It's official - summer is over!

...and it couldn't have come soon enough!

I finally have a free moment, so I thought I'd get in an update.

Well our summer is officially over. Jake and Connor started school this week. Nicholas doesn't go until Sept. 8th though due to budget cuts! Jake seems to like is teacher and class he is thrilled to be learning cursive (weird huh?). Connor is not so thrilled with school and has informed me that the school day is "too long." It's not long enough for me buddy!!!

I finished my class last week and totally aced it with a 95%! More importantly, I realized that A. I still have some brain cells left (I know, surprised me too!) B. I LOVE anatomy. This bodes well for my future in nursing!! I start next week with a full schedule: A&P II with Lab, Introduction to Microbiology with Lab and English 1101 (don't ask, it's ridiculous).

Jake has been bugging a non-stop for a pet. First it was a bird, once he realized that it doesn't get cold in hell, he has switched to begging for a puppy. He wants a small dog that can sleep with him and basically shadow his every move while he's home. I'm thinking of a Cockapoo or Havanese or something around those lines. Rob isn't convinced though, so Jake has been trying to proved his puppy ownership abilities by being nicer to the dog we do have. So Hayley has been benefiting from regular bathroom breaks, food, water and even getting fed her dog food by hand. Jake is quite certain that Rob will have no choice to give in to him soon.

The boys will also be starting their fall sports and activities soon, so I know I will not have much more free time. Nicholas is starting soccer this fall with "my best friend Tommy," Jake is trying out baseball for the first time and Connor is thinking about doing year round swim. Jake and Connor are also very active with Cubscouts and Rob is actually the den leader for Connor this year.

It's fun to get back into our routine though after all the chaos of summer!

Jake's Outer Space Room

Jake already had an outer space themed room, but I thought that while I was painting, I would update his to look a little older. His room already had the chair rail molding, but I added vertical molding underneath for more detail. Then I painted under the chair rail white and above it a navy blue that matched his window treatments that I already had.

He choose this cool picture of the Space Station that we had printed out and put in this cool frame. I painted large white boxes and added picture frame molding around it to "frame" the artwork. I think it fills the wall space well and the artwork had more of an impact with the white borders.

All of the boys had the IKEA picture hanger that we use to display their artwork and treasures!

Jake had this corner bookcase in his room and I used the leftover gray paint from Nicholas's room to paint the back of the bookcase. I think it makes more of an impact with the two colors. It's also a great place for Jake's trophies and Lego pieces. The framed needlework was a gift from a friend when Jake was born. It's a very awesome piece that was handmade especially for him!

Connor's Rock Star Bedroom

Well once I did one bedroom I had to go ahead and do all of the boy's bedrooms. Connor choose a Rock Star theme and I think this will work well as he gets a little bigger. I found this great furniture set off of Craigslist for an awesome price and it made his room feel much bigger switching from a queen to a single. We started the design with the cute comforter that had guitars on it. It's made of microfiber so it is really plush and soft.

I wanted to bring in the orange and navy so we painted the two stripes at the top of the wall. I also wanted to him to have somewhere to display his trophies and legos where they wouldn't get touched by small hands (ahem... Nicholas!) so we painted these cool shelves that my dad had made for me years ago but that I wasn't currently using.

Then we found a some very cool guitar/rock star items from Hobby Lobby and online that we added to the room!

Batman Bedroom

So for Nicholas's birthday we redid his room from trains into his favorite... Batman! I didn't want to go overboard with the superhero theme so we decided on a Gotham Cityscape that Mom and I sketched out based on other ideas we had found online. We used glow in the dark paint on the buildings windows and behind the Bat symbol so that at night everything "glows!" It looks very cool and I think that is Nicholas' favorite part! The first weekend he spent in his room he woke us up in the middle of the night because his room was "broken" and it wasn't "glowing" anymore! (The paint only works for a few hours and has to be charged up after awhile.)

Then my mom found this awesome Batman fabric and we made the very cute drapes for his room. I reused Nicholas's old bedspreads and just turned them over to hide the trains. I found a cute fleece Batman blanket at Joanns that I made for him to match the room.

I also found online this huge sticker of Batman (it also came with the little Batman that is ontop of the bridge) that is on the opposite wall by the second twin bed.

On the far wall I have the picture hanger from IKEA that I use in all the kids bedrooms to display their artwork!

Connor's 7th Birthday

Connor turned 7 this year and we celebrated with a huge lego birthday. I had these custom invitations designed which were so cute. His friends all came over and played and built lego sets. My favorite part was the cute molds that I got to do LegoMen and Lego Bricks!

Cub Scouts Big Trip - USS Yorktown

The Cub Scout trip this year was in Charleston, SC. The boys went and stayed on the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. The men and boys all stayed in one room with bunks 4 high. No problem for the kiddos, but the guys were not so excited! I ended up having to go on the trip because Rob had a meeting that he couldn't miss, so he flew in on Friday night. The women stayed in the Officer's cabins, but let me tell you this was no Holiday Inn. It wasn't even a Motel 8. I've had better accomadations when I went camping. Anyway, the boys were over the moon about the trip and had a great time. It has become know as the "Cub Scout Puke Trip" since we had so many boys get sick on the trip. (Yes, Connor was one of them on Sunday.) Anyway, Rob and I sucked it up for the boys but... never again, I want a hotel room.

Above: The USS Yorktown (3 1/2 Football Fields Long!)

Above: Jake in front of "Big Eddy" at the Columbia Children's Museum

Above: Connor in front of the airplanes on the hanger deck.

Above: We had to get off that ship! So we headed into downtown Charlestown where the boys found fountain to play in.

Above: The boys loved all the airplanes on the flight deck.

Above: Yes, yes they did fight over who was Admiral and who was Captain. Can you guess who won?

What Nicholas wants, Nicholas gets

So, being the baby of the family must rock. I wouldn't know as I'm the oldest, but for Nicholas, he pretty much seems to get whatever he wants. I have some sort of condition in where I am completely unable to say no to the child. Of course since he is the sweetest, most loving child I have ever since, I don't really feel bad about it (at all). I suppose when he turns rotten, I will kick myself and everyone else can have an "I told you so" fest, but until then the spoiling continues.

Anyone who knows Nick knows that he loves Batman. He has finally gotten old enough now that he sees Jake and Connor earning and spending money and he has for some time wanted a piggy bank to do the same. For his birthday he told me that he wanted a piggy bank, but not just any piggy bank, it had to be an actual pig and it had to have Super Heros on it. So I went to Hobby Lobby, got my supplies and went to work because... see the title for this post.

Here are the pictures of the piggy bank. I thought it was pretty good for my first go and Nicholas loves it!

Nicholas's 4th Birthday!

Last Saturday was Nicholas's 4th birthday party. He is very much into Batman so we have been planning this party for well over a month. We invited all of his friends from school and the neighborhood. The party was unreal. We ended up with 22 kids and their parents in our house. It was a mad house, but Nicholas enjoyed every minute of it. We decided to do a Batman Training Program for the kids. They had to maneuver through an obsticale course (including leaping over tall buildings in one bound!) and destroy the bad guys to receive their "official Batgear." My mom and I had spent weeks making Bat capes and masks for all the kids to wear! They all looked so cute!

(Check out the girls in the back. They have on the pink girl Bat cape!)

Here's a cute pic of the birthday boy!

Batman eats his birthday cake!

Let's try this again!

So I have been meaning to get the blog going again for oh... two years! I know, I know. But I am very motivated to start posting so that I can have a record of all the hilarious things my kids have one. And it looks like the scrapbook thing isn't happening anytime soon either, so one day I will just email my kids a link to this and say, "There you go, that was your childhood." Please don't everyone rush to nominate for Mother of the Year.

Moving on...
Tuesdays are very long and hard for the boys and I. The kids all have school and Connor and Nicholas each have private speech therapy for about an hour. Then to top it all off Jake and Connor have RE class and I teach the 5th graders RE class at our church. So the boys only have about 45 minutes of "fun" time before we have to eat and leave for RE. Well tonight Connor decided to extend his fun time by hurrying through dinner and only eating half of it. Well I knew this was going to be bad. As we headed to RE Connor started complaining that he was hungry. We had a calm but firm discussion about how that was his choice any maybe next time he should choose differently. Well this was our discussion on the way home:
Connor: I'm REALLY hungry
Mommy: We talked about this... you shouldn't have skipped dinner to play XBOX. I'm not making dinner again because of your choice.
Connor: I wish live had a Reset button.
Mommy: So do I, so do I!

Snow Fest 2011

So it never snows in Georgia, but last year we had 3 snow falls and this year we had the biggest one I've ever seen since in the last 15 years we've lived in Georgia. We ended up getting 6 inches of snow and the school was closed for 5 days. Of course once you factor in weekends and the MLK holiday that came the following Monday after the snow, the boys were home for 10 days. They were thrilled, as was Rob since he got to work from home, Mommy was not as estatic though. Here's the pictures of the boys enjoying their snowdays!

Above: Our backyard the morning after all the snow came.

Above: The boys out on the deck when the snow started. They were so excited knowing they wouldn't have school the next day!

Things kids notice

Connor: Daddy's don't cook very much.
Mommy: Hmmm.
Connor: Neither do Poppa's.
Mommy: (Attempts to stifle laughing.)
Connor: Maybe they're not very good at it.
Jake: Yeah.
Mommy: (No longer even trying... just laughing so hard I cry.)

Along the lines of "When I grow up"

Jake: Mommy, your minivan is so cool.
Mommy: Thanks Jake
Jake: Mommy, when I'm an adult I'm going to drive a minivan.
Mommy: Well, you might want to drive a different car. Something faster or cooler.
Jake: No, I want a minivan so that on daddy days I can drive all of my family around, including you mommy!

(Mommy's heart melts at this point. See why I'm cool with him living with me forever?)

Jake's Preschool Graduation!

May 19th, 2008 - Monday 7:00 PM



Jake's school had a big graduation ceremony for all of the PreK kids. It was pretty impressive. The kids all dressed in cute little cap and gowns and they all stood up there and showed off all the songs and dances and things they learned in preschool. Then they had a great slide show of the kids answering questions like, "What makes a good teacher?" and "What did you learn in school?"


Then the kids went to the back and the director called each child's name and they would come up front receive their "diploma" and walk over to a microphone and tell everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up.


Well let me just back pedal a little bit and tell a story from a few months ago. Jake was getting ready for bed and he was asking what he could be when he grew up.

Jake: Mommy what should I be when I grow up?
Mommy: Well you get to decide when your a grow up. What kind of things are you interested in?
Jake: Well it would be cool to be an astronaut.
Mommy: Very cool, what else?
Jake: How about a race car driver?
Mommy: Ummm, that's pretty dangerous.
Jake: What job could I have and still live at home with you?
Mommy: That's a great idea! You could be a telecommuter and then you could work from home all day long and live with Mommy!


Fast forward to preschool graduation day. Jake is the very first child called and he walks straight up to that microphone and determinedly shouts, "I want to be a telecommuter when I grow up!"


The entire hall cracks up laughing and Rob gives me the evil eye and says, "That's not even a job it's a method of working. And besides I thought we agreed we would encourage him to move out of the house at 18?"


Hmmm.... looks like I need to find an occupation for Jake where he can live next door to me.

Spring Break 2008

Okay, I know I'm over a month late posting Spring Break pictures... but they're here at last. We went with Nana and Poppa to Gatlinburg and stayed at the Westgate Smokey Mountain Resort. The boys loved it. As we entered the National Park, Rob and I kept saying, "Okay, boys were now in The Great Smoky Mountains." Connor immediately piped up and said, "It's not good to smoke. Why are the mountains smoking?" We had a lot of fun with that one! I'm not really sure that Connor understands our explanation of the name for the mountains still.

The resort was awesome. They had an indoor water park that was perfect for the kids. Of course they wanted to spend every free moment there. Even Nicholas loved it and got into going down the little kid slides.

We also went into Pigeon Forge and saw some shows. The boys loved going to see the magic show and were thrilled when we left with magic wands for them. They kept saying crazy things like, "Hocus Pocus now your a dragon!" Finally Mommy took the wands and made all the boys disappear!

We also spent two days at Dollywood, because of course the Bramhalls love an amusement park! We rode lots of great rides, although most of them involved us getting soaked. Luckily the weather wasn't too cold. We rode the bumper cars as well. Jake and rode together and Connor rode with Rob. While we were all getting buckled in, Connor looks right at me and says, "Your going down Mommy!" Of course I died laughing and Rob was thrilled that Connor had said what he told him to at just the right moment. So of course the theme for the rest of the trip at the park was, "Your going down!"

Nicholas' first amusement park ride! He was terrified and kept looking for Mommy to get him off. But in the end Jake and Connor calmed him down and he ended up really liking it!

Rob had to fly out to Boston for work for two of the days, but that didn't slow us down. We went hiking in the Park and saw a dinner show. Of course we swam so much at the water park that I couldn't get the smell of chlorine off of us!

It was an accident Mommy!

ARGH! So I'm enjoying some peace and quiet time at the computer while the boys were playing in the toy room when Connor comes running in saying, "It was an accident Mommy!"

Immediately I start quizzing him, "Did you go potty in your pants?"
"No."
"Did you spill food or water?"
"No, it was an accident in the toy room," Connor insists.

So I walk into the toy room to find that the curtains have all been pulled off the wall. He even managed to pull the brackets off the wall. Apparently he wanted a game on one of the higher shelves so he climbed on the chair and used the curtains to pull himself up higher!

I'm so angry that I put him immediately in time out in his room (more to keep him out of harms way than as punishment ;) )

Now every minute I get to hear, "Mommy, can I come out now?"

I tried to talk to him about what he did and he just keeps saying, "But Mommy it was an accident and I apologized so it's okay!"

So I have to amend this post to add Jake's comments. When I finally pulled Connor out of time-out and was talking to him about the correct way to get down our toys, Jake said, "Yeah, now Daddy will have to fix it. He's the master of fixing everything at this house." Ummm, hello? Is Jake talking about the same guy I'm thinking of?

The Bramhalls go Green!

So Rob has been driving his gas guzzling Acura for awhile now and the thing finally has finally started showing it's age (15 years and 215K miles!). So we started looking at new cars.

Well first we had the discussion about what kind of car are we getting. I wanted something fuel efficient and practical... like a hybrid! Rob wanted a BMW convertible. Trying to find middle ground between those two types of cars was impossible. So as usual, we just did what I wanted ;) Rob realized that with his commute (80 miles a day) it made more sense to get the hybrid.

Rob and I have NEVER bought a new car off the lot so it was amazing to us to start talking with sales people and realize just how much buying a new car sucks. I absolutely hate doing it. The salesmen will tell you anything about a car just to try and get you to buy it then and there. And it was next to impossible to find anyone who knew anything about hybrids. So Rob and I had to do a lot of research online. Well we were really close to buying the Honda Civic, but Rob decided he liked the Prius better, so we got that instead.

The Prius is so fun to drive and the technology in it is amazing. Of course, I'm very glad to be driving a hybrid car as I am the one in the family who worries about recycling, buying organic and reusing old things in new ways! But I am doing a good job brainwashing the rest of our family! Just ask Jake why we recycle, "Because if you don't the Earth will be covered in trash!" Even Rob loves his new Prius, on vacation he actually said he missed my his new car. When we brought the car home, my dad just shook his head and said, "I never thought Rob would be the first person I know to buy a hybrid!"

While we love being "green" we decided to be slightly more understated than the other ecofriendly drivers and leave the actual green colored car behind. Instead we opted for the magnetic grey!

Soccer Season has started!

Well I officially feel like a "soccer mom!" Jake has me busy all week running around taking him to Tae Kwon Doe and Soccer practice and then Saturday mornings are taken up with games for Jake and Connor.

Although disappointed that Jake wasn't on his team this season, Connor was consoled by the fact that two of his friends from the neighborhood are on his team. He is trying very hard to score a goal! During the first game, he was kicking the ball when a teammate took over and kicked it in the goal. Connor was very sad and started sulking. His friend Whitnee noticed and from then on held his hand during the game and tried to "help" him score! It was so cute.

Jake is trying to adjust to being on an older team. All of the kids have played before on his team and they can all run fast. So now Jake isn't the tallest and fastest kid on the team. He has a great time at practice playing "pirate" and running drills. Hopefully he will find his way on this new team!

Easter 2008

The weekend before Easter our neighborhood had an Easter Egg hunt and Jake and Connor met up with their friend Whitnee!





Easter was nice this year. It was so early that the weather was very cold but sunny. We got up early and met Nana and Poppa at church. The boys were very good except for when Nicholas had a break down right while Father was blessing the Eucharist and the church was completely silent!



After that we went out to brunch because neither Nana or I wanted to spend all day cooking. Jake, Connor and Nicholas were very lucky boys as the Easter bunny came to visit them at Nana's house and our house!




Nicholas tries to get some candy before the big boys get it all!




Jake and Connor compare their loot!

Laundry Day!

So the other day I was doing the laundry (as usual) when Nicholas climbed in and started "helping" me by tossing all the clothes out of the basket. How cute is this kid??