time for fall

a picture of brandon when he was 1 yrs old at the punpkin patch by our house that no longer exists. i will miss walking there and taking the boys' pictures in their costumes. we'll have to travel a little further. it was a rough week. i volunteered in brandon's class and let's just say we need to work on focusing and paying attention..........more on that another day.

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!

school performance

i've been meaning to post this for a while.........since the middle of june to be exact! this is of brandon's pre-school end of the year performance. (see him in the above picture second from the left)

in the weeks leading to the performance, i'd hear brandon practicing here & there singing his songs. so cute!

i talked to some of the moms that day & they told me their kid actually told them they are not going to sing. they were refusing to sing. and you know what, i checked out those 2 and throughout the whole performance, they didn't. not one song!! they just stood there! kinda funny but not if those kids belonged to you. i would have been sad if brandon didn't sing.



the picture below is where brandon received his "diploma". only a handful of kids are moving to kindergaten. the other ones are too young to enter kinder.
all smiles!

this was at the party afterwards. obviously, he didn't want to sit with me to take a picture---he wanted to mingle with all his friends and probably eat that fat cookie in his hands. eddie couldn't make it to this. he was in AZ for the day. we knew there was going to be this end of the year school performance but we didn't think it was on the 2nd to the last day of school (we just automactically thought it was on the last day so he planned his AZ trip weeks before).

a fun video. brandon was VERY animated! can you spot him? enjoy! (i had to pan over to the teachers too. they were so enthusiastic)

hot

trying to cool off by thinking about christmas cards. it's been unbelievably HOT here!! close to triple digits. our bill was $140 last month due to our use of the AC and the ceiling fan on all day & night (and that's only when we are in the house).

bambi

i cut up a vintage 1979 bambi grows up book. it was hard to do but i love how books were illustrated back then. the colors are still so bright & vibrant!
side note.........when i was little, maybe 5 or 6 years old, i remember getting busted big time from my dad for ordering some disney books from a book club. i had just learned that cards that were in magazines have postage free cards to send in for stuff. the one i chose was a disney book club. i was found out when the 1st book came in the mail WITH a bill. my parents were pretty mad!! long story short, this is when i 1st fell in love with these type of illustrations. (BTW, this offer came with free book ends)

scchool starting soon!

the boys enjoying a snack out in the backyard on a recent summer day! cannot believe brandon starts kindergarten on september 1st!! end of summer coming near!
i have a question for all you moms out there----brandon is expected to wear a belt with his school "uniform" if his shorts or pants have belt loops. how do they really expect a 4 yr old belt a belt?? i want to find him an EASY belt to do with no holes so he won't struggle with poking it in the right hole. are there velco ones out there? we did get him one yesterday--- it's a strap belt that he opens up the buckle, slides it in, tighten it & closes it. BUT it has a transformer symbol (deceptacon) on it & i am not sure if that is acceptable for school. it's our backup if we don't find anything else. any suggestions would help me out as i am trying to gather everything and all the school supply list things before the start of school. wait til i tell you everything on their required school supply list!!

just a few cards done this past week. have a great week!

spam anyone?

just a few cards. not much time so this will be quick.some birthday cards.....summer time favorite of ours---ICE CREAM!!!!

spam musubi----yummo! (like a spam sushi for those who has never had one!) don't knock til you try it!

made with leftover scraps