Brantley Absent from School?

Today I got an automated phone call about 11:00 saying that my son was not in school and to be sure to send a note explaining his absence to school tomorrow. I was extremely upset by the call considering it was 11:00 and I put him on the bus at 7:40 this morning. I frantically called the school and it turns out there was a mix up because they had an early assembly for K-2 and Brantley's bus was late. First problem, even if his bus was late, shouldn't his teacher have corrected the attendance once she knew he was there? Second problem, the call did not happen until 11:00. If he truly were missing, a lot could happen in 2 1/2 hours. Errors like this should not happen. The principal said this morning was unusual and that the calls usually go out earlier. But, shouldn't someone verify the absences. There can't be that may kids absent each day they the list can't be verify so that parents like me are worried unnecessarily. She also said they just started using the system in January and that this was the first problem. All I have to say is it better not happen again.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I wasn't able to go to Brantley's party at school today. That's OK though because now when I do go to a party like that he just wants to leave and go home. Today's homework was to make a card and give it to someone you care about. Brantley decided to make a card for Carson. I told him I'd mail it tomorrow. He also made cards for me and daddy. He's doing really well with writing and spelling. Eventually, I will hook the scanner up so you can see some of his work. It's quite impressive.

Play Date

Brantley doesn't get to see his best friends from preschool very much so it's nice when they get to have a play date. By the way, that is the remnants of cheetos on their faces.

Breaking News!

Brantley finished the last 2 books in his stack so he gets to pick out a surprise. Congratulate him on a great job!

Reading Update

Brantley has read 21 books. He has 2 more to go before he is through the stack and gets a surprise. I'm pretty impressed with these books. Most of them are 12 pages long and have 1 or 2 lines of text on each page. He is having a hard time with words that don't sound out right, like what, this, that, with. I'm trying to tell him that letters such as TH and CK make a different sound than the individual letters together. You don't really think about how bad the English language is until you try to teach someone to read and have to teach all the exceptions to the rules.

SNOW!!!

Believe it or not, we actually had some snow!

Chuck E. Cheese

It took over 2 years of collecting tickets to get this!

Naked Brothers Band

Well, Brantley has been dying to watch the new Nick show - Naked Brothers Band. Last night was the premier and he was counting down. Well, the first 10 minutes we had already seen because all of it had been shown in the previews. Fifteen minutes into it, Brantley wanted to quit watching. So, I guess the show was a bust. We did end up sitting through most of it but we didn't watch then end. Oh well.

Da' Bears

Go Bears! It's been 20 years (21 to be exact) since the Bears have gone to the Superbowl. I actually watched that Superbowl because Jim McMahan was the quarterback. Brantley's bears hoodie is really small on him. We got it in October of 2005. I remember that because we got in while we were in Chicago. After we got it, we visited a pumpkin patch and Brantley ripped the sleeve. But, not to worry. A new sweatshirt in a bigger size is on it's way. Thanks Uncle Matt and Aunt Rosemarie!

Brantley Singing

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!!

Can you guess what that headline is for? I was going to have everyone guess, but I'm so excited I couldn't stand the suspense myself. Brantley is reading!!! I decided to get the leap pad and phonics out again tonight. Before, he's never really gotten into it and I never pushed him. So, tonight he got bored with the leap pad and we moved on to the phonics. Then, he was bored with practicing the letter sounds so I got out the stack of books, we put the tapes away and we started going through them together. The first book was a success and I got excited. The fact that I was excited got Brantley excited. He was so happy to have read it by himself. We ended up going through 6 books. There weren't very many words that I had to help with and he did a great job sounding them out. I'm so proud of him. I told him if we can get through the whole first stack, I will get him a surprise. Any suggestions?

Injury Alert

I'm not very happy with my new phone. When the battery is low, it warns you once and then it's dead. Friday afternoon, I realized my phone was dead. I was able to turn it on and find out I had a voice mail. It was from the school nurse. I can only hope that had it been an emergency they would have tried my work number when they didn't get me the first time. The message said the Brantley was fine. He had fallen on the playground and had a big scrape on his forehead, but he was a alert and had gone back to class. She just wanted to let me know what had happened. Lawson said he saw it right away when Brantley got home. Brantley said he fell on the basketball court. Here's what it looks like...

Leaps and Bounds

Christmas break is over and it's back to the grind. Brantley seems to have grown so much over the last couple weeks. He got to spend over a week with his cousins and he had such a good time. He must of grown a couple inches because we no longer need the booster seat at home. That's right, Brantley is sitting right up to the table without his booster seat. He got up all by himself this morning and we have 30 minutes extra time.

For those football fans out there, Brantley was waiting the game Saturday when Tony Romo fumbled the snap and lost the game. Lawson was giving Romo a hard time and making fun of him and Brantley told him to stop. He said, "How would you feel if you were Romo and you made a mistake and lost this game?" Wise beyond his years.

Christmas

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. Santa brought Brantley just what he asked for, a guitar, and a few other things. Here are some pictures from Christmas morning and from Christmas with my family. Enjoy!

Christmas with Grandma and Pop (cont'd)

I took a few pictures of the present opening. Brantley got a builder sheet set from Uncle Matt and Aunt Rosemarie (with a much needed extra pillow case because Brantley gets those things stinky quickly!), a pinball machine and Titans pullover from Grandma and Pop. He didn't get to open anything from mom and dad yet. Mom got some lavender hand lotion and bath salts for relaxing in the tub. Lawson got some cool Nashville coffee. We also got a cool print with the Loveless Cafe on it. Pop got an Agatha Christie computer game for the book And Then There Were None. Grandma got a new dustbuster - which I found out that Brantley told her last weekend what it was. We have to work on the keeping secrets part of Christmas! Anyway, here are the pictures...

Christmas with Grandma and Pop

Since Grandma and Pop will be spending Christmas in Chicagoland, we celebrated with them today. We had a great dinner with filet, baked potatoes, salad, and rolls. Mmmm! Brantley of course just had carrots, turkey, and rolls. Lots of rolls. He's not much of a meat eater. I'm not sure I've ever gotten him to taste a piece of steak. More for the rest of us. For dessert, it was chess pie. Grandma made an excellent pie. Of course, we got to open presents too. Grandma and Pop's present was a 5 A rating by Brantley (A being the word awesome!) We got home and were going to put the batteries in it but something happened to the batteries. It looked like something had leaked out of them. I looked around and we only had 2 D batteries and we needed 4. Brantley just couldn't understand that we didn't have enough of the right batteries. But, not to fear, mommy had to go grocery shopping anyway so I picked up some batteries. He'll be playing tomorrow!

Holiday Party

Today was also the holiday party at school. They had a sing-a-long in the cafeteria. The whole school was in there. In Brantley's room, they had a waffle party. A couple of dads cooked waffles and the kids got to add all the toppings you could think of. The waffles were really good. They smelled so good, I couldn't resist. Then they had a book exchange. Here Brantley is with the reindeer he drew.

Dentist

Brantley had his 6 month check up today. He went back all by himself. They took xrays and cleaned his teeth. He didn't look like he enjoyed it all that much, but the dentist gave him an A+. He said we still need to keep an eye on the cross bite situation which led to the thumbsucking at night discussion. Brantley doesn't want to suck his thumb, but he does it in his sleep. We have to get him to stop before his permanent teeth start coming in. The dentist said he should start losing teeth in the next year. He recomended Mavala Stop. I told him the stuff we tried didn't work - Brantley just woke up with a bad taste in his mouth. The dentist said this stuff tastes really bad. I hate to do this, but Brantley has to stop and he can't do it on his own because he doesn't know he does it. The other problem is knowing if he has stopped or not.

Gingerbread House

Today at school, Brantley's class worked on gingerbread houses. Actually, milk carton and graham cracker houses. The best part was the Grandma and Pop came to help Brantley with his. I heard that Pop got to help a little with Brantley's house and Grandma did her part by helping the other kids and giving praise for their wonderful houses. Here he is showing off the finished product.

Cassanova

Last night was the annual firm Christmas party at the Country Club. So, I was all dressed up, hair done, and even makeup. Brantley was in the bathroom and I walked by. He says, "Mom, you look pretty." He said something about my hair and even said, "Your eyes are pretty." He already knows just what to say. I guess it helped that I was wearing his favorite color (now that I want to be flashy!) He'll have some girl wrapped around his finger when he gets older.