Kasen-isms

It's time for my quarterly dedication to Kasen. He is learning and growing up so much. Talking more and more, but REALLY understanding more than I give him credit for. I have full on conversations with him and he honestly cracks me up. He is not only unintentionally funny, but these days he is joking around. He makes jokes, and he is sarcastic, and he tries to trick me. Very cute. He is SUCH a smart boy and I am so proud to be his mommy. Here we go:

I love that last week while we were frantically getting ready for school in the morning, I gave him a danimals and put him in charge of getting it to the car with him. He kept getting distracted and sitting it down in different places, so finally as we were ready to go, I said "Hey ADD boy, where is your danimals?" to which he responded, "I'm not A-D-D boy. I'm K-A-S-E-N boy!" Funny.

I love that while I talk to him about things that happen in primary or at school, he will never give up any info. The other day he layed his head on my scriptures on my bed and I said "HEY! You are laying on my scriptures." He lifted up the scriptures and said "scripture POWER!" At least I know he likes the songs he sings and that he DOES listen.

I love that he knows the words to "No One" by Alicia Keys, and SOME of the words to "Low" by Flo Rida. My 3 year old is kinda ghetto, huh? Hilarious!

I love that he gets words mixed up sometimes. For instance, cookie cutter= cootie cucker or shopping cart= copping shart.

I love that when we were walking through Barnes and Noble last week, (keep in mind where we live) Kasen spots a big table stacked with books and while we are walking past it to leave, he says in his loud voice "Those are all MEXICAN books!" what the? Huh? And we walked right on out the door!

I love that ever since Kasen was a baby, we have called him some sort of Cheebo Weebo. It's gone from Cheebo Weebo, to Cheebs, to cheebie weebie, to cheebies. At this point in his life, it's cheebies. He has requested that we start calling him Kasen Cheebies.

I love that my son can spell words and his favorite word to spell and write is "happy"

I love that while singing some basic nursery rhymes, he stars like this " baa baa black sheep, have you any wool? Yes sir yes sir, 3 bags full. One for the master who lives down the drain...."

Kasen I don't know what my life would be without you. I don't EVER want to know. You have changed me forever and I am so grateful to be your mommy. So honored and privileged. I hope you will ALWAYS know how much you mean to me, what a miracle you are to me, and how much I love you.

Easter Day

When we woke up Easter morning, we told Kasen that if he was a good boy while we were at church, that the Easter Bunny would come and hide his basket, and some eggs in the backyard. The basket he could have when he got home, but the eggs he would have to wait til his cousins came over later that night.

Once we were ready for church, we hurried up and snapped some pics so that we could get the BEFORE pics of church. Who knows how cranky or how messy Kasen would look and be after church.

After we got home from church, the first thing we did was search for Kasen's Easter basket so that my mom could see him before she had to leave for church. We kinda narrowed the search down to the kitchen for him since we were a little rushed. We told him to look in the things, under things, on top of things, anywhere he could think of. We started with the microwave and then he opened the oven. Tried the fridge and the dishwasher, then finally decided to look in the pantry. I quickly started snapping pics since I knew thats where the basket was.

He was so excited! Here is what the Easter Bunny brought him in his basket. He couldn't believe the Easter Bunny knew just what he wanted. He was a little disappointed with the Mickey Paint Book. That IS what he asked for, but the day before Easter he saw a Pirates of the Carribean paint book and wanted that SOOO bad. The Easter Bunny had already gotten the Mickey one so that's what he got. As soon as he pulled out the Mickey paint book, "Aww man! I wanted the pirates paint book, didn't the Easter bunny know?" Wow! Ha! I quickly explained to him that the Easter Bunny had already gotten the Mickey one for him before he decided on the pirates one and then tried to distract him with the rest of his goodies in his basket.

Later that evening, all Kasens cousins from the area come to my parents house and we had a fun Easter egg hunt.

This is a picture of the kids waiting by the screen door to go out and seach for eggs.

This is the kids all hopped up on sugar after finding the Easter eggs, so we made them all play outside! :)

All in all we had a good Easter.

1 Mickey Easter basket

1 disappointment in a Mickey paint book

60 Easter eggs

4 kids searching for eggs

8 kids playing together

1 trip to the ER

LOTS of laughter and company!

Did I fail to mention that my poor poor sister in law dislocated her shoulder that night and we had to take her to the ER? She is doing well now, she is such a trooper!

Quelf

The other night, we got together in Autumn's hotel room and played a game called Quelf. I heard about it from Jeremy's brother who had played it with some friends. We went and bought it because it sounded so fun. Autumn hasn't seen Sam in just about a year, so she invited Sam and her husband over to play too. We had SUCH a fun time.

Us 3 girls laying on the bed, lounging.
The game of Quelf.

Some basic rules of Quelf: The object is to get through the board. You roll the dice, move ahead and whatever color you land on, that's the color of card you pick up. Each card has something random and strange to do or say or perform. Some stay in play the whole game, some only last a turn. It is HILARIOUS some of the things we had to do.

The card I picked was to take any article of clothing off (in the bathroom of course) and turn it inside out and wear it that way the rest of the game. I chose to wear my jeans inside out. My arms are crossed because I have awful luck and pulled ANOTHER card that said I couldn't use my arms OR hands the rest of the game. People had to roll for me, feed me and help me change my jeans. (Although, I cheated and went into the bathroom with Autumn and pretended she changed me, but naturally, I did it myself) Fun game, I totally recommend it!

Temple Trip

Thursday night Jeremy and I went to the temple with some friends who were here from out of town. We hadn't been to the temple TOGETHER in a while so it was really nice to be there with him. While we were in the temple, I was just staring at Jeremy. I know this sounds lame, but he is even more attractive to me in the temple. Just knowing the level of worthiness to be in the temple and seeing him there, and me being there, just takes our love to a whole new level. While we were there, we walked and found the room we were sealed in. How special. I am so happy that we have a temple so close, and that we are able to attend! I love you Jeremy! Thank you for going with me!

Easter Egg Hunt

On Friday our playgroup had an Easter Egg Hunt at a park. Kasen was excited to go. He had to play a little bit while waiting for the other kids to get there. I told him I would let him know when it was time to find the eggs. It was probably about every 4-5 minutes that he would come ask me if it was time yet. Clearly, he didn't understand that I would come tell him. Maybe he thought I was going to hoard all the eggs for myself, who knows what was going through his 3 year old mind. My guess is he was just really excited.

Kasen posing for me on the play structure. I can't believe what a little man he is turning in to. He even looks older to me now than he did 3 months ago. It's crazy.

They had sections of easy to find eggs for kids 0-2. He found those first. lol

Then there were some hidden for ages 3-5. He did have a harder time finding those, but still found them, it just took longer.

Proud with his bucket full of eggs!

Kasen bought a Mickey Mouse Easter Basket and wouldn't put it down. He even fell asleep with it on his HEAD when we were driving home.

Easter Egg Coloring

On Thursday we had an Easter Egg Coloring party with our playgroup at the park. I had just picked Kasen up from school and this is what I found:

They turned him into a bunny at school. I think he looks adorable. There were comments made about how the white paint didnt even show on his face, lol, but I am going to ignore those comments!
Kasen and his bunny friend, Sydney.
Dying the eggs.
The finished product. Kasen had fun, but I was still pretty careful about dropping the eggs in the color and getting them out.

My Word Blog

3 Celebs and an Ellen

On Tuesday a couple friends and I went dont to LA for a taping of Ellen. We were originally supposed to go to the 3 o clock taping but due to overbookage, ended up staying for the 6 o clock taping and STILL just barely go in! While we were waiting for our check in time, we went to lunch at a place called Portos. Just right around the corner from NBC studios. It was really good. When we were standing in line, we didn't know what to order so we kept letting people go in front of us. At one point this man came in linme behind us.

We were still looking at the menus in our hands while we stood in line. We weren't ready, but it was our turn, so I turned to the person behind us, which happened to be the man above, and said...."Excuse me, Sir. You can go ahead of us." Then when he walked past us, he looked SOOO familiar, but I wasn't sure from where. So I went about my business in trying to find the perfect sandwich to order. Until one of my friends mentioned who it was and it all clicked! it was ANDY GARCIA! From Oceans 11, 12, 13! So we ordered our food, while staring at Andy. Being totally start struck wanting so badly to talk to him and get a picture and even an autograph. After about 7 minutes of standing around WANTING to go talk to him and not having the nerve I finally got my pen out of my purse, grabbed my to go menu and walked off. I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I walked up and said, "I'm sorry to bother you, but can I have your autograph?" He said "Sure, what's your name? Do you want his autograph too?" Pointing to the man next to him that he had been talking to since he got there. Not knowing who he was I decided to make a joke, and said "sure, you can sign the front of the menu, he can sign the back" ha ha, right? Well Andy continued to tell me. "his autograph is probably more valuable than mine at this point, he is the owner of this place" FOOT IN MOUTH! Oops! SO then my friends ran up and we took a picture with him. Me being the shortest of the 3 girls, which is VERY odd and NEVER happens to me, Andy said "So are you guys all on a volleyball team together or something? What's the deal here?" Keep in mind I am 5'11 close to 6'0. My two friends are both like 6'1. He was even shorter than I was. It was pretty funny.

So we got pictures, and I got an autograph. Cool, eh? Well the day gets better.

We went to the Grove. An upscale mall in Hollywood. Hoping to see more celebs, last time I was there I saw Matthew Perry, but not such luck this time. We then went back to the studios for our 6pm taping.

Like I said, we barely made it in the audience this time and so we didn't get to sit by each other. I had a man probably in his early 50's sitting by me who wouldn't stop flirting with me. Funny thing is? His wife was sitting on the other side of him. It was driving me crazy. It got so bad that the MC came up our aisle and was looking for a volunteer for something and before I knew it, and before I knew what he was asking, my hand was the first one raise and he called me out to the aisle. He asked my name and said "ok Brittany, you have 30 seconds, start dancing!" My jaw dropped. I looked at my friends and was devestated? Have a dirty man flirt with me? Or dance like an old lady while 200 people are ALL STARING at you. Umm? I tried to dance. I can't dance. I tried to make the best of it knowing I am not a dance, knowing that there was no way my dancing would improve in 30 seconds. I just danced. Humiliation and all. I sat back down and apparently my dancing made that man want to flirt with me more. I was glad when the show was over. Humiliated once again. But hey, I got a cool shirt that says : I danced with Ellen

But the actor that was on was Steven Straight from 10,000 BC. He was a cute kid. Just got married. Still giddy.

After the show was over we decided to go to dinner. We asked the people that worked at Ellen where we could go to see some famous people. We were recommended to this place. Dan Tanas.

When we got there we found out there was a 45 minute wait and we weren't really sure we wanted to wait until we looked around and in the wee corner, we saw....

sitting with 2 of his friends. We decided at that point to stay and took a seat at the bar to have some sodas. Seats that were given to us by drooling men. ha ha j/k. Once we sat down, we were immediately flirted with by an 80 year old man. Literally. He bought us drinks and everything. Couldn't stop flirting. IT was cute. Then two other men came in and started flirting. Safe flirting though. Us 3 girls couldn't stop laughing. 3 wholesome Mormon girls sitting at a bar being bought sodas and even an appetizer! Hilarious. Nothing we have ever experienced before. It was SUCH a fun day. SUCH a fun night. I am so grateful I got to go. We had a blast!

March for Babies

Normally I would feel guilty doing this. At this time? I don't. I am blogging to ask for a simple small dontation.

On April 19th, 2008 I will be walking for The March of Dimes-March for Babies.

Most people don't realize what a devastating problem prematurity is: that it's the leading cause of newborn death; that it has reached epidemic proportions; and that the rate is escalating. The March of Dimes is the organization on a mission to fight prematurity. The money we raise for March for Babies will support lifesaving research, services, education and advocacy that help babies get a healthy start. I am working for a goal of $500. I know this is probably asking a lot. I know that some of you won't be able to respond, but please respond if you can.

This is such an important thing to me. Very close to my heart. My son Kasen was born prematurely. He is such a blessing in my life and I am so lucky to have him. So lucky. If you feel prompted or inspired to donate, please follow this link.

http://www.marchforbabies.org/BrittanyBruce

ANY amount of donation will help. There is an OTHER section that you can fill out. Or you can simply click one of the suggested amounts. Like I said ANY amount will help me get to my goal so that I can contribute this money towards saving sweet little lives.

Thank you so much,

Brittany Bruce

CEC

Our tradition...evertime we go, we take a pic together!

CEC- Those are code words for Chuck E Cheese. We can only abbreviate around Kasen. If we say the name? We have to go. He LOVES this place. It's really nice because he is old enough that I can just let him take a token at a time and go play a game. I only give him 1-2 tokens at a time just so I can make sure he is ok everytime he comes back for a new token. That's how I feel safe letting him run around while I sit and talk to other moms. Plus, when you get there, they stamp your wrist and your kids wrists with the same number and then check it on the way out to make sure it matches. Brielle and Kasen were both standing by me and when Brielle's number didn't match mine she looked at me and started to tell me that she wasn't my kid. Crystal was just standing on the other side of me and they hadn't checked her number yet. It's so sad. She actually thought I was trying to take someone elses kid! It does happen and that's why they need to be so protective, and I am glad since I take Kasen there.





Anyway, our playgroup had an event at CEC the other day and I had a lot of fun! Here are some of the pictures we took while we were there!

Kasen and Brielle playing games together.

Well how do you think I had so much fun? It wasn't by sittin around, thats for sure!