First day of school

Today was Bronson's first day of Kindergarten and Braxton's first day of 5th grade. I just can't believe how time flies!!!

I was a big girl and didn't cry:)

Bronson was sooooo excited and Braxton, he really wasn't too excited.

Braylon was sad! He really wanted to go to school too. The last picture is of him watching his brothers leave.

Splish, Splash

I'm Here, really I am!!!

This last week has been really crazy! Last Friday Andrea and I went swimming with the little kindergartners on their field trip. It was a ball. Here are some great pictures of Bronson at the pool. The kids got to swim for 2 hours. There were around 40 little ones and about a 10 adults. So we really had to keep our eyes on them.






Here is Bronson and Emma. Don't they look so cute? A couple of years ago I scrapbooked a page with these two holding hands and I put on the page, Class of 2022, Cutest Couple! Won't they be the cutest couple that class will ever see? They are very close and I am sure one day when they get older (a lot older), they will look at each other more like siblings than as girl/boyfriend.

Father's day brought some very warm temps and lots of sun. I bought a tube of 500 water balloons to take with us to some friends house for a bbq. It took us an hour or more to fill up 400 of those balloons. We filled a little kiddy pool with all of them and then decided to have a water fight, with balloons and water guns and then the guys decided to fill up coolers and the kiddy pool. It was a great time. As you can see on everyone's faces there was a lot of laughter! It took us FIVE minutes to destroy those 400 balloons!

braxton getting ready to get nailed by norm and little did norm know that melanie was right behind him to get him.

jared and norm laughing after norm chased jared down. and then jared fell! don't those boots and cutoff carhartt shorts look sexy?

jared and norm getting michelle.

jared and norm ganging up on braxton

bronson with the water gun.

WOWZA!! bet that was cold.....

poor little braylon getting picked on by his dad.

i forgot to take a picture of all the balloons before we started.

Summer School has begun

Yesterday was Bronson's first day of summer school! He was super excited to go. We had to have a long talk that morning about not saying words like

sucks and shut up

Look at how tiny he is! Don't you just love that little strut! He definitely got his dad's walk!

I couldn't hardly wait for him to get out so I could see how his first day went. He preceded to tell me that they had to many of these...........

in his class!

I am sure some day the more girls in his class the better!

He said he didn't get his name on the board or any check marks!

He broke one of the bikes at recess!

And all in all he had a great time!

Hopefully today was just as good! If you all remember, last year his first day was great but the second day Andrea had to bring him home at noon b/c he was sad!

Track & Field Day

what a gorgeous day for track & field. it was a little windy, but at least it was warmer than it has been in the past. this year for braxton's age group they got to pick 3 events to participate in instead of doing all the events. braxton did the softball throw, 100 meter dash and the 200 meter dash. he placed 1st in the softball throw and 3rd in the 100 meter dash and the 200 meter dash. i was so proud of him!

braxton in mid throw! nice form!

i love how all the boys look in this picture!

bronson got to throw the softball too.

here is braxton and bronson running the 100 meter dash. bronson has the biggest smile on his face in this picture. i know it is hard to see here but blown up you can really see it.

bronson crossing the finish line!

bronson got 5th place :)

braxton at the finish line on the 200 meter dash.

here is braxton with all three of his ribbons.

Sore?

Understatement! We played slow pitch softball this weekend and it was very fun. We played at 8 pm, 9 pm and 2 am. We thought we would probably get our butts spanked but the first 2 games were close for awhile. We were back and forth until the 3rd and then they 15 run ruled us. The last game was terrible. I think it was like 37 to 3 or something like that. I was really proud of myself for not striking out once. I even ran from first to home and wasn't even out of breath. :) We didn't get home until around 4:30 am. So needless to say yesterday I did a lot of sleeping! I thought I was sore yesterday until I got up this morning. Why is it that the second day is always the worst? My legs, arms, sides, ok everything, hurts! When I cough it hurts, when I walk it hurts, ok when I do anything it hurts. It was all worth it and I would do it again. I wish I would have had my camera for a great shot of Jared in the air. He was running from first to second on a base hit that was hit straight to the second baseman. As the girl was bent down stopping the ball he hurdles her and lands on second and was safe. It was so funny! I think we could have won lots of money had we had it on tape:) He said if he would have had his boots on instead of his cleats he probably would have knocked her out.

Well, I am mad at Jared today. I wanted some of the leftover fish for lunch today, BUT Jared thought he needed it all for his lunch. A gallon size zip lock bag full of fish. I was very mad. He said why don't you just eat a bologna sandwich. And I said NO I hate bologna. So I sent him a text and told him he better save some of his fish for supper otherwise he is getting bologna. UGH, or grrrr..... (as in what Andrea would say).

Braxton has open house tonight for school. He is not very excited about school starting. Him and my dad spend every day together and they are both dreading it. I don't know who is more upset my dad or Braxton. I know there will be lots of tears tomorow night from Braxton. I thought maybe the older he got that it would get easier, but I am thinking now it is getting harder.

Weekend events plus Bronson's first day of school!

What a wonderful weekend.


Saturday Jared and I went to Columbia for our anniversary. We had a great time! We ate at a wonderful steak place called CC's City Broiler. It was sooooo good. The service was great and so was the food! We went to a family reunion on our way home too. It was nice to see everyone.


Yesterday was Shaw house cleaning. The boys got up and helped too. It went a lot quicker with help. So the house is clean for now:) We put our tent up yesterday. Braxton is having 3 boys over Sat night for a weiner roast and a camp out. I can't wait to see how long they actually stay in the tent. I am guessing 30 minutes, TOPS!


Bronson's first day of summer school was today. He was so excited. I can't wait to see how his day went. He asked me this morning if I thought they would have PS. I said PS??? You mean PE?? Yeah! I said well I don't know. He thought he would go ahead and wear his tennis shoes so he would be ready in case they had PS:) He thought he needed his cardinal backpack. So he had it on this morning but once he seen all the other kids didn't have a backpack he decided he didn't his. He rode the bus with Colby and Lane Parsons this morning. He wants to ride the bus to the courthouse just like Braxton did. So he is riding to the church next door and then he gets to walk over to the courthouse. I will have to fill you in tomorrow on how his day goes today.

Bronson at home ready to go to school.

The 3 boys!

Colby and Bronson waiting for the bus, while their dads talk in the background.

Track and Field Day

Braxton had track and field day yeserday. Jared had the morning off for his physical so he went down to watch him. My mom, dad, Bronson and I went too. He did awesome. He placed in everything! I was so excited for him. I feel bad for those kids when they don't get any ribbons though. But I have to agree with what Andrea said to her class.... some kids are good at reading and some kids are good at running. The ones that struggle with their school work all year get to shine at track and field day. I believe that is very true. Had Braxton not placed in anything we would have still been very proud of him for trying.

Bronson got to run the 100 meter dash and do the softball throw too. He is already excited to do everything next year. Next year will be a longer day though. Bronson will be competing in the morning and Braxton will be competing in the afternoon. So we will be down there all day. I hope Noah Weaher radio gets us a better forecast for track and field day next year. It seems like every year it is cold or rainy!

Bronson doing the softball throw. He did a good job:)

Braxton doing the high jump. He hit is butt on the bar 3 times and it managed to stay up. How? I am not sure. He ended up getting 1st place. Good thing the bar didn't fall down:)

Braxton doing the long jump! He got 4th place.

Braxton running in the 50 meter dash. He got 2nd place. Rhett Cook is running right behind Braxton. He kept saying go Braxton, run Braxton. I think that helped him run faster:)

Braxton running in the 100 meter dash. He got 2nd place.

Braxton and Bradley on the right side of the picture crossing the finsih line in the three legged race. They got 1st place:)

Braxton got 2nd in the softball throw

Pictures from Kindergarten Screening

Here he is skipping!

Look at him sitting so patiently!

Kindergarten Screening

Kindergarten screening went great! I was so proud of Bronson. He knew all of his letters except for Q and Y. He didn't recognize the numbers 9 & 10 either. He knew all of his colors. He knew his shapes except for the triangle. I told him a triangle looked like a tent but he still didn't get it. Oh well, we can't expect him to ready for Harvard! He had trouble with rhyming. When they did problem solving with him on what do you do about a dark room he said"don't go in there" and what do you do if you break something he said "spanking". Yep we beat our kids if they break something:) Not really but we must threaten them really good. LOL! He was able to tie his shoes 100%, so GO BRONSON! Anyhow, this doesn't make our decision for us on whether or not to send him to Kindergarten. Jared still wants to wait. We will just have to wait and see who wins this battle until after summer school. N0 matter what our decision is he still did great!

Bronie Butt and baseball

Last night was our first night for Bronson's team to have ball practice. I thought it went really good. I was minus 2 helpers and 2 kids. The kids were really excited to be there and they loved to run the bases and bat the most. They didn't like to field the ball though, hmmmmm, imagine that. We have some really good ball players for 5 and 6 year olds. Bronson is only 4 but is able to play because he able to go to Kindergarten this fall.

Speaking of Kindergarten.....

We are having a really hard time deciding whether to send Bronson this fall or not. He will be 5 in July. He is going to go to Kindergarten screening next week and then Summer School. He is so excited. Jared thinks we should wait another year and I think he is ready to go this year. Everyone you talk to has different opinions. So, we are going to leave it up to the Kindergarten teachers this summer. If they think he is ready then we will send him and if they don't then we will keep him home. I know every child is different so that is why I am trying not to let everyones opinions get to me.

Better get to work.

Braxton the good child

Well, well, welll!

I thought Braxton was going to be this child that told you everything because EVERYTHING bothers him. The kid is going to have an ulcer before he is 15. Anyhow, yesterday I was looking in his backpack for something and I couldn't find it so I started looking in all the different zipper parts I found lots more than I bargained for. In this little bitty compartment was TONS of worksheets! I pulled one out because it was all wadded up into a ball and lo and behold I seen why it was wadded up........ it had a 65% on it. No wonder he was hiding it from us. So, I called Jared and talked to him about it and we decided to just confront him and not get mad about it because the kid has all A's. When we asked him about it he said "I thought I would get grounded if I showed them to you." He started crying and Jared and I told him since he told us the truth that we would let it slide this time but to start showing us from now on. I asked him why he didn't just throw them away so we would never see them and he said b/c I thought I would get caught b/c you guys go thru the trash sometimes b/c Braylon throws things away that he isn't suppose to. Good thinking on his part. So why didn't he just throw them away at school? Because if Mrs. Shepherd found them in the trash he would have to stay in for a WHOLE recess. He decided to hoard them instead. I told him that he is always going to get caught no matter what. It may have taken us all year to catch on but we did.

This has made me think a little differently. I know the reason he did it was because we got after him for missing 2 on several papers so we told him if he missed more than 2 he would be grounded. Wrong thing to do as a parent. We expect way too much out of this child and we really need to tone it down. Me mostly! So I learned a very important lesson out of this too! So really think what you say to your child b/c it bothers them more than you think.

Oh yeah, he had 62 papers in that little compartments. AND all of them had -2 or more on them. See they really do listen.