Category: Uncategorized (Page 42 of 201)

Things were grooving along nicely with contest stuff until Sunday.  I had been saying how much easier thing were getting… and then….

• We had a big computer glitch that scheduled a whole ton of Sunday student the opposite of their time request, which meant….
• The office had to complete redo the schedules for Sunday (a very big undertaking), which meant…
• I couldn’t get the materials last weekend to start putting everything together into the designated, but that actually turned out ok, becuase…
• I had NO volunteers to help me on Sunday.  None.  Well, unless you count Chloe, Josiah and Jennifer (who were very helpful, by the way!).  But because no one showed up…
• I had to work on doing contest stuff basically non-stop from Sunday – Thursday in all my non-teaching hours.
• Oh, and the kids had a snow day on Monday and a late start on Tuesday.

But I don’t mean to complain.  Things could be much worse.  And I have learned a few valuable lessons this week:

•  Chloe (and Josiah to some degree) can be good helpers with contest stuff now!
• We actually get a lot more done on volunteer Sundays than I thought
• I really do need to get the sheets of information before Wednesday the week of Contest.  There is a lot I need to do with those sheets, and 2 days is just not enough time.
• Time on contest week seems to pass quicker than normal time.
• Our family likes potato & ham soup.  I made it in the crockpot this week and it was a hit.
• I have stress eaten a lot this week.  I’ll have to get back on track soon otherwise I won’t have anything to wear soon!  Eeeeks!

How is tomorrow the last day of February already?  I feel like January and especially February have just FLOWN by.

We are officially less than 2 weeks away from the Piano Contest.  So, life is about to start getting a little busier.  I’m supposed to have volunteers coming this Sunday to my house to help get things ready, but at this point no one has signed up to come.

Tim has started gearing back up for the work season.  It seems to get earlier every year.  He even went on a few bids in January and February!  I don’t expect to need nannies for a while yet though.

We got a bunch of snow this past weekend.  And the best part is that it’s been nice and warm (in the teens and 20’s) so the kids have actually been able to play in it!

This weekend Jennifer introduced me and the kids to the game Sequence.  Apparently we have owned this game for years and never played it.  I admit that I had looked at the box many times and said, “Yuck.  What a boring looking box.  That game is probably dumb.”

Yes, I judged that box by it’s cover.  And, like so many things in life that we judge–I was wrong.

We love it.

It’s right up there with Mancala for me (which I also love).  Chloe caught on pretty quickly, but she has a hard time looking far enough ahead to see other potential sequences in case she’s blocked.  Josiah mostly just played along with me and “helped” me but I think he would be able to hold his own if we were to play again (not win, but at least play along).

It’s fun to be getting to the age where we can play more thrilling games than Candyland or Chutes and Ladders fun games together!

I have known that Josiah enjoys reading and has a good aptitude for it, but at conferences last night we saw again just how well he is doing.  His teacher tested what sight words he is familiar with:  He knows all 50 Kindergarten sight words… basically all of First grade sight words…  and 2/3 of the Second grade sight words!  He came home the other day with a list of words that he can read/spell without help, and among those words were: February, scissors, reading, happy, world, recess and toilet!

He has been so pleased to finally be able to read this year.  It has been amazing to watch him go.  The other day I saw him open one of his library books and I looked over his shoulder to see what it was, and it looked a bit hard.  I said, “Oh, buddy, I think that book is going to be a little hard for you.  Why don’t you pick a different one.”  He simply said, “No, Mom, it’s not too hard–watch!”  And he proceeded to read the whole page easily.  Not only did he read the correct words, but he also read it with the right inflection.  That kid amazes me sometimes!

This girl.

She can bring out so many emotions in me in a very short amount of time.  So much cuteness and mischievousness crammed into one little body.

Luckily I normally only capture the cute side of her on camera… mostly because I’m too busy scolding her or too angry to grab my camera.  I feel like she knows exactly how to push my buttons.

But then she can walk right over to me and hug me and say, “I sorry, Mama” and my anger melts away.

Ah, the magic of being 2 years old.

We’ve finally hit the age (with Chloe) where sleepovers are actually easier than harder!  It’s delightful.

At the surprise Birthday party last week the girls begged for a sleepover and I said “we’ll see” (parents everywhere know this answer.. haha!). Well fast forward to Thursday and Allison’s Mom asked if it was really happening or if Allison was just making it up–so we said, sure!  why not!?  It’s a good non-busy weekend to do it.

So we coordinated drop off and pick ups and away we went!  Everyone was thrilled.  And it was fun to have the cousins over.  They are all developing such strong individual personalities is so fun to see who they are becoming.  For example Kailynn has such a strong desire to be around the babies and Allison has a really funny sense of humor and Chloe just wants to boss everyone around.  Ha!

The girls have also entered the “electronics phase” as well, which includes a lot of me saying, “time to get off your tablets and just PLAY!”  But you’ll notice I have captured a moment with the girls above where they are all happily playing games on their tablets.

It makes me wonder what our parents told us to be done doing when we were kids?  We didn’t have tablets to play on back then…

Well, regardless, I just love that picture.  And I love how they are growing up together.  🙂

Chloe and Josiah enjoyed (a very late Birthday present of) rock climbing today!  They have been eagerly waiting to go for months now… but we’ve been busy and needed to find a time when Tim could take them (since we all agreed that I would be too nervous and freaked out to let them really climb to their hearts content.  Tim is much better at letting them do dangerous stuff be kids.  🙂 ) So, fun was had by all. Well, fun there, but Tim did have a splitting headache from looking up for so long at them climbing… oopsie!