Two Kids and a Tubal

First let me apologize for not posting in so long. I am not sure where all the days go, but they sure do go by quickly. I just had to post today to get out some frustration. This year our money to buy our kids Christmas was dependent upon if I got a Christmas bonus or not. Now it has been a tradition where I work, but with the economic downturn I wasn't so sure. I am very thankful for the fact that my company was generous enough to continue this tradition. So once it was direct deposited (today) I could start my Christmas shopping. I headed out to the Toys R Us website to get the stuff I had planned on my Christmas spreadsheet. (I know who keeps a spreadsheet of their Christmas presents....nerds like me... that's who!) Anyway I started out and couldn't get my son's GeoTrax Grand Central Rail & Road System Station into the cart. I was finally successful and then went to find that the iCarly 9-in-1 Kit for Nintendo DS for my daughter was sold out. So I instead I repla...

As I mentioned last Friday we had a meeting with the principal about moving our daughter into a new 1st grade classroom based on the incompetence of her current teacher. Well after a bit of a lashing about how it was our entire fault that he had to move her to a new classroom, he agreed to and our daughter started the new classroom on Monday. I cannot express in words the difference we have already seen. For starters the new teacher ripped out a BUNCH of pages in our daughter's workbook. Apparently the other teacher had them do the pages, but he NEVER looked them over to see if they were done or if they did them correctly. In her class she walks around the classroom to make sure that they are doing the work correctly. The new teacher also reads with during class. So our daughter gets reading time in her reading group and with her teacher. The new teacher also sends home additional activities to do with the books she reads. For example, she sent home a sheet where they write five fa...

I must confess I've been keeping a secret from my blog followers. For about the past month my husband has been going through the process of becoming a police officer in our local community. He got past the application process, which was not small feat since nearly 500 applied and they only passed about 100 through to the testing process. He then passed the test and was moved on to what they call the board interview. Today was his board interview and he did not make it past this round. We are all VERY disappointed. However, with our disappointment comes a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. The gentlemen who were on the board told my husband that he would be a good police officer he was intelligent, and had the necessary attributes, but he just needed a better understanding of what a police officer does. They suggested he go on ride alongs with the local police department. So he is working on scheduling a ride along and learning more about the day to day activities of a po...

A few weeks ago I began to prepare for Christmas by having the annual family picture taken. Now I have completed step two, I have designed, ordered and received this year's Christmas card. I say "THE" Christmas card, because over the last several years I have taken it upon myself to design out Christmas card. The keys have been to include not only a picture of the family, but also pictures of all our animals. This is a big challenging as we a number of animals to include. For the past 2 years I have done the traditional 4x8 photo card, but this year I decided to tackle the 5x7 Christmas card. This card included designing the front and the inside. It was a lot of work, but in the end I really liked the final product. I received them in the mail last week and they look great! I got they printed using VistaPrint. (BTW I have not been asked by VistaPrint to endorse they products and I am not being paid to do so.) I love VistaPrint! I always get great quality at a reasonable p...

I am not sure if this is all 1st graders or if it is just my daughter, but she just moves SO slow. When you ask her to walk quickly it looks more like a saunter and when you say "Hurry!" she says, "I am!" I have tried getting her up earlier so that we don't have to rush, but she seems to take up every available minute regardless of how early I get her up. I have put a clock in her bathroom to help her with time. I thought that if I told her you need to be out of the shower by this time and have your clothes on by this time that she maybe could meet those times. Well I was wrong. I put her in the shower and gave her 15 minutes to complete her shower. When I came back in to check on her 20 minutes later she said, "Mom the clock moves faster than I do." I try to encourage her along and give her ample time to do things, but she is just slow. Does anyone else have kids like this? What has been your solution? I am looking for some help here. Thanks and have ...

So I am sorry, but I must rant some more about the process my husband and I have been going through trying to move our daughter into another 1st grade classroom. After our discussion with the principal, he required a meeting with the teacher. So we agreed to it. Last week we met with the teacher and the principal. In this meeting the teacher: Admitted he didn't know how the other teachers were managing to fit art into their days and also did not know how they were integrating their classrooms. The new rules the district had placed on him made it so he could no longer include these things. ACTION PLAN: Talk to the other teachers to basically learn how to teach 1st grade. We stated that our plan was to remove our daughter from his class, to which he replied "If you are going to be riding my back all year, then you might as well move her now." Finally, he changed his story about the incident with our daughter and missing reading group. Our daughter has always maintained that...

As I write this post I am gathering as much information as I can about the shooting at Fort Hood and I am doing so with tears in my eyes. My brother-in-law is stationed at Fort Hood and to my knowledge he is OK and has not been injured in this incident. We are very thankful for that. However, I am sickened by the entire event. I am shocked that soldiers could shoot soldiers. Why would someone begin shooting soldiers that were getting ready to deploy at the readiness facility? This is a truly tragic event. So many lives have been tragically changed. Being a resident of Colorado and at the time attending the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, I was very near to the tragic events of Columbine High School. This event brings back awful memories of that day and the poor families and children who were forever affected. I am not sure of the motive behind the shooting today at Fort Hood, but it brings to mind a topic that I think is very important and that is the topic of mental wellness. Very...

Since the beginning of the year my husband and I have had misgivings about my daughter's teacher. To begin with on the second day of school he had the students come home and beat on their chests while spelling the word "the". When we asked Makayla why she was doing this she could not explain the purpose of beating her chest and to top it off she was hitting herself so hard she was getting hurt. The next day he proceeded to ask the students which of the parents thought he was crazy. Makayla raised her hand because we thought that the act was rather strange and we could not figure out the point. When she told us he asked the class that, we were quite upset and thought this an odd line of questioning for 6 year-olds. For this next bit I need to provide some additional information. For her class, the teacher uses green, yellow, and red cards to indicate how the students are behaving. If they have one small infraction, like talking too much they have to change their card to ye...