puts it on her head and walks around the house.  She is into taking all the books off the bookshelf and pulling everything out of cupboards and drawers (I need those child lock things).  As busy as she is, Maisy also loves to be held.  She loves her mama!  Ok, she thinks Dad is pretty great too.  We are all in love with her.  The kids are pretty good at helping out with her.  Meg has become quite the big sister, since she is home the most with her.  She takes care of her and is quick to carry her to me at the first hint of a cry.  Thanks Meg!  Maisy is also saying mom, dada, Emma,  and I swear I heard her say Meg (minus a strong “g” at the end) tonight.  She has some lungs this girl.  She is starting to get a little of that Wise girl spunk that is so great…..no, I mean hard!  Oh, and she just finished nursing.  She lasted the longest of all my kids.

Loves her bear-bear

Loves cheerios and practically any other food given to her

Just discovered Elmo

Likes to get into the fridge

Doesn’t really love being dressed up in sister’s pj’s

Loves to read

Loves to be outside

Happy baby

Categories: Family
3 Comments »

Categories: Family
6 Comments »