So behind!

Many, many fun things have happened, even before we moved, that I still haven't posted. There's the video from A.J.'s first orchestra concert, and his birthday, the first day of school, and lots of baseball. (Surprise!)

Today, though, I'll just put up some things from this week.

Wednesday was Parent/Teacher conference, so they were both out of school. I scheduled Levi's conference for 8am (A.J. is too old for mandatory conferences now!) and we headed out by 9. First up was the Trinity River Audubon Center. This is a new center, built along the Trinity River (which runs through much of the DFW metroplex) an on top of an illegal dump site. They "sculpted" the trash, covered it up, and planted lots of native grasses and other seeds. It is still in the early stages of succession, so it will be even more beautiful in future years. The drought this year also didn't help. The building, though, was mostly a disappointment. There was very little information available. Minimal, non-changing displays, and no staff to answer questions were bummers for me. I wanted to learn more about when the monarchs arrive back in TX, but no luck there. We did get several things passed off for A.J.'s Webelos requirements, and the river was beautiful.

Here are some fun pics.














 A.J. had to help Levi find the turtles sunning themselves on the logs.















 They liked this little fence.

 


















This is Levi learning to perch with the binoculars.

  



 

 He spent several minutes up there.

After hiking the trails for a couple of hours, we headed over to the Ft. Worth Zoo. It's a really nice zoo. Much nicer than L.A.'s. They even have penguins there! I didn't get any pictures, since we were getting short on time.

Yesterday was Levi's school fundraiser, the Fun Run. They set up cones on the soccer field, and the kids ran 30 laps each. Levi looked like it was easy, he just kept running and running, and running. 

What a goof

Just a quick post to say that my boys are still around. They just haven't gotten much blog time lately.

Today, A.J. told us about having getting to learn Spanish during Social Studies. His school bought Rosetta Stone for the kids to use in the computer lab. His computer was having troubles, so he only managed to watch the introductory video, and didn't get to "talk at it. You know, with headphones and a microphone like pilots and commentators wear."

Levi starting quoting some of the Rosetta Stone commercials, and then announced that he wanted to learn Latin. He picked Latin because "nobody speaks it anymore. And then nobody would understand me. It would be funny." See? He's a goof.

What we've done so far...

Well, we've been in the house for almost 3 weeks, but only owned it for 2. We've been quite busy with various projects. And the shopping! Good heavens we've done a lot of shopping. Between new clothes, school supplies, food, furniture, tools and such, and other sundries, we've spent more hours in retail outlets in the last 2 weeks than in the previous 2 months.

Here's a rundown of what's been accomplished so far.

Painted A.J.'s room for his birthday. (Pictures later.) Curtain fabric bought, but not made yet. That's a project for this week.

Bought desk/table surfaces for the office and put them together. Finally got the computer off the floor. :)

Opened and put away most of the boxes. Only a few left in the office and the master bedroom.

Bought, installed, and improved some used laundry appliances. Only $500 for both!

Set up the furniture, more or less where it will stay.

Got lawn care equipment (weedeater and riding lawn mower) and tidied up the lawn. Good grief it looks so much better.

Bought and assembled some garage organizing/work bench pieces. And put up peg board. And then actually put the tools away!

Scrubbed (with Soft Scrub and a brush) the grout lines in the kitchen. Well, I've started, but I sure haven't gotten anywhere near finished. WHY WOULD ANYONE USE WHITE GROUT IN THE KITCHEN?!?! If you happen to be grouting in your kitchen in the near future, do not choose white. You will regret it. At least it's coming mostly clean.

Scrubbed our shower. Eww. That's all I got on that one. And got a bench for it, since there's not even a soapdish!


De-cobwebbed the upper corners on most of the first floor.

Signed myself up to help with the garden at the elementary school. I figured that's in my skill set. 

Got both of the boys through the first week of school. They're both making new friends and enjoying their classes. Levi is excited that his school has music, computer, and art classes, and that he gets to have PE three times a week. A.J. is thrilled to have PE every day, and that he's doing really well in his Honors Math class. And he gets to see his teammates. They're all 6th graders, so he has no classes or lunch with them, but he sees them in the halls frequently. It's a pretty small school. :)

Up to bat for next week:

Get Aaron to his new office.

Sew curtains for A.J.'s window.

Actually get all the stuff off my kitchen counters that doesn't belong there.

Vacuum and use a Rug Doctor on the carpets. It's not particularly easy to tell, but they had two dogs. And they weren't imaginary.

Get some mulch to put around our poor trees. Especially the ones in the front of the house. They're younger, and taking the heat and dryness a little harder than the mature ones in the back.

Get Levi out to his first practice of the fall season.

Have the missionaries over for dinner and Family Home Evening Monday night. And then go to Levi's curriculum night at school.

Stop eating so much fast food!!!

Find a pediatrician. They're up for their check-ups in a few weeks.

And just enjoy being right where we belong. :)

Parent-Teacher Conferences

...and school pictures!

First, Levi.  Is he cute or what?

He's in kindergarten this year, and is smoking past everyone!  He has already passed his 100 words test, even though she only sent home the first ten words.  She knew he could read them, and tested him on them all.  That means he's now allowed to participate in Accelerated Reader (AR) and take quizzes on the books he reads.  So far, he's passed all three quizzes that he's taken.  He and his buddy Mike went with a 2nd grade class to take the reading assessment test last week.  His score is 2.7-3.6, meaning that he's reading at a 2nd grade, 7th month to 3rd grade, 6th month level.  oh, dear. 

Our big challenge with him is keeping up his effort in his school work.  Many of the other kids in his class are still working on learning their letters, so he doesn't see why he has to write several sentences when everyone else gets a gold star just for a few random letters on the page.  Then, he finishes before everyone else and distracts the nearest boy, who should still be working!  That is exactly what I thought would happen if his teacher doesn't keep him challenged and interested.  Thankfully, his teacher is working hard to keep him motivated, too.  She's going to put him with Mike to see if they can put a little competition into the quality of their work, rather than him just sitting around pestering someone.  We'll see what happens.
If any of you more experienced parents have ideas on keeping him interested and motivated, I'd really appreciate it.  He has no interest in busy work, or perceived time-wasters.

Now on to A.J.   He's getting awfully handsome, but don't tell him that!

I met with his teacher last week, also.  He's doing really well in his main classroom, but his test scores haven't been so hot in science and social studies, which he goes to the other 4th grade teacher for.  This means she has all 41 at once (there are only 8 4th graders in A.J.'s class, and 28 5th graders!)  I can't tell if his poor scores are because she's got so many at once, or he just doesn't get it, or if it's the textbooks.  The books are atrocious.  In my view, they are woefully incomplete.  Rather than defining phenomena, they simply describe them.  This leaves the student with no idea what the causes are/could be.  And it makes it hard to cement the concept in the mind.  Grr.  I'm kind of partial to science, so I strongly dislike anything that teaches it poorly.  Mostly because I've seen the product of the books once they're in college.  It's not pretty.  In short, we will be teaching the concepts mentioned in the texts, because there is no way he'll get them any other way.

He has started to play the clarinet with the school band/orchestra.  He's done really well at it, too!  Once he figured out how to make his fingers cover the holes properly, he's taken off.  It's been fun to watch him learn to practice with only a little help.  And, his tone is actually pretty good, too!  That's good, because the clarinet might be my least favorite instrument.  It doesn't help that most of the ones I was in school with couldn't march, either. 

He has impressed his classmates with his geographic knowledge.  The 5th graders are supposed to learn all the states and capitals this year, and his teacher has dragged the 4th graders along for the ride. :)  He's known all of them since about 1st grade, so he's smoking most of his classmates when they play games or have races to see who can get the match first. 

I'm really glad they are doing well.  They both are challenging to parent, and of course in totally different ways.  But, they're tons of fun and I'm loving watching them grow and change this year.

First Day of School - 2010

Levi is a big kindergartener now, and loved getting his things ready.  His teacher is Mrs. Barnett, who seems very friendly.  He knows a few kids in kindergarten, but none are in his class.  Not that it matters for him, Mr. Charm and Charisma.  He'll have a dozen friends by Friday, I'm sure.  We also found out that one of his t-ball buddies is moving to the neighborhood, and is in 1st grade at Valley View now.  We are all very excited about this!  Hank and Levi get along really well.

A.J. made a big leap this year, too.  He's a 4th grader now, but because of numbers of students, is in a 4th/5th split class.  There are 8 4th graders, and 28 5th graders.  Some of those kids are huge!  He knows half of the 4th graders in his class, but none are his close friends.  He also stays an extra 25 minutes each day, which seems like forever to him.  His teacher is Mr. Bender.  He's never had a man before, so this is new territory, but he seems like a lot of fun. 

We always take a picture by the sign.  On the first day, and the last day.

A close up of my two cuties.  Yes, they're wearing matching shoes. :)

Finally, a post. With pictures!

My sincere apologies.

Do we even have any readers left?  This spring has been MUCH busier than I expected.  I knew two boys in baseball would be busy, but add to that Aaron coaching A.J.'s team and being the Wolf den leader (which has at least two boys with autism/Asperger's!) and me writing at least one waste of time lab report every week, there has been no time for anyone to post anything.

We do, however, have TONS of photos of this period.  Mostly Levi's team.  Earlier in the season, the Team Dad suggested we get a photographer to take some action shots on the field.  At $5 for a 4"x6" image, that can get real pricey, real quick.  So I volunteered to take action shots of everyone and post them to a team shutterf1y page, where hopefully they can download whatever they want.  And probably get 20 prints for $5 instead of just one.  So, I took a lot of shots.  2,200 between April 1 and tonight.  Not all are of Levi's team, of course, but the vast majority are!

So let's take a look at some of these, shall we?

First up, Levi.  He's been a pretty busy guy, too.

He had his first ride on a school bus, which he has been talking about since last year.  His class went to the zoo!

We have been taking lots of walks, most of which end up at the park.  He was hamming it up one day and posing for the camera.

He also showed off his hard work at the school's open house last month.  Check out the answers to these questions:

And, meet his wonderful teachers, Ms. Azniv and Ms. Candy.  They really are the best.

But mostly, he's been busy with baseball.  They even got to try some coach-pitch for the last couple of games, and he was really excited.  He got a big hit, too!

Other things he's been working on, but we don't have pictures of include: learning to write his numbers, getting his first loose tooth, watching Star Wars for the first time (and falling in love with the Ewoks!), and getting his first four cavities.  So I guess some of those aren't exactly accomplishments, but that's a little look at Levi's life.

On to A.J.  Of course, his entire existence revolves around baseball.  Watching it, playing it, and now, learning how to figure out the statistics!  He decided to figure out his batting average, so charted each of his games in an Exce1 spreadsheet, and then did all of his teammates' stats, too.  It took him most of his free time for about 4 days.  But, now he can do basic functions in Exce1 and is starting to understand how math can provide information.  He also discovered, to his delight, that both his batting average (0.455) and his on-base percentage (0.636) are higher than those of Albert Pujols.  So, A.J. decided that that makes him a better batter.  We'll see about that. :)

Some pics of A.J. on the field:

That second photo is from a game they came pretty close to winning, against a VERY good team.  That catcher is their starting pitcher and really good.  His coaches saved him for last, thinking that the "lesser" pitchers would be able to handle Bistagne pretty easily.  Cole was brought in, and the boys just kept hitting.  He was nearly crying on the mound, he was so upset.  He eventually got the third out to end the game, but our boys were feeling pretty good about themselves afterward!

A.J. also joined the 1-3 grade chorus at school, called The Singing Eaglets.  They put on a show recently called "I Need a Vacation!"

He, too, showed off his work at his open house.  His teacher, Mrs. Bringas, is also awesome.  We'll miss her next year!

Cub Scouts is another activity A.J. has been working hard on.  He has really come to love the program and wants to earn as much as he can.  Tonight, he earned his Wolf badge, two arrow points, and two belt loops.  So proud of him!

So, you can see that we've been doing quite a bit lately.  My calendar is pretty full, and we've had at least one activity nearly every day for about a month now.  I'm ready for vacation, too.  :)