Life as a Brandtito

Bayleigh's "Issac only scares me a little face" "Hurricane" Issac is gone. Luckly, with the exception of about 2 hours of heavy rains & thunderstorms, we had little to no effects from the storm. The kids did get 2 free days of no school however....which they were of course very excited about. I feel for those teachers who have them tomorrow, I know the Branditos were not excited about having to get back to reality!

We still owe Annabelle 2 more AR trips so yesterday I thought I'd escape the "hurricane" madness of Pensacola and cross one off our list. We decided to give Auntie Jenny a visit in her new apartment in Mobile (AU Pharmacy Program...GO JEN!) and let her show us around for a while. We drove around campus for a bit and grabbed lunch at Hero's, which is close to her apartment. It has a very "college" feel to it, and Annabelle felt very "cool" to be out with the ladies. After lunch we headed over to the Explorium to waste away the rest of the afternoon. I love the Explorium, because they change their main exhibits our pretty regularly, so no 2 times are ever the same. Plus, it actually attempts to help the kids LEARN something while they're playing....vs just running around like mad heathens.  Annabelle really liked the kid science area & the "matter" exhibit they have. Especially the soap bubble cloud maker. The poor worker re

It's HERE!!! THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL IS HERE!! I'd like to introduce, the cutest kids walking thru the doors of Pea Ridge Elementary today!! *Warning* if you are sensitive to awesomeness, you'd might want to stop viewing now. I'd also like to note that Gavin's hair is actually NOT as long as it appears & is not ACTUALLY in Beiber style somewhat blocking his vision...okay, that's not true it is...but we're getting him a haircut ASAP! We started out the morning with breakfast at Chick-Fil-A...You know, for brain power....and chicken mini's. The girls chose their own back to school outfits, while Gavin chose to leave the decision up to me. Probably because he think's I'm so cool....yes, I'm sure that's it. As you all know, we're very proud of being "cool parents" so we walked all the kids to their classrooms. Though they all insisted, this was not necessary...we thanked them for their thoughtfulness,

We've been working really hard on our manners at home. Don't get me wrong. My kids are pretty much perfect. But, there is always room for improvement when it comes to manners.  I have told the girls (as Gavin has beyond no interest),  that once they have reached the age of 8, they may go on dates with me and my BFF Michelle (whom the girls adore) ONCE their table manners have been perfected. Heaven has been working *really* hard and making some real improvements so this Sunday she got her first date out with the ladies.   She chose hibachi so we picked up Michelle & Erika (Bonus!) and headed to Sake Cafe after church. Heaven had to order her own food from the server, as well as make her request for additional needed items. We're also working on her SLOWING DOWN her eating as she tends to eat like a Hoover Vac on most nights. She did GREAT. She loved the Hibachi Show & eagerly chatted our ears off with tales from her Orlando trip & excitements of the

Back to School Monday. Time to get our fancy own. Blue Nails for Heaven Heading to Kindergarten on Monday!!  AB decided on HOT pink nails...with EXTRA Sparkle.  The girls were VERY well behaved. They enjoyed being sophisticated too, reading magazines with the older girls. It did lead to some interesting questions about Lady GaGa though. Some of which required flat out lies. 

Jason Mraz Christina Perri Jason Mraz + Christina Perri + Friends + Great Seats+ Dipp'n Dots & the Hubs = Amazing Evening.

It tooke me a while to figure out exactly what looked different about Gavin.....

When the kids are away, the parents will play. We've been missing our kiddo's this week, but we thought we might as well make the best of our final kid free days! John's been OOT most of the week for his major work review & I was FORCED to craft, read and spend time with my girlfriends all week. It has been just wonderful.  With John's review finished with success and since we had to go down to Orlando this weekend to pick up the kiddo's any way we decide to take a quick day trip to Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando.  It was kind of a last minute decision. By that I mean, we didn't leave for Orlando until after I got off work on Friday putting our arrival time to Orlando about 4 am. I would have been totally fine with catching up on some much needed sleep and kick'n it by the hotel pool....but John being the freak of nature that he is woke up about 10 am (after pretty much sleeping 3-5 hrs a night all week AND driving the whole way down

I've heard of this diet called "Carb Loading" that's supposed to give you loads of energy. I think there was also something in the fine print about it being specifically for like Olympic's style athletes or something...but it seemed like a minor detail. The Mini's will be in Orlando this week to visit Aime. We decided to have a special send off with a carb filled dinner at Ozone's...or Pizza Castle as the kids call it.  O'zones is located in the old Sacred Heart Hospital and the girls especially, love checking out the upper floors! You can't go all the way up to the top, but the first few floors house different businesses. There are lots of creepy glasses cases with old hospital artifacts in them that the girls love checking out. We got to sit in the "new" addition at Ozone's, which was wonderful, because as much as  I do love Ozone's it's always SUPER loud. The new side room allows you to have actual conversation, which

We make wearing sunglasses at night totally acceptable.