1st Grade Performance

Last night Brayden had his First Grade Performance. It was super cute! It was a pirate theme and although Brayden looked frightened to death the entire time and barely sing, all of his classmates looked like they were having a blast and I was happy he participated. :) All week leading up to it, he kept telling me that he didn't want to go to it. His complaints ranged from "what's the point, I don't even have a speaking part" and "the performance is sooooo long, my legs hurt from having to stand so much while we sing" to "I have stage fright and I don't want everyone looking at me." After hearing this every night, he almost had me convinced that it wouldn't be worth going, especially if he was going to have that kind of attitude towards it. But I decided I would definitely regret it if we skipped out. So for all of our family and friends who couldn't make it to the performance, and would like to see Brayden's First Grade Performance....here are are the songs they sang (minus all the speaking parts in between):

This one is called "I have a loose tooth"...I think it is one of the only ones that Brayden actually sang- must be one of his favorites. :)

Down by the Bay....His Stage Fright started to kick in at this point and he just had a petrified, scared to death look on his face...














At the end of the performance, one of the music teachers let all the parents take pictures of the first graders. Brayden's stage freight was out the door and he had the biggest smile on his face....
Pretty cute, I must say! :)

Removal of Sharpie on Wood

"Removal of Sharpie on Wood Furniture".....is a phrase that I did not think I would have to "google" with a 6.5 year old in the house....maybe 4 years ago, but not today. He should know better, especially only 4 days after we just got the new kitchen table set. You would think he would know better and I wouldn't have to say "don't write on the new table" right?!?! Well, unfortunately, lesson learned...purchase new furniture, put it together by hand, and MAKE SURE to CLEARLY TELL Brayden NOT to write on it....regardless of his age, and regardless of the fact I thought he would know better. From now on, he will be told not to write on new furniture. This morning I came downstairs to see this nicely "set" table by Brayden...I was so impressed with his efforts. He got out the new Christmas placemats, plates, silverware and plastic cups.

Then I looked more closely and I spied...

I couldn't believe my eyes!! I asked him WHAT was on the table. He very innocently replied, "I wrote our initials for our assigned seats." On each of our place settings he wrote our initials...he wasn't sure if he should use our current initials or our new initials so everyone got both sets of initials and the phrase "don't no" because he didn't know which initial to use and a piece of gum for our dessert. I couldn't believe it! As I was in shock, I tried to stay calm and immediately went to swagbucks and searched "how to remove sharpie from wood". After reading a few results, rubbing alcohol was an ingredient that was mentioned a few times and I already had it so I grabbed my cotton balls and q-tips and got to work. THANKFULLY, it worked!! After A LOT of elbow grease, about 95% of the Sharpie is gone and our new table is back to normal!
So just a word of advice, if you ever find yourself in the same unfortunate predicament, Rubbing Alcohol DOES remove Sharpie/permanent marker from wood furniture. Hopefully you will NEVER have to experience this. :)

Our Special Someone Part 3

Well, it's just about time to change my blog name from Just the 2 of Us, to Just the 3 of Us. Friday night (11-11-11) I had the most AMAZING surprise visitor ring my doorbell around 10:30 in the evening. Already in my pjs laying in bed, my first thought was "who in the world is ringing my doorbell at this hour?!?" Since the mystery person rang the bell MULTIPLE times, I felt it must be some kind of emergency and worth me going downstairs to figure out what in the world was going on. My little "protector" (Brayden) followed me down, as I looked through the peep hole in the door. To my surprise, all I could see was....

I assumed it had to be a safe person if they were going to have a dozen roses in their hand, so I opened the door. To my surprise, Jason was standing there holding a dozen roses in one hand, and the other hand behind his back. I immediately asked him what he was doing here because we had already decided that this would be our "off" weekend where he would stay in Rogers, since he had just stayed the last week in Texas with us for his vacation. He stepped in the doorway and gave me the roses, then he started telling me how much he loved me and Brayden. I begun my state of shock as he continued to speak. Not sure exactly what all he said because I was so distracted at the fact he was getting down on one knee and brought his hand from behind his back and was holding a small box. He opened the box and I saw a bright SHINY ring. I was anticipating what he was about to say, so I started to say "are you serious?!?" He tried to continue his "prepared" speech, but I was in such shock, I didn't quite hear everything he was saying, but I did hear the magic words that I have been dying to hear for the last several months, "Christie, will you marry me?" After I said, "are you serious?!?!" about 100 more times and he kept reproposing to me, I finally said YES!!!!!!!!!! And he put the ring on my finger...

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!!!!

We were so excited, we held each other super tight as Brayden cheered us on. After Brayden realized what had just happened his first reaction was "Let's get this wedding started!!"

So we are now in the process of planning a wedding. Before we set a date, we ideally would like for Jason to find a job in the area and get him moved down here. If you have any budget friendly wedding advice, we're all ears. :) Ideally, our dream wedding would entail a beachside ceremony, but we are looking at several others options. Stay tuned for updates. :)

Our Facebook Announcement to family and friends-

Back to Blogging

Recently we have had a few events in our life that have made me want to get back into blogging on a more consistent basis, rather than just a few times a year. I've asked Brayden and Jason to help make sure that I post at least once a week and to hold me to it. :)

A lot has happened since my last post---I can't believe I went a whole summer break without posting. I will fill you in on our summer in another post. Moving on to the school year, Brayden is now in first grade and LOVING it. I have switched to teaching third grade (from first) and although I was hesitant at first because I wanted to be in first grade with Brayden and my teaching buddies, I am really enjoying third grade. I have an AWESOME class and they definitely make coming to work each day a joy.

Here is Brayden at our Meet the Teacher Night with his first grade teacher/my friend...Mrs. Kendle.
He was really excited to see he had several of his friends from his kindergarten class in his first grade class too. Here is a pic of Brayden and I on our first day....


Brayden on the first day of school putting his backpack in his locker. Getting him to take a backpack this year was a big deal because last year he didn't like using a backpack...probably because his backpack was practically bigger than he was, but this year with all of his things he needs to carry his own.

In first grade he has met a lot of new friends and is starting to become more responsible. After school, I work an extra hour for the academic portion of our afterschool care and I work with the first graders, so Brayden gets to spend more time with a few of his friends working on homework and studying for his spelling tests. Overall, he is really enjoying it and I can't wait to see the growth he makes at the end of the school year!

Busy, Busy Weekend

Last weekend we had a super busy weekend! Saturday morning started off with Brayden's soccer game. Although he did have his first "header" and it took him out of the game for a few minutes, he played really well! I was very proud of him for not having any fear as he guarded this one player that seemed like he was almost twice the size of Brayden.
He was also the one that kicked the ball that hit Brayden right smack in the forehead at close range. One of the first things he said when we got in the car was "why didn't that kid say he was sorry to me, that really hurt!"

As soon as the soccer game was over, we headed home so he can change clothes. Then we were headed to Chuckie Cheese for a birthday party. He had so much fun running around with his classmates. He was a sweaty mess from playing in the playground tunnels. After the cake, they went to use their tokens on the video games.

After Chuckie Cheese we went home so he could change into his swimsuit. It was the opening day at our swimming pool and he was determined to go swimming. Jason was sweet enough to brave the freezing water temperatures so Brayden could get in the pool.

If you can't quite tell in this picture, he is SHIVERING!! :)

After we finally convinced him to come inside and change clothes we were able to take a short lil nap before we had family date night with our friends the Winter's. We introduced Jason to one of the local Mexican restaraunts then we headed over to one of our new favorite places, Allen Bowl, for a family night of bowling.



After such a fun day, we were all exhausted!

On Sunday, we had to say good-bye to Jason as he headed back to Arkansas. Then Brayden and I were off to the FCDallas vs LAGalaxy game. This was Brayden's first game back since his lil episode of getting sick and vowing to never go again. We didn't have the best of weather condititions. We had a MAJOR cold front come through that brought the temperatures down into the 40's, with a windchill of 37 degrees! Quite different than the 80 degree weather we had the day before! Here is Brayden all bundled up....Yes, he is wearing WINTER gloves on May 1st. :) There was also a chance of severe storms so we had to dress for rain as well.

I knew this particular game was a sell out, so I wanted to make sure that we got there in plenty of time to get a parking place. Last time they had a sell out and we got there thirty minutes before the game, we had to walk almost an entire mile just from the car to the stadium. That was not going to be happening in these weather conditions!

After we sat down, Brayden realized the team warms up, just like his team---with orange cones. :) (We have never got there early enough to see this.)

He was excited to see them warm up. We did get to see David Beckham and Landon Donovan--although I dont have any good pictures to prove it. It was still exciting. :)

We made it through the first half of the game with no rain then shortly into the second half it went from a light sprinkle to an absolute down pour in a matter of 10 minutes. They announced on the speakers that we would be experiencing high winds and heavy rain for the next thirty minutes. In MLS, they play rain or shine as long as there is no lightening. So we sat there in the heavy downpour freezing as long as I could take it. Then we had to get of there. I honestly think our walk/run back to the car was worse than just sitting there in the stadium. We eventually made it home safely, in the meantime they did end up having an hour weather delay so I was thankful we went ahead and left. By the time we got home, I made us some hot chocolate and we got changed into our warm pjs, the game was back on and we were able to see the last 10 minutes of the game. One of Brayden's favorite players, Brek Shea, scored the winning goal. The best part, Brayden realized that he could go to the game and not get sick. :)

Happy Mother's Day!

This morning I was blessed with a sweet little voice coming into my room to wish me Happy Mother's Day. I wasn't quite sure if he would remember or not, but it was the first thing he said to me. :) He then proceded to tell me that my gift from him was a "pool date." He had already switched out of his pjs and into his swimsuit, so he could take me swimming. Of course, he wanted me to switch into my swimming suit immediately, but I told him we had a few other things on our agenda before we could go.

After visiting with my sister using Facetime, he decided to make a mother's day video to show off how he can now blow up a balloon all on his on. He learned this yesterday and has been doing it constantly ever since.

One of the things on our "to do" list today was to clean the downstairs. I told him that we were going to have a dance party as we cleaned. Well, he interpreted the cleaning dance party into something completely different than what I had intended. He pulled out our Dance Dance Revolution 3 on the Wii and started having his own dance party as I cleaned the kitchen.

He told me that he is trying to get all hot and sweaty, so then "we" will be hot enough to go swimming. I'm not sure, but I think I foresee swimming sometime in my future today. :)

Happy Mother's Day!!

Kindergarten Performance

Brayden just recently had his big kindergarten performance. It was a cute lil tribute to Mother's Day. Leading up to the night, he was SUPER excited! When we were shopping for his new shirt for the performance, he had to tell every store worker that we came encounter with that he had his "kindergarten performance in a few days".

He even gave me this impromptu sneak peak on our way home from school one day:

And then the actual night of the performance came. We came super early so I could get a front row seat. I was all set up with my camera, video camera and iphone as backup. (Thank goodness I did, because after 5 minutes into it my video camera battery went out.) As all the kids came out, I could tell that Brayden was a lil overwhelmed with how big the audience was, I was barely able to get him to crack a smile for a few pictures. I think stage freight got the best of him and one of his lil girlfriends (standing next to him). Afterwards he told me that it was so scary singing in front of everyone and it would have been better if it would have just been in front of the parents from his class. :)

Here are clips of each of their songs---not the best quality since they were taken with my phone. :)










This was my first time to use youtube to upload my videos, so hopefully it worked out ok. :)