A Great Eight!

We celebrated eight years of marriage today! I so much appreciate, respect and absolutely love my fun and just plain good husband! We realized today that we have known each other for 10 years - one third of my life! That was a weird thought. My mind drifted back to our dating years when I remember sitting in an ice cream shop in Kosice, Slovakia - and I noticed a much older married couple enjoying ice cream together - but with no conversation, just silence. I remember feeling sad for them, in my youthful arrogance, thinking that they must not have a very good relationship if they don't even have anything to talk about! Now, several years later and with a little more "relationship experience" under my belt - I smile to think how beautiful of a thing it is to feel so comfortable with someone that just being together, sometimes in complete silence, is enough. That we don't always have to be talking to understand, feel, and share together. I love you babe!

  

Okay, we had a really fun day together! What more romantic and fun could a good ol' Canadian girl ask for as a fun date on our anniversary but to go skating!!!! We have our own skates here that we recieved as gifts from my parents several years ago. They haven't had a whole lot of practice but we carried our skates in, expecting to find a rink full of Mexicans "trying" to stand up on ice. Honestly, the laugh was kind of on us. I don't think I have laughed so hard in a long time. First of all, Benjy is just a funny guy and I could clearly see that, at first, he was just appeasing me. We were shocked to see all these Mexicans figure skating and really being actually good on the ice. And then ther is me - nearly 6 months pregnant and a little timid from not having done this in long time and not wanting to fall on my unborn baby....and then there is Benjy who hasn't skated many times himself (receiving an abundance of heckling from my Canadian family as we would play hockey out on the pond!). At one point, we came across a not-so-good-skater who was losing control and Benjy pushed me in his way so he wouldn't be the one getting hit! It struck Benjy as funny that we were the whitest people out there, with the most authentic equipment (his CCM skates!) and we were the most inexperienced. How could this be?!?!? Okay - so they weren't that good of skaters - but compared to what we expected to see - it was impressive. Anyway, we laughed really really hard, had a lot of fun, saw a good movie together and ate some classic Mexican tacos! Here is to another many, many years of fun together!

  

Giving Thanks

We celebrated American Thanksgiving a little early this year since we will all be out of town on Thursday. We had a lot of fun and a feast of food! We felt blessed to sit around a table with such good friends. God is so good and has blessed us with co-workers in this City that are also good, good friends to us - that is a unique blessing in itself! This year we missed being with teammates Sean and Jeni, Sarah and Philip McClue (out of town) and Paul and Kristi, Maddi and Olivia Miller (now living in Texas).

  

Personally, I have an abundance of things to be thankful for - three of those - my great husband and my sweet boys - are pictured below (all dressed up and handsome!) Happy thanksgiving to all of you!

 
 
 

Request Granted

As requested by Auntie Betsy after a recent post....Chase giving a self description! Enjoy!

Weekend with Greg

Greg Spurgeon, a good friend from Dallas, spontaneously came for the weekend. We had a great time with him - and my kids absolutely LOVED him. He arrived late, late Thursday night and so naturally, slept in Friday morning. Reece kept asking why he was sleeping so long and when was he going to wake up. They opened his door and kept running down the hall and peeking in on him - I think Greg's prescence was a greater novelty than Santa Clause (although in a way Greg acted like Santa to us - sympathizing with us for our poor supply of quality Halloween treats - he brought us a sack full! Thank you Greg!). I think, at times, Greg may have felt overwhelmed by Reece and Chase's continual desire to sit by him, play with him and have Greg stay longer - but it was fun to see.

I'm A Toot

Little Chase has quite the personality. He is definitely the younger brother and has grown into his role as the "younger and smaller one" quite appropriately. He is a scrapper and defends himself well - he often comes out on top when those two "interact" (partly, I think because Reece knows a little better and is afraid of being disciplined but also just because Chase is plain old tough). Chase is also a little tease. It is amazing to me, that at his very young age, he has learned which buttons to push to irritate his big brother - and he doesn't hold back from doing it - over, and over again. He has brought many a smile to our faces as he gets "the look" in his eyes and gears up to cause trouble. As of late, he has inherited the name "little toot" and Benjy has taught him to repeat "I'm a toot". He mainly says the word "toot" (with a cute little Canadian accent) and it cracks us up!

Some Things Never Change

This post in written especially for Auntie Betsy (well, and Uncle Brig and Uncle Burke) for all have one thing in common: being a younger brother of my dear husband, Benjy...

Over the past few weeks I have noticed a particular "edge" to Benjy's playtime with the boys and it has given me a real live picture into the "stories" I have heard of the Brednichs childhoods (Betsy being traumatized by toy snakes comes quickly to mind). Chase, like most little boys, LOVES balloons. I recently came across a bag of balloons from a previous birthday party. Chase has been in heaven....until his Daddy realized the thrill of chasing him around the house with a blown up balloon, letting out the air behind him. The look on Chase's little face is priceless. I have tried to capture it on video, and just in a picture but I can't get it because he is too fast - scared out of his pants - but seemingly happy at the same time. And not far behind him comes Benjy, laughing himself silly as his youngest kid is scared to death! In Chase's limited language ability he now says, "booon" (for balloon) but immedietly makes a "pheeew, pheew" sound while saying "no, no" at the same time. The poor kid just wants an innocent balloon to play with, blown up and most certainly tied.

The other thing is the little nurf ball shooting gun that the kids have. Benjy will arrive on the scene with this gun, fully loaded with little green nurf balls and the kids begin screaming and running away in an instant. He pings them off and reloads before they know what is happening. There is a lot of scrambling, screaming and most definitely a lot of laughter (mostly by the one behind the trigger!).

Yes, I enjoy watching these interactions of a Daddy with his sons - it makes my heart happy to see the way Reece and Chase light up when he spends time with them. Sure, sometimes they are begging for him to stop and dear ol' Dad is not ready to relent - but nevertheless, all involved have a great time. It has made me smile to think about how Benjy's siblings had many a good year of that kind of play with their brother. Apparently, he hasn't changed too much in the "traumatizing little ones" department. :)

Cute Thoughts On Sharing...

Reece came home from school today with a bag of cookies and some chocolate milk. He was quite excited. With much enthusiasm he stated that..."when my friends come over tonight, I am going to share my cookies with all of them. And, Mommy, when I go to heaven I am going to give a cookie to everyone there. And I am going to give one to Grandpa!"

This made me smile!

Our Baby

 

We were blessed to be able to see our beautiful baby today via ultrasound. The picture isn't that clear but I wanted to post it anyway - as a sort of first introduction to friends and family! He or she is healthy and all looks excellant according to the doctor. We are very thankful. We shared our request to not find out this baby's sex - the doc smiled at us and proceeded with the ultrasound with experience and finesse - never allowing us a curious little peek at baby's privates, even if we had wanted to sneak it! After finishing, he congratulated us on our healthy baby boy or girl - telling us he didn't know which it is either! So there goes my concern that the doctor might slip up and let us know - he doesn't even know! Ahhhh, this is fun! The suprise continues!

On a more serious note, my heart has been aching for high school friend Jennifer Wallace and her husband, John, upon the loss of their baby boy at birth. I have marvelled at their faith and the reminder that Gordon gives us about the fraility of life, and the hope of heaven. My prayers continue for their sorrow and grief - and with the reality that our days are not guaranteed, I put the lives of my family and friends - my husband, my 2 boys and this unborn child in God's hands. 

Discovering Jesus With Friends

Reece and Kate having a quiet moment. Too precious.

 
  

Happy Halloween

 
We had a fun little Halloween gathering like we do every year. It is fun time for the kids (right?)

 

Our family dressed up as characters from one of the kids' favorite movies - Charlotte's Web. We must have rotated costume ideas about 4 times to include Chase as someone but he was quite opposed to participating in this costume idea (he shuffled from Wilbur the pig to Templeton the rat to a barnyard sheep to finally....a plain old, unthreatening spider web - which he still rebelled against!) This persistent Mom finally gave in, more due to lack of time than determination! So Reece, as Charlotte the spider who saves the day - me, as Wilbur the "some pig" and Benjy, as the jolly Mr. Zuckerman (who did quite the impersonation if I do say so myself) had a fun time! Reece entered the party saying, "Salutations" - it was pretty cute!

 
  

Our AIM team participated in dressing up too - what good sports! They were the Wizard of Oz and did a great job!

 

Reece and Chase got to participate in some trick-or-treating (or as they say here "queremos halloween!" )and then Reece got to dress up for school on Wednesday and they partied all day!