March 29, 2008

10 Things I Love about Future....



* He calls mashed Potatoes “Smashed Potatoes”


* He has a fantastic and contagious smile


* He is aware of other people’s hurts and emotions. He is the first to hug a classmate or cousin that needs it
* He has a big space between his big toe and second toe, just like his sister Octavia


* He LOVES to eat. Spaghetti and Meatballs are his favorite


* He loves to draw and color and create. He is the most creative kid I know


* He loves to cook. He likes to make Eng Muffin Pizzas, French toast, and cookies


* He enjoys helping. He takes out the trash, helps unload the dishwasher, helps with laundry


* He loves to play dress-up and pretend to marry the princess


* He is full of hope and has unconditional love for his Dad

March 27, 2008

Easter Pictures

Here are some Easter Pictures of the kids I took.
Hope you enjoy!







(Future was D-O-N-E with pics by this point! LOL! He took a break!)

The newest members of our family

So about a week ago Kaleb was watching Noggin on TV. I love Noggin because it is a kids channel that only shows educational, non violent and moral cartoons and shows. He happened to be watching "Little Bill". It is a show about an African American family that Bill Cosby created. Anyway the little 5 year old boy named Little Bill has a pet. A pet hamster named Elephant. After watching the episode Kaleb asks me if he can call Daddy. (they often do this when Tim is out of town working). I said yes and dialed the phone. Tim answered and Kaleb said "Daddy, I want a hamster. Can I have one?" I am not exactly sure what Tim said but Kaleb handed the phone back to me and Tim said we would talk about it when he got home.
When Tim got home he said we should do it. I thought OK, we will get a (A, meaning singular,uno, one, ). So we make the trip to the pet store with 4 kids in tow. And I am sure you can imagine how it went......
Introducing our newest family members.....
Lady, Elephant and Prince


The grey one is Future's and he named his Prince. The 2 Black & White ones are Jasmyn & Kaleb's. Jasmyn named hers Lady and Kaleb named his Elephant. I can tell Lady & Elephant apart because Elephant has a Robert DeNiro "mole" on his face.
This one is Lady

So if anyone out there has had hamsters and has some tips for keeping them alive, happy and healthy, please let us know!

March 26, 2008

Jerk Elbow and Sharing germs.

So the kids have been sick for about 10 days now. They all came down with a cold a week ago Monday. By Thursday night they were ALL running fevers and feeling yucky. By the next morning Future felt better, Jasmyn was looking like she would be OK, but Kaleb & Mason were still pretty sick. When Kaleb started complaining about his ear hurting I called the Dr for an appointment. They got us scheduled for later that afternoon.

We went to our appointment and the staff was running behind so we waited and waited and waited. The kids were getting restless. So when the nurse FINALLY called us back, mason wanted to walk. He reached up and took my hand and the 5 of us walked back towards the exam room. Mason suddenly tripped and I instinctively held onto his hand to catch him from falling. Then I heard a loud POP. Mason starting screaming. I thought " oh crap, I just yanked his elbow out of alignment". I alerted the nurse and the Dr right away to what had happened. I felt like the WORST Mom on the face of the earth for hurting him. We were seeing the nurse practitioner since we were being "fit in" to the schedule. She reduced his elbow and thought she had it in place. Mason still was crying. She said that most likely his elbow was still just sore. She continued the exams of both Mason and Kaleb and found them to both have double ear infections. Mason was crying the whole time. While we were waiting for the prescriptions we stepped out into the hall for the kids to get their suckers. Our regular pediatrician was in the hall and asked why Mason was crying. I told him about the "jerk elbow". Dr. K walked over and examined Mason's elbow. He reduced it AGAIN and instantly Mason stopped crying. Yay it was finally back in place. I was so relieved. But now that it has happened once to his elbow it is at higher risk to happen again. Dr K told me to be careful when holding his hand, no swinging him between Tim and I, no horseplay with his arms at all until he gets older and his joints get stronger. Thankfully Mason was back to his normal self and using his arm fully by later that night.


As for me, the children have "shared" their germs with me. LOL! So I now have a yucky cold and a horrible cough. Thankfully Tim is home to help care for the munchkins while I recover. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers that we all get healthy and remain that way!

March 25, 2008

Easter Eggs

On Saturday Evening we dyed Easter eggs. Just thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures of the kids. All the kids were fighting either a cold or ear infections, so excuse the snot and droopy eyes. Jasmyn was running a fever, poor thing!


Here she is with a smile on her face inspite of feeling yucky!


My Little Ham! Kaleb was so proud of his egg!


Depite the fact that we made the dye with VINEGAR (yuck) Mason still sucked on every one of his eggs!





He dropped the eggs into the cups from a high level! It splashed the dye all over the place. He had spots on his eye lids, hair, and the end of his nose. He really enjoyed it!


Future made some very pretty eggs. He mixed colors, and put the eggs in multiple different colors in a row. His eggs were by far the most creative.

Maiden Voyage

Welcome Family Friends and Blogland-ers!



This is the beginning of the Bray Bunch Blog! We had been using a different website to keep everyone updated on our family, but decided to change things up a bit. I really like the freedom that Blogging allows, whereas the previous website was pretty "canned". So hopefully now when I post pictures and such you will get a written update along with them. I think that it might become more personal as our family journeys through life, if I can share pictures with text and stories!



I hope you all enjoy the new format! And please comment and let me know you are visiting this blog!



Love and peace~

Jennifer