He is Entertaining

Our little dog is a nut! He is 10 months old, loves the kids and super loves playing outside. This is his favorite past-time ... fighting with boxes.

Fall...

Saturday was a great outside day. I actually was wrapped in my Snuggies and tried to read some, but the kids were cracking me up. They played with a box, sticks and leaves for almost an hour. I love their sense of imagination. That box was a boat at one point, a moving truck, a Bulldozer and I can't remember what all else.

Later we removed the drawers and shelves from the fridge for cleaning and all I can say is....uuggghhh. We used to do it every other Saturday, but that kind of fell off. Let's just say it is back on the MUST DO schedule.

Week In Review

Good week where everyone stayed on schedule. It was a low key week with only 2 appointments on Tuesday. This week in Bible, Kindergarten did the letter D for Daniel

3rd grade is learning dictionary skills and 7th grade is still doing integers.

In art this week we colored pictures of leaves and glued strips of colored paper in fall colors on the back of them. We finally took down our butterflies from last spring and put the leaves to hang in the doorway and on the sheers.

I was scheduled to work this last Wednesday and again on Saturday (tomorrow) but my client cancelled so I was able to get some laundry folded that had kinda backed up on me.

I finally found airline tickets for vacation. I kept waiting for cheapo flights, but I don't think there is such a thing anymore.

Have a good weekend.

Peace

A Quiet Moment...

One of those rare quiet moments where the 2 year old is not stuffing Lego's in the toilet and the puppy is not eating someones shoe WHILE.THEY.ARE.WEARING.IT!!!

Dinner Helpers

We had a very simple dinner tonight, made by the kindergartners: Sandwiches, carrots, chips and milk. 7th grade went to a function with our home school group and momma's not feeling well or hungry, so the 6 year olds decided that they would help with dinner. It was so cute watching them work together and they were so proud when I asked if I could take a picture of the finished product. Jackson said, "For the blog?!" with the biggest, cheesiest grin on his face.

So here it is folks!! Don't crowd!!

Box Tops and Book Orders

Now that I have a child in PS I am back to collecting box tops, bar codes and sending in Scholastic book orders. I like Scholastic. I have assigned box tops to my 7th grader to cut and save.

We have 6 weeks before we leave for vacation. Looks like we may have to take some school with us, but the crew seems to be fine with that. I am still trying to find another rash guard swim suit for James. He is fair skinned and we have to re-apply sunscreen often and he finally outgrew his last one.

Next week is a calm week for school. No extra appointments so far.

Our school emblem

Yum!!

These all came off of the vine this morning. They are sweet and juicy and plentiful!

Dirty Baseboards

I have said in the past that you can tell how things are going in my house by looking at the baseboards in my kitchen. If the baseboards are sparkling clean, then that means someone has been making bad choices and earning extra chores like washing walls, cabinets, door jabs and baseboards.

I guess I can say that I am the proud owner of dirty baseboards.

Things have been pretty good over here. Our schedule is chocked full of appointments this week, but it seems to be a fairly calm week so far. Tomorrow the kids have to work at the local food bank which they enjoy immensely!

We have 6 weeks before we leave for vacation!!! Hope to get very far ahead so that we don't have to take school with us.

Virtual Refridgerator

Confession: I am a collector and I love the art and work that my kids complete at school, daycare, children's church, etc. This presents a fridge and wall space problem. So I started taking pictures of the kid's art and filing and posting some here. We review the original and say how beautiful it is and then we toss most of it. I still keep some very precious ones, but this system has saved space.

This week in Bible class, Kindergarten made these things:

A dove and booklet about John.

I searched long and hard for a Bible curriculum for kindergarten that would fit our needs and I finally found a great workbook called Bible Stories from A to Z. I like that I can make up to 5 lessons per week if needed (even though we rarely school 5 whole days per week). Here are 2 examples of the pages:

It was kinda funny because I was going to just use some tissue paper to tear into pieces and glue onto the dove, but in looking for my tissue paper found some really old art feathers that were left over from my student teaching days in 1986. They were still soft and in really good shape.

We had a week that was very interrupted, but still productive. Next week we have so many appointments that they barely fit on my dollar store dry erase board. LOL!

Pancake breakfast tomorrow!

Have a great weekend

Kind Enough to Stop By...

But over an hour late to pick her up!!!

The bus driver did not show up until 9 am this morning after telling us to be ready by 8 am. After about 30 minutes I called the bus garage who radioed the driver who said she would be here in a couple of minutes....

25 minutes later after standing in the driveway watching school buses speeding by, she showed up very apologetic and frazzled. By then, school had started and my kid was going to be late. We followed the bus to school where the driver had to sit for another 10 minutes waiting for someone to take the kids from her bus into school. We went ahead and took our kid in to see the class and meet the teacher. She was everything we had been told!

Hopefully tomorrow the bus will be more on time.

Not Even 1 Hour?

For the past 20+ years, my mom given my brother and I the Labor Day tradition of making a pallet on the living room floor to watch the Telethon. It was always a contest to see who could stay up the latest. In the morning, we would then drive to the local fire station to make a donation in the "boot".



I have offered this to my kids, but they are just such creatures of routine that they can not stand the thought of sleeping in the house without going to their beds. I mean I had popcorn and snacks and they asked to go to bed after about 1 hour! James did try to hang in a little longer, but he only lasted another 15 minutes or so. Wimps! LOL!

More At Ease

I have a 6 year old foster child that is to be enrolled in a special ed kindergarten program for this year by her last year's preschool teacher. Now back in the day when I worked outside of the home (in a land far far away) I had worked as a therapist with a few families that had children enrolled in this particular school. It was not a pleasant experience. In fact, I remember saying at 1 point that I would not even enroll my dog at that school.

So today I talked to the social worker that has been working with my kid in some capacity over the last 3 years while she was with her birth family and she gave very glowing reviews on the teacher of this special program. She described the teachers style and reports that she has been teaching this class for over 10 years. This class operates semi-independent of the rest of the school, but does some activities with the regular kindergarten classes. Finally, she reports that the principle of many many years has retired and there is a new guy in the office. He does not believe in sending problem kids home as an automatic and encourages teachers to deal with behaviors in the classroom. BONUS!!!! I am feeling more at ease about sending her.

The social worker contacted the transportation department and within 3 hours, the bus driver came came to our home to introduce herself and to let me know an approximate pick-up time. Good.