Tanner's Baby Blessing

We had the opportunity to bless Tanner in church yesterday. I am not a photographer by any means, but wanted to share some pictures of Tanner in his blessing outfit. I looked for an all white outfit and was not able to find one, so this outfit had to do. It was nice to able to have Doug and Liz and Sarah and Justin and their kids join us. Doug and Justin joined in for the blessing, along with Treg Julander, Matt Call, Clint Helton, and Bishop Loy. It was such a neat experience to see such a little baby taken into the arms of those priesthood holders. Brett did an incredible job and really felt the spirit of the Lord as he spoke. Some of the key points that I remember were that Tanner was blessed with the desire to serve. He was blessed to seek learning from the scriptures and by doing so would learn of the Savior and His teachings. He was also blessed with the ability to see the faith of his family and would thereby strenghten his own faith, especially in his Savior. It was an awesome blessing. Now it is up to Brett and me to teach him and lead him in the Gospel. Not the easiest task in the world we live in now, but we are up for the challenge knowing the anything is possible through the help of our Heavenly Father!

Halloween 2007

This is a post of all our Halloween fun, from decorating pumpkin cookies to our ward truck or treat to the night of. Hope you all had a safe and happy halloween! We did and we have WAY to much candy to prove it. Hopefully I can control myself better than I have last night and today. All the options are just too tempting! The kids had so much fun dressing up in the their costumes. Spencer was a dinosaur, Natalie a dragon, Bailey a tiger, and Tanner a skunk. I have the habit of buying costumes on clearance and then save them for the following year. I need to get out and do that for next year. With the kids being so close in age their costumes just get handed down from one kid to the next. I don't think I will be able to keep it up much longer since Spencer is finally getting to the age where he might care what he gets to be.

The kids finished the night off strong handing out candy at our house. They may have enjoyed this part of the night more than any other!

He's changing already

Tanner right after his bath.
Crazy how much they grow in a year and a half (the spacing between Bailey and Tanner).
Kicking back and relaxing (of course, what else does he do!).

Random Pictures

This post is just a bunch on random pictures from the last couple weeks. Hope you enjoy!

This is from Debbie's birthday dinner. It wasn't much of a celebration, but we tried under the circumstances! Dinner consisted of steak, twice baked potatoes, salad and green peas. Dessert was provide by Liz, a wonderful Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake. So yummy! Just a couple more months and Debbie heads out to Brussels, Belgium, Netherlands Mission. Good luck Debs!
Taylor (Sarah's daughter) found a pen lying around our house. It was one of those smelly pens and I guess she couldn't resist seeing if it tasted as good as it smells.
Grandma watched the kids for us while we went to Tanner's first doctors appointment. We came home to them doing crafts. We wouldn't expect less for her. She loves doing things with the kids. She really should have been a preschool teacher!
Grandpa bought some pumpkins to carve with the kids. They were so excited to be able to put their pumpkin outside for everyone to see. Hopefully it will last until Halloween, but we aren't holding our breathe for that.

There is an ice cream truck that comes around our neighborhood everyday around 4:30. I have told the kids no time and time again, saying maybe another day. I finally gave in. Spencer picked out a Spiderman Bar. Natalie wanted a Dora Bar. Poor Bailey ended up with an Otter Pop from our freezer. I wasn't about to spend money on her when she really didn't care as long as she had something.
Bailey has been all about the big hugs lately. She will just run up to us randomly throughout the day and throw her arms around our necks and literally squeeze as hard as she can. We are loving it and hope that it doesn't end.

And finally a picture of our Bailey. This girl is crazy. We found her asleep on the dresser when we went to check on her for the night. Luckily the window was closed. We will have to remember to keep it closed from now on. Can you imagine her rolling over in her sleep and falling out the second story window? On second thought, maybe we should move the dresser!

We've finally decided

So, I never thought that I would leave the hospital without giving my child a name, but that is what happened this time. Luckily with Kaiser they will give you two days after you go home to call them back with a name, or we may have well ended with with the name "Boy Bruschke" on the birth certificate. We have always struggled to name our children, but this time it was especially hard with the whole "family dilema" that we had with the name we felt was right (see our post from Sept. 20 if you don't know what I am talking about). We woke up monday morning needing to pick a name by 11:00. We kind of avoided talking about it until we got in the car to go to a 10:15 doctors appointment. Only 45 minutes to go until our little one was going to be "Boy Bruschke". I pulled out my cell phone to make the call and told Brett that we were going to name him "Benson Douglas Bruschke". He stopped me and told me it wasn't right to do and so we both sat in silence until just before arriving to the doctors trying to brainstorm another name. Our time was running short. Brett threw out a name (one that he had turned me down on in the past) and asked me if I thought it fit our little boy. We both decided that it would work, so with just minutes to spare we called up the hospital to let them know that our sons name would be. . .

. . .Tanner Douglas Bruschke.

The Newest Bruschke

We just wanted to announce the arrival of the newest little Bruschke. He came into the world last night, Friday, October 12 at 8:00 pm. He weighed in at 6 lbs. 15 ounces and is 19 1/4 inches long. We are still trying to decide on a name. Mom and baby are doing great! Rachel is a trooper and she says that if she continues to feel the way she is feeling right now, then we will go home tonight.

Tomorrow's the day!

Well everyone, it has come down to the end and unless something happens in the next 12 hours I will be induced tomorrow morning at 8:00 am. The only thing that could hold me back was if there were not enough beds for me in the morning (i.e. they were too busy for me). So pending the call I have to make in the morning, we should be adding another member to our family sometime tomorrow (so help me if it takes longer than that). The only down side to being induced is that I will be delivering in Anaheim instead of Irvine. We have Kaiser Insurance and they contract patients out to Irvine, but in order to be induced I have to go up to the Kaiser Hospital in Anaheim (they are working to finish a new Kaiser Hospital in Irvine due to be completely in spring 2008, so just missed that by a few months). Brett's not too excited about the drive there and back throughout my stay, but what can you do. . .so anyway, just wanted to let you all know.