Life as a Brandtito

So. It's been a while and once again I have fallen off the blogging wagon. Alas I am pledging to once again give this whole blogging thing a shot. Lets see. My last update was January 2014 and a whole lot of life has been has been lived since then.  The Mini's are back in school with just one mini remaining in the "Elementary" schools of SRC. They were less than thrilled to give up the sleepy loosy goosey living of summer, but this Mama was ready to have her structured life back. That and the early bed times.  Don't get me wrong, Summer was great while it lasted. We road tripped. We Movie Nighted. We late night desserted. We summer camped. We celebrated birthdays, Shark Week, school getting out and then school getting the FREAK BACK IN. We basked in the sun, enjoyed numerous pool days, used and abused our "selfie stick" and slept in with reckless abandon. We. Had. The. Fun...but packing up those backpacks sure a joyous occ...

This is the reaction most of my "new ideas" get Every year since Annabelle started school the kids are forced to do a "Back to School Survey". The questions are generally the same, but I usually mix in one or 2 new ones to keep it age appropriate, (For example this year we had to get rid of the "favorite cartoon" question in lieu of the "favorite TV show" question ::sniff sniff::). It's neat to look back over their old answers and also watch their handwriting and spelling improve ( in some cases ) each year.  This year I decided to up the anty and force the kids to particpate include a short video of the mini's to go along with their surveys...below are the results...Enjoy.. (You may have better luck viewing if you click to view directly from You Tube..)   If you listen closely...you can hear Gavin realize he's been eating Seminole germs all year...   "Can I get something out of my backpack" translation ...

First day of school "We Survived" photo One week down, 35 or so to go. The kids have adjusted really well to Dixon and other than a few first day mix ups, seem to be navigating their new school quite effortlessly. We're still struggling to actually get back into "school" mode at home...but we're working on it! The kids got to be car riders last week,  but have been officially back in the swing of things bus riders as of Monday. They'll be going to LEAD Academy 2 days a week and riding the bus to my office the additional 3.  Most days they won't have to be there too long as myself or John will run them home, but on the days they do they've got a designated "homework" area to use and plenty of snacks (as apparently being completely famished after school is a thing). I'll be uploading the kids back to school interviews as well as a few answers from our annual back to school surveys later this week so you can hear first hand some ...

Happy First Day of School Day !!! Token First Day Awkward Photo...and yes, those are leopard pants Annabelle is wearing...

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,...

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.