Brikki P and the Boopers

Time & Football, Obsess Much

2010-01-05T20:49:00.001-08:00

Hayden's kind of learning how to tell time and he is obsessed with it lately. Part of it was that he got a watch from Santa at a family Christmas party. On the drive home he was constantly comparing the time on his watch to the time in the car. Now they're the same! Now they're different! We passed the high school and Hayden asked how old he would be when he was in high school. We told him about 15.

"So you guys will be dead, right?"

"No, Hayden, we won't be dead."

"Yeah, just really, really, really, really, really, really old."

Then we got home and he went in the bathroom and was in there for awhile doing his business. I almost forgot he was in there and then I hear, "It came out at 9:32!!!" Wonderful. Give it a length and a weight and it is documented like the birth of a child. At least he didn't tweet it. Then the following day, Sunday, Hayden, with his watch on, made sure to remind us we were two minutes late for dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's.

The watch is now missing, but the obsession with time crops up from time to time. We went to Phoenix to visit Nikki's family the week after Christmas. On the drive home Hayden kept asking me, "How many hours until we get home?" always followed by "How many seconds is that?" One time he asked me and my answer to the first question was 5 hours. My answer to the second question was 18,000 seconds to which Hayden said, "That's not too bad." Not too bad??? 18,000 seconds sounds like an eternity but I liked his optimism.

If Cole were to have an obsession right now it would be football. Anytime we asked him what he wanted for Christmas his response was a football helmet. Well, here he is Christmas morning. The helmet is a little big on him but that hasn't stopped him from throwing it on and coming at me, full speed, leading with the head. Spearing is illegal little man.

School

2010-01-05T20:30:00.000-08:00

The posts have not been consistent, but I've been gathering material and its time to get it out there before I forget it.

We had a momentous event with Hayden starting kindergarten this year. He was excited about it. How could I tell? Well, before school started he tried to convince me that he would be going to school in the morning and then back again at night. Night school for a five year old? Wow, I had to get to bottom of that. When I asked where he got that idea he told me to read the letter we got in the mail from the school. So I start reading the and I get to the part where talks about "Back to School Night". Hayden says, "See, right there! It says I go back to school at night!" That was funny but even more funny that he was excited at the thought of going to school at night as well as in the morning.

Well, they must be teaching them something down there at the kindergarten. I say that because politics is not a common topic of conversation at our house but one morning eating breakfast Hayden saw the picture below in the local newspaper and said, "They cut Obama in half?!?!?"

Sometimes we get these glimpses into the way a little kid's mind works, and I just wish I could know what he is thinking all the time because I have a feeling it would be pretty entertaining.

Soccer

2009-04-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

The weather cleared up and we had a beautiful day on Saturday. Just in time for Hayden's first soccer game. Because of weather they had only practiced once and for a lot of the kids, including Hayden, this is their first time playing any organized sport. I was worried it might be total chaos, but it turned out pretty good. Hayden chased the ball around, along with the other kids and got a few kicks in. His coach had him play goalie for a while and he did pretty good. He had one drop kick that kind of surprised us all. He was pretty proud of that one. He said to me later, "Remember when I dropped kicked it and it went way up in the sky?". I was just hoping that the whole experience wouldn't end in tears so all in all I think it was a succesful first outing.

Here me and Cole are giving Hayden some last-minute pointers on playing goalie. Cole wanted to play with the big boys so bad. We had to keep grabbing him to keep him off the field.

Easters

2009-04-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

"Do you not realize I have had diarrhea since Easters".

Senor Ramon, Nacho Libre

The way our kids have been eating candy today, we may be "running" into similar troubles. We kept with the tradition of the last two years and went to Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center. The boys got to hold the baby ducks and baby chickens, pet the goats and all that stuff. Nikki got to feed a goat. Actually, it attacked our bag of kettle corn that was sitting at the top of our stroller. Apparently the goat likes that stuff as much as I do because he wasn't letting go. Nikki was pulling on one side and the goat was pulling on the other. It ripped open and popcorn flew everywhere. I wish I would've got that on camera.

Here's us in our Sunday duds after Church on Easter Sunday.

We caught Cole with his eyes open and his mouth full.

That's all for now.

Halloween

2008-11-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

What is this? What did you say? Someone is just giving out candy? Who is giving out candy? EVERYONE THAT WE KNOW IS JUST GIVING OUT CANDY!!!???
- Jerry Seinfeld

If you've never heard Jerry Seinfeld's routine on Halloween, it's a classic and I would encourage you to check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfk2me7p9us

We had a fun Halloween. It started out with the Walker party, which traditionally includes stuffing our faces with good food and fun games. The kids throw candy corns in a cup and eat donuts on a string. The boys were the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin. I told Hayden that I should've dressed up as the Joker and he said, "No, because that would freak me out and I would have to fight you." That was a great point. From the look of this picture, he was not joking. He takes his responsibilities seriously.

Cole was just fine with the mask, which surprised us. The first time we put it on him he threw a fit when we took it off.

On Halloween night we had a little party. We made some homemade rootbeer. The CO2 was pooring over the counter and the boys had a blast with that.

Here are the kids having dinner before going trick-or-treating.

I thought this was a great picture of Jet, Hayden, and Trey getting into character.

The dynamic duo.

Cole was even beatin' the streets. Candy is a powerful motivator. I was there to filter the candy and make sure it was safe, in other words, pick out the Snickers and let him have the Smarties.

Love,
Brikki

First Trip to the Dentist

2008-10-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

If you know Hayden's temperament like we do, you'll know why we were a little nervous about his first trip to the dentist. Hayden had three personality traits going against him on this one: Hayden is cautious, stubborn, and a control freak.

First, Hayden is very risk adverse when it comes to trying new things. Food is definitely the first thing that comes to mind in that department but I also remember when we took him to the doctor for his 3-year checkup and he was scared to death of getting on the scales to be weighed. I picked him up to set him on there and he acted like I was holding him over a pit of hungry crocodiles. We had to weigh the two of us while I held him and then weigh me alone to get his weight. The visit went from bad to worse for him because a few minutes later they gave him some shots. I was holding him for that too, but this time it was more of a submission hold than an "it's OK, daddy's here" type of hold. Second, its next to impossible to get Hayden to do something he doesn't want to do. The harder you try to persuade him, the more determined he gets not to do it. Potty training was the ultimate battle of wills. Even with a 2-1 advantage and supposedly more wisdom we finally gave up. Once he realized he'd beat us, he decided to do his thing in the potty from then on. Lastly, Hayden likes to be in control of everything and everyone all of the time. I think most people would agree that sitting in the dentist chair with a person pokin' around in your mouth with sharp instruments does not feel "in control".

Against all odds, Hayden sat in the chair and let the hygienist clean his teeth. Maybe he's growing up, maybe the hygienist is good with kids, or maybe it was the promise that he could go to McDonald's after if he was good. Either way, we were proud of him.

They did find a cavity, and Nikki took him back another day to have it taken care of, but she wasn't so lucky. It was going great until the shot in the gums to numb him up. Then it was all over. Maybe a little gas is in order next time.

Love,

Brikki

Man, I love Canada.

2008-06-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

I had to go to Canada for work this week and I brought Hayden back a magnet with a picture of the Calgary stampede, which is a big rodeo featuring a covered wagon race. He was so excited about something so simple; I think he would've loved a rock off the side of the road. I don't know at what age kids get harder to please but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. We put the magnet on the fridge and Nikki observed the following: Hayden got a drink from the fridge. He stood their looking at the magnet on the fridge and then said, "Man I love Canada."

Last weekend we finished the wood floors and the kitchen cabinets went in this week. Here are a few pictures of the progress.

Here is Hayden standing where the dishwasher will go.

Me and Cole and the orbs.

Love,

Brikki

House Progress

2008-05-18T20:27:00.000-07:00

We've been putting in some late nights and long Saturdays on the house recently trying to get it painted. Here's a few shots of the paint job on the inside. First the kitchen/dining area:

This is the boys' room.

This is the Master Bedroom.

Not much has happened on the outside for awhile but this past week we got a driveway, steps, and a sidewalk. This coming week there should be a flury of work on the outside with the stucco and siding guys working while the framing crew frames the deck.

Love,
Brikki

Cole's 1st Birthday

2008-05-18T18:05:00.000-07:00

Our little Cole is one year old. This meant two things for the little guy: a haircut and a party. Before the haircut we got this shot of him punked out in the tub.

For his birthday we had a Hawaiian luau party. Dad wouldn't let us dig a hole in the backyard to burry a pig, so we settled for shish kabobs on the grill. Nikki made an awesome sand castle cake. Hayden and I were the only guys secure enough in our manlihood to wear the grass skirts.

Love,

Brikki

Baby Animal Days

2008-05-18T17:52:00.000-07:00

The American West Heritage center out in Wellsville has a Baby Animal Days in the spring with a bunch of activities and interactive displays for kids. Crystal and Tayla were in town so Mom took Nikki, Crystal and the kids out to the festivities. Hayden's favorite part was the baby turtles and he still remembers the name of the pony he rode: TinkerBell. You can see from the pictures that Hayden wanted to wear the tiger mask and the bike helmet, which I think would've looked awesome, but it didn't work out.

Love

Brikki

House Progress

2008-02-24T20:57:00.000-08:00

We've been trying to take pictures of our house as it is being built. Right now we have all the rough plumbing, heating and air, and electrical done and waiting for the last few windows and doors to be delivered so they can be installed. It would be nice to have windows and doors soon so I don't have to shovel snow out of our kitchen anymore.

Love,

Brikki

Hayden's Birthday

2008-02-24T20:27:00.000-08:00

Hayden had his 4th birthday a few weeks ago. We celebrated by going to eat pizza at Firehouse Pizza, which Hayden calls the "Hothouse". Here are some pictures of that.

Hayden also invited four of his friends over for a Pirate Birthday party. They decorated some treasure chests, played X marks the spot, had a treasure hunt and ate cake and ice cream. Here are some pictures of the Pirate Party.

Here are the boys showing off their pirate tatoos.

Love,

Brikki

Christmas Report

2008-02-24T19:56:00.000-08:00

We haven't posted anything since before Christmas so there is plenty to cover here. We had a good holiday...got to see a lot of family. Nate, Crystal, and Tayla were here so that was fun. The day after Christmas we made a trip to Phoenix to see Nikki's family there. While we were in Phoenix we went to see the lights at night at the Mesa temple. Hayden tried to get a little too close to the reflection pool and accidentally jumped into knee-deep water. That caught him by surprise. We loved eating the oranges and grapefruit from Grandma B's backyard. The ride home was long, so long that when Cole offered to drive I had to take him up on it. I was too nervous to sleep though because he wouldn't keep his eyes on the road as you can see in the picture.

I've also got a picture here of Cole stretching...just getting the ham-strings loosened up for the day's activities.

We've had a few choice sound bytes from Hayden that are worthy of recording. The other day Nikki was combing Hayden's hair and he was arguing that he wanted it left messy. He said, "Mom, why can't you just leave me the way Heavenly Father made me?"

Here is a shot of Hayden ice skating for the first time.

Love,
Brikki

Christmas Shopping

2007-12-15T15:58:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks Christmas shopping has been a frequent activity. Nikki and I even got up the day after Thanksgiving and battled fellow shoppers for the door-buster items. I think they should have a yearly reality-TV special covering Wal-Marts and Best-Buys around the country. It really is insane and everybody should see it at least once. Most people don't feel like getting up early on a day off and going out in the bitter cold (in our case) so that's why a TV special is in order. I mean that is what most reality TV is about, right? showing people in their worst form. For some reason, Black Friday brings out this competitive survival instinct. Yeah, everybody acts like your buddy when your standing in line. Some people are even forming alliances. "If you pick me up a GPS navigator I'll grab you a portable DVD player." But then the store opens and all respect and courtesy for other people is left at the door. At that point you are on your own...it's every man for himself. One year Nikki and I saw a lady with a walker go up to the front of the line just before the doors opened. It didn't bother the hundred people standing in line until the doors opened and she ditched the walker and ran for the sock bin. Surely, if that was caught on tape it would draw good TV ratings.

This week Nikki and Hayden were shopping for a gift for Grandpa. Nothing says "Merry Christmas Grandpa!" like some martial arts weapons. They went to the store to buy him a pair of Samurai swords. To Hayden's disappointment, all the swords were gone, but he didn't let it discourage him for long. "I guess we'll just have to get him a Karate suit." Grandpa in a Karate suit? Now that would get great TV ratings.

Love,
Brikki

Dinosaur Museum

2007-12-09T17:29:00.000-08:00

We took a short trip this past week after we picked up Nikki from the airport. Nikki went back to Ridgecrest where we lived in CA to sell the Scensy candle warmers at a big Christmas fair with her friends. We picked her up from the airport on Tuesday and stayed a couple of nights in Park City. On Tuesday night we went to Temple Square to see the lights and the visitor center's. Wednesday we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. That place was pretty cool. They had a lot of hands-on exhibits for kids.

Thursday we got to see Grandma and Grandpa Dyer who are serving a mission at the Family History Library. Then we headed for home.

It looked harmless...

...but then it attacked Nikki.

Mom and Hayden uncovering bones at the dig site.

Here's our little Chick Magnet:

Dad and Hayden making a dam to later create a flash flood and bury a family of dinosaurs:

Love,

Brikki

Super Powers

2007-12-02T14:17:00.000-08:00

Kids say the darndest things. I think that is one of the main purposes of this blog is to document all the crazy things that come out of our kid's mouths. It is so easy to laugh and then forget a few days later (except for a few of the classics that I will post someday), but if these gems are written down as they are dropped on us, eventually we'll have a nice little collection of family humor. Of course, they probably won't be as amusing to you as they are to us so including them here is probably as much for us as anybody.

Hayden is into super heroes and their special powers. The other day he asked Nikki if he could go to the power store and get some powers. He wanted to pick up some shrinking powers and some flying powers. Can you imagine a store that sells super powers? You think Wal-Mart is crazy on Black Friday, what if on the morning after Thanksgiving they had "Buy Invisibility get X-Ray Vision Free!"

Last week in Sacrament meeting Hayden was getting a little rambunctious during the Sacrament so I told him this was a time to be quiet and think about Jesus. A few moments later I noticed he was sitting there doing a pretty good job and he looked up at me and said, "I'm thinking about Jesus coming over to my house to play games." I'm sure He'd love a round of Jenga, Guess-Who, or Candyland.

Love,
Brikki

Hungry Hippos and Gumballs

2007-11-19T20:26:00.000-08:00

The most challenging thing we have done as parents thus far was to potty train Hayden. It was and epic battle of wills that brought both parties to tears on several occasions. We did everything we could think of short of cold showers. We threatened that he would not be able to start preschool. We bribed him with rewards that included candy, movies, and a Spiderman tent. One of the bribes which he earned, and then quickly reverted to his old ways, was the game Hungry Hungry Hippos. When he had an accident, especially of the solid variety, the game was off limits. When he went in the potty the game came down from the top shelf and he got to play. We also bought a small gumball machine and each time he pooped in the toilet he we gave him a penny which he could use to retrieve a gumball.

Finally one day he decided to be a big boy. I honestly think that when he saw that we had given up and that we weren't going to fight him, the joy in it was gone and he made up his mind to go in the potty. Even now, he doesn't like it when we tell him it is time to go. He prefers to slip into the bathroom unannounced and take care of business. If you try to go in he'll say "I need some privacy Dad."

A few nights ago, he was taking his turn to pray before bedtime. After including the usual "Thankful we can see like bats," he busted this out of nowhere: "Thankful after we go poop we can play Hungy Hippos and eat a gumball." Count your many blessings, name them one by one.

Nikki says that a post is not a post without some pictures, so I've included some of Hayden and Cole wearing Lisa's extensions.

Love,

Brikki

Meowloween

2007-11-12T16:39:00.000-08:00

What holiday do cats celebrate on October 31? Meowloween. That is the joke that Marci got off of a Laughy Taughy and taught Hayden. For the boopers, Halloween was surrounded by activities. They raked leaves at Grandma Walker's, carved pumpkins, hiked the Crimson Trail, went miniature golfing, went to the Anthropology Museum on campus where they told us some scary stories and we sang some scary songs.

The boopers wore their costumes to the Walker party.

Cole was a yummy hot dog and Hayden was a ferocious lion. Roooaaaar!!!!!

There was the annual donut on a string competition.

Nikki and the Boopers took a trip to the pumpkin patch in North Logan. I think they had the most fun sticking their faces out of these boards. There was a group of teenage girls standing in front of a board with a pilot's face sitting in the cockpit of a fighter jet. Hayden stuck his face out of that one and said to the girls just a few feet away, "Look, I'm a jet!" They thought he was pretty cute. We'll have to see if that pickup line works when he is 18. There were lots of funny boards, but Yoda has to take the cake, hmmm, yes?

May the force be with you!

Love,

Brikki

Fluffy the Praying Mantis

2007-10-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

Today on our way into the house after church Hayden and I found a praying mantis on the porch. With some help from Grandma, Hayden made a little home for the critter. It was a clear plastic bowl with grass and leaves and two holes cut in the lid.

Hayden decided to name him 'Fluffy' and he kept him in his room during his nap. By evening, Hayden agreed that Fluffy didn't look to good in that little bowl, and we decided to set him free.

Cole got a bath today...he loves the bath. We thought his hair looked cool when he was laying in the tub. We have started feeding him rice cerael, which he likes. No surprises there. Does the kid look like he turns food away to you?

Love,
Brikki

Alert the Media - We Have a Blog

2007-10-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Yeah that's right, a blog. After Brikki took a giant leap into our hyper-connected society by purchasing cell phones for the both of us, it seems we have stepped onto the high-tech train and the technological advances within our family are coming without effort and at an astounding pace. We better be careful or we'll wind up with an iPod and a Facebook page before our next post. By having a blog, I'm not sure if we are finally catching up with the times or if we are just getting more nerdy in our old age (I'm now 30 and an engineer, so that's two votes for nerdy).

The primary purpose for the blog is to post some witty commentary and some cute pictures of the Boopers to get our web traffic numbers up, sell advertising, and eventually quit my job, stay home and pursue my personal creative projects (eat Peanut M&M's and watch ESPN Classic and Seinfeld re-runs all day). If that all doesn't work out, at least the blog will help us stay connected to a hand-picked group of family and friends. We love you all more than anything in this world (except for maybe the life of leisure that would come from a passive stream of internet income) and we wish we could see you more often. I guess until we convince you to move to Cache Valley we will do the next best thing and take advantage of the power of blog.

Love,
Brikki