Brooke as Elsa from Frozen !

My oldest daughter Brooke turns 8 this week and she is having a Frozen Theme birthday. 

Her only request was a frozen cape, so I found these awesome fabrics at Jo Anns and my truly talented sister in law was kind enough to make this dress for her. I'm truly amazed at how great it turned out. I had searched all over the internet for the official disney dress and was unable to find one for less than 500 dollars ! It makes me sick because I saw it in JC penny just a couple months before. Anyway my daughter is in love with her dress and said she likes it even better than the official dress cause she didn't want a poofy dress ! So it all worked out !

This is a close up of the bodice. We used a dance leotard as the body, then the dark blue material has some stretch to it. My sis in law attached it right under the arms so it hangs down over the leotard. The overlay fabric is irradecent blue, they had a silver, but the blue was perfect. The snowflake embellishment is a button.

The back is a blue and silver mesh. I found these smaller snowflake buttons at Walmart. I glued them all over the cape and glued a few to bobby pins to put in her braid 

This is actually a ring I found at Jo Anns, it's adjustable and easily wraps around her hair tie.

Needless to say, she's a happy girl. Can't wait for her party on Saturday !

All photo credits go to Nmotion photography 

5 years since Dads Death

    I don't usually focus on my Dad's death date. Ever since he passed and I would have my sad moments, and I would feel the Lords guidance. One particular time I was having an especially rough day. Hormonally I was a roller coaster and the thought just struck me of how my dad would have just loved Matthew. He worshipped the ground my littles walked on and you could just see it in his face how much he loved and appreciated them. Anytime we would visit, their wants were priority. 

     So probably the month before his death, we were swinging the kids on the swing set out back while mom cooked dinner and he told me how proud he was of me for staying home with them while they were little. We were struggling pretty hard at the time and him saying that really helped put our situation in perspective. I could see the hurt when he talked about not being home when Colton was a toddler and missing out on parts of his life having to work as much as he did to support his family. He worked 6 days a week, and seldom took any time off. He would be out picking up milk and have the flu. He was serious ! I even remember laying in a hospital bed scared to death as they were about to roll me away for surgery when I was pregnant with Brooke and he got there just as they were rolling me into the hall. Dad grabbed my hand, and I don't even know of he knows how much that meant. 

I know he had to rush through work to get there in time. 

    I birthed my 3 babies in that hospital and also learned he died standing there in those halls. 

    

    Here we are 5 years later. 5 years... I can't believe it's really been that long. I still have times that something will sneak up and remind me of him, and it will hit me so hard I have to sneak off to the bathroom to cry. Once I was crying, thinking about Dad when my daughter Brooke knocked on the door. She didn't know I was crying or that I was even upset, but she said " do you want a cuddle ?" I said " sure, hang on a sec " I wasn't done crying. But that was one of those times where I thought  ( dad wouldn't want me locked in the bathroom crying that he's gone, he would want me out there cuddling those adorable little granbabies all I could while I could ) and so that's how I honor him. I don't go sit by his grave stone crying for a life that's lost, I let his presence of his life be a mental reminder and guide that this life is just a blink and a childhood is even shorter, enjoy them while you can, and when the bad days come, those will be over soon too. 

   I love you dad, I miss you everyday. We talk of you often and remember you fondly. I can't thank you enough for choosing to love me as your own. 

See you soon :) 

Christmas Vacation 2013

    Growing up we didn't do vacations. I may have mentioned that before. So once I got married, I always thought that we would be one of those families who went on vacation every summer. Then life happened. We lost jobs, got new jobs, had babies and were busy trying to build a life. 

      

       Then as the girls got a little older, we did a couple weekend getaways. They were always awesome, but also made me nervous about ever really taking a long trip considering how hard it is to get everything planned, together and actually to a destination. 

      Then last year we made it to Disney World !!! I still can't believe that we were able to go. I can't wait to go back and take Matthew !

    But this year we took our first skiing trip to South Fork CO. We had so much fun and up until that last day ( when Brooke and I came down with the flu ) it was so worth it ! 

This was the view from our balcony. It was so nice waking up each morning looking out our window from our bed :)

Matthew was not a fan of the cold or the snow lol he kept saying ( it's Yukky !)

Our girls went the ski school for two days. We went skiing with them on the second day and could not believe how good they were. And fearless ! I was in amazement. A little girl who wouldn't come down off her bunk bed, yet she would ski down a mountain at break neck speeds lol 

We visited the town of Creed where we went up to see a mining area up on one side of a mountain. 

While Shawn went snowmobiling with the guys and Kourtney, we took the girls ice skating. It took Katie a minute to get her ice legs lol 

Family Photo's !

Hello !

I am SO excited to share our family photo's. Dabbling in photography, you would expect us to have a lot of family photo's, but like most people, my family gets pushed on the back burner. I have tons of photo's of my kids, but ones with Shawn and I, are few and far between.

What's best for our family ?

Ok,

First let me apologize for any grammatical errors etc. I hope you can see past any you come across and make since of my sometimes rambling way of explaining things !

  So when I first considered home schooling, I had a conversation with my best friend Jennifer.
She said "  Whatever works best for your family " ...at first I kinda thought of it as a generic answer you would give just because you don't really have any advice.  However after home schooling for a short time now, I realize what a jewel of information that really is. When I really think about it, I can see that for right now, at this stage in our lives and the circumstances we are in, it just makes since. Also other people who don't understand home schooling, also may not be able to wrap their minds around the idea because it either wouldn't fit into their family or they just can't see how it could. And that's ok ! It is NOT for everyone and the last thing both sides of the fence want is children slipping through the cracks uneducated.

  So for our family, the decision was left up to me alone. My husband is pro home school, being home schooled himself, and very anti public school. That's more based on decisions made by the government directly effecting the schools then it is poor teaching etc. In our case, we have a church run Christian school available to us, and for a year we enjoyed it to it's fullest. But like I said, circumstances change, and for us, financial circumstances changed. We had other factors that lead us to question if home schooling might be a smart move for the time being. At first I was thrilled. No more getting up at 7:00 am, getting 2 sleepy, grouchy, whiny girls ready for school. No more waking the baby up right in the middle of his naps to pick up the girls, no more waiting in line at school, and then the kids running outside as soon as we got him without so much as a hug. No more confusing homework assignments with no instructions other then the girls saying " I don't know what we are supposed to do ".

   At first I thought this was awesome, then I found out how hard it is. Teaching a child to read is like wanting to pull each eyelash out one by one lol. Can we tell I have to WORK at patience ?? So we struggled through the end of a year and I was never more thankful to see Summer in my life !

   Then in no time, it's time for school again. I chose an all inclusive home school program complete with video's, and while it's not perfect, it's a lot more my style. But that's the thing. You get to make so many more choices. You get to choose what truly works best for you, your children, your husband and your lifestyle in general.

  In our case, my husband works from home on Monday and Fridays. He has an at home office, and while I love it because he's home, he's also working way more than 8 hours a day. He really sleeps 8 ( sometimes ) is with us 2 hours a day, and the rest of the time is working. He owns a business and much like running a house, he's constantly interrupted,  and needed anytime day or night. It has its benefits and drawbacks. But that is our life right now, and for us, home schooling has been a blessing. It allows us to flex our daily schedule more around Shawn's, allowing us more daddy time. It also makes it easier on us. No more early mornings getting everyone off to school late when the toddler decided to have a teething fit at 4 am.

  In my opinion, it lets us break away from the daily set schedule and allows us to live more in the time we have. My girls sit down and do a good solid 4-5 hours of actual school work each day ( MOST DAYS ) and we are usually done everyday by 2 and that's not even getting started till 9 or sometimes 10 am.

  Today, I am having a super thankful for home schooling day. I have had MORE days where I am questioning everything. But the most important thing to me and Shawn is what is overall best for our children, the most nurturing environment with the freedom to grow into independent thinkers, and children who are problem solvers.

   So these are just some things on my mind today. For us, home schooling is just a piece of the puzzle of life we are on right now. We are not hard core one way or the other. Both sides have pros/cons and right now we feel our greatest benefit would be from schooling our children at home. However that may change ! So stay tuned !

  I pray you all have a Happy and Safe CHRISTmas and a wonderful beginning to a New Year !

Christmas Cousin's Photo's

So this year for the first time, we got all the cousin's together for Christmas Jammie photo's. This is a concept I saw on Pintrest last year and we didn't have time to pull it off.

This year we decided to give it a try and I am pretty pleased with the result.

Had you seen all the craziness, you would be shocked we even got a decent photo

For one, it was kinda wet and muddy, all the little's were in PJ's and the younger ones had on footie jammies. Then there was the twin sized bed to haul out into the woods. Then we have 4 mothers ( us ) 3 different camera's going and multiple limbs to trip over lol. Looking back, I can't believe we did this without getting frustrated ! Sometimes it helps to NOT think things all the way through. Ok, so here are a few of my personal fav from the session.

This one is by far my FAV of the ENTIRE session of my kids. Matthew was so rowdy jumping all over the bed, jumping OFF the bed, rolling off the bed, etc. BUT for this one glorious shot, he nailed it ! The girls as usual are adorable, and do what they are told and stay where they are asked, but with a wild card like my little man, it's still never easy. 

 This is my niece Leila. She is 1 and during this session, she was a busy little bee : ) I did manage to grab a couple shots of her looking at me ! Not easy or sometimes even possible with a mobile 1 year old !

This was Chelsey's idea I believe. And it's one of my fav's ! Brooke has just now gotten into a habit of wanting to read Matthew a bedtime story at night. She loves her siblings more then I have EVER seen anyone. I realize how very blessed I am and I am so THANKFUL to the Lord for each and every one of my little's. 

I LOVE the way Leila is holding onto Brooke's arm, Matthew is slumping down lol And just the entire photo in general.

 This was the ONLY shot I got of all the grandkids looking my direction ! I love it ! LOVE it.

NOW for an outtake lol 

What the heck is Matthew doing ???? LETS take a CLOSER look

YUP, I have NO idea what face this is, but it was NOT the only one that day lol 

I hope you enjoyed this photo's as much as we enjoy them ! Merry Christmas from the Bryan family and Happy New Year ! 

Abeka Video Streaming Curriculum

     As I mentioned before, we are new to homeschooling. Part of last year we took the girls out of their private school and started sing, spell, read and write with them. They liked it, but we didn't have the money to spend on anything complete and I supplemented with workbooks from walmart, Iphone apps, and a couple of websites.

I by no means felt like it was sufficient, but we also  went through a move right after we took the girls out of school and it seemed like it was no time before it was summer.

I had intended to HS through the summer, but it didn't work out that way.


     So I was on the hunt for a complete home school package. I am not yet one of those mom's who can pick and choose the best thing for each subject for each kid. I just don't have the capacity for it yet. I also don't know my children's learning styles well enough to choose. So I decided to go with Abeka. It is expensive for sure, but there was something about it being a complete curriculum that put my very  troubled doubtful mind at ease. So to me, it's worth it. Also the great thing about the option we chose is that it's the video program. The video's are a recorded teacher in a classroom teaching the lessons. I love that idea. I am no longer responsible to explain things to my kids. ESPECIALLY phonics. For whatever reason I have a hard time explaining that to my kids. I feel like I'm confusing them.  

I am basically there to get their materials ready, supervise their workbooks and have them read to me.

I will also be adding in my own arts and crafts things I find on pintrest to break up the subjects and make it a little more fun. Especially with girls !


I plan to also start Matthew with sensory type activities during out school time. With him being 2 I feel like most of the tot school things are too big for him, but their are ton's of idea's on pintrest for tot busy activities to keep them entertained and quite while the girls work. I do plan to have him watch the video's with them too. The video's seem very interactive. They have a lot of speaking out loud with the class, and answering the teacher back etc. I look forward to seeing how Matthew reacts to it. It reminds me a lot of how Dora the explorer is. The girls would scream out the answers when they were tot's ! lol

So this Tuesday marks out first day of school. We had a financial snag ( joys of being self employed ) and then had an issue with our debit card not going through due to a daily limit, which caused half of our shipment to be late. So even though we don't have Katie's books in, we are going to go ahead and start this Tuesday and I hope it's in that evening. We will be doing school Tuesdays through Fridays with our HS Co Op on Mondays.