The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

The rest of the weekend

Robert was out of town Thursday night to Sunday afternoon so I had the kids all to myself…while also trying to track Irma! I did my best to distract myself…

We had some friends over Friday night which was great. Love these sweet and silly boys!

boys

boys

We had beautiful weather all weekend. Saturday morning was just chilly enough for a sweater (and a ponytail!)…

ponytail

so we grabbed breakfast and ate at the park! It was so nice to be outside!

saturday

prak

We didn’t do much the rest of the day except watch tv – movies for them and The Weather Channel for me! Maxwell did work diligently on his birthday thank you notes. His thoughts? “This the worst part of having a birthday!” Ha!

thank you notes

Saturday night I took the kids out to the Mexaurant…tried to drown my hurricane fears in cheese dip!

mexican

Sunday was another beautiful day so we again grabbed breakfast and headed outside!

breakfast

I then told Samantha how she got to start dance class on Monday so we had to try on her new tutu and ballet shoes! She LOVED them…as did I!  🙂

dance

Sadly, her first dance class was cancelled when school was cancelled. We can’t wait for next week!

By Sunday at lunch time, we were all very glad to see Robert walk through the door! He got back just in time to coach Spencer’s first soccer game…more on that to come! See you tomorrow!

SaveSave

SaveSave

Irma aftermath

Irma was still making herself known around here yesterday. Birmingham was under a Tropical Storm watch so they cancelled school for Monday. We spent the day in the best way possible…

irma

Yep, those positions were assumed by 8am! Around lunchtime we did put on our hurricane gear…

irma

and ventured out for some food, including some gooey brownies! ha!

irma

But then we were back home to assume our positions for the remainder of the day…

irma

Now, it was a bit ridiculous that school was cancelled since it was barely even raining all day with virtually zero wind. They changed the forecast from a Tropical Storm watch to just a wind advisory by mid-day. However, the school system still decided to go with a delayed start today. Better safe than sorry I guess! Bye bye Irma…for good this time!

SaveSave

SaveSave

Irma

Hurricane Irma is not our friend. My parents left Naples Saturday morning to go to my brother’s house in Jupiter to ride out the storm. Thankfully, everyone is ok and my brother’s house sustained minimal damage. We do not yet know about Naples and our house there. I’m writing this Sunday night and the storm surge is still to come.

naples

Unfortunately, Irma is seemingly making its way into Alabama with Tropical Storm force winds. Hopefully nothing bad will make it to Birmingham but we could have trees down and loss of power. I will update as I get more information about my family, our house, and Naples. Go away Irma….and don’t come back!

Monday afternoon update: Our family friend, Marc, was able to check on the house and it looks good! A little damage including roof tiles gone and landscape and screen enclosure damage but it’s all minor and fixable! The storm surges were nowhere near predicted levels and we had no flooding! It’s all pretty unbelievable considering the eye wall of this monster went right over Naples. So thankful our wonderful Naples fared so well! Bye bye Irma…and don’t come back!!

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Samantha’s first day!

Samantha finally got her turn to start school last Tuesday! She was ALL smiles that morning…a serious CHEEEEEESE face!

cheese

I told her to maybe not scrunch her face up quite so much, which she thought was crazy…

samantha

but I did end up with this cute smile!

first day

She’s going Tuesday and Thursday this year with Mrs. Betsy in 2K – one of my favorite teachers that both boys also had. She was such a big girl going into class and, while there was a lot to check out…

2k

she did just fine with no tears at all! Hooray! She quickly found some toys…

2k

and some friends…

2k

and made herself comfy! 🙂

2k

The school year is off to a great start!

SaveSave

Spencer’s first day!

Spencer and Samantha finally went back to school last week! Spencer’s first day was Monday and he was excited!

spencer first day

spencer

He’s going Monday through Thursday this year in 4K with Mrs. Beard. After a goodbye hug from Samantha (who was sad to see him go!)…

spencer

we were off to school where he walked right into his classroom and quickly found his seat and got to work on his self portrait!

spencer

spencer

spencer

spencer

Pretty good, I’d say!

spencer

It was a good first week with a few rough spots. He got sent to time-out a few times for wrestling and rough-housing on the carpet with his friends. I can’t imagine where he would have learned that behavior?! It’s not like he and Maxwell ever wrestle and “fight” with each other at home?! (is my sarcasm coming through?!). We had lots of talks this past weekend about what is appropriate behavior at school and things seem to be much better now. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on out – full of smiley faces and no more visits to the “stop chair”!

4k

This boy is so smart, so sweet, so funny, and I love him so much.

spencer

Here’s to a great year of 4K for Spencey!!

SaveSave

SaveSave