First Day of School 2013

The boys started back to school again this past Monday.  Everyone is doing well so far and enjoying it, as much as school can be enjoyed. 

                                                                Bryson is in 1st grade!

                                                               Blaine is in 7th grade!

                                                             Brayden is in 10th grade!

 They are all exactly 1 foot apart....Bryson is 3'10", Blaine is 4'10" and Brayden is 5'10".  I love how they are all stair steps in this picture.  Brayden forgot his shoes at his dad's house so we were waiting for him to bring them when I was taking their pictures.

Bryson wanted to get a silly picture.  And this is what happens when you ask a 15 year old for a silly picture!  I hope everyone else's first week of school is going great!

Sara

Days of the Week

I have tried to get my boys, for years now, to lay out their clothes the night before so they can sleep an extra 15 or so minutes in the morning.  And so they aren't stopping me from getting things done to help them dig through the dryer or iron something at the last minute.  Bryson is the worst with this.  Last year he would lay out an outfit, only to change his mind the next morning and us go through the above listed scenario.  And then what he would decide on looked totally ridiculous and didn't even come close to matching.

There were even days where I wrote letters to his teacher apologizing for how ridiculous he looked and made sure she understood I didn't not dress him like that!  

And let me just add that this ended up in arguments and tears every morning.  And me yelling.  Which gets me in a bad mood!  So I saw on Pinterest (don't you just love Pinterest?!?) a site to print off the days of the week on door hangers.  I went to the site and then found out you had to pay now for the download.  Which I didn't mind doing since it was someone else's work.  But then I read through it and you had to use a certain type of paper.  Then I thought that one through a second.  I then realized that these would not last very long.  That is, if Bryson would even go for this.  So honestly, I didn't even want to spend THAT much money on it.

I then remembered the foam door hangers that the boys had made one year at VBS and thought that would be a good starting point.  I went to Hobby Lobby and got a pack of 10 door hangers, a pack of big letters and a pack of small letters.  They just happened to be 50% off.  Score!

 I decided to put the letter in which the day started, at the top of the hanger.  Then I put the day of the week in smaller letters.  This will also help him in reading and learning how to spell the days of the week.  Then I remembered my MIL had given him  two containers of animals, one jungle container and one farm container. 

So I thought, "Hey!  I can let him decorate with the animals that start with that letter!"

NO.

There were no monkeys.  There were no turtles.  What animal starts with "W" anyway?  Okay, a whale, but those aren't in the jungle or on a farm.  This fun craft we could do together was quickly going down hill and very quickly making a big mess all over the kitchen table 30 minutes before the big boys would start swarming for dinner like vultures.  

We ended up forgetting the decorating with animals that start with the same letter and just did the days of the week.  I know....how boring.

And it was probably gonna be the biggest waste of time.  Saturday night I helped him match up 7 outfits that he could wear over the first week of school.  I hung the shirts on hangers and then the pants on pant hangers behind the shirts.  Then I put his days of the week door hangers over each set.  And guess what!?!  It's the 4th day of school and Bryson is still wearing the outfits that he picked out last Saturday night!  I hope this lasts because it sure is helping us get to school on time.  And I'm not having to worry about the laundry as much.  Now it can wait a few days if we aren't home!  

Here is the link to the pin that I found on Pinterest, in case anyone is interested in printing them off that way!

Sara  

Conversations With Bryson

This is the conversation I had with Bryson this morning:

Bryson: Can Pop and Gran come today and take care of me? Just for a little bit?

Me: Well, they can't today. They are at school, remember?

Bryson: Awwwwe! Well, then....can JaneClaire come over and play?

Me: Not today buddy. She is at school, too.

Bryson: Awwwe man! Ever'body is at school but ME!"

Let's hope he keeps up the enthusiasm when he does get to go to school!

Sara

Getting To Know You

Blaine brought home his graded papers yesterday and in that stack of papers was a "getting to know you" type of letter that each child wrote to their teacher. I thought I would share it with you here so you can see how sweet he really is. He does have his moments, but he is a sweet boy! It was addressed to his teacher, but I will be leaving out her name, for safety's sake, I guess. I will try to write it here as he did on his paper. I will translate if the need be. Here it goes:

first I want to tell you my favorite sport. I I know a lot of kids will say o i'm so good at evrey thing i'm not one of those kids. I don't brag. ok back to what we were talking about. It's swiming it is super fun. right now Im working on my font flip. my favrite food is chineese food My favrite color is well red, Black and silver not like seprate like ya now like on a football hellmat. My best friend's are Jillian, Morgan, tate, wily, cranm. (That is Graham.) My fimily is silly my mom funny, nice and every other thing good you could ever think of.

your best friend, Blaine

She must have told them to write a page because when he got to the last line, he was finished and signed his name. His teacher has her work cut out for her with the spelling and punctuation, doesn't she?

Sara

Thankful Thursday

So this is my first ever Thankful Thursday post and some of you are going to think I am awful when you read what I am thankful for this week!

I am SOOOOO thankful that school starts back on Monday! I am ready to go back to a regular schedule, regular meals and regular bed times. I am sick and tired of my kids fighting because they are bored to death. I am tired of the blood. Seriously. Blaine has picked so many fights with Brayden in the past few weeks and it seems like most of them have ended up with HIM bleeding when Brayden retaliates. Will he ever learn to pick on someone his own size instead of someone who is more than double his weight? I guess you say that he is a slow learner.

But to end on a positive note, I am also thankful for the time we have gotten to spend together. Monday I took Blaine to do his school shopping and then he got to go to work with me. He grabbed my hand in the parking lot and told me we had been needing some special time with nobody else around and he was right! He got an icee and a pretzel from Target for being so good and cooperative while we shopped. Then he got to pick where we ate lunch and he picked Steak-Out.

Brayden got to go get school supplies on Tuesday and then on to work. He didn't want an icee. He wanted a cookies and cream milkshake from Chick-Fil-A so we grabbed lunch there and he got a milkshake for being so good. Then he helped me send out statements by licking envelopes. He didn't last long because he kept getting paper cuts on his tongue. In case you are wondering why I don't have one of those spongy things to wet the envelopes, Bryson broke it and we had to go to plan B. Brayden.

I hope you all are ready for school to start back, too, cause it's coming!

Sara

Tacky Day

Brayden walked out of his room this morning with an Alabama t-shirt on with royal blue shorts. This is not an uncommon outfit for Brayden, so when he came out with this on, I was not at all surprised.

"Does this match?"

"No."

"Yes!!"

That was new. That was not the response I expected. I have never told him he looked bad and not had him stomp his feet, roll his eyes and huff back into his room.

"You want to look stupid on purpose?" (Said in my normal sarcastic tone of voice.)

"Yes! It is tacky day at school!"

Well...nobody told me this!! How fun is that? I can remember Homecoming week dressing up everyday and having so much fun. One year we dressed up like hicks because we were playing Huntland, TN and we thought they were a bunch of hicks. So, we all wore flannel shirts, overalls, painted freckles on our faces, and the best part....raisins in our cheeks to look like chew! So creative......

I said, "Brayden, you need me to tacky you up, boy!"

He was so excited. I started telling him different things he could do and he got the giggles and I was afraid he would wake the baby. Blaine came out of the bathroom, having missed the whole conversation, and looked at Brayden like he had lost his mind.

"It's tacky day, Blaine!" We said in unison.

He then in turn became excited and wanted me to help him pick out something to wear. I started picking out things he had to put together to look tacky. He gave me this horrified look.

"I'm not wearing that! That will look stupid!"

Hellooooo!!! Isn't that the point?

Sara

We Made It!

We made it through the first day of school. And just like I predicted, I woke up a little after 4am with all the things running through my head that I needed to remember to do. Send lunch money, write a note about how to get home, Brayden is allergic to peanuts. The longer I laid in bed the longer my list was. So I finally got up and started getting things done. And I didn't forget one thing. We left the house at a little after 7am and had plenty of time to find where we were going.
My fifth grader was unsure about where his class was so I offered to help him find his room. Now keep in mind I had strict instructions NOT to walk him to class. So we looked everywhere. Finally after one teacher saw us go by 6 times she finally asked us what teacher we were looking for. We were right there the entire time. How did we not find it, you ask? They didn't change the names on the outside from last school year. He is in a module outside. It would have helped if they had changed that. Anyway, I had to go in and ask the teacher if she was who we were looking for and she came up to talk to us. I could see the look on Brayden's face. "My mom is in my classroom...how embarrassing...I think I am gonna die..." I was so tempted to lean over and kiss him on the cheek out of meanness, but we are trying so hard now to teach him NOT to aggervate his brothers, so I refrained. That will be a story for another day.
Then I walked my 2nd grader to class and the whole way down the hall I thought he was gonna pee his pants he was so excited. All he kept saying was he couldn't wait to get to class and that he was so excited about school starting . He was telling his brother last night after they had gone to bed that he was excited and all the older one said was, "WHY?"
They both said they had really good days and that helps mom out a whole lot! But now I am exausted and need to get some sleep. I will write again later. Have a good night.
Sara

Big Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the first day of school and just thinking about it makes my stomache flip. I can smell the stale smell of a school hallway and feel the tension that everyone feels when they walk in the door that first day. I can still smell Pizza on Friday. In my head, I am going over and over the scho0l supply lists wondering if I have forgot anything. Making sure I packed the boys bookbags (with their help of course) in a way that when the teacher says to get something out they don't go into a panic thinking that I forgot to buy it for them. Wondering what my middle child is going to come out of his room tomorrow wearing and wondering if I will be able to convince him he looks stupid without hurting his feelings. I am a firm believer in choosing your battles, and what they wear, as long as it is somewhat decent and appropriate for the occasion, I try not to make a big deal about. I know that kids need to learn to make their own decisions and what better way to help them learn that when it is cold you wear a coat or you freeze? And their clothes not matching, although will get under my skin to no end, will not kill them. But then there is Blaine. He would wear rain boots with a tie on a sunny day to church if I let him. What if the teacher is the meanest person they have ever met? What if all the kids in their classes are not kids you would want them to be friends with? These thoughts will make the Momma Bear in you come out. The grades are getting harder and harder and so far we have had it pretty good with understanding everything, but what if this year we struggle? I already know that "borrowing and carrying" is NOT called that anymore and if you call it that your child will remember you saying you are terrible at math and won't let you help anymore. It is "regrouping" which I think is a stupid name for it, but they never ask my opinion.
These are all the things that I worried about when I was in school and for those of you that know me well know that school is NOT something I have ever cared for. But I can also remember the excitement of a brand new box of crayola crayons and brand new glue and scissors. There is nothing more exciting than pointed crayons in a new box with all their skin!
Tomorrow I will wake up a little after 5am, after tossing and turning tonight while trying to sleep. I will jump out of bed and start the day doing everything as quickly as possible. After all, who wants to be late for their first day of school? I learned last year not to expect them to eat all of their breakfast. And like always, when I ask if they remembered to brush their teeth, the answer will be no. Tomorrow we will make memories and will be another page in the boys' scrapbooks. And hopefully....I won't forget to take their picture.
Sara