The Bohman Bunch

Here we are again!

2011-11-11T11:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, so not so good about keeping this up. This year has ended up being crazier than anticipated. We decided in the spring to have another baby, so here we are, 5 months pregnant expecting our little girl in March! We have had so many amazing, wonderful experiences and feel so blessed. Our kids are so excited for the baby. It's been fun to watch even my boys look at some of the little girl clothes we've been given and say, "Oh, cute!" It makes me smile!

We just had our family pics taken about a month ago and this one was one of our favs! :)

We also had a great time with Halloween. Phil dressed up like Macho Man Randy Savage and I was his biggest fan. The kids were an old lady, a Mayan warrior, a pirate and a soldier/Bumble Bee (depending on the event). We had such a great time with it! The best was watching Phil and the other men who were also wrestlers have their main event in the parking lot. Classic!

New year, new adventure

2011-01-04T22:05:00.003-07:00

We are going to try to keep this more updated, so here goes. We decided to start the year with a few extras kids. My lucky sister and brother-in-law went on vacation so we're watching their youngest kids all week and with have all the clan for a few days. Their ages are so close to my kids that it's a lot of fun. I've realized I can't get much done, but we're enjoying it.

We're right in the midst of our family birthday season. Phil's is coming up, then three other kids, all before the middle of March. Good times! I'll post pictures soon! Here are pics of J's.

Goal: set a budget that will work for the year. We usually set one at the first of the year, but we're waiting to see how Social Security changes will affect paycheck amounts before we set anything. We're trying to remember to include extra activities this year, like Bohman Cup (our family camp-out) that we're in charge of.

We had a great Christmas. I included some pics of the kids, but I was so impressed with pillows my sister-in-law made and walking sticks my dad carved for the kids, I had to include pics of them, too.

Couponing

2010-06-11T23:10:00.000-06:00

I have really tried to save money by finding deals and using coupons. My favorite, that I have my sister-in-law to thank for introducing me, is Utah Deal Diva. She goes through the ads and lets you know about great deals, and how to get the most from the coupons available and the current ads.

She also has contests. So right now she has a contest for lots of free stuff. Her website is utahdealdiva.com. You'll be hooked and save lots of money.

Catching up!

2010-03-24T14:42:00.000-06:00

I have so much to update. You'd think I'd learn to do it more often so I didn't have to do a novel every time.

We've had four birthdays since our last post. Phil's birthday was in January. We went to Hale Center Theater in Salt Lake and saw "The Importance of Being Earnest." Very fun show. We love the movie, so it was fun to see it on stage.

Brynne celebrated her 10th birthday in February, with Cody's a week behind. Brynne wanted a Lego cake and it happened to be the school's night to go to Classic Skate. So we celebrated her birthday at the skating rink with the scooters and roller blades. It was fun.

My brother Keith came to stay with us for a month in the midst of this. He was in a work accident in North Dakota/Montana and came down to have surgery. While he was staying here, we found out that he was going to lose some of his big toe. So we got to enjoy his company here while he healed.

Cody's 8th birthday was also in February. He wanted Greek symbols of the gods (courtesy of the Percy Jackson books we're reading) on cupcakes. That challenged my artistic abilities, but was fun. We got to celebrate his birthday before his birthday up at some of our friends' cabin. It was such a fun time snowmobiling and sledding. He has already jumped into Cub Scouts, earning his Bobcat at the Blue and Gold banquet the end of February. His baptism was wonder the first part of March. He was so happy and it was great to have the support of so many family and friends.

Then it was Rhys' turn for his birthday. He got a nerf gun as big as he is. He had Killer Croc cake from Batman Legos. It was fun to let him help frost it.

It's been an eventful month for everyone. First Brynne found out she needs glasses. She looks very cute in them. She also broke her arm on March 15. She was jumping out of the swing and didn't get enough air and fell, coming down on her straight right arm. It's interesting because it didn't break cleanly. It bent both of the bones at a 12 degree angle. So she's in a cast for six weeks, with another x-ray next week to make sure the cast is working to correct it. Plus, she got braces on her front teeth the same day as her cast. It was a big day!

After Keith left last Saturday, we did some room swapping. Cody's now going to have his own room where Rhys' was. Jayce is moving to the top bunk in the boys' room and Rhys is taking the lower bunk. Change like that is fun!

Jayce lost his first tooth, too. He wiggled it, wiggled it, wiggled it and finally let Phil pop it out.

We are looking forward to a St. George trip where we can enjoy warm sunshine. It's getting nicer, but not really warm yet.

Happy holidays!

2009-12-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Since we were assigned to bring pies and we had different kinds we wanted, we designated the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as "Pie Day." We spent the day cooking and had a great time.

Jayce helped decorate his own birthday day with a Bakugan on it.
This is Jayce's Kindergarten program, where they sang four Christmas songs.

The kids got to open their pajamas on Christmas Eve. Too bad Brynne's didn't fit.
Christmas Day fun! At home...

...and at Grandma and Grandpa Bohman's!
We even got some indian leg wrestling and arm wrestling in before bed.

Now what? Oh,yeah, the holidays!

2009-11-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

We have had a whirlwind month. Brynne, Phil and I have been participating in our stake production of "Savior of the World." It has been an amazing experience. Yes, it took a lot of time with rehearsals. Especially the last two weeks have been crazy with full run-thrus every night but Sunday and Monday. It's been late nights and little sleep, but it has also been weeks of miracles and experiences and an over-flowing of the spirit. There were few nights when someone in the cast wasn't moved to tears, and we've all seen it lots of times before.
It's been especially satisfying to see the growth in Brynne, who had to endure lots of standing and waiting and trying to be still. Her testimony has grown of the Savior and she recognizes scriptures now and associates them with scenes she saw in the play.

We are so blessed to have great neighbors and family that were so kind to take our boys those nights we were at the play. We appreciate them so much and literally could not have done it without them.

When all was done, Phil was eager to get his full beard off, but not before having a little fun with it. So he did the "Brother Brigham," but I thought it looked more like a leprechaun. Then it turned into an interesting "patch" on his chin. It's gone now!

New family pics

2009-11-02T12:33:00.000-07:00

I love fall. It's my favorite time of the year. So, of course, it's my favorite time to do family pictures. We have a friend who is just starting out taking photos "professionally" (although you'd never know it) and we had her take our pictures this time. They were so fun. The kids did well, although they were cold and Rhys was sick. Here's a few.

Half a year to catch up on

2009-11-02T12:05:00.001-07:00

I haven't added anything for months. Now I'm wondering where to begin.

Because I have so much to catch up on, I think I'll start at the most recent and go backwards. Halloween was so much fun a couple of days ago. We all dressed up. Phil and I dressed up for a murder mystery which was so much fun. He was a creepy carnival worker and I was a barmaid. For the actual evening of Halloween, Phil dressed up like a terrorist. He looked great since he was growing a beard for the play we are in. I was a mechanic. We all did our own thing this year. No group costume for us since the kids all had their own ideas about what to be.

Earlier in October we went to a condo for fall break. It would have been fun to have our friends go with us, but because everyone was sick, we just went. We literally watched TV and played games the whole time. The poor kids just didn't feel good. We still had a great time. We even ended up meeting up with our friend, purely by accident, no less, on our way down the canyon and had fun roasting marshmallows with them.

We capped off that weekend by riding motorcycles and a four-wheeler out at Five Mile Pass. We had fun, despite a pretty good crash by Phil. He tried to catch some air on a hill on the four-wheeler and succeeded, except for the landing. Ouch for his knee, elbow and back. Thank heavens he was wearing his helmet and gear. It could have been a lot worse.

2009-10-10T12:05:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to win a trip to Disneyland with my family and needed to include a link to their site. It's a great avenue to know what's going on in the valley and to keep up with great ideas and new places to try. To enter it's http://www.sweetlifeinthevalley.com/2007/09/disneyland-giveaway-sweet-life-in.html. They also have a new site, http://www.outandaboutwiththefamily.com/.

Spring projects

2009-03-30T09:19:00.000-06:00

You can tell it's spring. We have about 5 projects in mind, with one underway and once completed.

The one we got started on a couple of weeks ago is the fence. We are finally going to put up a fence so we can get the trailer out of the garage. I know, call us crazy.

So Phil's been amazing--designing, welding, cutting, painting, etc. Here he is welding the caps on the metal posts for the gates so they can swing open to get the trailer in and out, but also to hold the man-gate for the kids to access the back.

He had to paint the posts. He did that Saturday morning (like how they rigged it to paint all sides of them at once and make it look like a party!) and got the posts set Saturday evening, with the help of our great neighbors (Thanks Matt and Cody!).

As soon as it stops snowing, we'll be back at it again.

We also got the storage room all reorganized this week. We put more supports on the shelves and added a few more shelves, besides organizing the food in a more logical order. It's lots better.

Time flies

2009-03-13T08:30:00.000-06:00

It's amazing to me that you don't post for a few days and suddenly, you've got all sorts of stuff to post about.

First off, for all who have asked, Cody's tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy surgery went well. He has been a trooper. It's been ouchy and ugly, with some sort of eye goop to top it off, but he's on the mend. The surgery only took about half an hour. His appetite has been nill, but he's finally getting a little hungry again after a week of mostly liquids. He's sleeping better though, and that's what counts.

We're done with our winter birthday mania. Everyone in our family has their birthdays between the middle of December and March 1, so it's a fun thing in the midst of the cold season. Cody and Brynne both designed their own cakes and helped decorate them. Brynne did hers all by herself! That was a lot of fun. We had high hopes of making a grand Star Wars cake for Rhys' birthday, but plans changed. So instead of using some of the great ideas that friends had suggested, we ended up drawing a simple R2-D2 on the cake in the 15 minutes we had before going to church. He loved it and that's all the matters.

We had the chance to go to the Draper Temple open house. That was a lot of fun for the kids and it's amazing inside. We loved doing that and can't wait for the Oquirrh Mountain Temple to be done.

Lastly, with the little bit of warmer weather we've been having the last few days, the boys have had a ball learning to ride their bikes without training wheels. They're champs--they're picking it up so quick. The only hard part is for us to try to keep up with them!

Cody's wild-ride month

2009-02-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

So Cody has had a crazy month. At his yearly check-up, he got his eyes checked with a shapes chart. He was saying a star was a triangle and a heart was a square. Time to get his eyes checked. Sure enough, he needed glasses. We had to wait a whole week to actually get his glasses after getting his eyes checked and he was very excited to pick them up yesterday. It's been fun to hear him talk about how clearly he can see things now.

On top of that, we realized that he has sleep apnea. He's probably had it for a long time, from the symptoms and the resulting behaviors. So, he's getting his tonsils and adenoids out next Friday. Good thing there are some perks--like the ice cream, popsicles, yogurt diet that follows--or we'd never get him there.

The other kids are jealous, wondering why they can't get their tonsils out and be out of school for a week and get to be on the same diet. If only they knew...

Winter fun

2009-02-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

So, I think we've played as much as anything this month. We pulled the kids from school for a couple of days to head to St. George with our neighbors. It rained most of the time, but we had such a great time just getting away. We played Killer Bunnies and games until really late. And the hot tubs.....heaven!

Last night, my brother in Rock Springs brought down a bunch of iron-on letters and pictures--even the kind you'd choose from at souvenir shops, mostly from the 70s and 80s, with city-scapes, Shawn Cassidy, Farrah Fawcett and Battlestar Galactica, lots of glitter prints. He even brought the press! So, you can imagine, my kids went to town.

They wanted to put letters and pictures on anything they could find. We had to draw the line at their good school clothes since they were writing their names, "Goosebumps" (only because the book from the library was in front of them) and putting on "#1 Daughter," and wanting really great ones like, "This shirt is protected by an attack cat," with a little embroidered kitty to iron on .

We had fun though. I even made one, as you can see in the photo. My favorites were the Star Wars ones we found, though. You can't see it on the back of one of the shirts.

I guess not so one-of-a-kind

2009-01-05T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have to mention how nice it is to have a great husband. He's not only the comic relief of the family quite often (and is rubbing off on the kids)--as per the pic from Halloween, that he took of himself no less--but, he's also so handy. He was out tinkering with the neighbor's snowblower tonight in about 0 degrees and loving every minute of it. He can fix and jimmy-rig and diagnose so well, that he, well, reminds me of my dad. And that's a great thing.

December fun

2008-12-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

December is such a fun month for us. We have two birthdays (check out the Clone cake and my cake that Phil made with the kids--very impressive) and Christmas so it's a constant party it seems. We had a wonderful Christmas. We got games and plenty of Star Wars stuff to go around. Plus we got lots of camping gear--sleeping bags, pillows and canteens. It was great fun.

Now we get to play with all this stuff and plan when we can use it!

We love to read books out loud with the kids. We just got done with Holes (and the kids are still quoting it) and are looking forward to reading the Inkspell series we just got. And although I haven't bought it, I'm looking forward to reading the third book in the Uglies series, Specials.

Christmas Card (or we mean blog!)

2008-12-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

This is an end of the year shout-out to all our friends and family. Let us give you an update on what's up with our bunch.

As a family we went to St. George in the spring. We had a great time in Yellowstone in June with some extended family--so much so that we took a side trip on the way home to Craters of the Moon. The kids always love going camping, especially up at Phil's family's property.

We had a couple of unique experiences this year, as well. Phil and I got to go to Youth Conference in July, where we all dressed as Nephites (the whole time) and saw Book of Mormon stories reenacted and got to experience what those in the scriptures went through. We were mom and dad to a tribe of about ten kids. We loved it. It was one of the best weeks of the summer.

Not much is new with Phil, although he did shave his head this year. He is still in the bishopric and loves that calling. He is still enjoying his job at State Farm as adjuster. His bosses keep trying to convince him to move into management, but that would require us to move away from family. He enjoyed going pheasant hunting this fall with some co-workers and now wishes he had lots of land to get some hunting dogs. His big excitement this year was having to get a colonoscopy, where they took out a polyp, which he "is too young to have." Phil loves to read, watch movies and ride four-wheelers.

Although things for me are still somewhat the same--working on The Crossroads Journal, teaching the Marriage and Family Relations class and keeping busy with the kids, I had a few firsts this year. I walked on hot coals (and burned my feet), sang a solo for the first time, caught frogs with my bare hands, volunteered to be the PTA president-elect at our new elementary school and got some new callings. I'm a family history consultant (and absolutely love it) and I just recently got called as our ward's girls camp director. I'm very excited about that. I love to read and try new recipes. I also love to play games with the kids and neighbors.

Brynne is such a fun girl and a huge help. She is in 3rd grade this year and is a great student. She has had a big year. She got baptized in March. She had a great time this fall playing softball and was a good hitter. She finally got her cat that she's been begging for for years. She got it on Phil's grandparents' farm and takes good care of it. She is learning to play the piano and loves to read and play games. She loves to play with the neighbors.

Cody is 6 and in 1st grade and loves it. He has become quite the reader. He is very tender hearted and creative and loves to write stories. He enjoyed playing soccer this fall and loves to play with Legos. His theme song this season should be "All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth," since he lost the second top tooth yesterday.

Jayce just celebrated his 5th birthday and sometimes loves preschool. He is very considerate and kind. He loves to listen to stories and play Xbox with his dad. He also enjoyed soccer this fall.

Rhys is 2 and is so independent. He always wants to wear shorts, no matter how cold it is and is working on potty training--my favorite. He loves to go for four-wheeler rides and play what the big boys are playing. He loves his fish, Sparkle, and his newest saying is, "That's right."

We hope all is well with you, our friends and family, this Christmas season and wish you a happy and prosperous New Year.