1st Day of School & Kemah

This has been an exciting couple of days at the Bruning house! Mario and I have come to realize how much Little Mario is like him and how much Samantha is like me. Melissa marches to her own drum...poor geese!!!Example?


Here's Samantha in Kemah: (chillaxin' on the Merry-Go-Round...that's Momma's girl, play it safe!)









And here's Little Mario: (on the Bullet Roller Coaster..which he was technically 4 inches too short to ride!!!)







Then there's Melissa: (she wanted to hold one!!)








Of course the biggest thing was the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!
2nd Grade for Samantha & Kindergarten for Mario!!!










I didn't cry...until I got outside...they are still my babies for goodness sakes!

Summertime

I am so excited about this weekend! Me and a girlfriend are going to Reliant Stadium to see KENNY CHESNEY and KEITH URBAN!!! I have only missed one Kenny concert in the last 6 years. I even waddled up the Woodlands hill, sat on the lawn and sang my heart out to Kenny and Uncle Kracker when I was 9 months pregnant with my last child! A die-hard fan?...maybe just a bit!

More than the concert and singing every song word for word, I am looking forward to having some grown up girl time with a good friend! I'm looking forward to lots of laughs, yards of cold beverages :) and recapturing some of the youthful giddyness that concerts bring.

I used to feel guilty spending time and money on myself to do something without the kids...and I still do to some extent. But not this weekend! It's some well deserved, (and well appreciated) Mommy time!

Melissa

I thought that I would post a little about my youngest daughter Melissa. She turned 2 earlier this summer and has been such a blessing... a blue-eyed, puffy blond-haired, blessing!

She was our "little surprise"! We had Samantha and Mario, a boy and a girl, and thought that our family was complete. As usual, God knew better and gave us MiMi. She is a ball of energy and attitude. I remember my earlier parenting days, my friends would ask me "What do you do when your kids talk back, throw tantrums, etc...", I never had an answer because my kids (Samantha and Mario) never did those things. Now I find myself calling my friends asking for the solution!

There isn't a day that passes that Mario and I don't crack up at something that she does or says (she may have a bit of a potty mouth...Mario ;)). From dancing/ singing Hannah Montana concerts in the evenings with her sister, all out barefoot mud wars with her brother and knock-down-drag-out "incidents" with Elmer the bunny, she makes our lives richer

and happier than we could have ever imagined!

Time

Do you ever go in and look at your kids after they've been asleep for a while? It's kind of always been my routine to make sure that everyone's covered and safe before I go to bed at night. Tonight when I checked on them I saw something that I hadn't seen before.

My sweet Samantha, who I still see in my mind's eye as 3 years old, in her pink princess dress and click-clack shoes, has grown into this beautiful Second Grader. She has these really long legs, long shiny hair and this grown up little face. She does her own hair, picks out her own outfits, reads her own bedtime stories. Gone is my short, chubby cheeked girl with fire-cracker ponytails.

Across the room from her is Little Mario. Again, in my mind's eye he's 2, dragging around his sippy cup and hiding behind me when anyone dared to talk to him. But tonight I saw a little man, a Kindergartener. Shaggy hair (because it's cool), 2 missing teeth, and slender, tan big boy legs. I know he's grown half a foot since the summer started!

I'm teary-eyed as I post this. Not because I'm sad that they are growing up, I'm just in awe of how quickly it's happening! Thankfully they haven't outgrown chocolate milk before bedtime and snuggle-buggin' with their Momma...yet. They still need their night lights and they aren't horrified when I'm around their friends...yet. They still think that I know almost everything and I can still fix most of their hurts with a kiss and a Band-Aid.

I pray every day and night that Mario & I are equipping them well enough to "make it" outside of these four walls. We pray for their spouses and protection over their hearts. I'm thankful that they have both accepted Christ into their lives. They will never be alone. But, they will keep growing...and I'll probably keep wondering how the time went by so fast!