The third graders at our kids’ school use a nifty little computer program to help them master basic math facts. The goal is to pass off each of 19 different levels by getting 50 or more correct within 2.5 minutes. Usually it takes the kids a few months to get through all of the levels, but our little smarty pants did it in less than a month. The best part for Emily was that her teacher gave her a Tootsie Pop every time she passed off a level. There were days when she came home with two or three Tootsie Pops at once. She was in heaven.
Apparently, math just comes easily to Emily. She aced the math pretest that she took the first week of school, so her teacher recommended that she do the fourth grade math curriculum this year. It has been a really good thing for her. She is keeping up with the fourth graders, but she isn’t just coasting through. She has to work for it a bit. I’m glad that she is being challenged and learning new things.
For years we have heard about how great the Stake Fall Festivals are, but for a variety of reasons we have never made it to one. We decided to try it out this year and it certainly lived up to our expectations. It was a big party! They had all kinds of activities set up for the kids. There was arm wrestling, steer roping, squirt gun duels, potato sack races, searching for treasure in a pile of hay, watermelon and pie eating contests, pony rides, and a hay bale rolling contest. They even had a booth set up to take old fashioned family photos. We had a western style dinner and the best kettle corn I’ve ever tasted. The Hales Family Fiddlers provided the musical entertainment. At the end of the night, they had people come up to learn how to dance the Virginia Reel. I’m not a big fan of public dancing, so I was happy when Emily asked Nate if he would go dance with her. They had a great time. Elise and Ben were both sad afterwards that they hadn’t learned the dance. Me too. Maybe next time. It was a fun night with family and friends. We definitely won’t wait another nine years before going again.
Abby’s first day of preschool was Tuesday. For the last month she has been telling anyone that will listen that she got to go to preschool on Elise’s birthday. She thought it was so cool that there were two big things on one day. She would say “Elise only gets to do one special thing on her birthday, but I get to do two!”
She is going to Miss Jamee’s preschool. She has been looking forward to it ever since Elise was in Miss Jamee’s class and she couldn’t be more excited that it is finally her turn to go to school. She is happy that her friends Scott and Tess are in the same class. I’m happy that their moms can carpool so I only have to drive one day a week. It is so nice!
I’m looking forward to having 7.5 hours of “free time” during the week. I have a long list of projects that I plan on doing. This week I totally wasted the time and even took a couple of naps, but next week I am going to start being productive
We successfully made it through another marathon birthday week at our house. With three birthdays in six days, it all kind of blurs together. It works out great that they always fall on a holiday weekend so we can fit everything in.
Nate took the day off work for my birthday which made everything better. He helped get the kids off to school and made me breakfast. We went shopping, ran some errands, stopped at Arby’s for lunch, and came home in time for me to take a quality afternoon nap. Ben had a make-up soccer game Thursday night, so the whole family went to watch. We finished off the night with takeout from Maple Express, corn on the cob, and some Antiques Roadshow. It was a great day. I had three good meals that I didn’t have to prepare, a nap, and lots of family time. What more could a girl want?
Emily chose to go to Classic Fun Center for her birthday activity, so we headed out that way after school on Friday. Nate and I were a little bugged by how run down some of the areas were (only 5 laser tag guns actually worked . . . what’s up with that?), but the kids had a great time. They played non-stop for hours.
We finished celebrating Emily’s birthday on Sunday with presents, chicken roll-ups for dinner, and a yummy cheesecake. The kids played Lumberjacks on the Wii and we played Apples to Apples on the trampoline.
We switched gears Sunday night and started with Elise’s birthday activity. She wanted to have a campout in the backyard. We dragged our trailer onto the back lawn and JD and Callie let us borrow their fire pit so we could have a campfire. We played telephone and the Harry Potter ABC game around the fire, roasted marshmallows, and watched Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the trailer.
We wrapped things up yesterday with Elise’s birthday. It was a school day, so we didn’t do too much out of the ordinary besides opening presents. She picked penne noodles with alfredo sauce for her birthday dinner. After dinner, we took the kids to the “fish park” and let them play for a while and then headed home for a yummy grasshopper ice-cream pie.
