My Kindergarten Class

So this year, I am Mrs. Brimhall, and I wasn’t quite sure how the kindergarteners would do with being able to pronounce that. Most of them have done pretty well with it…but there are a few who have some pretty funny variations of my name. Here’s a few:
Mrs. Brimhallway
Mrs. Grimhall
Mrs. Friendhall
Mrs. Vrimhall
Mrs. Brimholly
And my favorite, Mrs. Groundhog (yep, a 2nd grader called me that the other day…don’t ask me how he got that from Mrs. Brimhall)
Then I have a few who can’t say their R’s and call me Mrs. Bwimhall. And one boy in my class who always leaves off the Mrs. and just says “Hey Brimhall!” when he wants to get my attention. : )

Here are a couple funny quotes/stories from some of my kids so far this year:

We are learning about the letter M and for every letter we learn a letter rhyme. Our Mm rhyme we have been practicing goes like this:
“M is for muffin,
M is for mittens,
M is for mud on the paws of my kittens.”
We practice it together as a class everyday and yesterday one of my kids, Diego, tells me he can say it all by himself. He is so proud of himself and says he wants to come up to say it in front of the whole class and this is what he says:
“M is for muffin,
M is for mittens,
M is for mud on the balls of my kittens.”
I just started cracking up and Diego just had this huge smile on his face! : )

The other day I kept sneezing in class and one of my kids said “Are you sick Mrs. Brimhall?” And I heard another little girl go, “No, I think she is just allergic to us.”

At the beginning of the school year we have the parents fill out a questionnaire that asks them questions like what name their child wants to go by at school and what name they want them to learn to write at school. (We always ask this because a lot of our Hispanic families have their kids go by different names than their given first name.) So at our Meet the Teacher Night, Mia one of the kindergarteners, was sitting next to her mom while her mom was filling out the form and her mom said “What name do you want to go by at school?” and Mia was all confused so her mom said “What do you want your friends and teacher to call you at school?” and she thought about it real hard and said “Umm…..Wonderwoman!”

And today I was cracking up because we have been learning nursery rhymes and I was trying to teach my class Old King Cole and for some reason they were having the hardest time with the words. So I would say one line really slowly and then have them repeat it after me. Whenever I said the first line, "Old King Cole was a merry old soul", one of my students kept saying really loudly, "Old King Cole was a hairy old soul!"

Bite for me...bite for monkey...bite for me...say cheese with my mouth open...bite for monkey

Saggy Pants...we've been in Cleveland for too long

one last thing...

We have to decide quickly, because if I'm not going to buy the Peg Perego used, I need to let the lady know that is selling it!

Car Seat and Stroller Input...

Hey guys. So we have been looking at strollers and car seats and I'm having a really hard time deciding what to do! I want you guys to tell me which you think is better. The stroller and car seat that are pictured together are a brand called Chicco. The two things together brand new are $279. The picture of just the stroller is a brand called Peg Perego. It has a matching car seat also, just not pictured. That one is much more expensive. The stroller alone is $329, and the car seat $219, but I can buy them both a year old and used as a set for about $320. So basically, I want to know what you guys like better. We cant afford the Peg Perego new, but could probably do the Chicco. You can leave comments below, where it says "comments" Let me know what you guys think! Thanks! John and I are bad at making these kinds of decisions.

Tanner & I in the Edinbourgh Dungeon

Tanner and I had so much fun on our trip and saw tons! I'll just give you a few highlights as none of the photos will really show how fantastic it all was. Here we are in the real dungeon underneath the city where we learned about Edinburgh gruesome history.

the Edinburgh Military Tattoo

The Tattoo is listed in the book -"1,000 places to see before you die" - so Tanner and I can cross that one off our list. We were lucky to get tickets - it sold out last Feb! It was a big military parade and show at the foot of the Edinborough Castle and it was fantastic!

Gorgeous scenery

None of the photos will do justice to the beautiful scenery we saw in the Highlands. Tanner was fun to travel with because he was so excited about everything. He jumped out of the car in the pouring rain to get up closer to this waterfall.

Loch Ness

Tanner checking out the famous loch - Loch Ness. It was very pretty.

Robert the Bruce

We had our pciture taken by this statue of Robert the Bruce because my Dad says our geneology goes back to his line. He is the 2nd biggest hero in Scotland - the 1st being William Wallace.

High Adventure

Tanner was always the thrill seeker. Here he jumped a railing to sit by a sign that was on the edge of a cliff that he thought was funny. Right behind him was a straight drop to your death!

Tanner and I had a blast in Scotland!

Here we are on a tram that took us to the top of this mountain - where at the top the wind was whipping around at 60 mph

Me and Baby in the guest room??

So I have been begging John for a long time to let me buy a King size bed. Since I am only going to get fatter and less and less comfortable at night I thought it would totally be worth it. Now that we are starting to do some things for the nursery I figured out that John wasn't aware that the baby would be sleeping in our room, at least for the first few months. He made a comment the other day, probably half kidding, that I would sleep in the guest room next to the baby when he comes. I told him there was no way he was kicking me and the baby out! So today we happened to find this Pottery Barn King size bed at a discount furniture store. It is a $1200 bed that we got for $399. All the sudden John is all for the King size, being that I'm not moving down the hall. So this is our new bed... it just has some scratches on it. But we love it... its a nice platform bed that sits really low to the ground. Now we just need to save the money to buy a king size mattress. Hopfully that happens before the baby comes, or I might make John move down the hall.

Check your email...

I didn't realize that the link I gave you to Paul's paper doesn't give you the full article, just the abstract. So, I emailed you all an attachment of the full article if you want to read it. Paul, Matt, and Dr. Kaelber wrote it together, but they were each responsible for a different part of the article, and the others would help edit it. Paul wrote the intro (the start of the paper all the way to the methods section). That's pretty much the only part I read...I'm no doctor!

Hurray for Paul!

For those of you who don't know, Paul did a research project last year with another student and a doctor. They presented this research at a conference in Toronto a few months ago. Their research paper was published this week by JAMA, one of the top medical journals. Here is the link: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/298/8/874

JAMA selects one article per issue to highlight, one they feel to be the most important. Paul's paper was chosen. They interviewed the doctor that Paul and Matt did the research with and then they released the research paper and their interview to the press. So, yesterday their research was all over the news! I'm probably not explaining this very well, but check out this link: www.news.google.com Scroll down to the Health section and it's the very first heading, about hypertension in kids. There are links to all the articles written about their study and their are over 300 of them! The Wall Street Journal, Time, ABC, Forbes, Fox, etc. Pretty exciting!

Stretching

What we do to wear out the kids before bed...

Just Kidding...Noah loves to use the treadmill after I'm done. He learned, after flying off the back a few times, not to get on when mommy's running!

Attachment issues...

It started out with her red blanky...but now it has grown to include a pink blanky, pink bunny, and froggy pillow. She tries to carry ALL 4 items around the house and she can barely see or walk. It's totally ridiculous but she wont even come out of the crib in the morning unless you get her out with all her things. She screams at me, "BANKY! BANKY! PIDOW! BUNNY!" She gets so excited when you bring them to her she looks like she's having a seizure...This is her watching her morning cartoons in her favorite little chair with all her favorite things.

Alex's first pigtails!

You have no idea what a fight this girl puts up when I try to do her hair. The first time it took a full thirty minutes and we were both yelling at each other by the end. I finally had to pin her down and put her in a headlock. After less than 10 minutes she had ripped them out again. The second day she was so mad at me that she screamed a full 20 minutes after we were done.

Quotes from Noah

I took the kids to the hospital on sunday to visit Paul who was on call all day and night. When we got there Noah said, "This is where doctor's work?" I said yes and he said, "And Daddy's?"

Noah was looking at all the blog pictures the other day and he kept laughing about Tiff and Randy's honeymoon pictures. He said, "Tiff and Randy are being funny." Then when he saw them in the helicopter with their headsets on he said, "Look mom, they're being pilots!"

I was getting Noah his breakfast the other day and I asked him what kind of cereal he wanted. He started talking in a deep voice and he said, "I'll have 1 Kix and 2 Life please." I started laughing and he did too and then he said, "Oh, I thought this was a dinner place!" He was trying to order some food!

Whenever Noah says or does something weird I ask him where he learned it. These days his answer is always, "From Grandma Hunt!" or "From Grandpa Hunt!" Guess he thinks you guys are weird too.

17 Week Belly... And he MOVES!

Well, it feels bigger than it looks, and I am not sticking my belly out. This is what I look like sucking in. I can only wear jeans that fit really low so I can button them. But, the best news of all is that I think I felt him MOVE today! It was the strangest thing... it was just once, it felt like a little bubble in my tummy, but it was distinct and I am almost positive it was him. The ultrasound girl told me last week that with not much fat around my tummy I should feel him soon... and I did! So far, pregnancy is amazing and as much as I want him to come out and be here, I don't want him to leave me. I kinda like him in there. : )

Tanner and Mom in Scotland

Here's just a few of some of my favorite pictures from me and moms trip last week. We had a blast. We put about 800 miles on our rental car and got to see some of the best parts of the country. We ate way good food, saw some awesome shows/plays, met some really cool people, saw some sweet waterfalls and went through a whole bunch of castles. The picture of us with the lake in the background was taken at Loch Ness. The picture with the sword was at the William Wallace memorial, and apparently, that's his sword hanging there, so that was pretty cool. And the picture of us on the mountain acting weird is because the wind was blowing about 60mph. Anyway it was a way fun trip! Thanks mom!

Baby.... Boston??

Here are some of the images we got from our ultrasound. He was being very cute... curling up and then stretching out and falling asleep with his arms back behind his neck. He looks pretty comfortable in there. The one that shows he is a boy is funny, you are looking at his butt cheeks and legs, showing off all his little boy parts! He isn't shy! We didn't get very good 3D images because he fell asleep towards the end with his face buried in my tummy, so we get to go back whenever we want to see him again for free! This was totally worth the money. We even got a little video to watch him dancing around in there.
16 weeks down... way to many to go!

Playtime...

Alex likes the way Noah's haircut feels and keeps rubbing his head...Noah and Alex love to jump on the bed together but one or both of them usually get hurt. Here they are giving each other "kisses better." Once they're done on the bed they like to rock together.

Mom, I will never again give you a hard time about the way we always looked when we were little. My kids are usually half dressed, with messy snotty slobbery faces, and Alex's hair is out of control. She hates getting it done, I've given up the fight.

Noah's annual "Buzz Cut"

Everytime Noah looks in the mirror now he starts laughing and then he hides his face. He asked me, "Mom why do I look funny?" Then he told Paul, "Daddy I look just like you!"

Posing for the camera...

If Alex sees the camera she just can't resist. She follows you around with a big cheesy smile, saying "Cheeeese" until you finally take her picture

What happens when we let the kids dress themselves...

Noah wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt and socks (none of which match) and, oh yeah, no underwear. Alex prefers a pair of Noah's shorts and no shirt. She looks like a little boy!