Yesterday was picture retake day at school and both boys were gone on the original day, so these better be good or we'll have to go somewhere else! I hope these pictures that Brayton wanted on his camera are very close to how they went at school! Brayton absolutely loves having his hair all styled. He stands there while I am drying it (trying to get it to go some direction) smiling at the mirror the whole time. Hopefully the bump on the right side of his head won't be too noticeable in the school pictures. The boys are having a difficult time with Daylight Savings. They still wake up earlier than necessary and yesterday the boys were both up about 5 and Brayton hit his head on the railing coming up the stairs. Chris was on the couch (also not adapting so well to the time change) so I didn't even know Brayton hit his head (despite his crying) until I woke up.

I absolutely love the boys' sweaters! Brayton's of course is size 8, but seems way too big.




Taite has a girl in his class who has been in his classes since preschool. There has been only one year (I think) that they weren't in the same class. Her mom and I are good friends. I had a couple of sweatshirts that I've given her lately (one shrunk way up when I washed it and the other fit, but was tighter than I care for) and she loves them both. One I brought to school and had Taite give to her and the other I sent to school with him. Carlie has a HUGE crush on Taite and her mom is not one to hide her feelings (one year at meet the teacher, we ran into them and her mom said "Carlie, aren't you going to give Taite a big hug? You've been waiting to all summer!" LOL Anyway, my point is that Shelly (Carlie's mom) sent me an email about the sweatshirt I sent to school with Taite the other day: "thanks, she loved it. 'IT SMELLS LIKE TAITE, IM NEVER GONNA WASH IT' talk about OMG! I sure hope one day when they're old enough to date that he still likes her, or I'm screwed :(! heehee" I really like Carlie too, so I hope she doesn't get her heart broken by my baby! One day this fall, I brought up Carlie's name and Taite blurted out "I just like her like a friend!" I was kind of taken aback, but I think the discussion had been had at school. LOL

Speaking of school, I don't like mean kids! There is a 6th grade boy on the bus who has been calling Taite names and doing inappropriate things (humping bus seats, etc.) on the bus. Taite didn't tell me about the inappropriate things because he was embarrassed, but he is pretty crushed about being called 'fat' and 'fool'. We are trying our hardest to help him not to let these things effect him, but we all know how cruel kids can be. I keep telling myself that when I was a stay-at-home mom, teachers would say "When a student comes to my classroom, I can tell which ones had stay-at-home moms by the confidence they would show" and this is my comfort. I hope the confidence in himself will get him through this time and any others he has in the future. I also think, that is probably why this other boy is so cruel, he doesn't have the home structure that our boys have so he takes it out on others. It makes me sad, but I'm glad that as a family we can work through these things together!

Both boys have been very "into" books lately. Today I got Brayton a book light so he can hopefully read before getting sleepy and he won't have such trouble falling asleep. A lot of times he'll be in his room reading in his "reading chair". He loves that seat (I'm actually jealous ~ I've always wanted a window seat or some place to curl up in and read in my room)! Taite finally started digging into the dog books I got him from the book orders that come home from school. He likes the true stories and he's ran late for a couple of things when he's been trying to "finish up this one story". We are proud of both boys because they've been chosen for "extra" reading groups because they both read so well (very high levels for their age). The teachers assume that we read to them a lot during their younger years. We really didn't, but I've always liked the idea of having many books around them that they might like so they'll be tempted to pick one up.