Another day in the kitchen

This week is Teacher Appreciation week and my friend Melissa (who is a teacher) gave me some advice on what was her favorite thing parents did for her class when she was teaching. She told me about a time that they all made dinner for her for a week and delivered it to her home. She said it was so nice to not have to worry about cooking and it was fun to see them outside of school. I thought this was a great idea! I'm always cooking a meal for someone who needs it because they just had a baby or are sick (or have family members who are sick), but never for someone just a sign of appreciation. I sent an email out to the parents in Morgan's classroom and we've arranged for Morgan's teacher to receive breakfast at school every morning and to have dinner delivered each night.

I signed up for the first night, and it was a tricky one because Morgan's teacher's daughters both had softball games in the evening. So, I planned to do pulled pork, oven fries and tomato-cucumber salad to bring to them at the ball park. Lance had even baked cranberry walnut chocolate chip cookies for them! I thought it would be fun to see the girls play, to give Trish an opportunity to show off how much she's adored, and it would be nice for them to eat dinner before they were starved after the games were over. I loaded up the food, some plates, napkins, utensils and condiments into my bags and Morgan and I took off to deliver the meal. Trish loved it and I couldn't have been happier to see the big grin on her face as she sat there eating pulled pork while we all watched her girls play softball!

Besides getting that stuff prepped today, I also took advantage of some of the chicken meat I had from the roasted chicken I made for dinner last night to come up with a new lunch time creation. Mango Chicken Salad Lettuce Wraps. Basically, it was the roasted chicken, some celery, mango, salt, poppy seeds, and mayonnaise. I mixed up the salad and served them on romaine lettuce leaves. They were good, but needed a little sweetness added (finally added some Splenda) and maybe a little kick next time.

Spring is in the air

Well, sort of. We'll ignore the gloomy weather we've been having, and focus instead on the fun and cute stuff like the spring party we had in Morgan's class today. Unfortunately, her teacher missed it because she was out sick, but the kids still did pretty well with the sub. The party went on!

My mom was able to come into the classroom today since it was a party day and she watched Bennett in the classroom while I stepped up my efforts a little to help the substitute teacher out. But, she was able to see all the fun stuff the kids do and how the parties go (for the most part). At the end of the party, the kids hunted for their eggs. Each kid had eight eggs with their name on them and they had to find only the ones with their names. Unfortunately, there were a few girls who couldn't find all their eggs, but it was still fun for them to find all the places that the moms hid the eggs while they were at the library.

I took Morgan out of school a little early (right after the egg hunt) and we made it to church just in time for the noon Good Friday service. It was a great service, and I ended up sitting next to one of the girls from my table at the women's retreat. I can't tell you how nice it is to see people you know at a church that's so big!

After church, we came home and since my dad was busy watching The Masters on TV, I took that as my cue to go upstairs and take a good long nap. Which I did. Blissful sleep! Which is good since I have a date tonight with my hubby. Woohoo!

Reality gracefully tumbles back down

I was so tired last night that I was out by 10pm. I guess that's what a long, emotional weekend will do for you. Nevertheless, time marches on, as does life. With a renewed spiritual energy, I woke up and did my morning devotional, got things packed up for a walk at a local park with my friend Kristin, and got Morgan off to school. Kristin and I walked our furthest route yet - about 4 miles and then took Bennett to story time at the library. He enjoyed it as usual, especially since this week's theme was fish. After story time, we had just enough time at home for me to get the bathrooms cleaned while corn dogs were cooking in the oven. I wrapped them up in tin foil, packed up some other stuff and headed to pick Morgan up from school. Her classmates were meeting at a park by our house for a picnic after school! We spent a good two hours there before it was time to come home. I put the kids down for their naps and then right as I was sitting down to catch up on email and facebook, my mom calls. I had hoped to talk to her, so I spent a good long time catching her up on everything and anticipating her upcoming visit here with her. I started prepping spaghetti for dinner and before I knew it, nap time was over and the kids were up! Dinner, bath time, bed time, dishes. Finally able to sit down and relax with my hubby after all the day's reality came tumbling back down.

I need a weekend away from my weekend away. :)

How I made Morgan's teacher cry

After Morgan's last report card, we gave her a challenge. We told her that if she improved on the two area's that we felt she needed to improve the most, following classroom rules (raising her hand to speak) and verbal self control, there would be a very special surprise for her. It was our first attempt at a long term goal and reward, and definitely our first experience with this and grades. She told us she could do it and so we challenged her to do it.

As we've gotten closer and closer to today, report card day, I've asked her periodically if she was going to be getting a surprise and she's told me that she was. She keeps asking me what it's going to be and I honestly hadn't settled on anything. It's a tough thing....this is the precedence for future report cards and so I wanted it to make an impression, but didn't want to go overboard, considering what we were actually asking her to do. Her guess? Disneyland. Yeah....ummmm....not so much!

I was pretty sure she was going to have shown improvement in those areas, so as an opportunity arose to take a trip to the SF Zoo on Thursday with some friends, I clamored for it. First of all, I haven't been to the SF Zoo in over 10 years, so you know Morgan has never been. She's such a zoo an animal person that I thought she would really enjoy it. Not to mention that since she is off of school on Thursday and Friday, it would be a great thing for us to go do.

Now that I had my game plan, I was ready to go to the conference and get her report card. Since I'm in the class a lot, I pretty much know how she's doing. I know how she compares to the other kids and the areas that she continues to struggle with. I wasn't expecting any surprises. First thing I was handed was her report card for P.E. and music. She got all normal scores except that she apparently can't catch or throw a ball. I was a little baffled by the not being able to throw a ball thing. I mean, I know she can! But, apparently the "yes" standard is for them to take a step forward with one leg and throw the ball with the opposite arm after the step. Which I'm sure she could totally do if I had known that's what she was going to be tested for, I could have prepared her for that. Ah well.

Next, it was time to go over her report card. She did so great! They are graded on a scale of 1 to 4, with four being "exceeds" standards". She had soooooo many fours! So good to see. The areas that she was supposed to show improvement on before, she had. Hooray! I went through each line item with her teacher and we talked about where Morgan is now vs. where she's supposed to be to go to first grade. In most cases, she's ready for first grade, if not already at a first grade level. I'm so proud! Her teacher reiterated how wonderful it is that Morgan has such a desire to learn and how nice it is to have students like that. We talked about her reading assessment. She's at an 8 and she needed to be at a 4. Her teacher expects her to be at a 12 by the end of the year and the standard for students starting Kindergarten is a 6. She's doing great and I couldn't be prouder. I actually started to cry at this point because this has been such an awesome thing to witness.

You see, last year around this time as we were preparing for Kindergarten, there was one thing that Morgan would always tell everyone when they asked if she was looking forward to Kindergarten. She would tell them that she couldn't wait to learn how to read. To see her come full circle and actually being able to read now, at an accelerated rate at that, is so cool! She's over that hump where reading is more work than fun and so she'll actually go get books on her own and sit down and read them. She is a reader. She comes from a long line of readers, so this is something that I'm so happy to see. There's so much to be said about a love of reading! As I'm wiping away my tears, Morgan's teacher is tearing up, too. She has so much love for her students and really enjoys seeing them learn and mature. She could feel the same thing I felt - how proud we were that Morgan set out to learn to read and here she is reading on her own. Seeing her love of it is icing on the cake. Morgan's teacher recognized what a cool thing that was and shared that feeling with me. I just love her!

But the amazing thing, and I know that I risk coming off as an overly proud parent -- which is probably an accurate statement, is that she ALSO is doing wonderfully in math as well. She can easily count and write to 100 and is doing simple addition and math problems. Soon they will start on subtraction and go further with money. These are beyond Kindergarten concepts,where by the end of the year they only need to be able to get to 30. To see her accelerating in math as well as reading is just more than I could hope for. She really has been a joy in this area and I just couldn't be prouder.

SF Zoo here we come!!

Teachers are saints!

Today I went to help out in Morgan's classroom. I haven't been on a "regular" schedule since my swap partner moved away. Morgan's teacher had told me previously, that she was willing to try Bennett sitting in the classroom during the days when I was helping out because he'd been so good on the class party days. I've been a little weary of this, not just because of my unpredictable son, but also because I know that the class tends to be distracted by him (I mean, he is pretty cute!). But since the class was going to be out watching a play for two hours today, I thought it would be a good day to give it a shot. I crammed my diaper bag full of snacks and headed off to school with the two kiddos.

The plan for the day was for me to help keep the kids on task while the teacher finished some assessments she needed to complete so she can get report cards done next week. After the kids left for the play, I would get to work on the kids' memory books. The teacher has been keeping some of the kids' more special projects for a memory book that she will give to each child/parent at the end of the year. There are pages and pages of their work that were stacked in no particular order in bins and under tables and they needed to be sorted by child, organized by date, and then alphabetized for later updating. I also needed to note who was missing what for the memory books so that they could possibly finish the projects later. It took the rest of the school day to get that stuff done. I was alternating between making notes on who had missed what, figuring out who had done which polar bear picture based on the way they had cut it out (since they had left off their name), and switching Bennett from area to area to keep him busy. He actually did pretty good, especially during the time that the kids were in the class. He stayed out of their way for the most part, so that was good.

I worked HARD in the class today. I was on my feet, moving around, correcting, entertaining, and sorting the entire morning. And I am EXHAUSTED this afternoon. How do teachers do it EVERY. DAY.?? They are saints, it's as simple as that.

Kindergarten Crushes

There's a little boy in Morgan's class that I've come to realize has a crush on her. It didn't dawn on me until the night of Open House when his Dad said, "Oh THAT'S Morgan! We hear a lot about her". Since then, I've been paying attention to two of them in class and I've seen this little boy really looking out for Morgan.

There was the time on 100th day when Morgan had just finished stringing her 100th Fruit Loop and was walking over to have it tied on as a necklace when she dropped it. 42 Fruit Loops fell on the floor, so she got a little upset. This little boy rushed right over and started picking up the Fruit Loops she had dropped. We counted out 42 new ones and she proceeded to finish her necklace. When she was done, I advised her on the best way to hold the strings of her necklace so as to not drop it again. Only she did drop it again. And this time I wasn't quite as patient. I told her that I wasn't going to count out more Fruit Loops for her to string on the necklace and that if she wanted to finish the necklace with the ones on the floor, that was fine but that she was NOT going to be eating them. This little boy steps in and offers up his necklace. I convince him that he should keep it (I *have* seen it scooting about on the floor after all!) and he decides that he'll make her another one. How sweet, right??

Today, when I picked Morgan up from school, she was upset. She told me that some of the boys were mean to her. As I was talking to her, this same little boy realized that she was upset. He comes over to her and asks her what is wrong. She doesn't answer, so I tell him that she was upset because some of the boys were being mean to her. He demands to know who and I could tell just by the way he was talking that this was totally in her defense. If he could have, he would have had some serious talkings with the said offenders.

I get the full scoop on what happened today from the teacher. Apparently Morgan got pulled away for testing and when she came back, the boys she was playing with were not interested in having her rejoin them. And there was also a special toy involved from the star of the week - the little boy who's crushing on Morgan! Apparently he even saved Morgan a part of the toy to play with (complete with snatching it from another child because "Morgan has been waiting a while to play with this").

As we are leaving, I am talking to Morgan about how it's the boys' loss if they aren't nice to her and how if they aren't nice then she shouldn't want to play with them anyway. I was talking to her about how nice it was of this other little boy to save the toy for her and to stick up for her. It had never dawned on my observant daughter before that time that he may actually like her. I told her that he was a nice friend and she said, "Yeah. So are the girls. They are all nice."

See, she's totally oblivious to the fact that he's got a little crush on her because she's so busy having a crush on another little boy from a different class that doesn't give her the time of day. And so it begins. Morgan being interested in the boys who don't know she exists and the ones that do, she's totally oblivious to. Although, I do have to say with mildly embarrassing satisfaction that Morgan was so upset with me the other day (she thought I was walking too fast and therefore dropped her playdough animal on the ground and it was very clearly MY FAULT), that we walked right by the boy she likes and he was all, "BYE MORGAN" and she did a half hearted wave. The adult that was with the boy actually said "wow, she dissed you!" LOL. That's my girl, a little heart breaker.

This is just the beginning. Lord help me!

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish

Today was Dr. Seuss' birthday and this is a little known national holiday, celebrated far and wide by the Kindergarten set. The fun started when both Morgan and I got to wear our pajamas to school. Yes, I wore tasteful PJ's, although I have to admit it was hard to find some that didn't have a little hole here or there or didn't have a matching tank top that would have been wholly inappropriate, if not just for the company, but also for the weather. But I digress...

There were centers in the classroom today and I was able to get my niece to come babysit Bennett so I could help out in the classroom. What fun! They made red and white striped Dr. Seuss hats (Morgan's favorite), they made their own animal creations out of playdough at my station to go into Mr. McGrew's Zoo (If I Ran the Zoo), they counted fish and graphed them, they cut out and colored one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, and several other centers. Upon my recommendation (since this is the single most memorable kindergarten moment from my childhood), we even made green eggs and ham for them. They loved it!

5 things I'm grateful for today

Thanks to Emily for following this blog and writing about Grace in Small Things. I've been wanting to do it from time to time, so I'm happy to do it today!

1. I have great friends who step in to help whenever needed. Today it was my friend Lara who offered to keep Bennett so I could work in Morgan's class. This made Morgan (and me) very happy.

2. Bennett didn't destroy anything at Lara's house while he was there (that I know of) and I was greeted with comments about how she wanted to adopt him because he was so good, helpful and cute. What a way to make my day! Lara even made chicken nuggets for the kids, which was great since Morgan was STARVING (she must be going through a growth spurt). In turn, I picked up some salads for us and the kids were pretty much done eating by the time we sat down, so we got to sit and eat salad and chit chat while the kids played for a little while after lunch. Soooo nice!

3. During class today, Morgan was tested for AR. This basically assesses where she is in terms of her reading and comprehension. She scored a 1.0, which the average starting first grader. Her teacher told me that she hoped she would be at a 1.4 by the end of the year, essentially at the level of a child in the fourth month of first grade. How exciting! Morgan was really frustrated by the test, but when I explained to her that it had to be hard to figure out where she was and that not all the kids even got to be tested, she mellowed out a little. Then, when we figured out that she'd actually made it into the AR group, allowing her to check out an additional book from the library every week, she got so excited that she HAD to call Daddy and Grandma. I have to say that I'm overwhelmed with pride. She started out the school year, in my opinion, slightly behind with phonetics. She has surpassed my expectations for her this year and the fact that she now has this additional path to pursue, will only help increase her reading level. I know the joy that this will bring to her over the years, so I'm just so incredibly grateful to have a child who loves to learn.

4. Making the best of the fact that Daddy is gone GoKarting with his coworkers tonight, I decided to go cash in our free movie or game coupons at Blockbuster and came home with two movies and one Wii game for free. We also went by Little Caesars for the $5 pizza and when we got home, I set the kids up in the living room with paper plates, pizza, water, and Everyone's Hero on the TV. They both sat there and ate and watched the movie for an HOUR! This is officially the world record for the longest Bennett has sat still in front of the TV. The food must have had something to do with it. What a nice break for me, though! Not only did I not have to cook, but I didn't even have to entertain them for over an hour! I'd say $5 was worth it for dinner and entertainment! Would it be wrong for me to set up the table in the living room permanently? I guess I'd have to put food out permanently too....

5. Quiet. Right now, the kids are all in bed, fast asleep after "such an awesome night" as Morgan put it. Lance is still out, so it's just me awake right now. There's no sound but the bubbling of the fish tank and the clicking of the keys on my laptop. Ahhhhhh. Drink it in.

Forescore and seven years ago..

Morgan's class has been learning all about the presidents. Specifically George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They are learning all kinds of interesting facts, not all of which revolve around assassination attempts, so it's good to hear that Morgan's knowledge of presidents is expanding.

Today, they were performing a poem and presidential facts at the school's "Dragon Assembly". Without further ado, here's Morgan, her class and the adjoining class!


Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Domestication of Paige

Want to know what happens when you leave me at home with a toddler who is still recovering from a cold?

This...



























And a little "this" with the little ones....
















Then when all that was done and dinner was done, I popped some cranberry banana nut bread into the oven for my MOPS meeting tomorrow morning. So, yeah. I pretty much spent the day in the kitchen. I was really proud of myself for the bread though! It's the first time I've made bread from scratch and it actually wasn't that hard to make and it tastes great!

In fact, the hardest thing I did today was to put the sprinkles on those damn pretzels. It was very time consuming! You couldn't roll them in the sprinkles because that would just smear the chocolate everywhere, so I had to hand sprinkle each pretzel, by sprinkling while turning. To 20+ pretzels. Ummm....yeah! Morgan had fun drizzling the white chocolate over them, though. And when I was letting her stir the chocolate in the double boiler as it was melting, she looks at me and says, "Mom, I'm noticing that you are making a lot of things homemade these days. And I'm really glad that you are letting me help you. That way I can be a great cook one day!" It's then that you realize that these little things that are total pains really do matter! Anyway - hope the kids in her class like them! We opted to totally make all of our Valentines this year. The cards are handmade and we did these pretzels instead of the standard conversational hearts. When Morgan hands these out to her classmates on Friday, she can take pride in the work that she actually put into each and every one of these. For that alone, all the work is worth it!

Brought to you by the number 100

Today was the 100th day of school, full of activities centered around the number 100. The kids counted to 100 a bazillion times today. In ones, by fives, by tens. Counting and stringing fruit loops, counting money and stickers. Coloring dots and making books of dots. They even made their own snacks, counting out 10 of each things such as animal crackers, raisins, pretzels, Hershey's kisses, Cheez-Its, etc until they had 100 items in their bags. All things related to the number 100!



Now what? Morgan says she's not ready for Kindergarten to be over. I guess she thought it's all over when they get to 100! :)

Morgan's first school "project"

The task is to collect 100 items and put them on a poster board to display at Open House next week. They are celebrating the 100th day of school and so this fits with that theme. They didn't have to have 100 of the same thing, but they were to count 100 items (grouping into 10s) and put them on a poster board. They were able to make a picture out of it if they wanted.

The very first thing Morgan suggested was pebbles. Then we talked about her shell collection (which she reluctantly agreed to use) and then we thought we'd incorporate some of her fish stickers. Who knew we had so many stickers! :)

Without further ado, here is Morgan's first school project.

We worked on it together, but I'm proud to say that I let go of *some* of my perfectionism and let her finish up the painting and place all the stickers wherever she wanted. Maybe by the time she's in high school I can let go altogether! :)

Once upon a time....

....in a not very far away place, there was a full grown woman who thought that it would be cool...no, rather FUN! to subject herself to making miniature penguins for her daughter's kindergarten class. In the future, said woman's husband is to immediately Google the word "tedious" when the woman sees another "cute project" in Parents magazine, that so nicely coincides with her daughter's school subject. When that happens, Google is going to come back with several links, but one of them is sure to have a picture of this guy.

Not only were they tedious as hell to make, but once they were "set", the little bastards kept falling down. I'm elbow deep in cream cheese and olives and I'm having to reset them like they are melting snowmen. I finally cut their butts off and they have remained relatively still since then. Let that be a lesson to all miniature looks-like-something-else food everywhere!

Oh what we parents won't do for our children.

The words you don't want to hear your child's teacher say

"Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday what Morgan said in class. It's great! I just love five year olds!"

The class is asking each child to earn a dollar to buy socks for the needy. They were discussing what they could do around the house to earn a dollar. Morgan's idea? "I am going to get rid of ALL the bugs we have in our house. They are ALWAYS in my bathtub". Honestly, I don't think we have *that* severe of a bug problem, but apparently it bothers her! Stupid spiders!

Then, again today, I learn that they were discussing LOTS of things at circle time today. Boo boos was one topic since one little boy had cut his hand. Morgan proceeded to describe IN DETAIL to everyone about a cut she got on her UPPER INNER THIGH from a life jacket strap that was too tight. Her teacher was practically rolling on the floor in tears as she described the situation to me.

I guess it's time to have the talk about things that ARE appropriate to talk about at school versus things that ARE NOT.

Things that I've been remiss in discussing here

1. My daughter's report card. 4 is proficient at grade level (which is where you want them at the end of the year) and 3 is basic approaches grade level standards). She got 4's on all academics except for one of the phonemic awareness ones (I.D rhyming words...she said that run and red rhymed---the teacher said that 90% of the kids missed that one because they are focused on the first letter) and "Follows one-and two-step oral directions" (due to her lack of focus because SHE'S talking). She got a mix of 3's and 4's for Work and Study Skills. A couple 3- for "follows school and classroom rules" (not raising her hand to speak) and "demonstrates verbal self-control" (yeah - that one is pretty self explanatory LOL). The commentary was all glowing. Her teacher says she "LOVES her Morgan" and that she puts a smile on her face every day. She said that even the tough stuff - her talking - was just a result of having such a happy child. She's so happy that she just wants to tell everyone about her life. She said she's a true joy to have and that she "came there wanting to learn" and how that's so great because not all kids are like that and it's tough to pull them into a desire to learn. She said I didn't have anything to worry about with Morgan.

In true Morgan fashion, she wanted to go LINE BY LINE through her report card. I tried really hard to be upbeat and positive, but to also give her something to strive towards. I just don't want to be the parent who's all "What's this A- all about!!??". We told her we were very proud of her report card and that if she improves, especially in the areas of the 3-s that she got, she'll get a good surprise after her next report card. So, we'll see how that works out!

2. Bennett is now consistantly putting together more than one word. "Big Bird Bed" and "Love You Momma". Now if we can get him to listen to more than one word. ;-)

3. Thanksgiving festivities. Morgan and her class kicked off the holiday on November 21st with the Turkey Tango and the Thanksgiving Feast. Unfortunately, the night before was when I went with my friend Kristin to the midnight showing of Twilight and Kaitlyn and Morgan had their own midnight showing. Poor girl was sooo tired during her party. Here are a couple pics from school.


After that, we had a full week of no school ahead of us and we hung out and made the best of it. On Monday we just hung out at home while I cleaned. We headed to Superfranks on Tuesday with some friends. On Wednesday, Bennett's playgroup headed to the library for percussion time. It was fun, but a little long for the toddlers. After the library, Morgan went home with Chenoa for a playdate, which gave me the perfect opportunity to get things going for our Thanksgiving feast. I made the cranberry salad, two pumpkin pies, and cornbread muffins. On Thanksgiving day, we woke up and made a big breakfast of Pumpkin Waffles with homemade Apple Cider Syrup. Yumm! While the kids were napping, Lance fried up the turkey and I cooked the sweet potatoes, jiblet gravy, and green beans. We ate around 5 and we had so much food, I brought a couple of plates over to our elderly next door neighbors. It was a quiet, relaxed Thanksgiving and I loved it!



Black Friday was awesome! I met some friends at Kohl's at 4am and we shopped there until 5:30 when they headed to Target and I headed to Toys R Us. I stood in line for AN HOUR AND A HALF for one particular thing at TRU!! I hope it was worth it! After that, we went and got some breakfast before going for round 2 at the mall. I hit the jackpot in children's clothing at Macy's and then we hit a few other stores at the mall before finally heading home around 1pm! That's a long time to shop! Luckily, I came home just in time for nap! I took a good long nap and then before I knew it, Lance was leaving for a night out with his geocaching buddies and I had my friend Kristin and her daughter Kaitlyn over for a girls' night in. We all ate popcorn and the girls watched movies while Kristin and I chatted. It was fun!

4. Christmas is coming!! Yippee!! I'll leave that for a whole other post unto itself. :)

5. Our latest addition to our toy stash. Hello slide! I think the video speaks for itself!

Peeking up out of the books

My life, lately, has been revolving around making time to read. :) I've been reading the Twilight series and am on the last book, Breaking Dawn. Just in time for the release of the movie this Thursday! My friend Kristin and I are hitting the midnight showing of it! :)

Last week was a little crazy. I had something nearly every night. Mothers club general meeting on Tuesday night, mothers club budgeting meeting on Wednesday night, afternoon playgroup and then Bible study on Thursday night and then Friday afternoon was a reunion for Morgan's original playgroup. It was so cool to see our "babies" all grown up! Some of these kids we've known since they were just a few months old!

Saturday we had soccer in the morning and then I went hiking with some friends in the afternoon. Today was church and then I came home and tried to make up for all the laundry and stuff I have put off during the week while trying to finish reading my books! I've barely started Breaking Dawn, but really want to get through all 700+ pages of it before the movie comes out on Thursday.

Funny story from Friday. I was working in Morgan's classroom, so I got to watch her present her family homework to the class. They had these hands that they cut out and made them into turkeys. We had selected some items from our yard to decorate our turkey. She stands up in front of the class and begins describing her turkey. Something along the lines of "we picked leaves from our yard and cut them into feathers....I used marker to color the front of the turkey....we used pipe cleaner for the waddle....there are some different kind of leaves for the tail feathers....and we used a POISONOUS berry for the eye". The kids all gasp. The teacher gets a big grin across her face and says "we may need to have a discussion about bringing POISONOUS items to school!" and then she starts giggling. Of course, all the kids wanted to see the POISONOUS berry. Which is nothing more than a berry from one of our hedges, that we told her was poisonous because we don't know what kind of hedge it is and we didn't want her to eat it. She never fails to keep us laughing. :)

Terri's Diary

What a day!

Morgan took Terri to the polls this morning with Lance and she even got her "I Voted" sticker to prove it. She was so excited to go with Lance to do his civic duty. It was very cute! But, the morning's excitement did put us a little behind schedule, as Morgan had to run to catch up to her class as they were going in to school.

Morgan also got to vote at school. They voted on whether to have a hot dog party or a pizza party on Friday. They each got to cast their votes and then watch as they were tallied. They also go to go to the polling spot at the school to see the ballots and how they are read into the machine and all. Morgan is ALL ABOUT the election! In fact, they were calling a different race (US Senator for another state) and Morgan was all, "I totally know who they voted for! The guy on the top! So, I guess neither Obama or McCain won." LOL

After dropping Morgan off at school, I schlepped Bennett all over town, to three different grocery stores to get some grocery shopping done. I just adore shopping with just Bennett. He's at that really cute age where he's happy to just sit in the cart and sing songs and say "hi" to the butcher and just charm the pants off of everyone. It's fun to be his Mom!

We dropped the groceries off at home and then headed over to Bounce U for a kids outing. Bennett had a blast, and took an 2.5 hour nap afterwards to prove it. This place was awesome - they had two different rooms and lots of different options for all the kids. Bennett had so much fun getting silly with Clare.





I had to leave a little early to go get Morgan from school, but got there a few minutes early and was happy to have Twilight with me in the car! :) We came home and had lunch after school and then when the kids went down for their naps, I finished up my chores and read some more. I'm officially hooked! I'm already on page 320/498! I'll be done by the end of the week, for sure. Edward is amazing! I'm totally swooning! Anyway, the kids took good naps and Morgan woke up happy and with enough time to have a little snack before it was time to get her ready for ballet. I had to wake Bennett up to take her to ballet, but he didn't seem to mind too much. After dropping her off, we headed over to the store to look for bags to put her Start Attraction snack in for tomorrow. Luckily, I've been able to talk her out of ice cream sundaes for snack! :) She's now all about the Pirates Booty. Which makes things far less complicated for mom and healthier for the other kids, who are undoubtedly overdosing on Halloween candy at home. I picked out some pencil sharpeners for their guessing jar, hoping Morgan would approve. Boy did she! She's very excited! When it's their week, the kids get to put between 1-100 of any item that will fit into this jar and then the kids all get to guess how many are in there and then, if they want to, the Star can pass out their item to their classmates. She's very excited to pass out pencil sharpeners. She's already decided that she'll have the kids keep their pencil sharpeners at their desks. LOL

Today, she brought 10 pictures into the classroom to talk about. She picked pictures from the luau we went to in Hawaii, the Alligator Farm in Florida, a picture of her with her with my brother's children in Key West, a picture of Lance and I from Key West, one of her and Bennett when he was really little, a picture of her playing golf with Grandpa and a picture of her with Grandma at the duck pond in Florida, ones from her first and last birthdays, and one from her dance recital in June. Apparently, we have a public speaker on our hands. Her teacher went on and on about how great she did. She even said that she told the class that "This is how it's done!". She was proud of her for speaking clearly and loudly enough. Yeah, because I've always been so worried about my soft spoken little girl! Ha!

The last thing we have to do for Star Attraction week is to scrapbook our pictures. I promise to post the pictures we use. They are really cute!

A fun way to end the weekend

Since the rain subsided yesterday, we took that opportunity to head to the Zoo with Terri the Toucan. We stayed until just after lunch and then came home. I told Morgan that if she slept all the way home, she could skip her nap. I've never seen her go to sleep so fast.

We dropped the guys off so that Bennett could have his nap and then Morgan and I went by a house where a woman had offered me the entire Twilight series on Freecycle. I picked them up and then we headed to the theater to see High School Musical 3!

The movie was cute, but most of it was over Morgan's head (it was all senior year stuff - going away to school, figuring out what you want to do with your life, etc). It had some great singing and dancing numbers, and Morgan was dancing around in her seat with Terri.

After the movie, we came home and Morgan finished up her Star Attraction poster. It has things on there like pictures, her stats from birth and how big she is now, "Things I like" (hers are watching movies, going out to dinner, and playing with my brother), "Things I Don't Like" (hers are being yelled at - HA!, spicy salmon, and taking naps), what she wants to be when she grows up (a bird teacher), what she's really very good at (writing her name), what she likes to do in her free time (watch TV, play, go to the park) and her favorite book (The Lion King). I've very proud of her for writing the answers to all of these question all by herself! The poster is due today and tomorrow we owe more pictures, Wednesday is the special snack day (she wants ice cream sundaes!!), and then Friday is guessing jar.

I'm happy to report that while the Halloween candy still exists in my house, I managed to not eat a single piece of it yesterday. Hooray. Also, I started the first Twilight book last night after I finished my weekly planning and prepping for the board meeting on Wednesday. I can tell I'm going to be sucked in. Not sure when I'm going to find the time for that...

Laid back Saturday

I'm loving the rainy weather today. Although it meant that Morgan's soccer practice this morning was canceled, we ended up going out for breakfast with some friends and then came back home to a gloomy, but leisurely morning. Morgan worked on her Star Attraction poster for next week, Bennett colored next to her, and Lance and I watched football while I read the paper. This reminds me what weekends are supposed to be like - relaxing! :)

At some point this weekend, we're going to be taking the class mascot that Morgan is in possession of for the week to see High School Musical 3 and to the zoo. I have to take pictures and make scrapbook pages for the class book. Morgan's been looking forward to this since the very first Star Attraction of the year, so she's very wound up about it. Terri the Toucan went with us to breakfast this morning. :)

Other than the Star Attraction stuff this weekend, I have nothing else planned. And that feels nice! Maybe Lance and I will even get to watch some movies.

Tomorrow, I'm going to figure out a plan with all this stinking candy we have in our house. Because I seriously need to get back on track with my eating!