{Proud to Announce.....}

With all the fanfare of fireworks, trumpets and drums we are happy to share with everyone....

.....K got straight A's this quarter!!

This is the first year he gets letter grades and percentages and he did it. He will be joining his fellow Straight A Scholars at a luncheon just for them and the Principal in a week or two and he is so happy!

His report card reads...
MATH 99% A
HISTORY 95% A
LITERATURE & GRAMMAR 94% A
SCIENCE OUTSTANDING

{Bored already}

2 days off of school and on the second day they are bored already. Good thing they have school again next week. Yesterday they watched movies played wii and ate junk.

Today none of those sound good. I found E standing on his head next to the couch and K sitting on the floor staring at it.

E left with C to get lunch and K re-discovered a little can of play dough. I don't know where it came from as the play dough all jumped into the trash can a few years ago and no one has seemed to notice.

But after 45 minutes of being entertained and actually making things out of it I am reconsidering...maybe play dough for big kids is great. I didn't have to tell him not to eat it, to keep it on the table, to not use my good kitchen tools with it. He didn't just smash it in the table and carpet or shred it into a million little pieces and promptly wipe it all onto the floor like he would have 4 years ago.

Play dough might be welcomed around here again.

{Water}

So we got a rather large water bill. C was concerned ...I knew that he would figure it out and forgot about it.

Tuesday morning a water district guy showed up b/c the company was worried about our water usage being triple last month....we live in the desert remember? So he and C looked around and decided the problem was under the house or yard somewhere.

So Thursday I go to work (the boys have Thursday and Friday off) to do Parent/Teacher Conferences and come home to this.....

Today they will finish digging, re-route our water line to the house via the garage and the leak in the yard will be fixed. I hope we get some new landscaping out of this!

{Carnival Cake}

Last year E won a cake at the cake walk during the carnival. And that's all he wanted to do this time too....so off he went and he came back with this one...

He is one lucky boy!

{Halloween Carnival}

Our ward has a scout fundraising carnival for Halloween and the boys wanted to go so off we went.

It was the first time they got to wear their costumes since I take them away after they try them on at home and hide them until it is time to wear them so we don't ruin them or break the accessories before the big day(s)!

This year the boys are all about the accessories.

K went with Darth Vader (I know not a surprise since they are both into Star Wars so much) but he loves the mask, the light saber and we got him a voice changing thing that makes it sound like the funky breathing Darth does.

E went totally off the star wars thing this year and is Snake Eyes from GI Joe. I don't think he knows much about GI Joe but he knew he would get a sword and daggers so he was sold.

The pictures do not give the whole "affect" seeing as for the ward carnival no masks were allowed so I'll post more after Saturday night!

Happy Haunting!

{Math Bee}

This past Wednesday was AHA's Second Annual Math Bee.

The boys did really well. Luckily for me the Bee was held right next door to my classroom so I could poke my head out when K was part of the action.

E's class had some of my 1st graders competing since they made it through all the first grade questions. He was the second to last second grader left in the contest...he did great!

K made it through his grade and to the 13th question of the 5 grade's questions. He was one of 3 4th graders left at that point. That question knocked two 4th graders out though. He did great and we are so proud of them both!!

{How we know the weather is changing}

This is what the family room looked like after digging for clothes for the soccer game. We have now cleaned it up and tried on clothes to see what the boys need for the new season.

Every time the season changes we "go shopping in the garage" as the boys call it (It is their favorite kind of shopping and they don't' even want to talk about real shopping) and the family room takes a few days to show up again.

{Night Game}

E's first night game this season happened to fall on the coldest day of fall so far. It was under 50 degrees so all the kids were freezing!

E. had on three layers of shirts , two layers of pants, his soccer gear and gloves. K was also bundled up and got to wear his new jacket to the game. Everyone was cold and the players certainly weren't used to the fall weather.

It was a cold night.

{Celebration}

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to all!!

Even though it has been a long time since we have been home to Canada but we still celebrate Thanksgiving and Canada Day evey year.

Here are two pictures of one of our favorite places in Canada

{The After Conference Look}

So we have the boys watch all sessions on Sunday and we let them pull out a few things to do while listening.

Their favorite is this HUGE Bingo board a great friend made for us years ago. The boys always want to get it out and remind me daily to buy candy for it. E has been reminding me for two weeks now!! But it gets them to listen and pay attention. K asked why no one talked about family home evening this time....he noticed b/c he never got to cover up that spot this time.

Anyways this is what the room looks like after the last session is over. I did make them clean up most of the candy wrappers before I thought to take a picture of it.

{Spirit Week}

This week was spirit week at school.

Normally we wear uniforms but this week all the kids went wild...

Tuesday was PJ day

Wednesday mismatch/crazy hair day

Thursday Superhero/Who's your hero day

Friday was Retro day

The only morning I remembered to take a picture was Wednesday....here they are in all their glory at 630 am. on mismatch day....

and after school we had to run one errand....I bet the people there thought we were CRAZY!

{And my mouth was open...}

Today was game 2 of the season.

E did great. I forgot the camera but he was more into the game and has discovered his "inner defender."

He played forward for about the first 5 minutes of the game and then a goal kick from the other team happened and he took the ball to the face. Literally to the face.

Their best kicker and strongest kicker kicked it with power full force into E's face. He landed flat backed on the field and was stunned until he grabbed his face and sat up when the coach ran onto the field.

He got a bloody nose (not unusual for him) but wasn't crying very hard (that too is unusual for him..he is the cry-er of our family right now so this seemed to be the perfect chance for him to go into full meltdown mode but he didn't). He was standing/sitting on my lap while I tried to stop the bleeding and he tells me...

"I couldn't get air and my mouth was open"

I explained getting the wind knocked out of you and while he was trying not to cry he told me must be what happened. Another dad came over and told him that that shot would have knocked us all out (that is how strong the kick was).

After a few minutes he was okay (no bleeding) and I made him go stand by his coach. A few minutes later he was back in the game as a fullback.

He loves defense and is great at it. We thought after his shot to the face he would be timid and not play very well but he did the best he ever has. He went right up to each player every time they ame down field and was taking balls away and he cleared it out a few times. While he was in the back they only shot on goal a handful of times.

He also took a good shot to the stomach in the second half, was pushed down and tripped over other fallen players at least twice. His coach wondered if E was the target today.

It was a great game though...and we won by 1.

{1st game of the season}

Yesterday was E's first game for this fall. He is on a young team and they tied 3-3 so that was good. It was fun to watch and as he learns how to play a position he will do better. Right now they are all still chasing the ball everywhere even though the field is so much bigger than last year. He played a lot of defense so that was good once he figured out he didn't have to play the whole field!

He is #1 this year...

{Volcanoes}

E made a volcano at school this week as a part of their science lesson. They made them and exploded them. He is anxious to do it again at home....

{school fun}

Friday was our back to school barbeque. Luckily Chad was able to take the boys as I had to be at church for a primary activity.

They had a great time and there were games food and fun. Here are a few pictures of the fun they had.

{1st Place}

This week was K's rain gutter regatta. It was a great night for him. He got 1st Place!!

He designed his boat with his dad and ended up cutting the model boat in half. He was so happy and had a great night!

{Watch this}

{think what E would do}

After the program at school on Thursday night a parent of another 2nd grader came up to me and wanted to share a funny story. (E is in 2nd grade this year)

Her little 2nd grader has had some behavior problems at school this year and has been in trouble many times. And she was trying to give him ideas of what he could do to make better decisions.

She told him that he should think before he does anything at school and ask himself "would Jesus do this?: and if the answer was no then he wouldn't do it.

He told her he would not do this.

When she asked him why he had a different plan. Hear is what he said

"I will just do what E does. He never talks without raising his hand. He never talks when the teacher is talking and he always does the right thing. So I will just think what E would do."

It was so funny and so true. E is afraid to break ANY rule at school or home and will always do exactly what you ask him too. We hope this continues for a few more years!

{this is FANCY}

So all these years we have been parents we have just figured out we have been going about feeding our boys all wrong.

We are those parents that feel a home cooked meal is the best and a very important part of their day. We try to have a good breakfast, healthy lunch and a home cooked healthy dinner every night. We don't use hamburger helper, mac and cheese, ramen or any of those staples around here. I try to make as much or our food from scratch as I can. We thought we were all doing great with our food choices for the boys.

Then Saturday night came.

And C and I were going to a church meeting so we were having a babysitter come over. Usually he will make dinner for them or we will get pizza if we are running late. This night I remembered I had got two TV dinners I thought I would use for my work lunches. But I hardly ever have time for lunch so I have never taken them. So I told the boys what they were they each choose one and I heated them up.

Upon giving it to E he looks at it and I explain what a TV dinner is why it is called a TV dinner and any other questions he had. To which he tells me "this is pretty FANCY."

Yep...our boy would think TV dinners are fancy...not all those hot meals we made form scratch to avoid preservatives and all the other bad stuff.

We are re-evaluating our food preparations now.

{School Work}

Part of the Constitution Night celebration this year is that each class and each scholar have a piece of work displayed that night.

K did a picture of the flag and a very short essay....isn't his handwriting nice? this year he can only use cursive and that has slowed him down a lot which I think is good. And it is a lot nicer than his print.

E did a "tree map" one of the thinking maps we teach the children. It is hard to read from this picture but he did a great job!

This last picture is the display from my little class.