The Brame Family Happenings

Just Nolan

Because he's so darn cute:)

 
 
 
 
 

Back to School Photoshoot

Each year I try to take the girls out (and now Nolan, I keep forgetting!) for a photoshoot. I'm not very consistent at it, but I try. I have a few reasons for doing the photoshoots. 1) The girls love it,  2) I hate buying school pictures. They are so expensive for what they get so I'd rather take a few fun pictures and then have the girls choose their favorites. and 3) I need to learn to use my camera better, so this gives me practice!

Here are a few of my faves:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
*and just so in the future, when Kennedy looks back at this, the reason I don't have many pictures of her is because she was being a stinker and not cooperating that day!

 

Soccer

Soccer season is upon us in full swing. Kennedy is playing soccer for the third year and Olivia is playing for her first year. So far, we have not had any rain during practices or games, though I think that that may soon change. Both of the girls are loving it. Olivia is extremely funny. Her coach is named Ryan Hamilton. But to Olivia, it's RyanHamilton. She refers to him as RyanHamilton each and everytime she talks to him. It has gotten to be a running joke in our household. Olivia's  biggest hurdle in soccer is that she is so smiley all the time. I keep telling her to put on her mean face, but that just makes her giggle. Soccer here is fairly easy, we have a big park area that has about ten soccer fields. I think that Kennedy only has three games that are not on our field. Plus, all of the games are during the week, so no having to juggle multiple games on Saturdays. I love the picture with the sun glare...It's about time we had some sun, even if we had to wait unitl September!

 
 
 
 
 

Nolan makes new friends at soccer....

 
 

Go Mariners!

At the end of August, we took the girls  kids on a final, end of summer, hiatus. It was just a quick overnighter but happened to fall on Brian's birthday. The plan was to shop, check into the hotel, swim, nap, go to a 7:05 pm Mariners game, then wake up the next day and swim and take our time getting home, ith lunch at our favorite: Red Robin.

Here's how it really went: Got started later than I wanted. Since we weren't on a 'schedule', there was always something else somebody wanted to do before we actually got on the road. Gas, store, library. (Can you guess who needed to go to the library?) We got up there and could check in right away, so we got our room and discovered that I had forgotten to pack mine and Olivia's swimsuit. I wasn't concerned with not having one--and by that I mean, I was okay with not swimming- but Olivia had to have one. There was a Ross and a Macy's just a few blocks from our hotel so we hoofed it down to Ross hoping to find a deal on one since we already own several. They had nothing. nada. zilch. Apparently August is past swimsuit season, even for Ross. So we headed back to Macy's and scoured the place. We found 1 swimsuit on the entire childrens floor. It was a size too big but it ended up serving the purpose. We got that one (for a whopping $3.48) and headed back to swim. They really only got to swim for about an hour before we needed to get showered and ready for the game. Our plan was to go out to dinner before the game but what I found with five children is that EVERYTHING takes longer. Getting everybody showered and ready didn't leave us much time to eat (and the driving around looking for someplace took the rest of the time), so we opted to eat at the game. The best deals were outside of the park, so a few of us got hot dogs and everybody else ate in the stadium.

 
 
 
 
 

The kids did awesome during the game. We had to do a little bit of seat rearranging when Megan couldn't stop touching the person in front of her and I was getting the not so subtle vibe of obvious annoyance from the lady. But other than that, minimal fidgety-ness, they seemed t be into the game and they all, including Nolan, stayed awake the whole time. And the icing on the cake was that the weather was perfect.

 
 
 
 
 

The next morning, we swam, went to Pike Street Market and came home. Kennedy was pretty excited to find her name on the bricks that line the Pike Street Market.

 
We also had out cariacatures  (I think that that is spelled wrong, but spell check couldn't fix it)done. Megan was super excited,but played it super cool.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

We ended the day with soccer practice for Olivia and celebrated Brian's birthday with pizza and a Coldstone ice cream cake. Yum!

 

 

3!

 
My little Megan turned three on May 6th. How crazy is that?!! Lucky her, she got to celebrate all week long. On Sunday the 1st, Aunt Cindy and Uncle Brandon came out to celebrate. We ate salmon, potatoes, maybe salad (I can't remember:))  and cake for dessert. From them she got a dress that Aunt Cindy made along with a matching purse/diaper bag and a new swimsuit. They also brought her out balloons, which survived a really long time (2 weeks...and then Hayden and I sucked the helium out). 

She was very excited to wear the birthday crown that day....and for many days after that.

While she is vey tempermental, she also is a joy to be around. Her vocabulary is getting out of control! She is so hilarious with all of her bits of wit and wisdom that she throws around.