Powerhouse CHEER All-Stars!!!!

As you can tell Ashely lovvvveeeeessssss her uniform for her competition cheer squad. I think it is a little too tummy showing for me and not to mention that her squad age range is from 9-15 yrs old. (Mainly 9-10 yr olds)
Her first competiton is next month Oct 12th.

Mom & Dad I'll post her schedule at a later date so you all can try to come see her show off her favorite tumbling skills.

Gotta Go,
Brandi

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Fair Time Yeahhhhhh!!!!!

Can you guess Jarrett's favorite ride????? Hummmmm Yeah you got it. The Nascar ride. He rode almost every car on that ride. As he was riding he was trying to talk NASCAR to the other boys who had a "I don't know what your talking about" look on their faces. Yeah he is a little addicted. He can name all of the drivers for almost every Nascar car and their logos.
Oh look Jarrett found his friend Daniel and his family. I have this same picture from last year. I can't wait to scrapbook that.

Jarrett also loved the helicopters......

The Caterpillar rollarcoaster.....

The slide.......

The berry go round.....

But we found something he didn't like....


The Dinosaur blowup thing that a man controlled the head of. The worker would pull a cord and the dinosaur's head would act like it was eating someone walking by. Needless to say we had to cross this to go to and from the NASCAR ride. Don't you just love the sisterly love helping him by it. Isn't Ashley sweet!!! I'm pretty sure Brooke was 3 steps ahead of us at that moment. I had to try hard to keep her with us, b/c she was tooooo excited.


Brooke had it made this year. She could still ride all of the little rides and she has graduated to.......
This.... (This one was her favorite!)
And this.....
But not this..... She got in line with it with Ashley and I kept trying to ask her if she was sure she wanted to do this this year. As she watched it spin upside down forever she agreed it wasn't a wise choice this year. )Thsi ride is the only ride I have found that disrupts my equilibrium system. I couldn't walk staright and was sick as a dog which is rare for me.)


Here she is swinging and loving it.

Sisterly love....
Yeah!!! Ashley has a riding partner.

All in all the kids had a blast!!!! We ate food from the churches, rode all of the rides that weren't broken and there were a few (One even broke while the girls were on it.), got cotton candy, played the no way to lose duckie game (Brooke won a large stuffed animal that I would have called small and a beanie babie looking animal & Jarrett won 2 cars which had him in hog heaven), and had a great family time. Jarrett has graduated to riding more rides. Brooke has graduated to the big rides, and Ashley is content riding anything and everything she can. Yeah I minded the doctors and didn't ride anything. There was a time when I was alone with the girls and would have rode if I had had the money. (Jason held onto it so I wouldn't have had to bring my purse.) I still had an awesome time watching the kids faces. Escpecially Brooke's first upside down ride face. It was priceless!!!!

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Girl Scout shirts!!!

Here is what our shirts look like that we made at the last meeting. Brooke loves hers. Check out her swap hat too. Here is her whole outfit she will be wearing to the Pajama Jam this Friday. I have to go buy me some pajama pants. All of mine are Christmasie and don't match the T-shirts.
Here is her swap hat. I have pinned all of the swaps we have made on it. Parents your girl will get her hat this Friday and you can pin all of their swaps we made last year on it. New girls: we will try to make a swap at each meeting so you all can fill your hat up to. Also you can swap a swap at the Pajama Jam this weekend.
I can't wait until Friday night. I have got the day off from work so I can rest up since it is harder to stay up all night when you get older. I can't wait to take pics also. I love Lockin pics!!!!
Brandi

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September Girl Scout meeting

Agenda:

We ate pizza and drank punch.

We met our new members: Anna-Katherine, Katie, Paige, & Hannah. Yeah :)

We made a star swap for our hats and to trade at the Pajama Jam. P.S. I made you all Swap hats this week. I'll bring them to the Pajama Jam.

We practiced our "Girl Scout Promise" cheer. This taught the girls the promise in a fun easy way. They loved it!!! We also went over girl scout rules for the new girls and this earned them the "Girl Scout Ways" badge they'll get at the next meeting.(See below)

We chatted about what the girls want to do this year in girl scouts. Here are the suggestions from the girls: Camp-out/archery, Park, Movies, Build-a-bear, LibbyLu's, Skating, & Pizza Party.

We Tie-Dyed our T-shirts pink & black. (I can't wait to show you all your shirts. They turned our great!) They earned the following fun patch for making shirts.

Sorry I didn't get to take any pictures. I was too busy with the girls. I will definitely take tons of pics at the Pajama Jam.

These following are the membership disc and star I forgot to give you all at the end of last year. You will get these at our next meeting.

Also at our next meeting: Friday October 17th 6-8pm

We will earn the "Her Story" badge.

We will have a Birthday Party for Juliette Low, Hear her story, make a story for each girl, create our own badge as a swap, and more.

Plus I will pass out the Brownie Bingo sheets. These are the prizes that can be won. Work hard girls!!!!

Mrs. Brandi :)

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Funnies :)

Brooke funny: We went to Picadilly yesterday to eat supper. Well I guess it has been so long since I've taken her there that she doesn't remember how it works. She was amazed and loved choising her food. Her only funny happened when I turned my back while I chose my own food. She took this time to....take a guess? give up? Grab her own roll. I apologized to the lady and she handed me a plate for Brooke's roll. I then told Brooke that she couldn't just grab food. Overall we had a great evening just me and her. We talked about school, church, the upcoming fair, and her dove hunting adventure from that day. Her favorite subject is art. (A child after my own heart.) I can't wait to see her school pics from Friday. She took great ones last year.

Jarrett funny: Ashley was helping Jarrett potty while I was gone to a Girl Scout meeting and while in the bathroom he noticed the flowered toilet paper. (I never buy anything, but white and they were out of white.) He turned to Ashley and asked in his very serious 3 yr old voice "Who painted the toliet paper?" Ashley laughed and said she didn't know. She later told me so the next time I helped him in the bathroom I asked him who painted the toilet paper to see if he had figured it out in his cute little mind. He said "Your girl scouts and Ashley." I guess he is really paying attention to his surroundings as he plays quitely by himself with his trains during my girl scout meetings. We do one craft (at least) at our meetings.

Ashley funny: She doesn't have many at this age. Plus the ones she does have she'd kill me if I mentioned them. I did love her school and her teachers. I see how she satys so skinny. She has to walk many miles a day just during school. I am really glad we made the move to west monroe. We love it!!!

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Poor Sick Jarrett. :(

Jarrett was supposed to have a play date with his old friend Royne from his old daycare. Everything was going fine and then I get a call at work from my hubby at the daycare. He said the daycare was rejecting Jarrett due to his eye being pink. I had hubby bring Jarrett to me at work and sure enough it was solid matted together and extremely red. I took him to Dr. Bodron and sure enough it was a bad case of ....... dum dum dum........ Pink eye. Ughhhhhhhh!!!!! Jarrett was so upset about missing his playdate so I bought him a car from Target. I know I know I didn't let him touch anything in Target. I held him the whole time. Sorry you guys. This is Jarrett laying around. He did this all weekend. He was one sick little puppy. His eyes stayed swollen and matted. Poor baby.This picture doesn't show the redness of his eyes very well. I also took this picture after he had been on drops for several days. He was on drops from Friday Sept 12th through today. His eyes were finally clear this past Thursday so I let him go to daycare yesterday for a couple of hours while I went to my own doctor appt.

Awwww How sweet!!!! Thankfully none of us got Jarrett's pink eye. I quarentine at my house when we get sick. The bad thing is I can't keep a 3yr old in his room when he's sick so Brooke and Ashley have to stay in there's alot. It works. The girls don't mind. They would rather stay in their room then get sick.


On several funny notes: While we were shopping at Target the other day I realized that Jarrett wants everything on the car isle and a "bummer" (Hummer). He got so excited and yelled to the top of his lungs "Look Mom a Bummer!!!!" Needless to say this Christmas is going to be an easy one for me to shop for him. Ashley is another story. Brooke is pretty easy as well. She wants a bike and do have to admit she needs one.

Another funny story is actually an embarrassing one to me. Jarrett and I went to eat at Picadilly yesterday while we were spending my off day together. Forgive me for saying we were the only people under 70 there since it was 11am. I am telling you this so you'd understand how much they enjoyed a 3 yr old in line with them and I am being sarcastic. First Jarrett kept playing cars in the floor while we waited which was fine with me. It was keeping him occupied and he wasn't in anyone's way he was just a little loud with his racing noises. Next he tried to play with the lady behind us unsuccessfully might I say. At our house we pick at each other calling each other silly funny names. (Ex: macaroni head, jello head, bed head, car head, etc.) Well the next thing I know he has turned to lady behind us and called her a "Pick Head". I do have to admit now that I think of it in a 3 yr old voice it might have sounded like a bad word, but to me I understood what he said b/c I can understand him. Of course I leaned down and told him not to call people names that that was not nice. I was hoping the lady didn't hear him. Well she did and she let me know she did not at all nicely. She said "What did he say?" (real meanly) I then explained that he was trying to play with her and maybe our family should stop playing like that. Well she still didn't understand and she said again real meanly "What did he say?" I then said "He called you a pick head." She just scowled at me so I turned around and tried to help him pick out his jello. Which in itself was another ordeal. They had 3 color choices and I guess he's not used to getting to make a choice. This took him a while until I finally just picked it for him. The people behind us was not tolerable at all at the hold up in the line. I was trying my hardest to hurry us through and I thought for me and a 3 yr old we went through the line in record time. I didn't even get to think about what I wanted so I just spouted off things and later wished I had picked other things. I don't think I will be going back there by myself with him. I was a nervous wreck by the time we reached the table. He had almost knocked our tray off once, wouldn't go, the lady behind us kept pushing us forward and I kept having to reach over her for things like our drinks and cup lids, etc. Maybe I'll just stick to sit down restaurants where they bring it to you.

I know this is a windy blog I just had so much to talk about. Sorry. I will have to blog tomarrow about our girl socut meeting, Brooke's star student week, Ashley's open house which in itself was a trip.
Well talk to you all tomarrow.
Brandi

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The Fabulous Life of Brooke :)

Brooke is Star Student of the week so we had to send this poster. Don't you love the way Brooke spray painted it. My little artist!!! I just contributed the computer generated titles she did the rest.

More star student week to come.
Brandi

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Coleman's Mom's legitament complaint. :(

The following is from Coleman Scott's carepage. (P.s. Hey Coleman & Caden. Jarrett loved your card you sent him. He looks at it several times a day and talks about sending you guys toys and candy.)

On our way home from church we picked up the Sunday paper. Anyone look at the TARGET ad today???(Target is, I mean WAS, my favorite store, so I always grab their ad first) Today I grabbed it, and saw this... (Was a picture of Target's sale paper with all Breast Cancer awareness pink items on sale.)
If you don’t know by now- September is CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS MONTH- right? YESTERDAY was NATIONAL CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS DAY- What about "POWERFUL GOLD?" Have all the carepages and caringbridge sites not been saying this enough? Have we not emailed enough people? Have we not written letters to newspaper after newspaper, Have we not worn our t-shirts, gold ribbons, put our stories out there hoping to make a difference, signed petitions, gathered signatures, joined groups, walked our laps,organized fundraisers… sent letters to our 'leaders' in office, screamed it from our rooftops enough to get some awareness??? Have we done enough to make a difference? Today made me wonder…have we done enough for our kids?obviously we have a LOT more work to do.
The front page of the Target ad is FULL of PINK, (not gold for the kids) but, PINK items...You can get a pink vacuum, pink pots and pans, a pink steam mop, a pink 10 speed mixer…*BIG SIGH*, all to raise money for BREAST CANCER, because quote, “Target proudly supports breast cancer research and education”. Thanks Target…thanks. Do you not make a whole lot more money off your toy department than the bra department in your store?
Now don’t get me wrong. I mean, I'm a woman, I have breasts. I support breast cancer research…I do. I’m not saying we shouldn’t support a cure for it, but I'm also a mother watching her son fight for his life because of cancer.
I’m not angry they’re donating to Breast Cancer Research. There are women I LOVE who have fought the monster. I don't take anything away from their fight. I’m happy they’re getting funding, that it’s saving lives…I’m happy they’ve made so much progress in curing it…I'm happy for the awareness that's everywhere. I've bought the pink items... I’m not saying we all shouldn’t support it. What I AM saying is CHILDREN deserve the SAME AWARENESS AND SUPPORT!!!Read the fine print in Target's ad…”Dyson and Target will partner together to give $30 of each upright purchase and $10 of each hand vac purchase to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation- total donation $1.4 million…” It goes on…more #'s...I stopped there. I’m just so **** angry. (I know it's Sunday- I'm just infuriated! As the boys would say, "sorry Dod, Sorry Santa")What I’m angry about is…WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS??? It's an insult to these little heroes, that so few are recognizing what they go through, or too few care. Couldn't Target also proudly support THEM?Especially the timing of this ad. Could they have put the pink items on sale in OCTOBER, when it IS national BREAST cancer awareness month?This is the Weekend of CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS DAY, the MONTH OF SEPTEMBER…CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS...HELLOOOOO???? Is anyone aware??? We obviously aren't shouting it loud enough, and I’m frustrated.
I’ll leave you with this, and then I’m off to take a nap- I’ve got a stress headache. When I wake up, I’m going to start writing letters again…TEAM LARSON NEV-VA DIVS UP!!! Today was a slap in the face to Kids fighting Cancer...to kids who have paid the price for this lack of funding. They paid the price with their lives. To the people working so hard to gain awareness for this fight. It's ridiculous.
************Each school day, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer.
*On the average 12,500 children and teens will be diagnosed with some form of cancer each year in this country.
*One in 330 children will develop cancer by age 20.
*Although the 5 year survival rate is steadily increasing, one quarter of children will die 5 years from the time of diagnosis.
*Cancer remains the #1 disease killer of America's children - more than Cystic Fibrosis, Muscular Dystrophy, Asthma and AIDS combined.
*In the U.S. almost 3,000 children do not survive cancer each year.
*Over the past two decades, only ONE new cancer drug has been approved for pediatric use.
*Currently there are between 30-40,000 children undergoing cancer treatment in the U.S.
*As a nation, we spend over $14 BILLION (that's with a B!!!) per year on the space program, but only $35 MILLION on Childhood Cancer Research each year.
*There are 15 children diagnosed with cancer for every one child diagnosed with pediatric AIDS. Yet, the U.S. invests approximiately $595,000 for research per victim of pediatric AIDS and only $20,000 for each victim of childhood cancer.
*Research funds are scarce as most money is diverted to well-publicized adult forms of cancer, such as breast and prostate.
*Right now, this second, somewhere in America, there are 7 children fighting for their lives who won't live through the day.
This face bears a repeat…it’s how I’m feeling right now. WHAT IS IT GOING TO TAKE FOR OUR COUNTRY TO WAKE UP???? WHAT?!?!?!?!
Blessings to you all…Team LarsonWatch this video (thanks Mimi) and tell me they don't deserve better than what our country is doing for them...
****Addition to this post...thanks to Sarah N for posting this info in her message-
http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/10/10440.html
Target CorporationAddress: 1000 Nicollet MallMinneapolis, MN 55403Phone: 612-304-6073Fax: 612-696-5400


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Kids :)

Brooke & her build-a-bear. She has proven to be a smart one. I told her she could only have one outfit and a bear at the birthday party my hubby took her to saturday. So....... What did she pick?????? A wedding outfit that came with a hair accessory, garter belt, &.......shoes. Smart- eh!
Here's Jarrett and one of his favorite things to do. He will sit for hours on the couch coloring with "Color Wonder markers". (the only markers I'll let them have) (I learned my lesson with Brooke. She would color her legs, face, the TV, her toys, etc..... I know it's hard to see in these pictures, but the kids are covered in..... Baked Potatoes. And you ask why??????
Well I'll have to ask the church why. They decided to have a Potatoe Bash as their fun party to kick of the children choir program. The kids loved it. Brooke the little sweet heart was concerned about getting it in my car. (I have leather seats so I wasn't worried.) Jarrett just kept telling me about these 2 boys who threw potatoes at him and he threw them back and hit their butts. Well if you all can tell I'm pretty sure Jarrett came up to only their butt. He was one of the smallest there, but he had a blast. I can't wait to see them in a Christmas musical. At our old church if you couldn't come every sunday you couldn't participate. No I didn't judge. I just moved us to another church where they could particiate. We lovvvveeeee our new church. My self and the kids will probably join this Sunday. I just dread having to stand up infront of the church. I was the type that would get nauseated when I had to answer roll call in school. Ok you guys stop laughing. I really am shy I just know you all. Well I better go get ready to run around town for my girl scout meeting tomarrow. I have to buy some last minute supplies.
Brandi
P.s. See you tomarrow my girl scouts!!!!!

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