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.
The kids were on a short day schedule the whole first week of school, so we decided to take advantage of them being home early and squeeze in one last boating day this season. It turned out to be a milestone trip for the whole family. My big accomplishment was backing up the trailer for the first time (both to launch the boat and to pick it up). It wasn’t as hard as I thought. I’ll still make Nate do it if the launch area is crowded, but I’m confident enough to do it on slow days.
The milestone for the three oldest kids was to cross the wake on the kneeboard. They have been practicing their turns all summer, but it is tricky to get up enough momentum to make it over the wake when you don’t weigh very much. Ben was the first to do it. He was totally trying for it, but I think it surprised him more than anyone when he actually made it over. The girls didn’t want to be outdone by their brother and by the end of the day they had both conquered the wake too.
Abby’s milestone was riding the kneeboard for the first time. She didn’t want to try it by herself, so Nate went with her. She loved it! Emily took pictures since I was busy driving the boat.
I’m already excited to go boating next year. The more the kids can do, the more fun it is to go.
Nate’s milestone was hitting a rock with the propeller. He’s never done that before. Hopefully, he’ll never do it again.
I took the family out to dinner at Arby’s on the way home with my jury duty money (Nate had to cover the curly fries, but I paid for the sandwiches). There is a funny story about my jury duty check (for the whopping sum of $18.50). Nate and I are still debating who has a better sense of humor. The day it came, Nate was ordering some MP3 players for the kids online. His total was about $80. He was just about to order and said “Should we really be spending this money right now?” and I said, “Don’t worry about it. I just got paid.” Wah ha ha. Laugh out loud funny right? Nate only gave me a courtesy laugh (and maybe even an eye roll). Things like this make me wonder if we are really meant to be. :)
I spent most of the summer lamenting how fast time was going. I was dreading sending the kids back to school. Luckily, about two weeks before school starts, they start to drive me crazy. They fight and whine and all of a sudden I realize that I won’t miss them too much if they are gone for six hours a day. :)
The kids weren’t exactly enthusiastic about school starting, but we are off to a great start. They all came home with big smiles on their first day and so far everything has been wonderfully smooth. Ben is in the 5th grade this year. (In my head that is “THE 5TH GRADE!!!”) His teacher is Miss Wallace. She is young and fun and I have a feeling that she is going to be perfect for Ben. He is thrilled that he has some good friends in his class this year and so far we haven’t seen his typical “I’m freaked out about starting a new school year” behaviors. Phew.
I feel a little déjà vu with Emily and Elise this year since Emily has Mrs. Swanson (the same teacher Ben had in 3rd grade) and Elise has Miss Carter (Emily’s 1st grade teacher). Emily is in a 3rd/4th split which I think will be ideal. She is a fast learner and school has always been easy for her. We hope that being in a class with kids a year older will provide her with some opportunities to be challenged and she’ll have to stretch herself a bit.
I think Elise is doing great. I ask her every day what she learned at school and she says “I don’t know. I already know everything we are doing.” It is true. And it probably will be for quite a while. Oh well. There are worse things in life than being at the top of your class.
I had a serious fall off of the blogging wagon last month. I wanted to remember all of the stuff we did this summer, but taking the time to blog was starting to take the fun out of it. I actually typed up lots of posts, but it seemed like way too much effort to pick pictures and upload everything. My goal for this week is to get the blog up to date (or at least up to August). Just don’t think I am drunk when I say things like “yesterday was Pioneer Day”. It really was when I wrote the post.
