Thanksgiving a Day Late

Since we usually stay at home without company, we like to do something away from our house on Thanksgiving day.  This year, we planned on going to Silver Dollar City, but then the dog got sick (she's better now) and it was supposed to rain and they had shorter hours.  In the end, we sat home on Thanksgiving day.  The kids spent most of the day playing outside with friends.  Then, on the day AFTER Thanksgiving, we headed to Silver Dollar City. 

 

 

 

We got there at lunchtime and treated the kids to a Thanksgiving Buffet lunch (normally, they eat corn-dogs).  After that we headed to the rides and shows.  Our first stop with A Christmas Carol.  There was supposed to be a long line, but the park wasn't busy yet.  We walked right into the show.  We loved it.  Jaelyn is still imitating the Ghost of Christmas Present.  Next up, 2/5s of us got to ride the Powerkeg.  Allie, Caden and I were sitting on the car when they announced the seat bars weren't working properly.  I'm glad they figured it out before they hit go, but still...We were given raincheck passes that got us to the front of the line for Wildfire.  Allie was thrilled.

 

We didn't actually see Santa, but we did go into Kringle Krossing to fill out our Santa form letters.  Jaelyn wants a sewing machine, Allie wants an American Girl doll and Caden wants a robot (Santa's already shopped - 2 out of 3 ain't bad)

 

We didn't ride too many rides.  The day was mainly about the shows, but we couldn't resist the Barn Swing when we couldn't get into the Saloon Show.

 

A trip to SDC isn't complete with a funnel cake.  Can you believe Jaelyn doesn't like them???

 

One of the best things about going to SDC at Thanksgiving was that I knew one of my friends and her family would be there.  Becky is such an amazing person.  I love getting to spend time with her...

 

...and her 2 kids, which my kids absolutely adore!

 

A highlight of the night was the light parade.  A toy soldier led the parade.  The kids saluted him when he marched by.  He stopped, pivoted and saluted them right back.  It was awesome!

 

It's always fun to play in the shops (aka getting warm!)  We really enjoyed the $1.59 hot chocolate refills of our huge souvenir mugs.  It was a cold night.

 

The kids got to spend some time playing in Geyser Gulch while the grown-ups visited.  The park has over 4 million Christmas light.  All the building looked like the ones behind Allie.

 

 

It was  a spectacular day after Thanksgiving.  If you haven't been to SDC at Christmastime, you should go!

Another Negative to the Middle of Nowhere

There are 4 vets in the towns near us. There's CC that we switched from because we could never get in when we had a sick pet. There's BF that we switched to because at least they have an after hours emergency vet (instead of driving to Springfield). There's the base vet, but they seem to always be booked way out. Ugh. Gracie has been sick since Saturday evening. She was actually eating again yesterday so I thought she was on the mend. Today, she has yucky, runny, reddish BMs (sorry tmi). She needs to be seen by a vet. My vet has no sick appts till Friday. Seriously! I called my friend at the base clinic. It's surgery day, but she suggested a vet I've never heard of....Vet #4. They have no sick appts, but have a walk-in clinic for two hours this afternoon. Gracie and I will be getting there early to get her name at the top of the list and a friend will be picking up the kids encase I can't get back in time.

Doesn't she look sad? I haven't seen her smile or chase the cat in days :(.

Zac is trying to get a UTI. I took away his dry food and am giving him only wet food. His pee clumps are getting bigger so hopefully we won't have to go trough finding him a sick appt over a holiday weekend!

Did I mention Dan is flying home today? Praise The Lord. I am DONE!

Survived the Week

Dan left on Tuesday morning to go to Pennsylvania.  The last TDY he had scheduled was canceled due to Superstorm Sandy thankfully.  I wasn't so lucky with this one.  We've had an okay week, I guess.  We weren't as booked with dentist and doctors appointment which has helped.  I don't think I've eaten grown-up food a single day (well, there was the day I skipped mac n cheese and hot dogs and had Arbys while the kids were at Karate). 

~And on a tangent, if you haven't tried Arbys peppermint milkshake, you are missing out.~

Homework is becoming the bane of my existence again.  One night, Jaelyn had a sheet of maybe 30 long division, checking with multiplication, problems.  Her homeroom teacher sat with her at lunch and did them all.  Half of the problems where written in Jaelyn's handwriting on a separate piece of paper.  She decided it HAD to be written on the worksheet.  The other half of the problems were written by Mrs. A so Jaelyn had to copy them onto her paper.  I'm not lying or exaggerating when I say it took her 2 HOURS to simple COPY (not work) the problems.  Can you say FRUSTRATING???  They missed karate because she wasn't finish and I was DONE.  Mr. K, can we move on to logic??? Jaelyn is super good at it and does her work with no fuss.  Long division just stinks.  I clearly remember struggling with it.  The stupid thing is she wasn't working the problems, she just had to rewrite half of them. 

We did make it to gymnastics twice and karate once.  Miss T let Allie participate in Jae's class and then Jae participated in Allie's class last night.  Everyone got fed and our house is not a total disaster area.  Last night, I told the kids we had to clean up before we did anything else this morning.  I woke up with no energy so no cleaning has happened.  It's going to be a lazy day.  I might take them swimming this afternoon.  Maybe we'll fold laundry, clean the bathrooms and vacuum tomorrow.

Dan will be home Monday night.  I'm glad for a shortened school week next week.  We knocked around a couple ideas for Thanksgiving.  With no one coming to see us, we wanted to do something instead of being at home.  We will be spending the day at Silver Dollar City, seeing shows, looking at lights, singing carols on their train and maybe riding a few rides if they are running.  SDC is a Christian park.  It's very evident throughout the year; so, I can't wait to be there for the Christmas season.

Consequences and Creativity

Decapitated Bunny???

This used to be known simply as Bunny.  Then an extremity was amputated and all of its stuffing had to be removed (or swallowed).  It was renamed Dead Bunny or sometimes Flat Bunny.  Yesterday, during a very fateful game of tug of war, Dead Bunny lost his head and had to be renamed Decapitated Bunny.  Oh my!  I think we'd better put a new Bunny on Gracie's Christmas list!

The Engineer Trail

We are usually pretty good at getting out and discovering fun things to do in our area.  I don't know why we didn't learn about the engineer trail in the last year, but we didn't.  About 5 minutes from our house is a 2.7 mile hiking trail.  Who knew!?!  It's the perfect place for when we want to get out and move, but don't want to drive 45 minutes to a trail head.  There are stops along the way designed for different exercises.  Dan has been walking it the last few weekends, taking whatever children wanted to go.  Gracie and I tagged along with them yesterday.

 

Jaelyn demonstrating her pull-up skills.  She's currently tied for pull-up record at school.

Pull-ups are harder when daddy is hitting you in the stomach with an axe :).

Gracie is just one of the kids!

Monkeys

 



Creative Writing and Report Cards

We had student led conferences at school yesterday afternoon.  The kids tell you how they are doing, share some of the assignments and complete a few activities for you.  There's also an opportunity to talk with the teachers and of course see their report cards.

 

I am impressed with some of the writing assignments I read.

 

Here's my favorite of Caden's.  This is his version of a true story, but he got the people confused.  It's based on Grandma Molly going into labor with Baba.  I cracked up at the first line...of course, Grandma Molly was much younger and not a grandma yet :).

 

I remember Jaelyn doing this assignment last year.  I think Allie is a great writer.  I love her descriptive word choices.

 

I helped Jaelyn when she was writing this story.  I think it turned out great!

 

I wish we had a Krispy Kreme close because we'd have about 3 dozen free donuts :).

 

Caden's report card is skills based.  E stands for exceeds standards.  M stands for meets standards.  He has tested at third grade level for reading and math (he's in second grade).  He's been independently reading Magic Tree house books lately.  He's zipping through them in 2 nights. 

 

Here's Allie's report card.  She's doing really well and tested at a sixth grade level recently in reading.  The computer test was multiple choice, testing comprehension and vocabulary.  She tested at a fourth grade level the month before.  The teacher wasn't sure why she had such a big jump and expected the next test to come down some...or maybe not.  Time will tell.  She does have a great memory.  The M in art stands for mastered.

 

Here's Jaelyn's report card.  She actually ended up with a 102 average in reading.  I make her read 6 nights a week.  She's only required to read 4 nights so she ended up with 70 out of 50 nights when her reading log was averaged in.  She's still struggling in math.  She just can't seem to memorize her multiplication facts.  Her teacher tells me she's not alone.  I think if she could master that, math would get much much easier for her.  The SA in art stands for satisfactory due to the owl without the contour lines I mentioned in another post :).

 

Jaelyn and Last Year's Santa

I don't know if I shared this last year or not.  I just rediscovered it and I can't resist sharing it again.  Anyone have a lump of coal we can wrap up for Jaelyn????

 

 

Big Sister Tries to Interfere

Our school district uses an Internet site called Powerschool to communicate with parents.  At any time, I can log in and see attendance records, grades and lunch account balances.  We've been watching grades closely and a few weeks ago, we noticed Caden had a 108 average in PE.  He normally gets a 10 out of 10 participation grade each week, but one week, he had 14 out of 10.  I decided it was probably a typo. 

Jaelyn overheard me and Caden talking about it.  14 out of 10 didn't seem fair to her at all and she's all about fair.  She took it upon herself to discuss the grade with Coach O.  She told her that Caden had 14 out of 10 one week and asked her why.  Jaelyn was sure it was a mistake that Coach O would correct bringing his average down to 100 (tied with hers).  Instead Coach O told her Caden earned the 14 by always following directions when none of his classmates would.  Ha!  Big Sister was thwarted in her attempt to interfere!

Hobbies

My mom taught me to crochet when I was a kid. It didn't stick. A few years ago, I took a knitting class and I found my thing. I don't knit anything huge. Scarves are my speed, and I always start browsing the yarn aisle as soon as it gets cool. I'm working on several scarves for Christmas presents right now.

I tried to teach jaelyn to knit, but she's not coordinated enough to manage the two needles. She asked me to teach her to crochet on Monday. We bought a crochet needle and I tried. I don't remember much. I can chain, but on my first try at the second row, I ended up with loops on my needle like I was knitting. Oops. With the help of google and YouTube videos, Jaelyn is figuring it out herself. Baba will be so proud. Jae says she's found her hobby :).

Another Generation of Friends

I met Keri in third grade.  We were great friends all through school, college and young adulthood.  We last saw her in 2000, the first time Dan was stationed at Aberdeen Proving Ground.  We sort of lost touch after that, but reconnected on facebook a few years ago.  Keri was in town this summer when we were and Jen and I got to see her for a quick snack at Panera.  It was just like we had seen each other the week before.  I guess when you've known someone that long and that well, it's easy to reconnect without all that weirdness. 

 

When we were home a couple of weekend ago, I took the kids to a park to run off some energy.  Jen and her kids met us there.  Keri posted something on FB that morning that led me to believe she was in Pensacola as well.  I called and she, her mom and her two little boys met us at the park.  Keri's boys are 3 and 5, but they kept up great with the big kids.  It's so neat to see my kids playing with my childhood friends' kids.  Full circle...I could get emotional if I thought about it too long :).