Oooo… A Little Tempting!!!

So I saw this on a friend’s blog and thought “What a cute idea” Take a picture of something everyday!!! CUTE CUTE CUTE!!!

So… since September has 30 days… I’m starting September 1st!!! SHOULD BE FUN!!!

First Day of School 2011

The day has finally arrived! FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! (I feel like Marlin from Finding Nemo at the end where’s he’s bouncing on Nemo to get him up for school!)

I would like to say the day went off without a hitch but that would be a lie – and lying is WRONG!!!

We started with a hearty pancake breakfast. This time Ethen wanted them green! So we broke out the food coloring once again! Right in the middle of it I thought to myself “self… I should take a picture of these!” Of course my camera was out in my car so I quickly stepped out to get it! To my surprise I saw my very good friend driving by (her daughter goes to the school around the corner) so I stopped and chatted with her for a few minutes… needless to say some of my pancakes didn’t make it AND Ethen had added green food coloring to the ENTIRE batch of batter (rather than the small portion I separated for him). So I got to enjoy green pancakes this morning too! They weren’t too bad!

Ethen was so excited to get to school he was ready to go at 9 this morning – he is in the afternoon class! So we went ahead and snapped his “First Day of School Pictures” early!

Ethen sporting the green plaid button-up open on top of a white t-shirt and khaki shorts. He’s stepping out in style with his Converse One Star shoes and completing his look with the ever fabulous Phineas and Ferb backpack slug ever-so-cool over one shoulder! (ok I tried to make that sound like I know fashion… but I really REALLY don’t!)

3 generations – Ethen with “MA” (grandma) and Nana (great grandma) He’s such a ham!

Time seemed to drag by for this antsy little one of mine – Is it time for school yet, seemed to be the phrase of the day! FINALLY the time was upon us – knowing that the school bus schedule would be garbled the first week we headed out into the blistering heat about 1215 this afternoon for a 1230 scheduled pick up time. If you have been keeping up… we waited… and waited… and waited some more… and still… no bus! Ethen was a little bored after a few minutes!

In case you aren’t paying attention – the bus never came YET AGAIN! The second year in a row! If you would like to read about it read my post Dear_CCSD_Transportation_Dept_(Round_2)… needless to say I’m NOT impressed!!! ANYWAYS!

After getting Lil’ Man to school he had sooooo much fun! He was reunited with old friends and made some new ones!

Below is Ethen with April! I need to introduce you to April because this little cutie had Ethen talking ALL SUMMER LONG! So much so that this morning Ethen tell Jonathon – “Today’s the day – Today is the day I tell April she’s my girlfriend!” HAHAHA, My kid is awesome!

Well our first day was not that bad – even with the major malfunction that is CCSD Transportation Department! I’m really excited to have Ethen back in school even for the couple of hours a few days a week! He loves school and I love having those few moments to myself and get stuff done! Love it!

Here’s to a happy school year!!!

Brandy

Dear CCSD Transportation Dept (ROUND 2)

To Whom It May Concern:

I completely understand that the task of shuffling thousands of students to and from school is a daunting task. A task the requires the highest standard of organization and communication. It seems to me though that some lessons need to be re-taught! Back to basics I'd like to say!

For the second year in a row (yes second year) I have had issues with your department getting my son to school, don't remember let me remind you of the 3 times you failed to provide my child with transportation and in fact one time completely LEAVING him! Yet, every time I called I was assured he would be picked up and dropped off as scheduled the following day - to no avail, he was not! With that situation under control the rest of the year went smoothly (minus a few hiccups from substitute drivers who could read and drive at the same time - GPS comes to mind).

This year my hopes of having a stress free transition to school were dashed to pieces when, to my surprise, the bus did not arrive at my home. So I finally pile into the car to drive my child to school only to find that NONE of the children who were to receive transportation were picked up by the bus. Were they late? No. Lost perhaps? Wrong again. No - the reason was because the routes were not given to the drivers until THIS MORNING!

How on earth to you intent to adequately provide transportation when this kind of laziness, lack of organization and down right disturbing behavior exists. We parents rely on these buses to safely transport our precious treasures to school! It doesn't exactly boost confidence in abilities when you fail in the smallest of details. It certainly wasn't because you didn't have the right information for us. Earlier in the summer you requested that I contact you to confirm our pickup and drop off information. How is it then that you can't get a bus here - when I've watched buses run the route several times during the summer - and yes they even STOPPED at my house!

I am truly disgusted with your lax-a-daisy attitude you have when it comes to people's children. My son is only 4 years old - how do you sleep at night knowing that your responsibilities to these children have in NO WAY been met.  I pray that you get things right tomorrow because if I have to call - you won't like it. I will go to the Board of Directors if I must to get you to perform your job the way you should. This is what we taxpayers pay you for!

Deeply Concerned,
Brandy

Want to read last year's letter click_here!!!

One Last Hoorah!!!

We wanted one last hoorah before school started. SOOOO we loaded up the car and headed to the mountains for a night of camping out under the stars! It was pretty fun!!! We weren’t allowed to have a campfire (boo) so I had to make a run to the closest Wal-Mart to get a propane camp stove so we could cook the hotdogs we brought to eat. So I dropped the boys off to set up camp and off I went! I left Ethen in charge of the camera so you can imagine the shots he got!!! Have a look at a few!

Ethen HAD to take a picture of me driving away!

We have about 100 of these pics… dinosaur tracks!!!

He just loves taking pictures of his feet while running… It amazes me that he hasn’t fallen doing this!!!

Yes – Ethen actually took those pics! Some of them turned out pretty good!!! Once I finally returned then the fun started…

 

After a few hours of running around and hunting Snipes – Ethen was just about ready for bed… It was a little hilarious because the padding wasn’t but just a few sleeping bags and blankets and Ethen decides to jump into bed – well BELLYFLOP into bed! From outside the tent all we hear is – “OW!” No crying – just a matter-of-fact OW! It was so funny! In the end Ethen lost the battle with sleep… needless to say – he was the only one comfortable that night – he slept sideways, right-ways, back-ways and ALL WAYS all night long! Even got a nice kick to the ribs too! Oh the joys of camping – IT WAS GREAT! No… seriously it was a TON of fun!!!

The next morning was fun to see the look on Ethen’s face when we told him he had to dig a hole to go to the bathroom! HAHA!!! Even funnier when he was finished and decided to describe the… well you know!!!

Nothing like some great family together time!

As we were loading up the car – and Ethen got all his stuff done – he headed inside the car to rock out! He loves listening to my iPod – music is one of his favorite things!!! Love it!

This camping trip – how short it was – was fantastic! We had a ton of fun!!! November starts the season where we can have a campfire so I think we’ll be making another trip out in few months!!!

This summer has been full of fun times, I can’t believe it’s coming to a close VERY soon. Monday school starts and our adventures come to a minimum! We had some great fun – bike rides, movies, swimming, playgroups, camping and so much more! WHAT A LIFE!!!

Have a happy year!!!

Brandy

Official Photo

This is the last official week of bike riding since school is starting in T-MINUS 6 DAYS! So we gathered EVERYONE who has ridden with us this summer. An AMAZING 50 people and 4 dogs joined us today (can you believe we were still missing at least 8 people!) Our group was GI-NORM-OUS!!! I can only imagine the looks we were getting as this mass of wheels and helmets goes strolling on by! Makes my head spin! So here are some of the great pics that we got today!

And the count is: 15 adults 35 children (10 of which were on training wheels and 6 more not even on a bike but in the trailers!)

Here’s ALL the kids at the playground (our halfway point!)

And now the parents! (we must be nuts!)

It’s been SO much fun riding bikes this summer – I’m thankful that Ethen’s school is in the afternoon so I can continue this during the school year – at least a couple times a week!

After the ride we decided to have an end of summer bike riders bash! Swimming plus pizza – how can you go wrong with that?

Well I forgot my SD card for my camera because I was busy loading the pics from the bike ride – BUT I did get one AWESOME picture of Ethen jumping (and I mean JUMPING) into the pool!

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On another note – Ethen has been a little thief – taking my blanket all the time. So I asked him if he wanted me to make him one – the answer was a resounding YES! So I went to JoAnn’s and got all of the yarn I needed (thanks to a great gift card we won from a photo contest, thanks LDSJOURNAL.COM and all that voted!)

Well the other day Ethen was playing with my crochet hook and extra yarn – he was totally trying to crochet it was hilarious!

I love the “Tongue of Concentration!” His creation wound up being a ball of mess – but it was really fun to watch him try something that is a hobby of mine!

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Wow I can hardly believe that this summer is almost over! We still have a few more days of bike riding and a water balloon playgroup and a camping trip this Friday – so stay tuned for pics from those!!!

Though I’m looking forward to Ethen getting back to school I am certainly grateful for the time we spent this summer. Ethen accomplished so much; at the beginning of the summer he was on a bike that was just barely too small for him with training wheels and now he’s riding without training wheels and even “jumping off the curbs” (which by the way he totally ate it today doing this… hardcore!). He’s grown so much this year! I’m so proud of him!

 

Brandy

Top Bunk and Cleanin’ Guns

We finally got the bolts to attach the safety rails to the top bunk of Ethen’s bunk bed… He was so excited to sleep on the top bunk last night!

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Well we are heading out to Pahrump today to shoot some rounds down range. So they needed to clean the guns up a little… of course Ethen helped!

1st day of school countdown: 16 days!!!

IN COMING!!!

3 words

Water Balloon Fight!!!

MUAHAHAHAHA!

We were SOAKED… But it was a TON of fun!!!

Socks With Sandals

If you watch Disney channel you might be familiar with the show “So Random”. It’s basically a sketch comedy show like SNL or Mad TV. Well they make up some of the craziest songs and one is “Socks with Sandals”. In this song it’s “COOL” to wear… you guessed it… socks with sandals! So… here are my boys and their socks with sandals! God I love my family!

Bringin’ back socks with sandals… what what what… socks with sandals!!! lol!!!"

Makin’ Scones!!!

This past week I had been craving scones (fried bread). MMMMMMM… my mouth is watering just THINKING of those yummy pieces of bread dipped in sugar or honey! Anyways… back to reality… Ethen was a big help stretching out the dough! (because my hands were gooey I didn’t get any pics of that adventure… needless to say not ALL of the dough made it into the oil!)

why he looks mad here I have NO CLUE… Oh well!

Don’t they look YUMMY!!! (They were, in case you were interested)

Marine In The Making!

So I gave Ethen my old Marine Corps Covers (those are hats for those civilian-minded folk!) He loves wearing them and I can’t believe they actually fit him… this says one of two things… either I have a small head or Ethen has a big head. Since I gave birth to this child I can attest that he indeed does have a big head! But that’s besides the point. Here are some of the latest pics of Ethen being a Marine in the making!

Some fine tuning of these marksmanship skills and he’ll be good to go!!!

That’s DEFINITELY the face of a Marine who has had his weekend liberty cancelled or now has Cinderella Libo (in by midnight).

EVERY Marine has a picture somewhere of them holding a weapon making the angry face! GET SOME!

Not too bad for a 4 1/2 year old! He’ll be saluting with the best of them in no time!

 

Ha… so there you have it my Marine in the making!

God I love this kid!

Love, Brandy

(p.s. 24 days until school starts)