It's been too long......

We made it through the holidays and in the meantime forgot about our blog...... Mainly because I started reading the Twilight series of books (4 in all, in case you didn't know that) back in November and told myself that I was going to finish them all by the time tax season got here. I can now say I finished the fourth book (Breaking Dawn) yesterday at 3:30pm. I absolutely loved all 4 books. So now that I have time to blog........I will tell you what else we have been up to.

We had a great Thanksgiving with all of my family out at Matt & Sara's house in honor of Matt returning home from Saudi Arabia of course just a couple of days before Thanksgiving. It was great fun. The cousins all played and had a great time. They made Christmas ornaments for their craft. (a tradition I started a few years ago when the kids got old enough) Which was so fun to watch them all really get into it this year. They had a choice of a reindeer, snowman or a Christmas tree. They turned out really cute and the kids had a great time.

Christmas was tons of fun!!!! I love getting up Christmas morning and seeing how excited they are... Braxton was up at 6:30 and then Bridger at 7:00 but we made them go back to bed until 8:15. The funny part was I had to lay back down with Braxton and listen to him talk my ear off for an hour before he fell back asleep. He talked about everything from : Do you think Santa really came to our house mommy? Yes Braxton, I am sure he came to our house Now go back to sleep. I know he came mommy because I heard the reindeer in the front yard eating the reindeer food that Aunt Kristin gave us to put outside before bed time on Christmas eve. It was so funny listening to him that I didn't think he was ever going to fall back asleep. But he finally did and then they both were up again at 8:15. They had so much fun opening presents that i forgot to take pictures. I did get it recorded though. It was a great day. Now life is back to normal and is not so hectic YET.... Tax season is just about to begin for me at work and will be a little crazy......So if you don't see me blogging until after April 15Th you will know why.. Because I am working 10-12 hour days and have no time and will just be too TIRED! But I will try.

We hope all of you had a great Holiday Season and we look forward to keeping up to date with you all either on face book or reading your blogs.

Love, The Freestones

So we spent Friday night out at my sister-in laws house helping her finish getting everything ready for my brother to get home today. We just hung out and the kids got to play all night. The kids all made posters to take to the base and hold them. It was so cute. We had a great time.

It was so neat to be able to go to the base and welcome my brother home and all the other people from his unit. There was a group of motorcycle riders that were there and lined up all holding flags for the soldiers to walk through as they got off the military jet. It was so neat seeing all the little kids holding posters and wearing t-shirts with their soldiers picture on it and everyone waving flags. It was just the neatest picture to see I wish everyone would've been there to see this.

The boy scouts also had lined the street with flags all the way to Matt and Sara's house with the flags ending at their house with several flags lining the front yard and the side of the house. It looked so neat I started crying it absolutely took your breathe away. There were yellow bows on every tree following all the flags. It was the neatest thing to see.

I want all of my brothers to know how proud I am of them for their service to our country. We are so proud of you and we are so thankful to have our Uncle Matty home safely. Enjoy the pictures from today...

I turned 34 on Wednesday November 19th. (That was NOT fun) because it makes me realize how much closer that I am to 40.............. It was also the 11th anniversary of when Max proposed to me so that made it an extra special birthday... The best present of all was knowing that my brother was on his way home after 6 months in Saudi Arabia.

But before I get to that I have to tell you about my sweet little boys. Braxton is at that age where he gets so excited about everyone's birthdays so he was extremely excited this week. Bridger gave me the new Taylor Swift CD and Braxton gave me the Tinkerbell movie. So apparently Max had purchased these gifts on Tuesday and later that night Braxton wanted to watch a movie and when asked which one to watch he said "I want to watch Tinkerbell movie, Daddy" and you can imagine the little argument that went on about whether or not we had this movie. Max finally gave in and unwrapped the movie and I was not allowed in the room. Then the movie was re-wrapped so I could open it on my birthday. It was the funniest thing to watch these two and Max trying to explain to my 4 year old why he was supposed to keep it a secret.

We went to the Jazz game with Mason and Karen for my birthday and had a great time.... Even though I had to turn another year older I still had a great day..

We made it through our first season of little league football for Bridger so I am hoping I will have more time to keep our family blog and pictures up to date.

It has been so fun watching Bridger play football this year. For those of you that didn't know this was Bridger's first year of tackle football. We had a blast it was so much fun. Max was able to be one of the assistant coaches. They ended up taking 2nd place in the Jag Bowl last weekend. He had so much fun.

We like to keep the boys active in sports year round. Now we are on to Wrestling. Bridger has been a part of the North Side Wrestling Club since he was 4 years old and our little Braxton is so excited because he is FINALLY old enough to be apart of the wrestling club as well. So both boys started last week. They are having a great time. Braxton was so funny trying to learn all the wrestling moves. They both have been an absolute joy to watch. Although Braxton isn't old enough to compete in the tournaments he still gets to practice with his big brother. (Which is very exciting to him). Bridger will have 4 tournaments throughout Dec 2008-Feb 2009. We will keep you posted on those events. Bridger also participated in the Little Vikings Wrestling Clinic put on by the High School and took 2nd Place in the 56 lb. weight group. He competed against 4 other boys. He was so excited.

In honor of Veteran's Day a couple of days ago we want to say a special Thank You to all of our extended family that is bravely serving our country for the freedom we have today. Trevor, Todd, Rachel, Krystal, Uncle Steve and especially to Uncle Matt, Uncle Mitch and Uncle Mason and anyone else I have missed. We are so proud of all of you!!! Uncle Matty we are so excited for you to get home from Saudi Arabia hopefully next week. We can't wait to see you.......

Halloween

We had a fun Halloween this year. Braxton decided clear back in July that he was going to be Bumblebee from the Transformers movie and cartoons. So we searched long and hard til we found the perfect Bumblebee costume. It turned out so cute. He had so much fun trick-or-treating with his big brother.

Bridger on the other hand could not decide what he wanted to be and did not get his costume picked out until the Sunday before Halloween. He wanted to be something scary (but not to scary of course). He had lots of fun taking his little brother from door to door and racing to see who could get to the doorbell first. I finally had to make them take turns ringing every other one. Braxton was a hoot, he would run & dive into a somersault almost every house we went to. It was really funny. I had lots of fun walking around with them while Max stayed home and passed out candy.

Hello Family and Friends,

It has been a busy summer already!! Bridger finished up his baseball season last week and then tried out for the All-Star team on Saturday June 25th. We got the call later that day that he made the team. he is very excited about that. We are so proud of him. He has done a great job and has been practicing his little heart out all this week to get ready for his first All-star game on Friday. So now we begin a week of tournament games in this scorching hot weather!!

As you all know Bridger turned 8 in April and is now old enough to be in Cub Scouts. this is something he has looked forward to for a long time and it has been fun to see all the neat things they have done in scouts. He participated in his very first Pinewood Derby and had a great time doing that. This week they had a Mini Olympics and participated in 4 events including the bobsled (sitting on ice blocks), the Javelin, discus and a running event. That was a lot of fun to watch. It has been great to see how excited he is in doing all these things. We have enjoyed watching him.

Now onto Braxton, this little guy has so much energy and he really keeps us on our toes. He gets so mad that he is not old enough to do all the things his older brother gets to do. I spent the summer at Bridger's baseball games chasing him out onto the field trying to catch him because he wanted to play or help his daddy with the coaching. He is always right behind Bridger wanting to play with him and copying everything his brother does that he is not afraid to try jumping on his scooter or trying to do bike tricks. We are constantly having to watch him closely in this area.

We are looking for a preschool for Braxton to start attending later this fall. We are very excited about that. I just hope he will be excited too! He had a hard time going to the daycare when I went back to work last year. So we will have to see how it goes.

That's all for now.......
Love, Mindy