happy 2nd day of 2nd grade

why am i posting a happy 2nd day of 2nd grade post??? cause we almost missed the 1st day of school! yep---we've gotten so used to waking up at what ever time in the summer that we all overslept thurday. i woke up at 7:55am thursday and the school bell rings at 8:15. you do the math! got him brushed, face washed, changed, made lunch and shoved a waffle in his mouth. luckily, we live a brisk 7 minute walk to school.
here is a pic from the 2nd day of school.and here are photos from the 1st day of school. felt so rushed and didn't get the pictures i wanted to. :(

yea, everybody was already in the classroom and here i am, taking his picture in front of his new classroom for the year. mom has her priorities! (BTW, that is not his pink backpack in the background LOL)

brandon's class this year has 2 teachers. yes--2! one teacher takes M&T and the other teacher works TH&F. they alternate wednesdays. i think this is a great idea....they will be fresh and not tired from the whole week. plus i'm sure the teachers like this arrangement too... they both each have 2 school-aged childrem themselves. we'll see as the school year passes.

brybry saying bye to his brother. he so wants to go to school!

after school, we took them to the beach. nice day.

hello there mr. lifeguard!

these boys really dig sand!

walking around the neighborhood after the beach, i saw this. how great is this?! i would love to dig out the front of our sidewalk and grow veggies. see the pumpkin there? wonderful use of space!

wish us luck on waking up on time next week!

busy busy

been busy these past few weeks with school winding down and all. our last day is thursday!

this little cutie came to visit us last week! this is my niece jadyen, who is almost 8 months old. she's adorable and i just want to kiss those cheeks all the time!bryan.....he's been so clumsy lately. he has a new boo boo every other day! i should buy stock in band-aid!

brandon's been having so many activities in his school these last days of school. here are a few pics of his field day. waiting to play musical chairs...

having a good time with his school mates!

getting from one end to the other in his own style!made this card for a special someone. CAS, sweet and simple.

brandon has been taking swimming lessons for almost 2 years now. here is brandon with his swim teacher, thomas. their pesonalities mesh nicely. they are both silly and clown around. like when i asked if i could get a picture of both of them. thomas held brandon like a baby....i dunno whose idea that was!this card i made for the front desk manager at his swim place. he is leaving to go to med school so we wanted to send him off with a congrats card.

i foolishly volunteered to help fill up 100 water balloons for brandon's water party at school to celebrate the end of the school year. i had them popping in my face! and my thumbs REALLY hurt! they're raw and swollen!

and i counted all the balloons....... 143!!!! not 100 but 143!!!! if i had known..........

thanks for stopping by!

1st grade

brandon started 1st grade on september 1st. he is loving it so far! this pic is of him on the 1st day.

brybry won't get to start kinder until september 2012! he missed the cutoff by 1 month! poor thing is SO ready for school!

all smiles!
his desk

this is on the 2nd day. still all smiles which is a good sign! i was worried that he would be disappointed since many of his kinder classmates ended up in other classes. he only has 3 classmates in his class this year from his kinder class---1 boy & 2 of them girls and 1 of the girls, pushed brandon off the slide last year. [he doesn't like her all that much....i don't blame him.] but there are 2 boys from his pre-school that are in there. i think i was more worried than him. brandon makes friends with everyone!

so i have 6 hrs and 15 mins (i'm still not counting the time) that i have just 1 kiddo. so i get to make some cards.

a card here for a mom friend who just had a baby. she has 2 girls and she waited to find out on her 3rd one. so happy for her!

a belated birthday card. still not in the mail but it's made =)since i had everything out, the design above worked for 2 anniversaries card i needed. again, 1 is late (story of my life) but 1 will be early [or on time]!!

side note here, this morning, the phone rang. i heard caller ID say it was my son's school. 99.99%, it's a pre-recorded message telling us need-to-know-news for the week. NOT this one! i heard it was the nurse so i dove for the phone! brandon threw up at lunch time. she took his temp and has no temperature. so she let me talk to him. i asked if he was jumping while eating and he said no. but that is usually how he ends up upchucking his food. i asked if he was well enough to stay in school or if he wanted me to come get him. he wanted to stay.....good thing. i didn't want to start the school year off on a bad note! AND good thing it wasn't like he got into a fight or sassed an adult! so many things were running through that little head of mine.......we never know with brandon!!

better late than never

here are some pictures from LAST year! better late than never! these are from brandon's holiday cookie decorating party in school.

each kid got 2 sugar cookies to decorate.

even bryan got to get in the action.

brandon really just slathered a bunch of frosting on his cookie, threw some candies and got right to the eating part.

bryan on the otherhand was more into picking just the right candies to put on his cookies.

cooperated with me for a picture!now here are pics from christmas day dinner at disneyland.

i tried to get the red eye out but was too lazy to use photoshop.

gramps and brandonboys opening gifts. see, someone KNEW to buy 2 of the same thing so they won't fight!

grandma w/ the boys










love seeing their reaction opening gifts.....so honest!

i liked brandon's reaction here! so excited for his lil' bro

so proud of having big boy legosbrandon got the mother-load of all bakugan gifts!! (bakugan is a source of many of my migraines)

with daddy

it was another great christmas! we are all so lucky to have family, friends our health and the boys are soooooooooooo active & happy.

brandon's 1st day in kinder

this was taken the day of kinder orientation. i cannot believe my oldest kiddo is in school. as eddie put it, he told brandon to enjoy your next 13 years of school. sitting at his desk. i am sure he will get talked to a lot by the teacher. i mean, look at what he's doing here.......
the back where all kids will hang their backpacks. his backpack is bigger than he is. it covers his whole little butt.

his supply list: 1 ream of paper, 1 box sandwich sz bags, 1 box gallon sz bags, 5 boxes of 24 ct crayola crayons, hand sanitizer/wipes, box of tissue, pocket folders w/ prongs, 12 glue sticks (NOT disappearing purple), scissors, 5 sharpened #2 pencils, and double sided tape. his gear: he HAD to have bakugan! backpack, the shoes and thermos. i was going to get him "generic" gear but i remembered how i felt when i was little and wanted nothing generic (but got generic anyways). how was i to deny brandon. i didn't want him to feel sad seeing all his friends with character backpacks & all. 1st day of school breakfast of champions: lucky charms! walking to school so proud----he looks like such a big boy in his school uniform
picture with dad

standing in line in the morning we've had lots of fires in SoCal lately and freakishly, i heard on the news, all the smoke is creating some weird things in the atmosphere and is causing rain. and it rained as the kids were waiting to enter the classroom. brandon is running for cover!

parents were asked to leave and here he is giving bryan a hug.
all the backpacks. there's another similar backpack as brandon's. slightly different so i hope he doesn't come home with the wrong one......... all the parents' donated supplies waiting in line to get picked up he had a good 1st day of school his 1st project. click larger if you want to read what it says and check out brandon's self protrait. i like how he colored his buzz cut!