The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Kindergarten Orientation

When we got home last week, Maxwell had a special surprise waiting on the mailbox!

kindergarten

It was his invitation to kindergarten orientation! Woohoo! We went on Tuesday and it was great.

kindergarten

Maxwell was pretty excited and it helped to walk in and see several familiar faces like Lila, Jack, Glenn, and Cate. We all sat in the auditorium at first while the principal introduced herself and all the kindergarten teachers. The kids then left with the teachers to check out the classrooms and get a little treat in the lunchroom! The parents stayed in the auditorium to learn about important things like school lunches, carpool, and what shoes to wear for PE!  🙂  We also got LOTS of good information about ways to get involved with the PTO. No surprise, I’ve already signed up! We then all went downstairs to find the kids who were having a fun time and enjoying a huge cookie. Kindergarten is off to a great start!

With Glenn and Cate…

kindergarten

Outside after orientation with some buds…

kindergarten

These kids are going to hit the ground running in kindergarten!!

kindergarten

I’m really excited for Maxwell. I’m also a little sad. He’s growing up so fast and I’m really going to miss him next year when he’s at school. 7:50 to 2:50 is a long day! That said, I know he’s ready and I cannot wait for him to experience and learn all the fantastic things MBE is going to teach him. He’s SUCH a good kid. He’s smart, he’s curious, he’s personable…he’s READY for kindergarten!

mbe

MBE here we come!!!

Street Party

This year I organized the Street Party at the kid’s preschool. It’s a fundraiser for their scholarship fund and just an all around fun day for the kids! A LOT went into the planning from requests for donations to reserving the park space to planning all of the games. But, it all went off without a hitch and we raised a record amount of money! woohoo! The party was last week on Monday and, thanks to me getting the stomach virus 2 days before, GJ was here to help set up that morning! Thanks to her we had all the balloons we needed! She was a master on the helium tank. The weather cooperated and it was a great day all around!

My co-chair Catherine and I ready for the party!

street party

The party was Superhero themed in reference to the name of the H.E.R.O Scholarship Fund. We had these t-shirts made which I think turned out pretty cute!

street party

Blair, Polly, Mary Hamner, Glen, Anna, Maxwell

Setup in Rushton Park for the big kids…

street party

We had Bean Bag Toss, Egg Race, Go Fish, and Grand Prize Game plus two bouncies and an obstacle course. It was just the right amount of things to do in the time allotted.

bean bag

go fish

egg race

grand prize game

obstacle course

hula hoop

I loved getting to spend the day with this guy (aka Cobra Face!) and watch him have fun with his buddies.

cobra

Setup on the big playground for the little kids…

playground

playground

street party

street party

Tattoos are always a hit!

street party

Setup in G20 for the crafts…face painting, tattoos and decorating a superhero mask.

street party

street party

street party

Maxwell, Mary Frances, Polly, Bay, Berkeley

The ice cream man even came and all the kids got to get a popsicle! Best day ever for them!

ice cream

ice cream

Glen, Maxwell, Wilson, Joseph

ice cream

Jairus, Spencer, and some boy I don’t know. 🙂

It was a lot of work and months of planning but I had two good reasons that made it all worth it!

streeet party

Anything for those cuties!

Weekend fun

Lots of weekend fun!

Jumping for joy on Friday!

joy

joy

Saturday Yardwork. One of my helpers was a little more productive than the other!

weeds

Bye bye sticks and weeds!

house

Birthday party fun!

max party

Cousin love!

cousins

Sunshine and sports on Sunday!

sunday

sunday sports

Tball and soccer game pics to come. A happy and busy weekend! See you tomorrow!

Office visitors

I get three very important visitors to my office every day.

One pretty lady….

tgif

One cute buddy…

tgif

And one handsome fella…

tgif

I’d say I have the best office building in town!

Have a great weekend!

Lightning Bolts

The Lightning Bolts – that might be the new name of Spencer’s soccer team. He and I still vote for the Mighty Lions but we’ll see what the winner is next week! It was a good Sunday at the soccer field. Spencer loved the warmup part of soccer most – especially getting to play red light, green light!

red light

soccer

Look at his face! He’s having a ball!

soccer

The yellow team had plenty of sibling helpers around…

soccer

Including one very cute little sister!

soccer

soccer

soccer

Spencer was showing off his skills during practice…

soccer

skills

soccer

skills

and having fun with his new teammates.

soccer

It was then time for the game and he had some great moves out on the field. He hustled after the ball and played hard!

soccer

soccer

soccer

soccer

He then got bumped on the head and ultimately decided he’d rather play off to the side with Maxwell and the other siblings. We’re working on understanding that you can’t just bail in the middle of your game to go do something else!  🙂 As Coach Robert said, “he did better than last game and that’s all we can ask!” Exactly. This game was an improvement over the last one and I’m proud of him for getting out there!

What made this game even more special? We had the best cheerleader on the sidelines!

gj and spencer

soccer

We love soccer even more when GJ gets to come! yay!

Go Mighty Lion Lightning Bolts!