The Brann Clan

Store Pictures

2009-05-20T22:25:00.004-05:00

Okay, here are all of the pictures of the store, in the process of setting up!

The Tooth Fairy should be fired.

2009-03-11T09:16:00.002-05:00

The Tooth Fairy really stinks at her job. At least she does at our house. Marissa lost another tooth (I have lost count as to how she has lost now) on Friday night. Marissa is aware that our Tooth Fairy doesn't work on week-ends, but here it is Wednesday on the next week, and the tooth fairy finally decided to grace us with her presence, and still managed to screw things up. Marissa finally came to me late last night and asked me for the perfume she could spray to let the Tooth Fairy know that she had lost a tooth. (You see, our Tooth Fairy also manages to get sick, and with a cold, she can not smell when there is a tooth waiting for her. So, Mom, being the genius that I am realized that we just needed to spray some perfume on Marissa's pillow and in her room right before bed, so the Tooth Fairy would know there was a tooth there. ) This was my clue that we had a problem. Marissa had been putting her tooth under her pillow every night since Friday, and still no response. Well, last night I was going to correct that. The Tooth Fairy called on her (sometimes) trusty helper Matt to put the dollar under the pillow last night. Well, he did do that. And only that. Marissa came to me this morning and asked if I put a dollar under her pillow. I said "No, it must have been the Tooth Fairy" She said, "Well that's weird, because she didn't take the tooth. It's still there!"

Thanks Tooth Fairy! Next time, get a better helper!

The Run-Down

2009-02-28T16:22:00.003-06:00

So I told you all upfront that I am terrible about the blog thing. I am going to attempt to briefly update the last 4 months? We'll see how this goes. Christmas was in Utah this year, and I think I took 2 pictures of the whole trip, and I can't even find those! The kids did ski school, as did I, although they did much better than I did. I attempted snowboarding and quickly learned that I am an old dog, and this is a new trick. It didn't go well.

Marissa got baptized! She looked so beautiful in her dress that Aunt Rachel made! Thanks Ray!

Once again Gavin got hurt. This was actually the same day as the ice storm, and he slipped on the ice and hit the side of his eye. It puffed right up, and then the next morning it had all drained into his eye, and it turned into a nice shiner for about a week!

Iced-in and no school

2009-01-28T08:57:00.003-06:00

So I am terrible at the whole blog thing. I knew I would be, and yet, just like me, I caved into the peer pressure, and here it is. So I have missed all of Thanksgiving, and Christmas, with pictures, although I am still hoping to get some up at some point.

Last night in Dallas we had freezing rain, so they canceled school today. What am I going to do? I am debating between making them all help me clean the house, which needs to be done, and being the nice mom, and reading books, and playing board games all day. Currently I am in bed, blogging. That doesn't bode well for the cleaning idea. We will see...

Marissa is in the GT program at school (gifted and talented) and she is currently studying Ancient Egypt. She is working on a report, and our assignment at home is to create a poster, or diorama of some sort to go along with the report. Soooo, she has chosen a cat. Heaven help me. I don't have a clue what to do with this. She said that Ancient Egyptians used to view cats as Gods, and this I understand, but what am I supposed to do other that put a picture of a cat on a poster board? She told me that they used to put earrings on their cats, so she wants to do that. Okay, and what else? Help! I asked her what the other kids in her class were doing. She said one kid is doing his on pyramids (great for a diorama), another is doing tombs, (again, easy) So I am left to wonder what to do with an Ancient Egyptian cat.

Our (Part) Evil kids for Halloween

2008-11-11T09:10:00.003-06:00

Halloween at the cabin in OK! Gavin was Indiana Jones this year with a whip that played the Indiana Jones theme song over and over and over again... that song never gets old, duh duh duh duh, duh duh duh...

Ethan also wanted to be Indiana Jones, until Gavin saw it and wanted to be the same as Ethan, so Ethan graciously agreed to be a knight, because he got a cool sword!

Marissa, is a Medevil Princess, although when she was asked by my girlfriend what she was, she replied "I'm and Evil Princess" My girlfriend looked a little perplexed, and said, "Oh, You mean Medevil Princess" to which Marissa said "Yeah, I guess". My girfriend then asked her if she knew what Medevil meant, and Marissa said "Yeah, Kind-of good, kind-of bad." And then turned and walked away. So yes, here is my "Mid-Evil Princess" Marissa, kind-of good, kind-of bad... but all cute!

Little Boy Humor isn't funny to Mom's

2008-11-11T08:54:00.004-06:00

At what point does the gross kid in school stop being funny? Seriously? When do we all collectively realize that what they are doing is gross, and that we should stop laughing and encouraging them? Yesterday, Marissa, Ethan and Karoline (a neighbor) came in from playing outside. They were all giggling. When I asked what was so funny, they all broke down laughing and told me Gavin had just peed and pooped outside in the yard. Well, apparently ages 4,5,7, and 10 years old still find this kind of thing quite humorous; unfortunatley, their Mother does not!

Camping with the Brann Family

2008-11-03T20:10:00.006-06:00

Our first official "Brann Family Reunion". Hopefully not our last; although, there is one thing we could do without next time... What we are calling "Puke Fest 08" Which consisted of 5 of the 9 grandkids throwing up multiple times in a ridiculously short amount of time.

The weather was so perfect for us. Who knew Oklahoma was so great in November? The kids all enjoyed fishing, canoe rides, and even a little swimming!

Thank heavens we had a bucket in the car. Sadly this was the second time in the car for little Gavin, and the first time we didn't have the bucket!

Blaine's real "whopper"!

Full House for the Weekend

2008-10-27T20:59:00.002-05:00

We got to "dog-sit" Uncle David and Aunt Aimee's dogs this weekend, and I have to say the highlight was when we took the dogs for a walk on Sunday afternoon. Gavin and Cooper rolled head-over-heels twice while they were running, and "Meister" got away from Marissa once. Matt and I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. It was fun for everyone!

my boys

2008-09-18T08:47:00.001-05:00

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Gavin Turns 4!

2008-09-07T17:33:00.004-05:00

Gavin turned 4 on August 25. I can't believe my baby is 4! I feel so old!

Yes, we gave Gavin a Drum set. We are a bit crazy, but somebody's kid needs to play the drums, right?! He loves them, and they are great in the theater room, where we have extra sound-proofing.

We had Gavin's birthday party at ASI Gymnastics. The kids had so much fun. We had half the neighborhood with us!
At the end, they brought Gavin to the front to give him a present, and the coach in charge was playing with Gavin and asked him if he wanted a dirty diaper for his birthday. Gavin was not amused. When they brought out his gift (a free pass to come back and play for a couple of hours) he wanted nothing to do with it. He was so offended! Hee Hee. Even though he gets older, he doesn't loose his orneriness!

First Day of School

2008-09-07T17:00:00.002-05:00

Cute Kids on their first day of school. Marissa in 2nd grade, Ethan in Kindergarten, and Gavin in Pre-school.

Matt's Olympic Triathalon in Austin, TX

2008-09-07T16:22:00.003-05:00

We went out to dinner the night before the race so Matt could "carb-load" and then attempted to see the Bats that live under the Congress Street Bridge. We waited for over an hour to see them come out, and they never did. We could hear them, and smell them, and we did see maybe 5 of them; but from what we heard, there are supposed to be up to 1 million of them that come out at dusk to eat. They even had a bat festival going on that night, and no one got to see them! We were so disappointed.

Matt with the kids right before his 7:10am start time.

Coming out of the water and headed toward the bike portion.

Matt just finished his second triathlon....This one was an "Olympic Distance" where he had complete a 1500 meter open water swim, bike 40 kilometers (25 miles) an run a 10k (6.2 miles).

He finished in a tad under 3 hours (2:53) and was pleased with the time for his first race...

Houston, We have a problem!

2008-08-24T16:12:00.004-05:00

The kids and I got to tag along on Matt's business trip to Houston this month, and we went to the Nasa Space Center. We had so much fun. The kids loved it.

Ethan found a Star Wars exhibit and he was in heaven.

We also went to the Children's Museum in Houston. It was so much fun.

Injuries in 3's

2008-08-24T15:36:00.003-05:00

It started simply but sadly enough. We had some friends come by to visit for a bit, and Gavin took a toy to the face. Another little boy threw a nerf gun, and it hit him right in the face. We made a quick trip to the urgent care, and came away with 3 stiches. Sadly, one of the stiches had already come out first thing the next morning.
Next, it was Ethan's turn. Hardly a week later, Ethan, Gavin and Marissa were playing happily upstairs, when Ethan tripped, and landed headfirst on the corner of the window sill. Matt was in the shower, and I had just walked in the door with a babysitter for the night, when the screaming commenced. It took me a second to figure out who was hurt, because Gavin was screaming worse than Ethan was. But, as soon as I saw Ethan, I started screaming too. He looked like a horror movie. He was covered in blood. Once again Matt and I ran to the Urgent Care, and left the babysitter to clean up the blood on the carpet.

They decided not to do stiches, they used glue instead, which I was grateful for, because I didn't think either of us could handle any more trauma that day.

They say accidents come in 3, and we are hoping that we are finished now. We went to Aunt Julee's house for Shayden's baptism, and Gavin was playing outside, and managed to drop a large paving stone on his foot. He lost his toe nail about a week later. Ewww.

Girls Vampire Night Out!

2008-08-24T15:13:00.003-05:00

A bunch of my girlfriends and I went to the Book release party for "Breaking Dawn" at midnight on August 2nd, 2008. In preparation for the evening we had my brother-in-law Blaine "Bite" us so wee could feel the part! We got a lot of compliments on the bite marks!
This is some of the girls: Becky Corry, Emily Robinson, Me, Sarah Reed, Wendy Rasmussen, and Julee Smith

This girl won the costume contest at Barnes and Noble, she is dressed like Alice at the Prom from "Twilight". She looked amazing.
We went to Cheesecake factory for a little dessert before our long wait in line!
At Barnes and Noble: Carie Ann, Wendy, Me, and Emily.

Yeah!! We finally got the book. Julee and I were so excited, we got home about 1am, and stayed up reading until 2, then read ALL the next day. The cousins played together all day and we read. I think they ate popcorn most of the day, because we refused to put the book down to cook!

2008-07-29T15:24:00.004-05:00

Just a few family pictures. Aren't they all beautiful!?

We went to a Bees Baseball game with our friends the Williams'. I don't know that we watched very much, but we talked a lot, and had a great time. It was fun to see Marissa and Whitney reconnect so well after being away for this long. They even got to have a sleep-over a couple of nights later.

2008-07-29T15:02:00.004-05:00

Elizabeth and the kids and I decided that we wanted to take the train to Rachel's house to spend the day. The kids loved it, and it all worked out so smoothly, until it was time to come home. We missed the train we needed by 10 minutes, and so when it came time to transfer lines, we had an hour to wait.... We finally got onto our train, and made it all the way back to Clearfield, and then we couldn't get the door on the train open to actually get off! The kids started crying when they realized we couldn't get out. Liz and I had had it by then, and we had to go to the next stop, hop off, get on the next train going back the other direction, and get off there. We finally did, and as we were walking to the car, Gavin fell and bloodied his knee quite badly. At that point what would have been a 45 minute drive home from my sister's house turned into a 2 1/2 hour ordeal, with an injury to boot! Believe it or not, I am still a fan of public transportation, just not with 6 kids in tow!

This was on the 4th of July at the park in Layton. The kids were so amazed by all of the ducks.

Cutest kids around!

Jordan after Rachel and I finished sewing in all of her extensions.

We went to the Dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point. The kids loved it.

Sienna is getting so big, and cute as ever!

Fouth of July in Utah

2008-07-29T13:59:00.005-05:00

The kids got to run in a 1K race by Aunt Rachels house. They had so much fun. Gavin actually finished in 2nd place in the 3-5 year old category. He was flat out running the whole time!

Mean while, Ethan chose to walk about a third of the race, and took a "Brian Regan" stand on it..."I still get a whole popsicle, even if I only run part of the race, I still get a whole popsicle!"

I got to experience the joy of hair extentions! Who would have thought that I would get to sew in braids? I am sure that most professionals would have been appalled, but Rachel and I thought we did pretty well!

Ruth attempting to make fondant for the first time ever. It didn't quite work the way I had planned, but it was fun!

The kids had so much fun swimming at Aunt Rachel's house. The view there is amazing!

Playing with cousins: Isabelle and Gabe. Ethan didn't want to get wet, so he and baby Greyson stayed behind the camera with me.

2008-06-22T15:59:00.000-05:00

Our Newest Addition!
Meet 6 week old "Cooper"! I think we are all in love! He is just like having a new baby! I have been up 4 or 5 times every night! He has been so fun so far... we will see if I still think so in a few more days!

2008-06-22T15:48:00.005-05:00

Ethan's pre-school graduation. He told me he needed to look really nice for their ceremony that night. I think he accomplished it.

After a full day of playing with the cousins, I turned on a show for the kids, and within a few minutes, this is how Ethan, Gavin and Landry had fallen asleep! Too cute.

Ethan is starting to read, and he is so excited that he is constantly reading to Gavin. It is so precious.

2008-05-15T20:57:00.003-05:00

My boys are constantly making me laugh. Ethan is on his head 90% of the day, but a picture is worth a thousand words!

Girls Weekend/Boys Campout

2008-05-11T18:06:00.001-05:00

Oh what a weekend!!! Matt and I had a gender segregated weekend. He went on the Father/Son campout with Bro-in-law Blaine, and Brother David. They had a great time cooking a dutch oven dinner, and the typical smores! He made sure to bring hot dog buns, ketchup, and mustard for the boys, but neglected to bring the hot dogs! Gavin and Ethan played with glow sticks all day long. At about 8'oclock, Gavin crawled into Matt's lap and promptly fell asleep. Ethan and cousin Christian were so excited to be sleeping in a tent, that they asked to go to bed at about 9. All in all, I would say it was a success!

Meanwhile, Marissa and I went to McKinney to spend a girls weekend with Julee and her girls. We went to Olive Garden for a fabulous dinner, and then went home to watch a movie. The next day, Julee and I got to pretend to be 15, and we went to a book signing with Stephenie Meyer!!!! (the author of the Twilight book series) It started at 2pm, and she spoke for about 30 minutes, and then we waited to get our books signed. There were 1000 people there to get books signed, and we were about number 750. Julee and I entertained ourselves for the first couple of hours joking about how we were probably going to be star-struck and end up bluting out "We're your biggest fans!!" At 5:15 pm, we were still waiting and we guessed we still had at least another hour, so Julee walked up to one of the women in charge and told her that her "breasts were about to explode, and could we please move ahead in the line?" The woman just stared at her, and Julee explained that she was a nursing mother, and there was no way she could make it another hour and half to get our books signed, so the woman let us go with the next group! Thank heaven for Julee's boobs!

When it was finally our turn to get our books signed, I said Hello, and quickly asked her if she would write my name, yes, and then sign the book. She looked at me and asked what she was saying 'yes' to. And I told her that I was having an ongoing debate with my girlfriends as to whether or not "Bella" was going to become a vampire, so if she could just write 'yes' that would be helpful. She laughed, and said that she would hate to write that, and then I might have to "eat crow later if she didn't become a vampire". Needless to say, I didn't get my 'yes', but I at least tried! I am still completely convinced that she will be one! All in all, it was a fabulous time!

2008-05-04T14:31:00.000-05:00

We finished up the soccer season on Saturday. Marissa's team lost their first game the whole season, but she had a blast playing.

Ethan's games were a riot to watch. We are happy to say that he is very fast and scored a lot of goals. Sadly, many of these were for the wrong team, but, he loved playing the games. He didn't like practice much (I think because he didn't get a treat at the end of practice!), but he always had a smile on his face when he was on the field. This picture with his coach, at his end-of-season party where he got his trophy!

Marissa and Ethan helped me babysit Miss Wendy's babies one afternoon. They are only 2
weeks apart, and cute as anything. It proves to me that I could never have handled twins! The kids loved it though.

Here are some pictures of the kids hangin' out after church today.

2008-04-24T19:40:00.001-05:00

Okay, So I am hopping on the Blog bandwagon. I don't know how good I will be, but I will try. I am starting with our most recent trip to Brazil for Matt's brother Chris's wedding.

This is a picture of Copacabana Beach! Sadly I actually thought it was located in the Bahamas, but it isn't! Our hotel was right in the middle of it!

This is a picture of Sugar Loaf. We got to ride the tram up to the top, which is the wires you can see. At the top of the Christus which overlooks Rio de Janeiro. The picture doesn't do justice to how large it is. We are standing really far out in front of it to get it in the picture.

Matt and I right before heading to the wedding!

The wedding was so amazing. It felt like a celebrity wedding! As a side note to explain, this was at close to 1am, and it was 90 degrees with like 100% humidity. So yes, the jacket came off. And no, it's not beer in front of us. It is a Brazilian drink called Guarana, and it is yummy!

Matt at the Brazilian soccer stadium. He was like a 12 year old! It was great!

This is a picture of the wedding/reception area for the wedding. It was crazy, they brought in a dance floor, and disco ball, lights etc. The flowers were everywhere and smelled amazing! Thsi This is the box of chocolates that Marcelli's mother gave us as we left the wedding. Each chocolate was sitting inside a fabric flower! There were probably 12 tables full of these at the wedding. I was in heaven. I think I ate my weight in chocolate, and let me tell you, that isn't a small number any more!