Ah, where to start
I haven't done a full post in a while. It's not like I haven't had the time. The short ones are all in school now so I have oodles of it. I just, well, haven't. Well, today is laundry day and I am avoiding the sheet changing part of it so now is a good time. This is going to be long.
School is going well for the kids. As usual, Virginia is loving school. Being at a small school has its advantages. She know pretty much everyone in her grade and has a lot of friends. She decided that she didn't want to play in soccer this year and wanted to take gymnastics instead. I tried to convince her to change her mind (I spent a lot of money on that gear) but she really wanted to try gymnastics. A friend suggested the Plano Aerobats. It is thru the city parks and rec center. It was the cheapest one available ($44 a month for 1 day per week vs $75 to just fill in an application). She is really liking it. So much so that I have had to tell her that doing tumbling inside of the house is NOT allowed and that the back of the couch is NOT a balance beam. We are also doing something called an "I wonder" project. She has been getting these sheets from school since kindergarten but I haven't been able to convince her to try to do one. When Chris was home for Labor Day, he sat down with her and convinced her to try one. They planned it all out. She is testing the effects of 12 different beverages on teeth. It took a few weeks but we began on Sunday. She is using orange, blueberry, grape, and cherry juices, tea, red wine, dark beer, tangerine kool aid, blue powerade, chocolate and strawberry milk, and pepsi. She is filling in a chart that Chris designed and we are taking pictures each day. By next week, she should be able to present it to the teacher. She isn't graded on it but she does get to learn extra stuff. I have been, too. Some things get nasty after just one day. The wine has made the egg shell bumpy and the tea has left dark spots. She asked if we could eat the eggs when we are done but I told her that I doubted it. I suspect some of these eggs will just be nasty by next Sunday.
And I now have 2 Girl Scouts in the house. Natalie has joined Virginia's troop. She is a Daisy and Virginia is a Brownie. I am not sure how to handle cookie selling time but that will come later. A bunch of the little girls in her kindergarten class have joined, as well. We even got to go on a camping trip. On 9-9-11, after school, I took Sam to my in-laws (more on him later), picked up another mom and daughter and caravaned out to Paris, TX. Since it was rush hour on a Friday, it took about 2 hours. The trip home was shorter. We didn't do much the first night. There were 9 Brownies and Daisies in 2 cabins with 7 parents. The older Girl Scouts were in another part of the camp, so we had our toilets and showers to ourselves. And our cabins had air conditioners (yay!), theirs didn't. Saturday began nice and early (no curtains). After eating, the Daisies (K and 1st graders) went fishing, and the Brownies (2nd and 3rd) did crafts. Natalie caught a few fish. I cast her line a few times but she reeled them in and had fun. We then swapped with the Brownies and Virginia got to fish. She also caught some fish. We did catch and release but they really enjoyed it. I even managed to get some of the fish off of the hooks all by myself.
After lunch, we were able to try our hands at archery. I took an archery class in college and I really liked it. These were different bows but I did good. Out of 10 arrows, I managed to get 4 in the yellow and all of them stayed in the target. Some of the earlier campers had their arrows go thru the back netting and into the trees.
After archery, we finished up our crafts and then the girls went swimming. I had to go back on Saturday night because the first day of Sunday School was the next day. It would look bad for the Superintendent to not show up. The mom that drove up with me also had to leave early (hence the ride share) so after dinner, we had to head for home. We let the girls put some letters into the "secret mailboxes" that were scattered around the trails. The idea is for girls to leave notes or pictures for the girls who would come up next time. They really liked that.
That is Natalie jumping.
We picked up Sam about 9:30 pm. Poor thing was so tired. He and Papa had gone to a car show earlier in the day. He really liked pretending to drive the cars. He also played hard at the park near their house. Another little boy his age was there and they played for a really long time. The red car was at the car show. The Vette is Papa's car.
School wise, Natalie is doing well. She can read really well for a Kindergartener. She loves her teacher (the same one that Virginia had) and is making friends in class. Sam isn't doing quite as well. The Kindergarten kids have a color behavior chart. Every day begins on green. If the child does something bad, mainly not listening, disobeying, etc., their color will change to yellow, orange, and, finally, red. Sam has come home with 3 reds, 3 oranges, and 1 yellow for the first 4 weeks of school. The last one was the worst. He hit 2 other children. Not a slug fest, no blood, but still, he hit them. The teacher told me that she witnessed some of it and it wasn't a case of the other kid hit first. He also was caught wandering into an empty classroom and playing after using the rest room. That was early. The hitting happened at the end of lunch and the end of the day. After much digging, I finally got his "side" of events. I used quotes because the story of a 5 year old will have nuggets of the truth but with an interesting spin added. The wandering into a classroom story went like this: I saw another little boy in there and I was trying to get him to go back to class. Yeah, another boy. The hitting is more serious. Lunch hitting, Sam: The other boy called me stupid after I tripped so I hit him. End of day hitting, Sam: Another boy took my silly band that had fallen on the floor, wouldn't give it back, and then broke it (teacher said that he and the other boy were having a tug of war over it). I explained to him that in all of these situations, he should have just gone to the teacher or ignored it. It isn't his job to correct another kid and if the other child wouldn't give his toy back, he needed to go to the teacher. He received the standard red punishment: lost use of electronics (computer/leapster), listening to books, and talking to Daddy at bedtime for 3 days. But since this wasn't the first time hitting was involved, I upped the ante. He has lost all things Transformers for 1 week (books, toys, toothbrush, games, etc.) as well as the right to choose his own clothes each morning. He has worn Polo shirts since Friday (he hates Polo shirts). I won't allow him to wear any of his cartoon shirts. He has accepted it and is marking off each day on his calendar. He can't wait for Friday. He has come home with greens since Friday so I am hoping for no more hitting.
In other things, I have been working on getting a computer ready for the Sunday School superintendent position. The last one ended up replacing the ancient one in the library. Then I need to organize the room it will go into. It is a small closet that says "superintendent" on it but I have to wonder if anyone has occupied this small space in a long time. Some craft items currently occupy the room now. I plan to get a small desk and a printer for the room. This will make it easier to print items out for the teachers each Sunday.
And I shall begin the garage sale preps this week. The sale is on October 15th so I need to get going. I have been sorting thru Sam and Natalie's clothes and should be able to begin arranging things on Thursday. Tomorrow is an early release day at school so I won't have much time to myself.
On a purely personal front, Chris and I were able to have a full night and morning KID FREE over Labor Day weekend. My aunt and uncle came to visit and reserved a room with 2 beds so the kids could spend the night with them. Chris and I went out to dinner and then slept in the nest morning until 9 am. That may not seem late to some but it is 3 extra hours of sleep for us. It was so nice and quiet. The kids arrived at 9:30. But we had 12 hours of peace.
That is everything. Sorry it was so long but I wanted to make sure to get as much down as I could.
School is going well for the kids. As usual, Virginia is loving school. Being at a small school has its advantages. She know pretty much everyone in her grade and has a lot of friends. She decided that she didn't want to play in soccer this year and wanted to take gymnastics instead. I tried to convince her to change her mind (I spent a lot of money on that gear) but she really wanted to try gymnastics. A friend suggested the Plano Aerobats. It is thru the city parks and rec center. It was the cheapest one available ($44 a month for 1 day per week vs $75 to just fill in an application). She is really liking it. So much so that I have had to tell her that doing tumbling inside of the house is NOT allowed and that the back of the couch is NOT a balance beam. We are also doing something called an "I wonder" project. She has been getting these sheets from school since kindergarten but I haven't been able to convince her to try to do one. When Chris was home for Labor Day, he sat down with her and convinced her to try one. They planned it all out. She is testing the effects of 12 different beverages on teeth. It took a few weeks but we began on Sunday. She is using orange, blueberry, grape, and cherry juices, tea, red wine, dark beer, tangerine kool aid, blue powerade, chocolate and strawberry milk, and pepsi. She is filling in a chart that Chris designed and we are taking pictures each day. By next week, she should be able to present it to the teacher. She isn't graded on it but she does get to learn extra stuff. I have been, too. Some things get nasty after just one day. The wine has made the egg shell bumpy and the tea has left dark spots. She asked if we could eat the eggs when we are done but I told her that I doubted it. I suspect some of these eggs will just be nasty by next Sunday.
And I now have 2 Girl Scouts in the house. Natalie has joined Virginia's troop. She is a Daisy and Virginia is a Brownie. I am not sure how to handle cookie selling time but that will come later. A bunch of the little girls in her kindergarten class have joined, as well. We even got to go on a camping trip. On 9-9-11, after school, I took Sam to my in-laws (more on him later), picked up another mom and daughter and caravaned out to Paris, TX. Since it was rush hour on a Friday, it took about 2 hours. The trip home was shorter. We didn't do much the first night. There were 9 Brownies and Daisies in 2 cabins with 7 parents. The older Girl Scouts were in another part of the camp, so we had our toilets and showers to ourselves. And our cabins had air conditioners (yay!), theirs didn't. Saturday began nice and early (no curtains). After eating, the Daisies (K and 1st graders) went fishing, and the Brownies (2nd and 3rd) did crafts. Natalie caught a few fish. I cast her line a few times but she reeled them in and had fun. We then swapped with the Brownies and Virginia got to fish. She also caught some fish. We did catch and release but they really enjoyed it. I even managed to get some of the fish off of the hooks all by myself.
After lunch, we were able to try our hands at archery. I took an archery class in college and I really liked it. These were different bows but I did good. Out of 10 arrows, I managed to get 4 in the yellow and all of them stayed in the target. Some of the earlier campers had their arrows go thru the back netting and into the trees.
After archery, we finished up our crafts and then the girls went swimming. I had to go back on Saturday night because the first day of Sunday School was the next day. It would look bad for the Superintendent to not show up. The mom that drove up with me also had to leave early (hence the ride share) so after dinner, we had to head for home. We let the girls put some letters into the "secret mailboxes" that were scattered around the trails. The idea is for girls to leave notes or pictures for the girls who would come up next time. They really liked that.
That is Natalie jumping.
We picked up Sam about 9:30 pm. Poor thing was so tired. He and Papa had gone to a car show earlier in the day. He really liked pretending to drive the cars. He also played hard at the park near their house. Another little boy his age was there and they played for a really long time. The red car was at the car show. The Vette is Papa's car.
School wise, Natalie is doing well. She can read really well for a Kindergartener. She loves her teacher (the same one that Virginia had) and is making friends in class. Sam isn't doing quite as well. The Kindergarten kids have a color behavior chart. Every day begins on green. If the child does something bad, mainly not listening, disobeying, etc., their color will change to yellow, orange, and, finally, red. Sam has come home with 3 reds, 3 oranges, and 1 yellow for the first 4 weeks of school. The last one was the worst. He hit 2 other children. Not a slug fest, no blood, but still, he hit them. The teacher told me that she witnessed some of it and it wasn't a case of the other kid hit first. He also was caught wandering into an empty classroom and playing after using the rest room. That was early. The hitting happened at the end of lunch and the end of the day. After much digging, I finally got his "side" of events. I used quotes because the story of a 5 year old will have nuggets of the truth but with an interesting spin added. The wandering into a classroom story went like this: I saw another little boy in there and I was trying to get him to go back to class. Yeah, another boy. The hitting is more serious. Lunch hitting, Sam: The other boy called me stupid after I tripped so I hit him. End of day hitting, Sam: Another boy took my silly band that had fallen on the floor, wouldn't give it back, and then broke it (teacher said that he and the other boy were having a tug of war over it). I explained to him that in all of these situations, he should have just gone to the teacher or ignored it. It isn't his job to correct another kid and if the other child wouldn't give his toy back, he needed to go to the teacher. He received the standard red punishment: lost use of electronics (computer/leapster), listening to books, and talking to Daddy at bedtime for 3 days. But since this wasn't the first time hitting was involved, I upped the ante. He has lost all things Transformers for 1 week (books, toys, toothbrush, games, etc.) as well as the right to choose his own clothes each morning. He has worn Polo shirts since Friday (he hates Polo shirts). I won't allow him to wear any of his cartoon shirts. He has accepted it and is marking off each day on his calendar. He can't wait for Friday. He has come home with greens since Friday so I am hoping for no more hitting.
In other things, I have been working on getting a computer ready for the Sunday School superintendent position. The last one ended up replacing the ancient one in the library. Then I need to organize the room it will go into. It is a small closet that says "superintendent" on it but I have to wonder if anyone has occupied this small space in a long time. Some craft items currently occupy the room now. I plan to get a small desk and a printer for the room. This will make it easier to print items out for the teachers each Sunday.
And I shall begin the garage sale preps this week. The sale is on October 15th so I need to get going. I have been sorting thru Sam and Natalie's clothes and should be able to begin arranging things on Thursday. Tomorrow is an early release day at school so I won't have much time to myself.
On a purely personal front, Chris and I were able to have a full night and morning KID FREE over Labor Day weekend. My aunt and uncle came to visit and reserved a room with 2 beds so the kids could spend the night with them. Chris and I went out to dinner and then slept in the nest morning until 9 am. That may not seem late to some but it is 3 extra hours of sleep for us. It was so nice and quiet. The kids arrived at 9:30. But we had 12 hours of peace.
That is everything. Sorry it was so long but I wanted to make sure to get as much down as I could.