No School

Because of parent teacher conferences we had a few days off of school.  This is how we stayed busy.

The kids BEGGED to go rake leaves one day.  They worked really hard at it too, but they had different motivation than I did.  They just wanted a giant leaf pile to jump in.  

 As always the baby spent the time like this:

 Recently I let MC1 walk down to his friend's house.  Its a block away so I figure he should be able to do it since he's seven.  It was so exciting to him that he begged the next day to walk over and invite his friend over to our house.

 MC1 did an FHE lesson yesterday that was awesome.  He came to me Sunday night and told me he had an idea for a lesson and asked if he could teach it.  I asked him if he needed help and he said no.  So we all sat down and he said, "Pirates have treasure maps to find treasure.  We have maps and our treasure is Jesus.  I have a map here and I want you to tell me what we need to do to get to Jesus."  He even brought a highlighter so he could trace our path.  Then at the end he told us, "I was going to pick a different map but I thought it was too violent because it had lava tunnels."

Parent/teacher conferences were good for him.  He's doing well mostly.  He has a hard time keeping his body still (no surprise there) and he has a hard time doing his math facts if he is timed (also no surprise).  His teacher wasn't too concerned though.  We both agreed we didn't think timing kids is a good idea.  Then she told me every day MC1 needs a chat with her and it only has to be for a few minutes.  She makes sure this happens every day and then he is fine.  I'm so glad he got such a great understanding teacher.

 The Girl Child isn't doing as well in school.  I discussed with her teacher at the beginning of the year my concerns about her speech and so she had the speech therapist come in and test her.  She agreed the Girl Child needs some help correcting some speech problems.  She came to my conference and said she thought the Girl Child had missed some key speech rules along the way but got others and it was confusing.  Last year she failed a hearing test at school and when I took her to the doctor we discovered it was just an ear infection blocking her hearing.  So apparently she has had too many ear infections blocking he hearing us talk.  I'm glad she'll get the help she needs.

 MC2 is doing great.  He loves his Mommy run preschool and has actually developed some social skills.  The other day I got out the shower and heard the baby crying.  Then I saw MC2 run into my room and give the baby a hug.  She stopped crying and he got to be the hero of the hour.

 Here is the kids' favorite project right now.  Bubble art.  I tried it with MC2's preschool group and it bombed big time.  I practiced blowing out with a straw before we did it but MC2 and two of his friends ended up with paint/bubble mixture in their mouths.  MC1 and GC1 love it though.

 This little girl is starting to show some emotion.  Here is her Elvis lip curl.  She can also smile and sometimes even at humans.

 Here is another one of our crafts.  Sock snowmen.  They aren't beautiful but the kids LOVED making them and unlike a lot of kid crafts they could do almost all of the craft themselves.

 After each kid made one we had to make one for the baby and Daddy

After a month of the baby taking cat naps and only really sleeping for lengthy periods at night I discovered she will sleep in her car seat for HOURS!  So that is where she sleeps now and I can actually get things done.