Collin and Dani

This is a pictures of her leg..So cute!

Hey everyone I just wanted to update you all and let you know that we are having a girl! We are so excited and our due date is May 13th still. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for bread bears! It was so much fun to see everyone and hopefully we will see you at the Christmas party tomorrow.

To The People We Love Best In All The World!

Merry Christmas to all. We love you!

Check with your parents about the Czirr Family Christmas Party on the 19th.

Devin has two baptisms coming up. He is also experiencing his first transfer to Sacramento.

I'm looking forward to breadbears.

From Rachel

Happy Holidays from the Swenson's!
We hope you are all (near or far) having a great holiday season. We sure are. We had some encouraging news this week. Andy's surgery last November to fuse his back didn't actually work, and we were anxiously anticipating the inevitability of another surgery soon. But he had a CT scan done this week which revealed some bone growth taking place. It's not where it's supposed to be, and it's only a little bit, but it's a start. The surgeon he saw here in Utah explained that sometimes the body's immune system fights off the growth hormone for up to a year or so, and that delays the fusion process. So we are cautiously hopeful that the original surgery will work eventually after all. We just have to wait and see.
This Christmas time I'm thinking about all the wonderful things our family did for us last year when we were unemployed and far away. We had a very special Christmas thanks to your generosity.
We went to cut down a Christmas tree today and were rudely reminded of the differences between Utah Christmases and those in Wisconsin. First of all, it was fifty degrees and sunny out. My kids went in T-shirts! (Ian and Avery and I went shopping for Christmas ornaments a week ago. We spent a pleasant hour in the store, gathering our decorations and talking about Santa and Christmas carols and presents. We made our purchases and carried our sacks to the door - and were greeted by a blast of warm air. I feel like we're celebrating in Texas or something.) So of course there was no snow on which to slide the tree once we cut it down - and no need for a thermos of yummy hot chocolate. And then there were the sad specimens casually referred to as 'trees'. There was a lovely selection of overgrown bushes with long needles and double trunks, or sad, straggly things with more trunk than needles. Those were the expensive ones! We just left, defeated. We'll drag ourselves to a tree lot and buy someone else's handiwork...

FROM CAROLYN

Obedience Training I was talking to our daughter-in-law on the phone the other day and she happened to mention that our nearly 2-year-old granddaughter was in trouble in time-out. It sent a dagger straight to my heart. It’s not that I don’t trust them as parents, it’s just that a grandchild is too young to be in “trouble,” no matter how old they get. We had a great discussion about discipline and then I told her never to tell me that my grandchildren are in trouble. Rather say, they are in training. The irony is that my own children were constantly in trouble. Like when the 3 Musketeers, consisting of our 3-year-old daughter and 1 ½ year old twin boys emptied the refrigerator and I caught them skating through pickle juice and mustard…forget the training. They were in trouble. Or when I caught the ringleader, red-handed, trying to stuff her twin brothers in the dryer. Time-out wasn’t the training I was looking for. Or when the 12 and 9-year-olds tied their younger brother to the chain-link fence and pantsed him. We lived near a busy highway. They weren’t in trouble because they didn’t tell me about it until years later. But Grandparent Hindsight makes you dotty. That’s why we should never raise our own grandkids. I am so happy for somebody else to do the “training” that I told our new son-in-law he was like getting a dog from the Pound. All you have to do is love them because somebody else has already done the training, and you can’t be blamed (or congratulated) for the outcome. Obedience training for dogs is very similar for young children. It requires patience and consistency. If you get mad, it confuses them, and they wet on the carpet anyway. But if you keep at it in the beginning, it will pay off later, and then they will squirt catsup all over the living room rug anyway. I still haven’t thought of an enforceable logical consequence for that one. You could threaten completely out of your head, as my dad did once when we older girls did not change the baby’s poopy diaper for an entire day while my parents were out of town. “Ok girls, now you’ll have to mess your pants instead of using the toilet!” We kept giggling, wondering how he was going to enforce it. It was impossible, even for him, to keep a stoic face after that one. You know, I’ll bet it was somebody’s grandchildren who made a game of bonking their senile great-grandfather on the head and then running for cover in a squeal of laughter. He must have been senile, or instead of swearing up a blue streak, he would have smiled when their dad caught them and pleaded, “Whatever you do, don’t get them in trouble.”

From Rachel - Saw baby Trejo pictures. She is a darling! Glad to see Nicole and Brock soooo happy. We love you three and wish you the best!

GOAT BREATH

From Carolyn
In our late 40’s, and by way of a challenge from our 20-something son, my husband and I have begun a weight loss-weight training program. In all fairness, I am really the only one who is a beginner with the weights. Our weight equipment is on the back porch and our back yard is an animal pen where we have two delightful milk goats. They are very curious, social creatures and so whenever you’re out there pumping weights, sucking air, and concentrating on not collapsing, the goats like to see what you’re doing. During one long inhale, the goat poked her curious head through the rails, and belched right in my husband’s face.
How can I describe goat breath? Let’s just say that it compares favorably with someone who has coffee, cigarette, and whiskey breath, with no dental hygiene, combined with a hint of half-digested hay. Picture the scene from My Fair Lady, where Eliza’s father is trying to extort money from Professor Higgins. He laughs breathily in the professor’s face and nearly knocks him over. So it was with my husband. He said it reminded him of when he would lift weights with his older brother and right at the apex of straining, when vomiting was imminent, he would describe a greasy hamburger.
Our 16-year-old daughter, Natalie, who is milking and then selling the milk to earn money for expensive school activities, says that she is a perfect target for goat pee and goat shi...limey diarrhea. She swears that the goat who doesn’t like to be milked, smears her on purpose. And still there is something endearing about the little beggars. Like the one who lays her head in our daughters lap while she’s milking the other goat, just to be in on the action, or the way they come running when you shake the grain bucket.
I love to experiment with recipes for the milk, but getting it from the teat to the kitchen is strictly the kid’s job. And I try not to think about goat teats. Still the fresh milk and yogurt are delightful and convenient…in the sense that I don’t have to do any of the extracting. I hear all these stories second-hand because I made it very clear that the goats were a work project for the kids. I will only milk them if there is no other person left on planet earth. The 14-year-old takes after her mother. She has managed to keep her room sparkling clean upon threat of having to milk the goats. She also doesn’t earn money for a clean room.
I’ll bet Arnold Swartzenegger never got buff while sucking in goat breath. My husband is still the best.

To The People We Love Best In All The World!

It sounds like Devin is still enjoying his mission.

Melanie wanted me to post the family halloween party to be held at her home on Nov 1st.
Call her for more information.

Lynette said the Czirr Family Christmas Party will be held December 19th at the Mapleton church located south of Shelley's house on main street. (She couldn't get the White Church)

Bart and I teach the six and seven year old children in Primary. before class we put some crayon boxes in the ledge at the bottom of the blackboard just to be prepared. Big mistake! Bart gave what he thought was a really good section on the Sermon on the Mount. The children listened quietly and the minute he stopped talking Brinley said, "What are the crayons for?" He was really deflated. So now if someone says something to us and we don't acknowledge it or don't comment we say 'what are the crayons for'?

WA Czirrs Speak up

Hi Everyone!

I know it's been a very long time since I last wrote for the newsletter. But I am now feeling enough guilt for missing it so many times that I figured I had better get with it. We are all keeping very busy up here in WA state and we love it here. There is a very large LDS population here and so the kids have lots of good friends to go to school with.
Brandon is now in 6th grade. He loves it and is doing well even with lots of honors classes. He is also in scouts too and is a Deacon now. He turned 12 on July 23rd and then went on a 50 mile hike into the Eagle Cap wilderness area with the scouts. He was the very youngest one there and was almost the smallest one too. But his pack was about like anyone else's for weight and he did far better than most of them there. I couldn't go in with him and so I was worried that he would be left for dead on the side of the trail when I did come up 2 days later. His leaders said he was right in the middle of the group going up and never had a problem. He said he didn't think he was going to make it at some points but he really loved it. It was good weather until I got up there mid-week and then it started to rain and such. Brandon's entire group even jumped into a glacier lake for a picture--I was glad I wasn't with them then because I would never have jumped in! Brandon and the troop left Monday evening and drove to the base camp and spent the night there. Then they hiked up Tuesday. I hiked up with the ward's 2nd counselor and we went up Wednesday night after work. We hiked until midnight and didn't find the group so we pitched our tent. When we woke up, the other group had their walkie-talkies on and we got in contact with them as we were only about 100 yards away but on a moonless night due to clouds we didn't try very hard to find them. We went on a 20 mile hike the next day from our base camp which was tough but fun. When we arrived at base camp that night we were so tired we collapsed in our tents. But it started to rain and then hail and lightning was striking everywhere around us on the mountain peaks. Our tent filled up with water and we woke up the next morning soaking wet in our sleeping bags but still pretty warm. But getting out of our sleeping bags made us suddenly cold and we all agreed at the same time that we wouldn't be spending another night there. We all packed up our stuff and hiked out that day. So I was only there for 2 1/2 days but hiked about 34 miles in about 40 hours. I won't lie to you, it hurt. But we have all survived and are doing well now. Brandon is the newest Deacon's Secretary in our ward as of today. His head is already very huge and this new found power will only serve to make doorways impassible.

Kendra is in 4th grade and anxious to get into middle school with Brandon. She was never one to be left behind by him and so this is killing her. She has always pushed herself to keep up with him and has reached all the same abilities very shortly after he has (from reading and talking to bike riding, etc). She has a paper route with Brandon which Julie and I take turns going on with them each day. I can't wait until they want to quit but they are making good money and don't show any signs of quitting soon. :( Kendra just opened a savings account with Washington Mutual a week ago--then they went belly up and were bought by another bank. It's crazy times to try to teach your kids about saving!!! They panicked because they thought they lost all their money. But we assured them it was ok. Luckily they were bought by another bank so we didn't lose everything from that.

Ethan is in soccer (along with the older two kids) and he seems to be loving it now. I am his coach (and an assistant for Brandon's team) and Ethan didn't like me telling him what to do at soccer practice. But the team seems to be doing better now and he likes being on my team and playing soccer when he's winning. But when he loses he says he hates me and hates soccer--until we buy a Slurpee, as is our tradition. Then I'm forgiven any shortcomings and we start fresh the next week. He is in 1st grade and loves it and is really starting to read well now--we were worried because reading and education are not his favorite things in life. He's always had a gift for athleticism, we are just looking for a way to instill competitiveness into him. But then again, he is only 6. He'll likely be far better at sports than his siblings due to his natural abilities as long as he tries hard at it.

Kaylee is in preschool which Julie organized this year. There are six kids with six moms who all trade off teaching one week at their home. They have two days a week in class so there isn't too much stress there. But Julie also only needs to teach once every 6 weeks so that's nice too and it is much cheaper than any other preschool and there is very little commuting distance to go each time so that saves on gas now too. Kaylee loves it and is doing well. She is so tall most people expect her to behave much better than she does because she is only 4. But she's a great little kid and eager to be able to do everything everyone else can do too. So she is picking up reading now too which is going to probably happen about the same time as Ethan picks it up well too. (We never push our kids to learn anything except when it comes to finishing their homework. We have just waited until they ask us to try something like bike riding and then we help them. It has been very nice and low stress and they seem to come to us ready to do it at the same age as all their friends. So it makes teaching them very easy. Even with the paper route we told Brandon and Kendra that we didn't want the paper route and would rather they not get it. But if they wanted it, they would have to do it themselves, with us tagging along. They both wanted to so badly that we let them and they have been true to their word and have adapted their lifestyles to adjust for that unearthly time of day we have to get up every morning! Thank goodness for that!) Kaylee missed out on soccer this year as we didn't know she could play it. But I am glad we didn't put her in as we are already going to practice or games every night except Sunday and Monday. Kaylee will start next Fall and that will push us over the edge of sanity I am sure.

Julie and I keep busy enough as it is, thank you, and are not looking for anymore errands to run. Business is ok and seems to always be growing. Julie is the Relief Society Secretary and I am the Financial Clerk. They are both great callings so we probably won't stay in them for very long now that I've said that. Anyway, we love you all and miss seeing you more frequently. We hope all is going well for you and look forward to the time that we are rich and can afford to fly our family down at all (as I hate the long drive and really can't afford the time due to loss of work). So when we are all rich, we'll come on down often! Don't hold your breath because we still owe mucho dinero on student and business loans so I don't think we'll be free of debt for a very long time. I hope to talk with you all later. Some of you I don't have your phone numbers and so you haven't heard from me. Feel free to call anytime.

Love the WA Czirrs

Don't Brock and Nicole have a blog?

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I thought I would put that title there so it would grab someone's attention. We are loving it out here. We just went to Boston yesterday for our anniversary. We went to the Temple for most of the day, and then we went into downtown Boston and Chinatown in the evening.

We had a great meal at a Chinese restaurant. When the owner found out that Missy could speak Cantonese, we were in like family. All of the workers wanted to talk to her and everyone wanted to squeeze Claire's cheeks. We had a lobster, Chinese broccoli, and stir fry beef in oyster sauce. It was inexpensive and delicious.

A lady at a table behind us told Missy her ability to speak was a gift from God and this guy about our age said, "She speaks better than I do!"

According to Grandpa's calculations..

We are right on schedule..what was it a baby every 4 months or something? Well as most of you have heard already (let's face it, I'm half Czirr) Collin and I are pregnant again! We are about 9 weeks along and due May 13th.
Here is a picture of our little raspberry.

Beautiful girl!!!

Well I finish with Kaithlyn Jones photos...I hope I wrote her name right...It was really fun to do her photos. So if you like them tell aaaaaaaaaallll!!! your friends, specially for the christmas season. I do family and babies and kids pictures. For the grown ups girls I will do the make up and pictures. For the photo session its $100 for one person for the family $200 and for babies , they have to be in the first 2 weeks of ages $150. I will edit all the 30 and 40 best pictures and give you the CD.

Here is Kaithlyn ...I love them!!!

A Funny Twist of Words

Hey Raph here, as I was writing my second book, I was marking down all the long, unusual words I saw that fit that situation and somehow it came out as an actual excogitative sentence. Cool heh? Anyway, here is the line I came up with and the translation that came also completely by accident:


With Barak Obama in mind . . .

His recklessly glib pontifications and mellifluous misfeasance ostensibly made for a desultory propensity inexorably toward nescient and superfluous contra distinction in finality.


Translation: A senator has given brilliant, but insincere speeches and engaged in charmingly worded illegalities and smoothly covered improprieties, and because of this and other such underlying corruption, he is pushing himself into an attractive, but entirely futile, inadequate, and harmful situation when time runs out.

Ta da! If you think about it, Obama uses mighty superfluous language to get his points across and will provide us with a sentence like the one I just wrote in order to tell us he needs to use the restroom. So, in that spirit, this, I suppose, is a tribute...

Grandpa's B-day

It was really fun to see everybody at Grandpa's B-day. All the grand kids were happy to see each other and to visit with grandpa and grandma. They love grandma's treats!!. Lynnette puppies though dethrone grandpa on his day. They were 9 of them. ... well here are come pics of the day....I know , I know....grandpa is just one picture...sorry but my artist spirit was gonne that day. I love ya grandpa even if I just took 1 picture!

From Columbus

HI!

So, we know we're only lowly grandchildren, but we can contribute because 1. we're married and are therefore legitimately adults and 2. we are expecting our first baby November 14th. I heard somewhere that to maintain any kind of status in this family, you have to be married and have a kid. So we're almost there. Brock is studying his brains out, especially when it's "Test Week" (or "The Bad Week"). I usually have him for dinner and dessert (and what have you) during normal days, but during "The Bad Week" he leaves at 7:30 am and comes home at 9 pm. Needless to say I am a very hungry pregnant woman by the time "The Bad Week" is over. And he has to endure the consequences in the ensuing weekend (which I don't think he minds).

Quick Summer Time Line:

July--Moved from Becky and Dave's basement apartment (very sad event. It was the best living arrangement we've ever had).

August--Brock started school with a White Coat Ceremony (received his med-school coat)

September-- Coley began working for a company called Piano Lessons in Your Home where she teaches piano lessons to kids all over Columbus.

October-- Nothing so far--but we'll keep you posted

So that's all folks. When the little Trejito (it's Spanish for "little Trejo") is born, we'll add pictures. We're so excited! We love you all very much.

Coley and Brock Trejo

Disneyland!

Well, the Swensons are back from Disneyland. We had a fantastic trip! A big part of that was knowing Avery was having a blast with Lynette's family and puppies. We brought her some presents from Disney, and she was perfectly happy with that. It would have been a completely different trip with her there. We all started to miss her toward the end, though, and I'm glad to have her back.

Our flight was short, and the kids really enjoyed that. Mia and Brenna sat together in front of Andy, Ian and I, and that made them feel very grown up. They got to listen to their IPods and order their own drinks, etc.

We traveled with our friends, the Terrys. We stayed in the Marriott Fairfield Inn across the street from Disneyland on the ninth floor, so our view was amazing. We could see all the 'mountains' and Tower of Terror and the Sun Wheel. It was pretty cool. Mia loved all the crazy rides like giant roller coasters she went on with her dad. Brenna and Ian and I were a little more tame. But we had so much fun and rode everything twice and crashed hard every night. Our feet are glad to be home, if not our hearts.

To The People We Love Best In All The World! December 2008

Merry Christmas to all!

Devin is having some baptisms. He is having his first trasfer to Sacramento.

I'm looking forward to breadbears days.

Christmas Party - you should have received an invitation -
Where: Church at 1613 South Main in Mapleton
Time: 6:00 pm
Date: Friday, 19th December
Assignment: Potluck dinner item
Games, performances, songs or activities for the group to enjoy
Help with clean-up

We think you are all great!!










Hi Everyone,
Elijah came into my room and said he felt just like he would if he had murdered someone. He tends to be a little intense (hey at least he has feelings) so I thought he had stepped on a frog or something. Instead he said he went to school and the kid whose party we spaced on Sat told him NOBODY showed up to his party. I felt sick too. So we're having him over this week so the boys can give him a present. Elijah couldn't get it out of his mind, so I gave him the old "this is how you get rid of nasty thoughts (just like pornography) talk." Alma says guilt should bother us only to the point of repenting (or fixing it). So he was able to get to sleep. He has more guilt at 9 than I've had my whole life.

Have I mentioned that we've got goats which in turn means we've got milk! Ok, I hate goat milk, but seriously this goat milk is drinkable. So Natty is trying to sell it off, but so far no takers. I said she should go door-to-door with some Oreos and let people taste it. So she milks it at 6 am and the twins milk it at 6 pm, one on each teat. I've got to get a picture.
As Garrett once pointed out, "you can take the Harrs out of the farm, but you cannot take the farm out of the Harrs." We almost had a pig too. One of Savannah's friends said she would give her one for her birthday present, but when she came, she said she couldn't catch it. All the kids have a small job. Natty and Mal are also teaching piano lessons. Savannah reads for and autistic boy 3 days a week, and the Twins handed out flyers to get odd jobs and they've had a few. The other day they cleaned out a chicken coop and the guy paid them and then gave them some eggs. I'm a ticket taker at some of the football and volleyball games so our whole family gets into all the games for free!

Love,
The Harrs



Hello everyone, this is the first time I've written in this prestigous of a media outlet in years. In my opinion, the old gray lady doesn't hold a candle to Mom's family newsletter, at least in terms of accuracy and excitement. Anyway, on to the good stuff.

Last weekend, Mom, Shelley, and I all drove up to Montana to visit with Alicia and the critters. I have to say that they are at least 45 times cuter than anything I've ever seen in my life! McKenna is now 4 years old, going on 25, and Sophie is 1-1/2 years old, going on 30. They are so fun. During church in Bozeman, I began tickling Sophie's extremely robust legs behind her knee and on her thighs (inappropriate fun for church I know!), and she giggled and laughed out loud at that. Then when I stopped because the meeting was starting, she began putting her legs up on Shelley so that I would tickle her again. So, the kids are very happy, and very healthy and they were very glad to see their daddy, grandma, and aunt, except for a while with Sophie who had had just about enough of me by the time we left. It was fun for all of us though and I'm glad I had fun girls to go see and to ride up and back with. (Speaking of which, Mom totally go hit on by a forty-year old guy at a gas station in central Idaho. He came out of nowhere and began blatantly flirting with her about her windshield washing abilities. It's a good thing she wasn't shaking her booty or we'd probably never hear from her again!!! But Shelley and I were so pround of Mom and we laughed about the fact that you could even find an elderly disco in the middle of the potato state.)

Okay, well nothing has changed in terms of Alicia and I except for the fact that she doesn't seem to know for sure if she wants to proceed with the divorce or not, and others seem to be pressuring her to do so against her better judgement. But anywho, I hope and pray she'll make the right decision for all of us, but especially for the girls. They deserve only love, joy, and happiness their whole lives and I really hope they have it.

I love the family for helping me out so much. Everyone has chipped in with money, time, movies, visits, walking Sarge, etc..., and each time you do help it makes my plight just that much less stressful. So, thank you very, very much from the bottom of my heart.

That's about all I have, but I keep all you guys in my prayers generally, and sometimes specifically. (But don't worry, you have Andrea praying for you and I've personally seen her prayers come true.) I wish all of you the best for the rest of this great, horrible, dull, and extremely interesting year. Thank you all.

Sincerely,
Raph

These first few pics were from the recent trip to Montana for Missy McKenna's birthday.

I love this progression. Check it out!

This is McKenna at 1 year old.

This is her at 2.

And this is now!

I'm sure just about everyone's seen these, but I'll put them up there anyway. This is the park on the 24th of July.

I know I'm bragging up a storm here, but I still can't believe I had a hand in making something so wonderfully beautiful; twice! I love these girls more than anything in this world and I hope I'll get to be around them all the time soon. See you guys later.

The L. Tylers are in!

So to make things easier on myself so that I didn't have to remember a bunch of different passwords, I invited my blogger ID/email into this blog. You can do it to by going into the settings tab, then permissions, then typing your email(gmail) in the box, then click invite. This way we can alwas know who posted. Hope your okay with that Dani! The blog you created it super duper.

Now we just need an update on Dan and Traci's house (i.e. pictures).....

Until next time....Missy (a.k.a Miss Diddly, see below)

I'm trying to figure this out

HI, everyone! This is Rachel. Dani, thanks for doing this blog. What a good job! I don't have a lot of news right now except that we are getting excited to go to Disneyland in a few days. I'll post again when we get back and maybe add a picture or two.
I have one suggestion for everyone: put your name somewhere in your post because we can't always tell who is writing.

KiM iS My hEro!

Kim Jones came over to my house last night and completely organized my kitchen. I should have taken some before pictures so so the difference. I have so much more room now! It's almost like she is Lynettes mini-me or something! Thanks again Kim!!-Dani Brinkerhoff

Kyle and Andrea trough the years...