New Year's Eve Dancing

Here is Brecken and his aunts dancing on New Year's Eve. Brecken was the dance master and his aunts had to follow his every move. He has some pretty good moves. I wish we had the whole video recorded. It was absolutely hilarious.

At the Bogle House . . .

We have 25 baby chicks!! Tom wanted baby chicks for his birthday so he could eventually sell the eggs. We ordered 30 but now only have 25. Three did not survive on the journey to our home and two died within the first three days. Of course the one Brecken picked for his pet died. We had to have a funeral and everything. He was very upset. He did even want to see the other chicks. Our little boy at four had to learn about chick heaven and want happens to our bodies when we die. He is all better now and enjoys the other 25 chicks. If all goes well, according to Tom, we will have 25 eggs a day in about six months!

We finally got to decorate our Christmas tree last night. We ordered a fresh Christmas tree from Bountiful Baskets and it arrived last Friday. Life being so busy, we finally decorated it last night. It is so fun to see how much the boys are growing up. I love this picture of Brecken because all his ornaments are in a row at the bottom of the tree. (We have our tree on a table to keep our little nephew from destroying the tree! We did this last year for Karsten.) Here is Brecken pointing out his new ornament. Of course it is a cowboy. Karsten even got in on the action. He was very good at putting the ornaments on the tree. We had to give him all the unbreakable ornaments because he either dropped them or they fell off the tree once he got them on.On Saturday, all the primary children got to have donuts with Santa. They were so excited. Karsten was very good and a little serious about the whole situation. The funny thing is he had no idea who Santa was and did not even care what Santa brought him. Now he tells me everyday he wants balls from Santa. He finally figured out what was going on.Do you recognize Santa? Brecken did! :( It is his Uncle Steve. The ward needed a Santa at the last minute and Steve volunteered. I wasn't sure if Brecken would notice or not. But he did. We had to explain that Santa can't be everywhere at once and Steve was Santa's helper. He wasn't so sure about that but I think we have him convinced.
I feel so bad Brecken has had to deal with the death of a pet and almost finding out about Santa. Oh well, I think we have taken care of it. This has been a wonderful Christmas season. The boys are getting so grown up. I can't wait for Christmas day.

Happy Anniversary!

So, for those of you who have a hard time turning your head slightly to the right and reading that little box right there, Natalie and I have been married for 7 years now. Actually, Nov. 24th was our anniversary (yes, I know I'm a few minutes late, but Dad had a cramp, so I was helping him). We actually celebrated on Saturday night by going out for dinner and gelato, while watching people trying to "ice skate" on a giant plastic cutting board. Oh, the stupid things we do in AZ to pretend we are like the rest of the country. Anyway, we had fun and you can actually read a little more about it on my Bogle Family Farms blog (also, see right; you don't even have to turn your head really, just your eyes). We did, however, go out for a romantic lunch today. Applebee's is great with two little boys! I know this sounds cheesy, but I am really glad to have my anniversary so close to Thankgiving, because the two events have so much in common. Not so much in how they are celebrated, but it what they mean. I am so grateful for and to my wife for so many reasons. I just hope I let her know that more often than I make her think otherwise.

Twilight Movie

After convincing of a few of the YW in my ward, I went to the 12:01 showing of Twilight last night. I had told Megan I didn't want to go with them because it was to late but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to spend some time with a few girls in my ward. Here we are Cassi (my friend from high school), Me, Jessie Speirs, Alli Farnsworth, and Kylie. I had promised Cassi that we would go to the movie together so she decided to come along to the midnight showing.

If you know me at all this is quit a defeat to stay up till 2:00 in the morning. I am not a night person. Anyways we arrived at 9:00 to wait in line so we could get good seats. We were behind about 80 people and just outside. I really didn't want to wait outside in the cold all night. Luckily they let us in the theatre at 9:40. There were two theatres so we got great seats. I had a great time chatting with the girls and eating candy.

The movie was great. I do believe you would have to had read the books to really enjoy. I do hate to think that in the next book Edward leaves. This kind of ruined the ending for me. I just couldn't enjoy the ending knowing that he was leaving. Anyways the movie was fun and I am glad I went at midnight. The whole experience was great!

Halloween Fun

This year was our first year carving pumpkins. Brecken was so excited. Nana B even let us use her white pumpkin to carve. It came out really neat. Brecken wasn't so hot on digging out all the gew but he at least tried.

He let Dad do all the hard work.

Here are the boys on Halloween with their pumpkins. They loved them.

This year Brecken decided he wanted to be Handy Manny. He saw this cheesy costume at Target and wouldn't be anything else. Luckily Tom decided to make the costume. It turned out really cute. Tom made all the tools with eyes and mouths. After seeing Brecken get all these cool tools, Karsten ditched the Spiderman idea and wanted to be Handy Manny too. Brecken was a little upset but we explained that Karsten wasn't Handy Manny, he was Handy Manny Jr. He was okay with that idea. Here are the boys with GG. Everyone at GG's place loved the costumes.
Karsten loved all his tools especially Dusty!!We all had a great Halloween!

Baby Boy #3!!!

For those of you that didn't know, we found out yesterday that we are expecting our little boy number 3! Who would have thought that I would have three boys. We are so excited.

Before the ultrasound, I really thought we were having a girl. Only because Brecken insisted that we were having a girl. He said he needed a little brother and a little sister. Since he already had a little brother his little sister was on the way. I thought he was right. You know how they say little children have that intuition.

A few days before the ultrasound, I began thinking we could actually have a boy. It would be weird to have three boys. I do know how to raise boys so it wouldn't be to hard.

After the ultrasound, I was a little surprised but so excited. I had to figure out how to break the news to Brecken. I came home and told him he was going to have a little brother. He kind of gave me a blank stare. Then he said, "Now I will have two brothers and a little sister!" Hopefully one day he will get his little sister.

It was so funny going through the ultrasound pictures with the boys. We had a few 3-D shots and regular shots. You could actually see a real baby. Ultrasounds have really come a long way, even since Brecken. The boys favorite picture was the one of the baby's pee pee. They just laughed and giggled and kept saying, "Its his pee pee!" Karsten even saying, "I see pee pee picture." It was so funny.

We are so excited for our new little baby boy to come into our house. Can't wait until March 31st!

Family Photo Shoot

Last week we had family pictures with my Dad and his wife Mary and my sisters. The day before, we found out Karsten had double ear infections. He hated all the pictures. These are the best pictures we got of him. He cried through the entire photo shot. The only family picture that Karsten was looking in and my Dad is making a funny face. Oh well, what do you expect when you have fourteen people including five children. Here is Brecken with his substitute brother, I mean his cousin Hudson.
We did get a lot of fun photos of the other cousins. Here's Nichole's little girls, Kylie and Jacey.

I love this picture of Jacey. Isn't she so adorable!

It is too bad that our photo shot did not work out the way I wanted it to. We will always have the memories.

Fun in the Irrigation

Tom and Reuben decided to irrigate. The boys loved playing in the irrigation.
I love this picture. Here comes Brecken!
Karsten wading through the water.Little Catcher even got to play in the irrigation.
Uncle Ty is so cool. He even got in and played with the boys. The boys played soccer and had lots of fun. Until Karsten got bit by about 20 ants. I felt so bad. I have no idea where they came from. He got to play in the hose naked. Therefore, Brecken thought he needed to be naked. (I couldn't catch these embarrasing moments because my camera died.) The boys had a great time. They even got to walk home naked. A boys dream come true.

Its Been A Long Time

Brecken started soccer last week. Brecken and Zo (his cousin) are on the same team.Brecken has mixed feeling about soccer. He seems to love it until he has to go in and fight for the ball. At this age, they only play three on three. There is no goalie. Just get the ball and head for the goal. Brecken did a lot of pointing to his other team mates telling them which way they should dribble the ball. We will see as the season goes if he likes it better or not.
Here he is warming up. He is all excited.
Here they are getting in some warmup kicks. The game was hilarious to watch. The kids had no idea what they were doing. We have several weeks to work on that.

On a different note, Karsten turned 2 a few weeks ago. He thinks he is four like his brother. He threw an all out fit because he did not get new soccer shoes. When he is old enough he can play. He is actually really good at dribbling the ball.

Here he is in his batman outfit. He loves to dress up and chase everyone around with his sword.

Isn't this little knight adorable!

Ten years ago today...

Aaron tagged me so here goes (geez, I wish this were freeze tag instead).

Ten years ago I was...
Living with Lorin Ethington, Jordan Lilly, Monte Overton, Lucas Nunn and random other dudes that would crash in our one bedroom apartment in an old hospital. We had bb gun wars inside and had an old washing machine with a tv on top of it that we would shoot at with .22's through the bedroom window. The shells would melt into the carpet. I had graduated from Heritage Academy, but all my friends were in their senior year, so lunch at Chandler High was a regular thing for me. I was probably taking classes at CGCC or something, but didn't take them seriously. I was skateboarding everyday for at least a couple hours, often driving the 70 miles round trip to the Phoenix skatepark. I was delivering pizza at T.C. Luigi's driving a crappy little orange truck that my brother gave me. The thing was like a little tiny mazda with a camper and it looked like it had been rolled a couple times. It actually threw a rod one night while I was out on a far delivery like 10 miles away from work out in east jeebus nowhere. This was in the days before cell phones and it was 10:3o at night, so I had to walk 4 miles to a pay phone and called Jordan to come pick me up.

Five things on my "to do" list:
- Plant my fall crops (check my BFF blog for details).
- Find a good, cheap tractor to buy so I don't have to worry about my uncle loaning out mine.
- Convince Natalie that a Vespa would be a worthwhile investment due to the cost of gas.
- Figure out how to convert the old horse barn into a hip retro-modern home.
- Start making money so that I can afford numbers 1 through 4 on this list.

A snack I enjoy:
Pickles, but I'll settle for just about anything salty.

Five I'd do with unlimited money:
- Completely restore the old hospital.
- Get my Dad the care that he needs (Screw the insurance companies! They've ruined the American healthcare system! Don't get me started!)
- Buy a homestead in the middle of nowhere and live completely off the grid. There's freedom, right there!
- Go to Italy and become a certified Vespa mechanic just for kicks, then buy everyone I know a scooter and start a scooter club.
- Get back into promoting local music

Places I've lived:
- Chandler bred, Chandler dead!
- The historic Goodyear Hospital (twice and maybe again in the future)
- Somerville, MA
- Southy (South Boston, MA)
- Mesa
- Home again

I guess that's it. I'm gonna break the chain and not tag anyone. Sorry, but it really is too much of a commitment for me. I mean, then you have to go read the posts of people you tagged to make sure they do it, comment on their post, blah blah blah. How about if instead of you writing a whole bunch of crap, everyone who reads this just leaves a comment about something that you and I have in common, or just something that my post reminded you of. That sounds easy enough.

I'm starting a garden club....

for guys, aged 20 - 40. No ladies! Okay, not really, but that is what it felt like yesterday when I taught Elder's quorum. I found out a couple weeks ago that I was teaching, but was never given a topic. At our presidency meeting I finally asked what I was supposed to be teaching on. I was informed that since it was a presidency choice I could teach whatever I wanted. That's a loaded gun, right there! Now, there are a million different topics that I could have taught, but I wanted to try something different. So, I taught the Elders in my ward about gardening. Don't worry, it came straight out of a priesthood manual and I backed it up with conference talks, scriptural references and primary songs, so it was legit. Not only that, but Natalie overheard one of the guys in class tell his wife that he was going to start a garden. Then today, Reuben and I helped another brother in our ward pick a good location and give him some tips on getting started. Sounds like the lesson was effective too. I think it is awesome that so many guys around my age are interested in gardening, or, as I like to call it, micro-farming (sounds not quite as gay). I have to give props to some of the guys who have always done it. Fortunately, it is "cool" now, so you don't have to hide anymore. Greenthumbs and greenhorns, stand and be proud! Even if you don't know what you are doing, but are interested, come join the club. So far, we meet at church on Sunday and through the occasional phone call. Let me know if you are interested.

Happy Belated Pioneer Day!

Monique, Tom's sister, decided we should all celebrate Pioneer Day. It was a great idea. The kids husked corn and we made butter. We even had fish for lunch. Here are several pictures of us shaking our creme to make our butter. The kids loved it and so did Tom.

I love it too. The butter tasted so good. I think I might start making my butter now. There is not salt or any other stuff put in it. I don't know if it is healthier but it seems like it would be. Plus you get a good arm work out every time you need more butter. I may be crasy but I might keep making my own. If you haven't made homemade butter, all you do is get creme and shake for about 20 minutes. It was way cool. Thanks Monique!

Was everyone I know born in July?

I'm not even gonna try to list everyone I know born in July because I will definitely leave someone out and tick them off. Let me just say that like half of my family has July birthdays. So happy birthday to everyone born in July.

However, I can't just leave it at that, see, because Natalie's birthday was July 11th. Yes, I know that has come and gone, but we were camping that weekend, so lay off. Anyway, I just wanted to take a minute to wish Natalie a happy birthday and to tell her to just make up her mind as to what she wants already! Natalie is an awesome wife and an amazing mother. I've never met a more patient person in my life. Seriously, it drives me crazy at times. How can one person put up with so much crap from one guy for so long? Anyway, I love her and know you do too, so call her and wish her a happy birthday. She won't care that you're a week late (yeah, she's that patient).




Gosh, I used to be so good with words..... what the crap happened?

Oregon

We made it home from Oregon. We had a great time. Here is Tom being amazed at how berries grow wild on the side of the road! This is taken at a rest stop on our way to Oregon.

We got to go to an orchard a pick berries. This is one thing that I am jealous that we do not have in AZ. You can go pick fresh raspberries and for a bucket full pay only $5.
Brecken loved the berries but he would not eat any that we not the perfect shape.
Karsten kept eating the berries off the ground. A little dirt don't hurt!
We went to a fountain and let the kids play. This was a cool fountain because the water came in and out like waves.
We ventured up to the coast for the 4th of July. It was beautiful. The boys loved the ocean. They loved running away from the waves. They didn't realize that in Oregon there are "Sneaker Waves". You think that you are far away from the wave but it just sneaks up on you. First Karsten went in! (Here is my lovely boot protection!)Then Brecken! The water was cold. Luckily we brought another set of clothes to change into.We all loved the beach. We even got the fire some of our own fireworks out into the ocean after dark.

Here are a few fun and funny stories about our trip:

1. Tom got 2 speeding tickets. Therefore driving cost the same amount as flying.

2. We hiked 2 miles to get to the beach. We had no idea it took that long to get there. It was fun though.

3. We ventured to a new beach for our firework show and got our car stuck in the sand.

4. Tom learned that you can not put 3 morters (fireworks) in a shooter at the same time.

5. The Columbia river is about 100 miles and is beautiful to drive by.

6. Brecken learned the "Scare Crow" baseball throwing technique from his cousins and still sleeps with his mit that they gave him.

We had a great time on our trip.

Fun in Utah

We are having a great time on our trip to Utah and Oregon. On our way up to Oregon we decided to stay a few days at my Grandma's in Utah. It is so beautiful up here. The weather is in the high 80s and nice and green. We enjoyed a few days with family and we are now on to the next part of our trip.
Heres the boys playing farm with my cousin Kevin. Kevin was a great play mate.
Oh how we love our Grandma Mary. She gives the boys rides and plays with them all the time. We also love our Papa Kurt, he too plays with the boys. (His picture didn't make it in the running for the blog.)

We are having a relaxing time and enjoying the beautiful weather. Can't wait for our next adventure. We should arrive in Oregon in about a 12 hour car ride. The boys did great on the way to Utah. Hopefully it is the same for Oregon.

What Moms Will Do for Their Children

I decided not to show you the nasty pictures of my nasty toe. Needless to say I broke my big right toe. Heres the story. I was getting Karsten off of a really high barstool chair and it started to fall over. Of course I held on to Karsten and the chair landed on my toe. It hurt so bad I buckled over and knocked Karsten's face into the counter. He was okay but crying. My toe hurt so bad I thought I was going to throw up. I debated on going to see the doctor because I always heard there is nothing you can do about a broken toe. I waited until the next day and decided I better go because it still really hurt. The doctor put a whole in the nail and drained a lot of blood out to relieve some of the pressure. Then he sent me for x-rays. I didn't find out until this morning that my toe is broken. Now I get to hobble around on a hard splint shoe for 4-6 weeks.

Anyways we leave to Utah and Oregon for 10 days tomorrow. I am excited to see our family. It will be a little interesting wearing my new shoe!!

Finally a New Post!

I have had some requests from several people to update our Blog. We have been really busy lately. About two weeks ago, Tom and I were priviledged to go on our stakes 4th year hike for Girls Camp. There were 17 girls and 4 leaders. We hiked 4 miles into a river raveen and camped by a little river. It was lots of fun. Some of the girls went swimming. The next day we hiked out of the raveen about 2 miles. One mile was straight up hill. It was a hard hike. We were rewarded that night by a nice steak dinner. The next morning we went canoeing. I had a great time. Tom was done with 14 yr old girls by the 3rd day. I wouldn't be surprised if he was asked to do it again, he would.

We have been also renevating Tom's parents back court yard and bathroom to get ready for Tom's Dad to come home. If you want to see pictures Megan has some great ones. Tom's dad, Bob, came home about two weeks ago. He is still not doing well but he enjoys being at home.

We also have been doing alot of swimming lately. I have felt like the worst mother ever because I enrolled Brecken in swim lessons. He hates it. He has always hated getting his face wet. He is taking a 2wk class that is four days a week. This is our first week. He is actually learning how to swim but still asks me every morning if he has to go to swim lessons. I don't know if he will ever like it.

Before todays swim lessons, Brecken was throwing a big fit about going. When we were almost there he finally stopped crying. We walked into swim lessons and everyone was out of the pool. Swim lessons had been cancelled because someone pooped in the pool. The teacher told Brecken what happened and he looked at me and said,"I am so happy!!" He didn't have to go to swim lessons today!

I feel like an awful mother making him go but it is really important that he knows how to swim. At least we only have 4 more lessons. I also think it is funny that Brecken is crying that he has to go to swim lessons and Karsten is crying because he can't go to swim lessons. Next year I will definitely enroll him.

Anyways, this is what is going on in the Bogle family. Sorry about the lack of photos but I can't seem to get me wireless photos to come up. When I can I will post some. I did have a few pictures that I can put up. Enjoy!