Brad's guitar performance

Here is one song from Brad's beginner guitar class performance. Britton did the videotaping (while I chased Boston), so the video is pretty wobbly. Nevertheless, Brad did great!

Brandon opens his mission call

Family Update

I realize it has been forever since I've posted anything! I have a baby who used to HATE being on the computer with me, but now he LOVES being on the computer with me. He loves disconnecting the mouse and banging on the keyboard and creating all kinds of havoc!

But so much has happened lately! Brandon has finally decided where to go to college. And the choice is....




UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY!



We are very excited for him. He already has his housing and plans to arrive on campus on August 23rd to begin USU marching band boot camp!


His graduation is coming up in just one week. He will be graduating with high honors. He also recently received a band award for outstanding brass musician in the jazz band. Tonight is Senior Awards night, so he will be recognized for his USU academic and band scholarships, as well. Here is his graduation announcement:

Some people (mostly Britton) has pointed out that Brad hasn't gotten enough exposure on this blog, so I'm excited to fill you in on what he's been doing. He completed his Eagle project two weeks ago! YAY! He organized a group to put together a garden at his old elementary school. The garden will be used by the first grade teachers as they teach their students about plants and seeds. Here's some pictures:

Brad recently had his jazz band concert at his junior high. He did a great job on his solo! Here's some video. Brad is the red headed kid in the back. Thank goodness he's tall, since all we could see was the top of his head. His solo comes about halfway through the video, which is about three minutes long.

Britton is excited to be finishing up third grade. He is still practicing with swim team and loving Cub Scouts! He is required to read 20 minutes every night for school, but during the month of April he set a personal goal to read 100 minutes every night. And he did it! Even though it meant lots of late nights and sacrificing some of his free time. He is a very self-driven kid!

As for my baby boy Boston, he just turned nine months old. He sits up well, and he is still basically immobile, although he lunges forward, sometimes ending up on his hands and knees, but usually flopping down on his tummy. When he gets on his hands and knees, he rocks back and forth. It is only a matter of time before he really starts crawling, and then my life will change forever! Boston has two shiny, white teeth on the bottom, and two that have cut through the skin but are still coming in on top. He loves to put anything and everything in his mouth, and he's really good at picking up small objects now.

Boston and Mom went on a five day trip to Georgia last week to spend time with Grandma Letty and Grandpa Bill and to visit Boston's brand new baby cousin Max. We had lots of fun, and Boston was an almost-perfect little traveler. He flirted with all the flight attendants on the airplane. He is so much fun! Here's some pictures from the trip:

Our New Kitchen!

Many of you already know that we re-did our kitchen during the first week of February, and some of you have requested pictures, so here goes! We love all the new cabinet space, and after a month of being in the new kitchen, I think we've mostly figured out where everything is! We were so fortunate to have everything go smoothly. We started tearing out the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, and we had everything complete with water and electricity turned back on by the following Friday evening! All the contractors we worked with said they had never heard of a project being completed that quickly. I especially love the deep drawers that replaced some of our cabinets. It makes getting to pots, pans, and dishes so much easier! We also had new canned lighting installed in the ceiling, and Richard hung brand new blinds. Check out the pictures below.

And because I can't resist adding a picture of my boys...

Here are my two favorite red heads!

Britton's Third Grade Program

Britton had his third grade program last week, and even though none of his granparents could be there, through the magic of the internet he wanted to share with you video from his three favorite songs that they performed. One of these songs he chose especially for Grandma and Grandpa Lewis. Can you guess which one? (Each video is about 90 seconds long.)

Boston's Rockin' and Rollin'

Boston has figured out how to roll over. Check him out on the video! He also had his first tastes of rice cereal. We recorded the big occasion, although I must admit we have cheated sneaking him little bits of food before we officially started rice cereal. (Can you tell I'm excited to do videos on the blog now?!!!)

Mr. Springville video

I think I finally figured out a better way to download videos to blogger! Here is part of Brandon's talent that he performed for Mr. Springville. I know you've been eagerly anticipating it! Stay tuned for more videos to come soon!

Mr. Springville

Brandon competed in the Mr. Springville pageant last week at his high school. They had a poster contest, crazy leg contest, costume contest, and cake decorating contest, along with talent, creative swim wear, and formal wear at the final event on Saturday. Brandon wasn't crowned Mr. Springville (ironically, it was an exchange student from Taiwan who won), but he is Mr. Springville to us! And he won third place in the cake decorating contest!

Mr. Springville

Here's video of Brandon in his formal wear for the Mr. Springville contest.

Happy Halloween - just a few days late!

By popular request, I am finally getting around to posting our Halloween pictures. With this annoyong toothache I've been dealing with for about the last ten days, plus the normal motherly duties, I've had little time to get on the computer, but finally, here they are. Boston dressed up in a little "My First Halloween" onesie for the day, and then changed into his Boston Marathoner costume that night. I had kept the costume a surprise from Richard, so it was fun to see his reaction when he saw his "Little Me." I used a yellow onesie I had found on clearance and sewed racing stripes down the side and added Boston's name across the front. I also had found little racing shorts on clearance. (Who would have thought they'd make running shorts for a two-month old?) Of course Boston needed a race bib. We used Richard's race number from his Boston marathon, and the bib had to be pinned to his shorts (as opposed to his shirt), just like Richard does for his races. I completed the costume with a miniature version of the Boston Marathon Finisher medal.

Britton dressed up as Luigi (Mario's sidekick for those of you who aren't up on your Nintendo game characters). The cutest part of his costume was his fake mustache. Britton spent a good twenty minutes in front of the mirror getting the mustache just right!

The older boys were on their own for Halloween costumes. Both helped out at our neighbor's annual haunted house. Brad just had to wear all black for his part, but Brandon dressed up as a zombie. He made a trip to DI to pick up an old suit and shirt he could zombie-ize. He brought home a terribly ugly polyester suit straight from the late seventies. However, Brandon said the stretchy polyester was uber-comfortable! Anyway, he also did up his face with professional make-up, and ended up looking quite scary.

As part of the haunted house, our neighbors (and Brandon and other neighborhood kids) performed the Thriller dance every half hour. It was awsome! They even made the front page of the Springville Herald. (Granted, it doesn't take too much to make the front page of the Springville Herald!)

So that was it for our Halloween - carved a pumpkin, did a little trick-or-treating, and hung out with the fam at Jim and Bunni's house for a while. Fun night! Thanksgiving - here we come!

Britton had a swim meet Saturday, and we just got his official results back today. He swam the 25 meter freestyle and got fifth place for his age group. More importantly, he improved his time by 6 seconds! He also swam the 25 meter breaststroke. It was his first time swimming that stroke in a meet, so we were really happy that he swam the stroke correctly and didn't get a DQ (dis-qualified). Not only did he not get a DQ, he placed second for his age group! This was the biggest swim meet Britton has participated in so far. In fact, we thought we'd be at the meet for about an hour, and it ended up being three hours before Britton was able to swim his two events. We spent three hours for him to swim a total of about 65 seconds. What a morning! Boston and Britton were both very patient considering what a long ordeal it was waiting for Britton's swim events. The video isn't fantastic because I was video-taping with one hand and holding a screaming baby in the other hand. The next swim meet is scheduled in two weeks, but Richard will be in St. George, and I haven't decided yet whether I'm up to doing another swim meet by myself with Britton and Boston. We shall see.

Our little baby Boston is now two months old! I tried to take a cute picture of him all day, but he was having a fussy day, one of the very few he's had his whole life. Maybe it was the chili I ate the night before. Anyway, he's getting bigger, weighing in at just under twelve pounds. He can sleep about six hours straight at night. He is starting to love sucking on his hands more than sucking on the binky. He can hold his head steady and strong, and he especially loves standing up on a lap. So far he's been healthy, but we're kinda keeping him as isolated as we practically can, due to the swine flu running rampantly through our neighborhood. Hard to believe how much he's grown and changed in just the last month.

He finally did it! Boston made us wait eight long weeks, but yesterday we got our first official grin! Over the past few days he's made a few little attempts at smiling, but we were never too sure if he was smiling on purpose. Yesterday, though, he looked right at me and gave me a great big smile! He also smiled for Richard and later for Brandon and Britton. It's amazing how much a baby's smile can make your whole day better!

Brandon had his first jazz band/symphonic band concert of the year last night. As a senior, he gets lots of opportunities to solo. Brandon felt like this performance wasn't his best, but we thought he sounded fantastic. So did Boston! Boston sat through the whole concert without one little fuss...until the band stopped playing music. So go ahead and watch the video. It will only take 44 seconds of your time!

What the Heck?

Britton never sits normally! He always has to have his feet and legs in strange contortions. Today I caught him on the floor like this:

Funny kid!

Boston's First Portraits

Boston went to Kiddie Kandids two weeks ago for his first portraits. We were anxious to get his pictures done before he outgrew his little blessing outfit! All of our boys have had their pictures taken at Kiddie Kandids at this age, and it is remarkable to see how much they resemble each other, especially since they had the same backgrounds and poses! It took us two weeks to get these pictures posted because we had sent some to Grandma and Grandpa in Georgia, and we wanted them to see the pictures before posting online. In the two weeks since these pictures were taken, Boston's cheeks have gotten just a little chubbier...all the better for kisses! Boston is seven weeks old, and he's so close to smiling for us. Today he gave a big grin to the ceiling fan (why do babies love ceiling fans so much?) and to the footballs on the wallpaper next to his changing table. Guess that shows where I rank as compared to football! I'm used to it, though. After all, I have four boys!

Marathon Man

Richard did it again! He ran the St. George Marathon yesterday and finished with a new PR (Personal Record). He finished the race with a time of 2:49:21. He finished in eighth place for his age division and 50th overall (out of about 7000 runners!). This was after he had just finished setting a PR in the Logan Marathon two weeks ago! He ran that race in 2:53, so he finished four minutes faster. Richard is one fast runner!

!
In addition to placing in the St. George Marathon, Richard also completed the 2009 Grand Slam. The Grand Slam is a series of four marathons that he ran during the year, and his total times for all four races were compared with the total times of all the other competitors who ran the Grand Slam series. Richard came in SECOND PLACE overall in that competition! We are sure proud of our Marathon Man. Now maybe he can give those legs a little rest.

In other news, our little baby Boston is seven weeks old today. Last night he slept in his own room for the first time AND he slept from 10 p.m. until 5:30 a.m.! I guess I can truly say that he can sleep through the night now. Throughout this week he's been sleeping a little longer every night. I have to admit, though, that I woke up at 4:30 a.m. in a panic because I hadn't heard him all night. We are definitely fortunate to have such a good baby who knows how to sleep, but it's sort of sad, too. Everytime he reaches one of these little milestones it is a reminder of how fast he is growing and changing.

Great News!

Sleeping Baby!

Last night Boston slept from 10:30 p.m. until 3:30 a.m. - his longest sleep ever at night! Way to go Boston! There is nothing more precious and beautiful than a sleeping baby!

My First Blog!

So this is my first entrance into the big world of blogging. Just wanting to provide an easy way for family or friends to see what's going on with the Borgets in Springville.