2013_12_18 Wednesday

Overnight, I got an email from a class parent that we have lice in the classroom. eewww. Even thinking about it makes my body itch. I didn't see anything on Jonathan this morning, and he hasn't complained of the itchies. But, I'm taking him to a pro today for a hair check. I talked to him ad nausium today about not sharing hats (which he wasn't wearing anyway) and keeping your head away from other people's heads. ugh. gross.

2013_12_17 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we continued our winter celebration. in Art we decorated corn, one of the symbols of Kwanzaa.  X  and X decorated their corn with glitter.  We also worked on our winter gift.  X decorated a heart and X decorated a star.   It is name tracing week. X and X traced their names very well.  X listened intently was we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas .  All of our friends enjoyed Frosty the Snowman.  We had a mystery reader today!  My friends did really well listening to the story.

(hmmm, no sentence about Elise...wonder if that's because she was in an "I hate..." mood today?!)

I also came to school to watch her last day of ballet/tap. I have a couple of photos to share.

P.S. It's in the low 60s here!

We also went to the Botanical Gardens' Night Lights event. The kids got 3-D glasses to make all the lights have snowflakes and stars on them.

It was really beautiful. They even had some orbs/spheres that changed light (along with music), sort of like Jonathan's Ikea nightlight but bigger. They had a Brilliant Bug exhibit with mechanical dragonflies and a Santa Prantis Mantis, as Elise still calls it. They had a lovely orchid walk with poinsettias and a giant light tree where the spinning fish were before. We really walked everywhere; the kids sure were tired. We didn't get home until after 9:30. 

2013_12_16 Monday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day! Today we started our discussion about our holiday traditions. We began by making winter solstice lanterns. X glued strips of paper to her balloon and X chose which strips would go on her balloon.  We also worked on our wonderful winter gifts.  X colored her heart and Elise colored her star.  I hope you enjoy them! Our letters of the week are L and M but we will be focusing on our names.  X and X traced their names very well and identified the letters in their name.  We had a great time in music.  X stomped along to we are the dinosaurs.

2013_12_15 Sunday

We just had a lovely family night out. I had wanted to try out one restaurant that I found online, but we couldn't find it. It may have been tucked away, and it wasn't worth going down alleyways to track this place down. Instead, we went to The Family Dog, which is sort of a misnomer, in that it's not entirely family-friendly. But, we made do. The kids had grilled cheese and pretzels...and bits of my salad. They had a jazz band warming up, so I took the kids up to see the clarinet, bass, drums, and piano. Both kids thought that was pretty cool. Elise was into the clarinet (which she kept calling the trumpet) and piano, while Jonathan really liked the drums (oh boy)...and the sax that wasn't there (!?). The performers were really cool about letting the kids get close enough and making funny faces at them. Then, the clarinet player came off stage for the vocalist and sat right behind me! Both kids thought that was neat. Dave and I took turns taking the kids up to the stage to watch them play. It was neat to see both kids swinging and swaying and groovin' to the music. And, Jonathan and I talked about rhythm and melody (that's about the extent of my music education), both of which he has in music class...but not singing like this lady, he said!

As we were leaving, Santa Claus came in...in his casual overalls. Oh my goodness. When I pointed him out to the kids, their mouths hit the floor. They asked: Why would Santa come to The Family Dog?! and I said that even he needs some soulful jazz and a good beer sometimes...but, his elves were surely still working away, of course! they were sold. He slipped me a card that he actually does Santa appearances. too cool.

2013_12_13 Friday

It's Friday the 13th!!!
Now, I'm not sure this is a good lesson but here's how the morning played out:
Jonathan has gotten into the habit of watching some TV as he eats his breakfast; however, today he decided not to eat and only to watch. I went ballistic (probably b/c J2 snuck into my bed at 2am; I carried him back to his bed around 5:30 where I also "slept" -- or didn't -- until 6:40), and I turned off the TV. He started crying...loudly...which made me even more mad. But, I explained that if he could show me that he was eating and not crying, he might have time to watch the end of his show. He did. Nothing like a good downward spiral to start the day off. Then, as we are running out the door (and it's 40 degrees), his parka is nowhere to be seen. So, he has to wear his 'new,' lighter courd jacket, and we got to the stop as the bus was pulling up. He didn't even get to suffer in the cold. So, the whole morning really didn't teach him much of anything. You win some; I lose many.

From Elise's school:y

We had a great day! Today we made play doh!  X helped us to make playdoh and also told us which colors to mix to make purple. X voted to make blue playdoh.  We also made wallets with money in them to use for our class car wash. X colored her wallet and X helped to tape her wallet. Elise helped to collect money when we paid to have our car washed and X washed the cars.  We all took turns operating the car wash. We worked on the letter M and X traced his letter M words.  

2013_12_12 Thursday

Elise was invited to come to school today, even though it's not her typical day to attend, so we jumped on that:

Thank you for making our fruit salad a success! Today was very busy. First we got to work on our chef hats X colored his chef hat before Ms. Tiffany helped him to finish the hat.  We wore then during out cooking lesson. We also worked on the letter M today.  X and X traced their M's and listened to the letter M song.  In music, X sang along to jingle bells and sang us songs he listens to at home. We also learned about picking out something different from a group.  Elise circle everything that was different in each group on her worksheet. X pointed to each item that was different on the worksheet. X and X helped make the salad by pouring and mixing the ingredients together.

David and I went to his company holiday party tonight. It was nice to get out and be with other grown-ups. It was also really nice to see some familiar faces from the NYC office. I was home by 10pm; Dave sure was not (5am!?!)!

I also finished "I Am Malala." What an amazing, strong, young woman. She should have won the Nobel. Truly inspiring (or shaming, maybe?!).

2013_12_10 Tuesday

Gov't was closed due to weather, so I had a day off, more or less. Still working but far less to do that normal.

From Elise's school:

We had a wonderful day today Today we talked about the circus. In Art, we made elephant masks.  X colored his mask very well.  X and X stomped around like circus elephants.  We also made tangrams of animals. X really enjoyed coloring her tangram animals.  We also talked about the letter M today.  X said that man starts with M. X and Elise traced their M's.  We also practiced for the winter pageant. X got on stage with the rest of his friends and had a snowball fight!

2013_12_09 Monday

From Elise's school:

We had a quiet day. We learned about pretending today. In Art, we made stick puppets.  X colored her stick puppet a beautiful shade of red. We practiced saying hello and goodbye in other languages with our puppets.  In Music, we practiced our winter pageant song on stage. X sang loudly with her friends and is ready for her performance. Our letter of the week is M.  X traced his M's in the air while listening to the M song. X and Elise colored all of their M words.  X told us that her name and the word Momma start with the letter M.  We listened to the bonjopur song as well. During Mandarin, we learned about the rabbit in the moon and all of our friends enjoyed the lesson very much. 

2013_12_06 Friday

St. Nicholas came over night!

Jonathan got ein geld beutel, a chocolate Santa, and a Hex bug;
Elise got ein geld beutel, a chocolate Santa, and a purple detangler brush;
Dave got a gift certificate to a movie; and
I got a 2014 dayplanner.

I guess we were all good: no coal or switches for Familie Hardwick!

from Elise's school:

We had a fun day! Today we talked about the story, The Fisherman and his Wife and why its important not to be selfish. X and X listened intently to the story.  In Art, we colored a fish mural. X and X carefully painted their fish mural with watercolors.  We also worked on our letter L's X and Elise traced all of their L's.  We also practiced our winter pageant song. X was a good singer and sang along with his friends.  Today was show and tell. X brought in something cold, a penguin! 

2013_12_03 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we talked about size. We discussed that the small something is, the more of it can fit in to a space. We used, sand, pom poms, and bow tie pasta as examples. X said that more sand can fit into the bowl than pom poms because the pom poms are bigger. X said that less pasta can fit into the bowl than sand because it is bigger. We also used colorful sand to make rockin' snowflakes. X helped to pour the sand onto his snowflakes and X chose every color that she wanted her snowflake to be.  We also talked about letter L words today. X said that leaf and lion starts with L. She then roared like a lion.  During music, we practiced for the winter pageant X sang along with the song. Elise sang along with our 18 wheels song and counted all the wheels on the big rig.  X practiced her cutting skills today in the cutting center.

2013_12_02 Monday

What a welcome I got for my first full time working day at home: a near-revolution in the Ukraine. what joy. I've felt really good all day, though, balancing different requests and taskings. It's good.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Today we talked about Native Americans and dream catchers. We then made our very own dream catchers. X picked out which beads he wanted to go on his dream catcher and X colored hers with crayons. Our letter of the week is L.  X told us that her dogs, L and L both start with the letter L. X colored her letter L words.  During music, we practiced our song for the Winter pageant.  Elise participated in the song and had lots of fun.  We also sang rainbow of colors. X danced with the black scarf and X danced with the green scarf.

2013_12_01 Sunday

What a phenomenal two weeks!!! First, I flew to DC for work, and the highlight was giving a briefing to 1,400 of my closest work friends. I felt like I did a good job, but even just the opportunity and exposure was truly wonderful. I am now working full time, temporarily while a woman is on maternity leave. I really enjoyed spending time with the staff and networking/schmooooozing. I also got to see a bunch of dear friends, including having a ladies' night out. I don't feel like I slept much, but it sure was nice to have a quiet hotel room. Great time, all around!!
Once the week ended, Dave flew up with the kids and picked me up. We spent four excellent days with PopPop and Grandma and that whole family. Then, we drove to Nanna and Grandpa for three days, including Thanksgiving. What a feast! Then, we spent one night at Uncle Steve/Aunt Vicky and family. We got to see Cat play basketball too. Then, we drove back to our old town to visit three great friends (two with kids in Jonathan's grade). I wish we could have stayed longer to see a few more folks, but we just didn't plan very well. Next year we may stay a night to see everybody. Finally, we flew out of Newark very late at night and got home close to midnight (not a wink of shuteye on the flight either). The kids were amazing through 99.9% of the entire trip, and I'm sure much of it was jarring, sleeping somewhere else every other night, etc. But, I really enjoyed all the time we had with such good friends and family.
Today has been all about recovery and getting back into our normal groove. I've done a ton of laundry, groceries, etc. Preparing to be a full time employee going forward.

2013_11_22 Friday

From Elise's school:

We had a great Friday! Today we talked about Thanksgiving and what we are thankful for. We started by coloring our thanksgiving turkeys.  X made a pretty pink turkey and X made a rainbow turkey.  Then, we decorated thankful trees. X decorated his tree with foam leaves and X used crayons to decorate his thankful tree.  Lastly, we talked about what we are thankful for. Elise said that she is thankful for mommy and daddy and frogs and X said that he is thankful for superman and family. During music, X danced along to the letter k song and X tapped her rhythm sticks to the beat when we sang the song, go slowly/quickly. Have a great weekend! Have a great Thanksgiving break and see you on December 2nd! 

2013_11_19 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we talked about nature and things we find outside in nature.  X said that we can find sticks outside and X said that we can find leaves outside.   We also practiced writing our J's.  Elise practiced writing her J's and X wrote several J's all by herself.  During kinesthetics, we played our favorite game, Musical Chairs. X won our second game and X came in second place. During Spanish, X danced to the music.  X chose a book to read to the class during circle time.  Have a Great day! Thank you to all of the parents that came to have lunch with us today!

2013_11_18 Monday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we talked all about cold weather. In Art, we made marshmallow igloos and ate a few marshmallows too. X put all of her marshmallows in neat little rows and X glued all of hers very carefully.  We also played an ice toss game. We used an ice pack to toss to our friends.  X and X had a lot of fun with this game. Our letters of the week are J and K.  Elise told us that Jonathan starts with the letter J. X colored in her letter J very neatly.   In music class, X danced to the song everybody get up and listened intently during Mandarin.

2013_11_15 Friday

I got my hair cut today!! It's "short" again -- chin length!

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! We finally had some outside playtime today.  Today we talked about how we are all the same and how we all have differences.  X explained that some people are taller than others and noticed that X is taller than her. In Art, we colored people in order to see than many shapes and sizes that people can come in. X did a very good job coloring in his people. We also practiced cutting today.  X and X practiced their cutting and cut out hearts with Ms. X . In Kinesthetics, we played bean bag toss and X  tossed her beanbag to friends very nicely. During puzzle time, X put the number puzzle together all by himself. X had fun in German identifying the different modes of transportation.  Elise danced to the letter K song and traced the letter k in the air.

2013_11_12 Tuesday

Happy 11/12/13 day!! Elise must have known that the day was special; she was up at 7am, for no good reason!!

From Elise's school:
Today we talked about our favorite things. We made a 4KA favorite foods book.  X told us his favorite food is Popsicles and he drew a very colorful picture of Popsicles.  X has several favorite foods. She drew blueberry waffles, cherry yogurt, and a sushi boat! We shared our book with the class during circle time. We also talked about charts; more specifically, pie charts. We used the pie chart to count how many of our friends liked the same things.  Elise said that three of our friends liked grapes and X said that two of our friends liked chocolate.  We also talked about the letter K today. X traced his letter K's very well. X also traced his K's and made the /k/ sound along with our Kangaroo Koala song. We also worked on our pinching technique today. X and X successfully used the clothespin to pick the pom poms out of the bowl.

I had a parent/teacher conference for her today. It was great. She's doing very, very well.

I got a call from the nurse just before dismissal time. Jonathan apparently stabbed himself accidentally (falling) with a pencil during recess. Then, she and I walked down to the bus stop to get Jonathan, and I got a text from his teacher that he missed the bus because he thought it was tennis day. Alas, we rushed home, got the car, and headed off to school. Teacher said he was near tears, but they talked about big problems and little problems. This was definitely a little problem, better yet just an accident. Poor kid.

Then, I opened up his backpack to find 20-something thank you notes (picture and text) from the class for me coming in to talk about St Martin yesterday. How flippin' sweet are they!!?

2013_11_11 Monday

I spent the morning at Jonathan's school talking about St Martin's Tag. I told them a story (with props), we made our own Laterne, we listened to two German songs -- Laterne, Laterne and Ich Geh Mit Meiner Laterne, we had our own class parade, and we shared a giant Bretzel and some smaller, store bought ones. I had a great time. The kids seemed to dig it too, and Jonathan was quite a helper.

I also talked very briefly about how cool tomorrow will be: 11/12/13.

From Elise's school:

We had a very busy day today. We talked about what it would be like to be a dinosaur!  In Art, we made sock puppet dinosaurs and danced and roared with them.  X said that dinosaurs are scary and made his dinosaur scary.  X made her dinosaur puppet a pretty puppet.  In music, we danced to we are the dinosaurs and X helped her dinosaur roar and stomp; we also pounded the nails in Pound Pound.  We also talked about strange pets today.  X said that en elephant was a silly pet to have. X said that we could have a small lion as a pet. Our letters of the week are J and K.  We talked about K words. Xsaid that Kid starts with K and Elise said that Kite starts with K.

2013_11_10 Sunday

Jonathan pulled out his third tooth today!! It had been dangling for a few days, but he would only allow me one pull each day, and those are slippery, little suckers. So, while having breakfast at home, he did it himself...that's probably a better way anyway. Tooth is already in the tooth pillow and waiting for the ToothFairy to arrive!

2013_11_08 Friday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! In Art, we tried to draw our favorite superhero. We also were given time to draw whatever we wanted to.  X drew a robot superman and X drew a pink superman.  We also practiced our J's today.  X practiced tracing his J's and even drew a few of his own!  Elise said that jungle johnny likes to juggle jelly.  During music, X had fun dancing along with the music.  During kinesthetics, we played with the parachute. X and X had a lot of fun playing with it. They helped us to keep Clifford, Cleo and T-Bone in the parachute and we tried to kick the ghost out of the parachute!

Elise has taken it pretty easy today. She actually napped, which was the first time in forever. She's been sipping on OJ for the afternoon and lounging on the sofa. She's still got a runny nose, but she doesn't feel quite as hot as the past two days.

On a very different note, I just have to reflect on how cool the Internet is in helping people stay connected. I've been able to have an email conversation today with two friends (a German and J2's K-G teacher) that drove home that distance is totally irrelevant these days. warm fuzzies.

Jonathan had a playdate here with a neighbor friend right after school. It's also neat that the boys are old enough that they don't need constant monitoring...although an occasional eyeball does help keep a room from becoming a disaster zone.

Oh, and I'm going to teach on Monday -- St Martin's Tag -- at J's school. We are going to learn about St Martin, make small Laterne, have a class-wide parade, and then share a pretzel. How cool!?! And, I've already dropped hints about St Nicholas as well.

2013_11_07 Thursday

Today is 1st grade Superhero Day, so Jonathan wore the felt cape I made for him to school. Yeah, at least it got a second wearing after ~3 years! ;o)

Elise, however, woke up between 12-2am today sniffing, gagging, and with a fever. Oh joy. This morning, she's felt less hot but still hasn't been herself and isn't particularly interested in napping/resting either. ugh. I really don't have any down time in the next 2 weeks for anyone to be anything but 100% healthy. Gesh, did I just jinx myself!? I made a fruit smoothie for her, but we froze it up into popcycles, so both kids can have a treat after school today.

2013_11_06 Wednesday

Elise and I went to explore a new park today:

We had fun, but even that didn't tire her out enough for anything resembling a nap. ugh!

I've been checking off our excursions from the book from Oma and doing reasonably well. Today, I took the kids to THE Krispy Kreme doughnut factory for an after-school, after-tennis snack. Boy, did that backfire!! Jonathan stubbornly picked a strawberry jelly-filled doughnut and then broke down into tears when he discovered -- after I repeatedly told him -- it had jelly inside. Elise licked off all the fall sprinkles from her's and offered the doughnut to J as a consolation (which I thought was really sweet), and he fell further into his funk. Golly, try to do something different/fun, and see what happens?! gesh. I talked to him at home about needing to try new things and maybe liking them... and about listening to me (since I knew he didn't like jelly doughnuts)...and about how ridiculous this whole thing really was.

Finally, a class mom/pro-photog shared this shot of the kids from her son's b'day back in September:

2013_11_04 Monday

From Elise's school:
Today we talked about patterns and made patterned key chains in class. This helps us string large and small beads, a fine motor skill. X made a pink and purple pattern and X made a green and yellow pattern.  We also talked about our letter of the week, J. X told us that juice starts with the letter J.  Elise colored her Letter J words and X traced an uppercase and lowercase J.  During music class, we listened to the song, We are the dinosaurs and X had fun stomping like a Dinosaur. This helps recognize and understand the rhythm of the song. X had fun in Japanese class repeated every fruit the Japanese teacher pulled from her special bag. We also learned about the Indian festival of Lights, Diwali. We watched a video on the many colors associated with Diwali and talked about how India is full of lights during the festival.

2013_11_03 Sunday

We had a bunch of friends over last night for an impromptu party and house warming gathering. It was really fun.

Dave planned an excursion today! We went to the aquarium. It was terrific; it's the largest in the world. I think we were there for almost 6 hours. He bought a membership, so we got to see a dolphin show -- in the wet second row! The kids loved it. There were a few touch tanks that they tried out. We also saw a 4-D movie. The exhibits there are really amazing, especially the four whale shark one, which has a moving sidewalk that goes under/through the enormous tank. I could have sat at any one of them for hours. We missed the feedings, but we can go back anytime now.

2013_11_01 Friday

Wow, is it really November already!?!

I was able to submit the school's Box Top collection. I'm anticipating about $850 for the school!! I guess that makes all the counting, cutting, and packaging worth it. Jonathan's class came in a very close second in the school-wide contest!

I also delivered a large moving box to E's school today to collect candy for the troops. I drew a nice monster's face, cutting out a mouth hole, with a sign that says "Feed Me Candy!" Man, am I amazing or what!? By pick-up time, it was already about 1/2 full!!

From Elise's school:

All of our friends were very excited to tell us how much fun they had during trick or treating! Today we talked about codes. In art, we used colored coded shapes to tell us how to color a picture. X and X colored all of their shapes according to the color code.   We also listened to our letter songs for the day.  X traced a G in the air along with the song.  We also practiced tracing our names today!  X and X traced their names very well.   While we were in centers,  Elise made a King Cobra out of play doh.  We also had fun during music time, where we used sandpaper blocks to tap to the beat of the music.  We also made a code for different actions during exercise time and practiced. running walking and crawling in place.  We finished by dancing one last time to the monster mash before we say goodbye to the Halloween season.

Jonathan and Elise had a joint playdate with our neighbors and another friend after school. They dug around in the backyard and got sooo dirty, but it was awesome fun. So great to be outside on a day like today!!!

2013_10_31 Thursday

Elise and I were just playing the Super Why game, and she can identify every single lower case letter and match it with the upper case...except for V!? how is it that she knows g/G, i/I, d/D, etc, but not v/V?! that made me laugh.

So, it's really hard to believe that we are actually going to celebrate Halloween this year. The last two years have been cancelled due to Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, so the kids really haven't had a true Halloween in their memory, for sure. Elise will be a purple princess (surprised, anyone?!), and Jonathan will be a home-made (important detail!) bat, which will look remarkably like Batman, minus the logo. Dave left the house with a mask and cape: Super Android. And, while I wanted to be scrambled eggs -- lots of E-G-G-S on a white/yellow back drop (haha), I just couldn't pull it together in time. Maybe next year. Elise didn't like her tiara or her pink elbow-length gloves (arg), and Jonathan couldn't breathe with the plastic bat face mask on, so all that came off. Good thing I was walking around with a glass of wine. One street over from us was absolutely insane; the homeowners go all out with decorations, etc. What a good time.

Purple Princess Elise and Bat Jonathan

Before we went trick-or-treating, though, Elise and I joined Jonathan for lunch at school. That was fun chaos. I brought in Lunchables, which are his favorite albeit disgusting, and we had a really fun time together. Then, immediately following, Elise has a class costume parade that lasted all of 15 minutes. What a day.

2013_10_28 Monday

Happy Anniversary to Auntie and Uncle!!! And, happy-finding-out-I-was-pregnant-with-Jonathan-seven-years-ago day!

From Elise's school:

We had a great all girls day today! Today we talked about money. We used  giant sized money to buy things from our classroom store. X bought two small drums and Elise bought two small pumpkins.  We also talked about the value of each coin and listened to Elmo's money song.  We also traced F's for review.  X Traced all of her F's with ease and X named all of the objects that start with the letter F on her paper. During circle time, our friends took turns being the teacher and calling their friends for the jump up and down song.  It was X's turn today and she called each of her friends and asked them to jump up and down.  We also made Halloween inspired art today.  X made a very colorful pumpkin.

2013_10_27 Sunday

What a busy weekend! Yesterday, Jonathan had a birthday party to attend. I dropped the ball and forgot that it was a costume party, but after seeing the bounce house and homemake haunted house, Jonathan promptly forgot.

Today, we had our class playdate. There were a bunch of things going on at and near the park, so it was really hard to get to our site. So, not a ton of families came, but we had about six, and that was good fun for mingling. We had plenty of food, and the weather was great.

Pre-bath time was dedicated to carving our big pumpkin:

Elise is not a fan of the pumpkin slime.

2013_10_25 Friday

It was cold and dark this morning!! I mean 35. It's warmed up enough since then, but gesh! I thought we were in the south!!

Her "cupcake" hat

I also explored town a bit more today and found a good consignment shop. Not like our old one (prices are generally higher), but it should serve its purpose!

Elise's school:

We had a great day today even thought it was very cold! Today we talked about how to compare and contrast. We started by comparing and contrasting apples and oranges.  X helped us compare and contrast by saying that apples are red, green, and yellow.  X told us that oranges are soft. We then compared the city and the farm and Clifford, Cleo, and T-Bone.  We also went on a treasure hunt to look for our animal friends.  X found Cleo behind the cabinet and X found Clifford in Ms. Rebecca's room. X followed the directions and took three big hops in order to help find T-bone, who was hiding in X's cubby.   We all tried to write our very own I's today.  X practiced writing his own I's and Elise told us that Iguana starts with the letter I. During circle time, we talked about Halloween yet again..lol. X told us that she is going to be a princess. 

2013_10_22 Tuesday

I had a work-related meeting that ate up much of my morning, but it was extremely useful and productive. Then I ran around gathering supplies for Jonathan's first STEM project of packing a pumpkin and launching it off a 10 foot cliff. I stopped by school twice to drop off goodies (packing materials, pumpkins, boxes, etc). The teacher was so grateful; it makes the whole thing worthwhile.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today was all about math in nature. We used natureprint paper to make imprints of objects we find outside. X found a twig in the nature can to put on the paper.  We also made animals found in nature.  X made a Tiger and X made a monkey.  In music, we danced to the beat and everyone had alot of fun, especially X .  We also played simon says with numbers today.  X asked everyone to sleep on one foot? and Owen asked everyone to play ring around the rosie.   During circle time, we used our number puzzle to count in three languages.  Elise identified the number 9 and X identified the number 4.

We've been playing with her hair lately; it's finally long enough for...

2013_10_21 Monday

Happy Birthday to my loving husband!!!

I have been on the go all day. After getting the kids off, I picked up a few Box Tops from school. They are only trickling in. Not quite the response I was hoping for, but I suppose it is better than nothing. I think Jonathan's class will win the contest hands down. Grabbed some cat food. And, then I got a nice, quiet break for myself -- a tour of Margaret Mitchell's home. So interesting. I really like learning about the history of where we live. I bought a cute Georgia cotton 'angel' Christmas ornament and a book about our neighborhood. When I flipped it open, there was a photo of a house on our street that really looked like our house, perhaps before renovations! whoa.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we talked about numbers in nature.  In art, we colored a beautiful nature landscape and we also collected things from outside to count and share with the class.   X pulled a stick out of the nature box and Elise pulled out a leaf.  X colored and counted the trees in her landscape picture.  During music, we did the tiger shake and X  showed us all how it should be done.  During Mandarin, X had a lot of fun and repeated every word the teacher said.  Our letter of the week is I and X colored her I for ice cream.  WE made ghosts to decorate our door and X made a very scary ghost.

Tonight I'm taking Dave to a hotel restaurant that spins. I think it will be pretty neat to see the whole landscape from high above. Holy Moly, it was amazing. The food was great; drinks were flowing; and ambiance was perfect. Not a normal restaurant for our budget but really nice for special occasions.

2013_10_20 Sunday

What a fun day we had at a "pumpkin patch," well more like a farm. We were there for about six hours, and three of us fell asleep on the drive home!

We watched pig races. We petted a bunch of farm animals. We explored a corn maze, although not very well since we came out the entrance we went in. We rode on a tractor. We watched a mechanical chicken music show. We played with rubber ducks. The kids and Dave shot corn husks (some went really far!). The kids and I rode a cow train (made out of feed barrels). The kids bounced on a jumpy pillow, played in a corn box, and slid down a big slide. Finally, we picked up pumpkins and had some homemade strawberry ice cream and kettle corn. And, we bumped into Elise's school director!!!

They had a plywood cow that you could milk, but her udders were dry, and a little boy came up to me and told me that was mommy's milk. His mother was mortified, but I laughed and told her we called it the same thing.
Then, Elise decided to drop trow' right in the middle of the farm to pee and I whisked her to the potty, but en route she tried to go behind a tree. Both are excellent places to go if you must, but maybe not with a massive audience. She made it just fine to the portajohns (egads).

Dave and Jonathan decorated the little pumpkins with Oma's stick-ons. And, both kids showered off and fell into bed. They were pooped!

2013_10_19 Saturday

I bought tickets to a local hockey game through Jonathan's school. His choir sang the Canadian national anthem to open the game, but we were 10 minutes late and missed it! boo. But, we all sat in one section, and I even recognized a couple of faces. What a fun game (well, for me at least). It was exciting for the first two periods, but the kids lost interest pretty quickly. I talked Jonathan through as much of the game as I understand and compared it to soccer so he could grasp it. There were a few fights, and we laughed at how silly they looked and behaved...and that they had to sit in time out afterward. He nearly remembered what the machine is called: zambonia. And, it took awhile to remember that they are not on skis but rather ice skates. He was impressed with how well the guys skated since it was pretty hard for us last Christmas at the Barony. That said, Elise made it onto the jumbotron not just once but twice!!!! The second time, she actually stuck her tongue out and I had to chase after her to put it away. The whole place laughed, and two people stopped us on the way out recognizing her! OMG. We moved down to the second/third row for the third period and got a nice up-close view.

2013_10_18 Friday

I met a woman today who is moving here from our old town! We've been emailing a bunch, but she's here to house hunt, so we met up. Really nice.

From Elise's school:

We had a wonderful Friday! Today we talked about the sun, the moon and the stars! We began by painting a watercolor of Van Goh's Starry night. This helps us practice painting and exercising our wrists.  X and Elise painted their pictures very carefully and had alot of fun using watercolor paints.  We also learned a few words in sign language today.  X learned the sign for star and X learned the sign for moon.  We also talked about the letter H. X told us that heart starts with the letter H. X finished tracing all of his H's and did an excellent job. During music, we learned about shapes and X danced with the circle.  We also did the monster boogie and X showed us how a monster should Dance.

Today was "Hat Day" for her; she wore...a tiara, of course.

Jonathan got another Star Student progress report this week. He is rocking it!! We are so proud of him.

2013_10_17 Thursday

What a blah day; it's been raining off and on all day. There was nothing really on our agenda today, so Elise and I loafed around for most of the morning.

Jonathan came home with his mid-quarter report card! His teacher was so kind and complimentary in her text about him. And, the lowest grade he got was an 88% in PE. I'll take it!! Besides, he got two 100%s (one in Spanish). What does crack me up is that his reading tests in NJ were mid-2nd grade when he was in Kindergarten; here, he's right on track for his grade. Are standards that radically different by state? I guess they are.

So, I am freaking out just a little. I've been asked to give someone else's briefing for work to over 1,000 people. I won't have much time to practice, especially at the venue. The audience doesn't bother me much. This, in addition to taking on a full-time role while the analyst is on maternity leave. I'm actually very excited about the opportunity. I'm also, however, leery on how this will impact my family life. I think the newness of all this is what's really unnerving; with a little time to digest it, I think all will be great.

2013_10_16 Wednesday

Elise and I stopped by J's school today to find NO Box Tops for the school-wide contest that I'm running. ugh. That's unfortunate, but J's class is winning by a mile so far.
Then we returned a ton of books to the local library.
Then, E and I went to explore the Atlanta History Center. What a pleasant surprise. The first being that they offer free tix to the Margaret Mitchell House within 9 days of a visit, so that's pretty cool. Then, the property has many gardens, two playhouses, a "working" farm with sheep and chickens, an a 1920s plantation home that we toured, and an oldie diner of Coke and Chic-fil-a. We didn't even walk through the museum part of the Center! I'm really interested now in reading more about the Trail of Tears since it certainly involved the Indians of Georgia. And, I didn't realize that Andrew Jackson was the driving (primary) force behind the eviction of the Indians from this region. Will be interesting to learn a little of the geographic history here.

Instead of watching the stinkin' boob-toob after school, we made chocolate chip muffins. I had 2 packages that made 6 each. It was great. They both stirred up their mixtures and spooned them into Halloween cups. Once the muffins cooled, they each got to sample their work.

Oh, I just love it when my kids tell me they don't love me, especially at bed time. That's just my favorite. When I asked Jonathan to pick up a pillow in the "keeping room" (twice) and he ignored me willfully, I told him that we would not read his Uncle Remus book tonight. He glared at me and told me he'd put himself to bed and that he didn't love me anymore. daggers.

But, the night ends on a sunny side: Looks like I'm going to be working full time for about three months while an analyst takes maternity leave! I'm so excited to get more involved and help the office/analyst at the same time!

2013_10_15 Tuesday

First today's news:
From Elise's school:

We had a great day today!! Today we talked about counting our body parts, more specifically, our fingers and toes. In Art, we counted our fingers and toes. X counted her 10 fingers and said that we have 10 toes as well. Afterwards, we used our fingers to paint. X made a scary monster for Halloween and X made a city.  We used shaving cream to practice writing numbers.  X recognized all of her numbers and made the number 10.  X made a 6 in the shaving cream. We also talked about how  we use numbers.  We use numbers to measure how tall we are.  We all pointed to how tall X is on our class flower wall. Our letter of the week is H.  X colored all of his H words and Elise told us that Horse starts with the letter H.  

Now to recap our amazing visit from Oma:
Friday
Her flight was delayed enough that I picked Elise up from school (Jonathan had had the day off) and then we got her. On the way back from the airport, E decided to projectile vomit all over herself and the car seat. She had been complaining that her belly hurt, so I guess I had had fair warning. She continued to throw up a few more times, so rather than all four of us trying out the Atlanta Cheese Festival, Jonathan and I had a date there. I was really proud of him for trying so many different cheeses, including a blue cheese/banana ice cream cookie!

Saturday
E seemed to be better. So, we visited Fernbank for their Marco Polo debut party. They had food from the Silk Road that the kids basically refused to try (ugh), a  falcon/owl demo, and a Kung Fu demo, and of course, we hung out in the NatureQuest area for a long time. After lunch and a nap, we went to the Botanical Gardens, which E has been calling the Botanial Gardens. Oma really enjoyed that, and the kids had fun tearing through the Children's Garden. Oma and I stayed up until 2:30am chatting!

                       

Sunday
We spent the afternoon exploring Stone Mountain. We took the tram up/down and a train around the stone. The view from the top is amazing, especially on a clear day. While it was a little hot, we stayed on top for about an hour. There's still a lot to do there. We passed an Oktoberfest on the way there, but lost it on the way home.

 





Monday
Dave took Oma to the airport in the early morning, since he was off to CA as well. Departures are just no fun.

2013_10_11 Friday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today!  We talked about shapes that have no lines and no sides today. X told us that a circle has no lines and no sides. During circle time, X helped to change the Calendar. We finished us working on our letter G packets.  Elise carefully traced her uppercase and lowercase G's.  During music time, X had fun with sandpaper blocks and X had fun playing freeze dance. . We watched a video about space and the magic school bus. X was amazed when the magic school bus turned into a rocket ship.  We all counted down and watched the rocket ship launch into space.

2013_10_10 Thursday

Elise and I visited the Wren's Nest today, home to Uncle Remus and Briar Rabbit. I never really got into the stories as a kid; I also didn't realize they were all passed down from slaves, nor had I ever heard the biography of Joel Chandler Harris. The tour guide piqued my interest in the whole shebang, so I bought the collection of his stories, although not in the slaves' dialect. I know I'd have a hard time reading stories that way. The Wren's Nest is just 15 minutes away, so it seemed like a local gem to view. The house is beautiful and kept as authentic as possible and has a lovely garden that we had a little snack in.

We had tried to visit the Center for Puppetry Arts, as they just opened a Wizard of Oz show. However, they're booked solid for the foreseeable future. I guess I should have called first. oh well. We'll keep trying.

Here are two pictures from Jonathan, and he was a Star Student AGAIN this week!!

Dear troops, Thank you for stopping the bad guy and fighting for the country. You guys are very cool. Bye, JD
(troop in blue: "come back now!" bad guy in black: "No!")

The Forest: anteater and ant (in bottom left); snake in left tree; gecko in right tree; and 3 cranes, his favorite bird.

2013_10_08 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

Today was picture day! Today we learned about counting down from ten to one. We made rocket ships in Art to blast off into space.  X colored his entire rocket ship.  We also blasted our rocket ships into space. In order to prepare for our trip, we counted from 1 to 10 and 1 to 20.  X happily counted from 1 to 10 and X counted from one to 20.  X and Elise counted down the loudest and when it was time to blast off, they shot into the air with their rockets.  We continued our letter G practice as well. X Traced all of her G's very well. During Music class, X planted his flower and watched it grow. 

I volunteered to help with the pictures at her school today. It's amazing to see which kids are total hams and which ones want nothing to do with a camera. Elise did great, although her hair was absolutely insane! I was a little concerned that she'd be a problem, so I stepped out of view and let the photogs deal with her. No problems at all. I guess her crazy hair was fitting, though. In the end, the company gave me a free package for helping them out. That's super since we have so many relatives to send photos to!

2013_10_07 Monday

My ankle feels better today. I had a really hard time sleeping last night since I couldn't really move much, and the brace was on a smidge too tight. I bailed on volunteering at school today and instead have been elevating as much as possible. I walked J to the bus stop slowly but managed. I drove E to school; I have to use my full leg rather than just my foot, but it worked pretty painlessly.

From Elise's school:
We had a great day today. Our theme for the week is the number zero. Today we learned that zero means nothing.  We made a collage of zero's in Art today. Elise carefully placed all of her Zero's on her collage. X had a lot of fun gluing all of the Cheerio's to his paper.  We also tried to make as many zero's as we could with out body parts. X showed us all how to make a zero with our fingers.  During music class, we took turns dancing with shapes.  X danced with the rectangle and X danced with the oval.  We also played a game of musical chairs and X was our special winner today.

2013_10_06 Sunday

Well, we had too much excitement this weekend. We were invited to a friends' family for dinner. On the walk home, I stepped off their sidewalk to the driveway, twisted my ankle, and dropped to the ground in pain. I walked home, leaning on Jonathan. But, the longer I waited, the more it HURT. So, at midnight, Dave took the kids to a friend's house and we went off for my first ER visit. Never again. The clientele was...different. Dave was a huge advocate for me. I did have one near-fainting episode. I was x-rayed and interviewed within an hour or so, but  I wasn't seen by a dr until 8am!! And, as it turned out, it was a severe sprain, so my ankle is swollen to a softball, is very tender, and is a lovely shade of purple, which Elise is fond of. But, nothing broken. He gave me crutches, but I may end up really hurting myself trying to walk around with them. Instead, I've been using some of Dave's braces and Motrin. I'm hobbling around alright now; I'm not sure how driving will go tomorrow afternoon, though. Jonathan has been completely adorable, trying to help me and be as gentle as possible.

2013_10_03 Wednesday

Happy Reunification Day, Germany!

Today was far more productive than yesterday, when we didn't really get moving until about 2:30...and that was only because we had to get ready to get Jonathan. I feel like I'm back on track again. Dave came home early to hang with us before heading out to the Braves' game. That was nice. I think I may have poisoned us all with an over-creative dinner, but I guess you win some and lose some.

Every so often, when I sit back an observe my kids, I get weepy. It's hard to believe that Jonathan is reading so insanely well. And, I posed a simple math problem: he's buying lunch 5 times this month. He's already bought twice. Each meal is $2. I already have $3 waiting for him. How much more money does he need? And, after a few seconds, he said, "mom, I need $3 more." like it was no big deal. gesh. I'm still checking my math.
And, Elise is pre-reading (definitely later than her brother, but that's our fault, not hers). It's partial recitation and partial sounds. But, she does recognize simple words like "and" and "the" and can certainly spell out STOP and ELISE with no trouble at all.

Elise and I went to an art store because Jonathan read a book with me that had some suggested art projects. We made love bugs out of plaster of paris They have googly eyes, one had legs, they're all painted and have magnets underneath. He's giving one to his teacher, who may have had to put down her cat today (or at best is pretty sick), tomorrow. We got some other 'disposable' art projects that they breezed through today (unfortunately, I thought they'd last at least 24 hrs!).

2013_10_01 Tuesday

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today we continued our discussion about numbers and the number three. During Art, we made puppets of the three bears from Goldilocks and the three bears.  X colored all of his bears and even tried to write his name on the back of his paper!  X colored all of his bears and played with them with his friends nicely.  We also talked about small,medium, and large today. Ms. Tiffany used several objects such as blocks. play doh, and dinosaurs to show the difference between small medium and large.  X made small medium and large balls of play doh all by himself during journal time.  X made three cookies to share with the  class. During show and tell, Elise showed us her firetruck and her frog.  X showed us her fishy that makes a silly sound.  We also continued work on our letter F packets. X and X traced their uppercase and lowercase F's with a pencil with care.

2013_09_30 Monday

OMG, I'm back from a great trip to Chicago, but somehow life continues on while I was away, and now I'm playing a hectic game of catch-up.

From Elise's school:

We had a great day today! Today and October are all about math fun. In Art, we made pigs using the shapes circle, oval, and triangle. X made a silly little piggy and X glued on the pieces for her piggy all by herself. We also played the game three for me to introduce the concept of three. X found three things that you wear when its cold and Elise found three things that you can ride in.  During circle time, X showed us his red shorts and jumped up and down with his classmates.   Our letter of the week is the letter F and we began working on our weekly letter packets today.   Today we colored things that start with the letter F. X colored her items and even wrote two F's today!  X colored his frog green while singing brown bear.  During music, X showed us all how to march with the dinosaurs. Thank you to everyone who attended the Fall pizza social. i had a great time and look forward to events int he future.

2013_09_27 Friday

Here's a note I received from Elise:

Elise wanted to send you a special email today!

My name iseeeeeeeeeeeeeelllllllllllllllllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssssseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I am 333333333333333333333333333

And, then I also got:

We had a very exciting day today. Our class is very excited about the fall pizza social this afternoon at X Park from 4-7pm. I will be there along with my little stinky! Today we talked about the earth. In art, we painted our globe with blue and green paint.  X and X carefully colored in their paintings.  We also emailed our parents today as a special surprise. Elise spelled her name all by herself and X found the number 3 on the keyboard all by himself.  We also watched j'aime les voitures, a french song about colors. This is X's favorite video. X sang along with the song allouette today.  X had a great time in German class today and she chose a wonderful book about all of the homes we have around the  world to read to the class. X is already preparing for Halloween because he chose the book, the boogly for us to read today. Have a great weekend and I look forward to seeing you this afternoon at the park!

2013_09_24 Tuesday

From Elise's school:
We had to spend the day indoors today because of the rain. I hope we can go outside tomorrow. Today we talked about cities. In Art we finished our very hungry caterpillars. X and X made very handsome caterpillars. We also made sponge art. We used sponges to create tall and short buildings in the city. X lined up his buildings neatly in a row. X made lots of buildings everywhere.  We also practiced stacking and counting today. We each made a tower and then counted how many block we had in our tower. X tower had 18 blocks and X tower had 23 blocks. Elise had the longest tower with 28 blocks!  We then made one long tower of all of the blocks. In music, we practiced using rhythm sticks and sang our favorite song, 10 Sleepy Children.

2013_09_23 Monday

From Elise's school:

our theme of the week is My world. We talked about different houses around the world. Some of our friends live in houses and some of our friends live in apartments. We looked at many different houses around the world such as mud huts, tepees, and tree houses. Elise says that she has lived in many different types of houses and that her mommy has worked in different types of houses. X said that the big bad wolf was going to blow down the houses made of stick and straw. In art we used play doh to make houses and also continued work on our very hungry caterpillars. X and X made their caterpillars today and they turned out really cute. In music, we made a rainbow of colors and X danced with his green scarf. X clapped along happily to tick tock goes our little clock. We also learned our french colors and X showed us the vert (green) on her shirt and pants. 

What is Elise talking about!?

2013_09_21 Saturday

Elise recited my telephone number--all 10 digits!!! Holy moly!!

2013_09_20 Friday

I worked a lot today.

From Elise's school:
Today we talked about our heart. All of our friends pointed to where the heart is in the body. We decorated a heart today and placed it on our body. X told us that our real heart is not shaped like the heart we decorated.  X was eager to place his heart badge on and share it during show and tell. We also practiced following instructions today. We played freeze tag with rhythm sticks. Ms. Tiffany used the rhythm sticks to simulate a beating heart and whenever she stopped, her friends froze. X was very good at this game. especially when Ms. Tiffany Made the heart beat really fast. X enjoyed playing the game and loved showing off his dance moves.  We practiced tracing and drawing E's on the dry erase board. X traced her E's very well and X drew an E all by herself. Today was computer day and our friends requested which of their favorite french songs they wanted to hear. Elise selected avec un gros nez and  X selected j'aime les voitures.  We also had a fire drill today. We practiced walking out of our classroom and outside in case of a fire. X wanted to know when the fire truck was coming. 

Once Jonathan got home and we all relaxed for a bit, we jumped in the car to explore the Fernbank Science Center. There wasn't much to it (lots of stuffed animals and space exploration; a living bee hive; some live reptiles, a couple of fake dinos), although I'd love to go back to try out their planetarium. We've never done one before, so that could be fun but it's typically late.

2013_09_19 Thursday

Elise and I went to the High Museum of Art today. They have a weekly toddler art program (which, BTW, was not worth the $20 entrance fee). I didn't realize how big the museum was, so I felt a little overwhelmed by it all, and art isn't generally my bag. But, we hung out -- bumped into our next door neighbor's nanny and child. And, I am feeling very cultured in that I showed Elise The Girl With The Pearl Earring by Vermeer. Apparently, it's quite unusual for this painting to travel, and it's only here another week, so it was a pretty special thing to do. The painting was at the end of a gallery, so we walked through and talked about the animals and colors and clouds in the ones we saw en route. She named The Girl Princess Celestia, which is a leading character in My Little Pony, and we talked about her blue 'bow' and ribbon and that she was looking at us and how beautiful she was. To me, that's a big success for exposure to cultural arts! Their museum store was blanketed with TGWTPE tschachkey stuff: coffee mugs, umbrellas, shirts, stationary, buttons, magnets, you name it.

Happy Birthday to Jonathan's teacher. He had a private lunch with her today because of his good behavior. extra special for him today.

2013_09_17 Tuesday

I gave my first briefing for work in ages today. It was a co-briefing with a colleague I had never even met before, but I think we worked very well together and that it was well received. I thoroughly enjoyed being out and about with professionals and being able to help them understand what we do. There were no real questions at the end which is either indicative of a comprehensive briefing or a really boring one. hmmm. We got back exactly at pick-up time for E, so he just dropped me off at school. no biggie.

From Elise's school:

We had a busy day today! We talked about our body parts today. In Art, we measured how tall we are. X is our shortest classmate and X is our tallest classmate. We also made a balance beam out of our chairs.  X walked across the balance beam with ease and Elise really enjoyed walking across the beam.  In circle time, we counted how many body parts we all have. X counted all her friends and said that we each have two arms and two legs. X helped us to count all of our fingers and toes. We also talked about the letter E. X and X carefully traced their e's. Ms. Tiffany reminded all her friends that it doesn't matter if you can't trace them perfectly the first time, all that matters is that you tried.

2013_09_16 Monday

Yikes; I have the jitters. Feeling a little overwhelmed. I'm giving my first presentation (jointly) in a long time tomorrow, and I'm feeling nervous. Part of it is that there are lots of moving parts involved.

Part is that I just got an email from Jonathan's teacher explaining various weekly tests (spelling, language arts, science/social studies, reading comprehension, math and that associated progress reports will come home weekly along with bi-monthly bulletins. Yikes. This is just 1st grade! What happens when you have two kids in school...or if you work...or if you want to just breathe for a bit...

From Elise's school:

We had an all girls day today! This week, we are talking about our bodies.  Today, we made masks of ourselves. X made her face and colored her eyes green and her hair curly and brown. X told me that she has blue eyes and brown hair. The masks are hanging up in the classroom. Try and guess which mask belongs to your child according to the hair and eye color!  We also discussed emotions today and played emotions charades. X made a sleepy face and X made an excited face.  For our daily activity, we talked about all of the ways we take care of ourselves. Elise told us that she takes a bath every day and X told us that we can take care of ourselves by eating our vegetables. 

2013_09_15 Sunday

Elise and I got up and off to the Cabbage Patch Doll Hospital this morning. It took much longer to get there than I had thought; we weren't too far from the boys' camping trip, actually! We had a blast, though, and the boys would have hated it.

This is where the CPK are born: Mother Cabbage!

We walked through a 'museum' and into the store. The first few rooms are CPK at $300! I nearly fainted; they were pretty ugly too. We were there for at least two births. A nurse stands behind the baby heads and helps deliver a new baby (by c-section -- cabbage section, of course) from the cabbage patch with the audience helping to breathe and push...and then naming it. They are all well fertilized, so they all have hair. And, they were planted too close to the corn, so they all have ears -- har har har. That's the gist of the birthing process.

On the way home, we passed a local zoo, so we stopped. It was nothing too special but a nice chance to get back outside. We saw some lions, tigers with cubs, snakes, monkeys, black/grizzly bears, a zedonk, lots of macaw-type birds, emus. They had zebras, a camel, and a few other exotics that seemed to be hiding today.

Elise passed out on the drive home. I was pretty beat too. It was a lot to take in today.

Once we got home, I painted her fingers (purple) and toes (sparkles). So, she has had a terrific day!!!

The boys, on the other hand, came home filthy and happy. They went fishing today, and J caught something. They made s'mores and hotdogs last night. Boys were up until 10pm; dads were hungover today. Overall, sounds like they had fun too.

2013_09_14 Saturday

uuuh, what happened to my darling boy??

 

We had dinner at friends' house last night, and they mentioned casually that the father and son were going camping together today, so I totally shoehorned Dave and Jonathan in on them. GO ME! They left today around 4; I packed the food they'd need -- s'mores and popcorn fixins, trail mix, hotdogs, juice, water -- and Jonathan's clothes, etc. I think they're going fishing and maybe canoeing. Dave texted me to tell me the nearby town is Bavarian, and we should look into an overnight there again. sound like fun.

Elise and I had a lady's dinner at the local burger joint and frozen yogurt. Tomorrow, I'm painting her nails (pink and green??), taking her to the Cabbage Patch Kids Hospital, and then maybe to the water fountain again. I think there's an arts festival in that park, so I'd like to swing by there. We'll see.

2013_09_13 Friday

It's Friday, the 13th, and it sure feels like it.

The Js walked to school with the intention of hooking up with our friends. Somehow we missed them, so we walked a bit faster and alone. We did bump into them at school, but I'm still not sure what happened. I sort of felt like the outsider lady (Jessica Chastain's role) in The Help when the society women tolerate her but don't really want her around; surely, I'm being dramatic, but it felt that way today. ;o(

E and I met more neighbors down the street. They have a girl E's age, so that might be a good fit!

Elise's school report:

Thank you everyone for helping to make no shoes day a success. Everyone in the class really enjoyed it. We will have to do it again throughout the school year. Today we talked about manners and etiquette in other countries.  We made fans with dinosaur stamps and practiced using the fans.  X carefully chose which stamps he wanted use and made a beautiful fan.  X really enjoyed making the fan and said that he wants to give his to his mommy. X told us that fans are used to keep yourself cool and X said that they are for babies at night. In kinesthetics, we played red light green light and had a shoe relay.  Elise ran down the hall, took her shoes off and ran back the fastest. X was second to finish and everyone had fun playing the game. We also practiced using computers today.  X identified the letters in his name and carefully typed them.  

After school, we had an impromptu playdate at our new friends' across the street. Both kids started falling apart or antagonizing various people or ignoring me, so we left just before 5. Now, they are painting in the front room, still antagonizing but working it out.

Then, we had an impromptu dinner party at friends'. There were 6 grown-ups and 7 kids; somehow it felt like we were way outnumbered though. Fun, casual night.