Shunning the Sun

November 12, 2011 - Saturday

We ran Pat's Run back in April of 2010.  That was our first race, and we hadn't run one since.  But a few months ago Jayna's friend Tarah put something on facebook about how she was running in an upcoming race for the Shun the Sun foundation and inviting all her friends to sign up.  Jayna decided that signing up for another race would be good motivation to start running again after having Coleton so she signed us both up for the 5K race.

We 'trained' for about a month before the race, running once or twice a week.  It was good motivation to start running again.  Now that we have four kids we aren't able to run together, so we just had to train separately while the other watched the kids.  The race started just outside of Hohokam stadium, went along the canal next to it and then back to finish in the stadium. 

Us at Jayna's parents house after the race in our snazzy shirts

I finished with a time of 24:54 (8:01 mile pace) and Jayna finished with a time of (10:14 mile pace).  It was fun seeing some old friends there - Tarah's mom and dad, her sister Kasey, and our friend Katy.  We didn't get to see Tarah since she was running the half marathon and we had to leave pretty quickly after our race to get home to our kids.

Coleton's One Month

Matt made a video of Coleton's first month of life! I love it and love my talented husband. :0)

Coleton's One Month Stats:

10 lbs 8oz (67%)
22 1/2 inches (80%)

We sure love our baby boy. He is growing up so fast...Roughly a pound a week! He is the best baby and sleeps great.

Enjoy the video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5GEpQECptQ

It's Off to School We Go

We are now the proud parents of a kindergartner (Shaylin) and a pre-schooler (Emmalyn). We're not sure where the summer went, but it was fun (and hot) while it lasted. Come to think of it, it's still hot.

August 8, 2011

Shaylin started kindergarten at Legacy Traditional School here in Maricopa on Monday. I think Shaylin was more prepared then we were as parents. Shaylin really enjoyed preschool last year and she's a really smart girl, so she was excited to start kindergarten. But for us as parents, it's more than a little scary sending your firstborn out into the world. A few things that made the transition a little easier on us were:

1) It's only 1/2 day kindergarten - from 8am to 11am, so she's not gone for the whole day and she has a year to transition and get used to going Monday-Friday before starting 1st grade and going all day.
2) Legacy is a charter school that provides a really structured education. They also require uniforms, which we're okay with, and yes we realize that means we're old.
3) The people who run the school are in our ward. We know them well and it makes us feel more comfortable knowing that there are people that we already trust there at the school all day.

Here's a picture of her right before school. For their uniforms they have to wear red, white, or blue shirts with blue or khaki skirts or shorts. She couldn't have looked any cuter on her first day.


Jayna ended up taking Shaylin on the first day. I would have liked to go, but I took one for the team so we didn't have to wake the other kids up and load them up into the car (school starts at 8 and they left at about 7:40. Plus I probably would have been a little bit of a crying mess, which would have damaged my manly reputation. If I had a manly reputation.

Jayna said it was a little chaotic. They open the gates up at 7:30 and the kids can go in and play on the playgrounds and then they have a flag ceremony at 7:55 every morning. Jayna got a few pictures of Shaylin after the flag ceremony when she was lined up to go to class.



Shaylin's good friend Indianna Carpenter is also going to Legacy and has AM kindergarten. Unfortunately they are in different classes, but at least they'll be able to carpool and play together before school and at recess. Plus it might help both of them pay closer attention if they're not in the same class. This picture was taken right after school. Indianna was all smiles but Shaylin was acting pretty tired. At least we got her to smile for the picture.


Shaylin's favorite things about her first day of school were PE (which she referred to as her workout) and getting to count to 100 with her class. Her least favorite thing was not getting recess or getting to eat the snack that she brought since her day was so busy.

August 9, 2011

Emmalyn was also really excited about starting school this year. The pre-school she's going to is the same one Shaylin went to last year. It's called Shining Star Pre-School and it's taught by Heidi Buckmister, who's in our ward, in her home.

Emmalyn got to see her older sister go to pre-school last year, so that helped. Plus she also knows Miss Hiedi, so she's more comfortable around her. Emmalyn is really smart also and we're sure she'll do really well. She's in the younger class, which goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays and she'll end up doing two years of preschool before she starts kindergarten.

Here's a few pictures of her before she left. She was too cute in her pre-school clothes and her backpack!



Emmalyn is really shy, especially when she meets new people (although you wouldn't be able to tell it by how hyper she is at home). Jayna was thinking that she might have to stay with her for a little bit at the beginning of school but as soon as Miss Heidi showed Emmalyn where the babies were she was fine. Here's a picture of her out in front of Miss Heidi's house.


Emmalyn's favorite thing about her first day was the cookies. Apparently they made cookies while they were there and got to eat them. That didn't come as a very big surprise since Emmalyn's got the biggest sweet tooth in our family! She also said that she had fun with Paisley, who she knows from nursery at church and they were in the same class for swimming lessons this summer.

Coleton Jay

Coleton Jay Hedges was born at 7:31 this morning (July 21st). He was our biggest baby, weighing in at 7 lbs 15 oz and was 21" long. Both he and Jayna are doing really well and we appreciate all the love and prayers that have been sent our way today! We plan on posting more pictures later, but here's a few for now from Coleton's first day here:

He seemed to enjoy getting kisses from his momma...


Our first family picture with Coleton...


Coleton mid-yawn...


We thought it would be interesting to compare stats from all four kids:

Shaylin: Born at 9:06 am; 6 lbs 14 oz; 19 3/4 in. long; 4 days early
Emmalyn: Born at 7:46 am; 6 lbs 13 oz; 20 in. long; 9 days early
Bronson: Born at 6:50 am; 7 lbs 1 oz; 20 in. long; 13 days early
Coleton: Born at 7:31 am; 7 lbs 15 oz; 21 in. long; 5 days early

Princesses and Parties

June 4th

Shaylin and Emmalyn got to go to their friend Sydney Glenn's birthday party on the 4th. It was a princess themed party so they got to dress up in some of their princess clothes. The girls had a lot of fun at the part and we had fun getting to visit with the Glenn's. They used to live in Maricopa but moved out to Mesa several years ago, so we don't get to see them as often, but we always have fun whenever we do get together with them.


Shaylin went as Snow White and Emmalyn was Cinderella. They got to do a little fashion show, which was really cute, and that's when we got this picture...


They also got to frost cookies...


Here's Sydney, the birthday girl...


This next couple pictures were after the part on the same day after we got home.

Shaylin still loves to pick up and hold the chickens, and most of them seem to like being held...


Here's Cinderella (aka Emmalyn) mowing the patio with her baby...


June 9th

On the 9th we went to Jayna's grandma Nilsa and Roy's house in Gilbert to swim and celebrate Jayna's birthday. After we were done swimming we had cupcakes that Jaylene had made.

Jayna and the kids blowing out the candle...


Jayna and the kids...


Emmalyn and Shaylin getting ready to eat their cupcakes...



Bronson chowing down...


Here's Bronson falling asleep while eating lunch on June 7th.


That's all for today (me and Bronson are spent).

May Days

For those of you who have read our blog before, you already know that writing is not our strong point. So we'll try to keep the writing to a minimum and pictures to a maximum as we run through some of the fun events in our families lives from May.

May 3, 2011

Ever since we first saw Jaycob's BYU schedule we'd been looking forward to his trip back to Arizona to play ASU. They played two games - one on May 2nd and one on May 3rd. His team played well in the first game but ended up losing. The second game Jaycob played really well, going 2 for 4 with a couple of RBIs and BYU ended up winning, which was a pretty big deal since ASU was ranked 6 in the country at the time. There were quite a few of Jaycob's old friends and people from his home ward there on both nights. Unfortunately we didn't get a good picture of the big group of people around him after each game, but he definitely had a good crowd!

Here's a few pictures from after the second game:

Here's the who Brugman family (minus Jayden's husband Derek who was away playing minor league baseball). From L to R: Me, Shaylin, Jayna, Jayson, Leah, Jaycob, Jaymee, Emmalyn, Jayden, Jaylene, Jay, and Bronson.


After pretty much every game we went to this year we tried to get pictures of Jaycob with our kids. Sometimes the kids were more cooperative then others, but we were able to get a cute one of Shaylin with him after this game.


Nikki - Jayna's really good friend who just moved back from Washington DC -and her husband Collin were able to come. Nikki is expecting her first child so we had to get a few prego pictures of the her and Jayna together...



May 7, 2011

Emmalyn and Shaylin are taking swimming lessons this summer (Shaylin took them last year, but this is Emmalyn's first year) and neither one of them can get enough of swimming. We are really lucky to have Jayna's parents so close and to be able to swim in their pool so often. Here's a few pictures of the kids being their cute selves from one of our pool days in May.





May 8, 2011

For Mother's Day this year we went up to Jayna's parent's ward after our block was over (right now we're 9am-12pm and they're 1-4pm) to surprise her mom. I'm not sure how big of a surprise it is at this point since we've done it several times, but it's still fun to get to go to church with Jayna's family. After church we stayed up there and had dinner with her family as well.

On a personal note, I am so grateful to be married to such an amazing woman! Not only is she beautiful on the outside, but she is also beautiful on the inside. I know that sounds a little cliche, but she has such a big heart and is so loving, especially to our wonderful kids who, believe it or not, are not wonderful 24 hours a day, but being able to take such good care of them is what makes her such a great mother. She is my best friend and I love that we share similar interests and similar senses of humor (or would it be sense of humors? I don't know).

Here she is with our 3 1/2 kids on Mother's day..

Shaylin...


Emmalyn...


Bronson...


and the 1/2 (to be named soon)...


May 16, 2011

I was at work when I got a picture message from Jayna. It took me a minute to figure out that she sent me a picture of an egg in our chicken's nesting box. Not just any egg, but our first egg! From what I've read, the breeds of chickens we have usually start laying between 6-9 months and our Rhode Island Red that laid this one was right around 6 months.



As of the end of May, we were getting 3 eggs a day from the 3 hens that had started laying.

May 20 ,2011

We can't believe how fast time is starting to go by. Shaylin graduated from her Shining Stars preschool class in May. She's been going for the whole past school year and to say that she has LOVED it would be an understatement. She loved her teachers (the lady that runs it is in our ward and she gets excited every week when we see her at church) and she loved making new friends. She also loved the school work, which included memorizing poems, which she did really well at. Sidenote: We first realized that she had a good memory several years ago when she was still learning to talk but would memorize stories that we read to her and would be able to memorize primary songs after hearing them a few times.

Here she is sitting in her chair waiting for graduation to start...


Jayden, Jaylene, and Jay were able to come down for the graduation, which was at the Village's (another subdivision in Maricopa) clubhouse. Bronson is turning into quite the character and had everybody laughing while we were waiting for the graduation to start...


Our family after the graduation...


Our family with Jay, Jaylene, and Jayden...


Shaylin holding her pre-school grad certificate with Emmalyn...


Shaylin with her teachers (Miss Lauren, Miss Stephanie, and Miss Heidi)


Back at home, after the graduation, we decided to try our fresh eggs for the first time. since we had seven already. Emmalyn and Shaylin agreed to take pictures with them before we scrambled them up. They were delicious, by the way!



May 28, 2011

We had a really fun Memorial Day weekend this year. Jaycob was home for a few days (he only had a few days off between his BYU season and when his summer baseball season starts) and his girlfriend Ali also came down. Jayna's uncle Chris and his girlfriend Katie were also here from California.

One of the highlights was everyone meeting over at Jayna's grandpa Roy and Grandma Nilsa's house in Chandler. They have a really nice pool with a nice big beach step that the kids love to swim in.

This isn't everyone that was there (Jaylene, Jayson, Jayna's Aunt Dawnie, cousin Ryan, and Nilsa are missing), but here's everyone else. From L to R: grandpa Roy, Ali, Jaycob, Shaylin, me, Nicholas (Jayna's cousin), Jay, Emmalyn, Jayden, Jaymee, Katie, and Chris.


Our two little fish...


The girls were excited to play with Jaycob. Shaylin had fun jumping off the rock to Jaycob...


and getting tossed in the air by Jaycob.


Jaycob and Ali...


Emmalyn had fun riding around on the raft with her aunt Jayden...


Jaymee (Jayna's younger sister) and Jayna...



Shaylin had fun being the little motor for the rafts and pushing people around while they were sitting on it, including Emmalyn.


Shaylin posing in front of their little waterfall...