Report card

Report cards came out this week. Kristen has straight A's and and made the honor roll for first semester! We are super proud! Look for our bumper sticker soon... "Proud parent of an honor roll student!!" Kate got As and Bs and is working very hard to improve her math grade. She received a 100% on her Tungsten Reading scores for January! Wil does not receive grades yet, but received excellent marks on everything and his teacher could not say enough good things about his math ability. They are both all very talented in art, music, and p.e. as well as their academic subjects. We already know they are great kids, but it is nice to hear it from other people every once in awhile too!

Here is a picture of Kate's invention that she created! Pretty cool!

Frenchy debuts tonight!

Well I broke down and spent the money for the pink ladies jacket for Kristen for her play. It is TOO cute, pink satin with "pink ladies" on the jacket. I gave it to her yesterday, she was so excited. Wil and I (and Sonny-long story, he just ended up with me for the afternoon) stayed and watched a bit of rehearsal. She is going to be so good! Poor Mr. Tyler (the director), he is a great guy, but "Danny" still did not know his parts! ARGH! I would have cut him! Ok, probably not but still! The boys and girls in the show look so good. I know it will all come together for them.

I took lunch to Kristen today and a good luck cookie cake and balloon. School cafeterias have not changed much over the years. Ok, maybe more selection, but the kids still picked pizza, chicken nuggets, nachos, and corn dogs over any of the healthy selections. Although, Kristen's friends all insist that she eats fruit at every lunch. I took her a big box of raspberries (her favorite) and she devoured the whole thing. The cookie cake was a big hit. Lots of kids came by to wish her happy birthday and it gave her a chance to announce to everyone that the PLAY was starting tonight. Everyone says they are coming to see her! It should be interesting tonight as the theatre at the middle school is tiny and is basically a formal dress rehearsal for the high school performances next week. I wore my pink sweater today and of course she noticed! LOL! Isn't that one of the best things about kids, getting to live vicariously through them!! (but not too close! lol)



Kate this morning was working on her poetry. Here is her metaphor "A daisy is as bright as the sun shining on me on a warm summer day."

Wil is working on money skills this week with math. OH MY! Like the boy needs more incentive to be obcessed with numbers!

Updates later on the first Grease performance tonight! Break a leg, Kristen!!

HAT TRICK

Ok not sure if it is technically a hat trick but all of the kids SCORED in their soccer games on Sunday!!!

Kate had two WC soccer games. She scored and had more saves that I can keep track of. She won both games. The first game she defeated an undefeated team! William lost his soccer game with his Truman United team, but had an incredible goal and several assists against a very difficult select team. Kristen won her game and had two assists and a goal!

Kristen also had a basketball game. Let's just say that her team never scored. BUT she did have one steal (the only one of the game for her team) and she played very aggressive, bouncing her head off of the court, causing the whole game to stop. She did not cry until in the car. I piggy-backed her to the car, because somehow her hurting head made her legs not work (logic only parents can understand :-)

So yes, we were at sports activities all over the St. Louis area from 10 a.m. until 10p.m.!! Made for a quick Sunday!

Wil did get a new pair of jeans. We are starting to have clothing issues with him. Sweats are no longer "cool." Not sure that having two big sisters is going to be a good thing for me!

The kids also worked on their fort this weekend. Seems the older kids in the neighborhood, went in and "wrecked" their fort, so there had to be some repair. Seems there was a boy and girl toilet there and we had to nix the outdoor toilet plan! The neighborhood kids work on the fort every weekend and it is always getting new additions. Wil also learned to jump off of the top of the neighbors playhouse (which I accidentally saw through the window). It is about a 15 foot drop and he has no fear.

Play practice, play practice, play practice! I don't need to say more! Dress rehearsal is Tuesday and first performance is Wednesday. Kristen is SO excited!

Weekend update...

Quick update! Kate won her basketball game 30-2. I am her coach and I had to tell the girls to stop shooting! Three passes before every shot! HA! They are awesome. Kate is a natural guard but she is learning to be a forward and even played center for 5 minutes! William had his first game, they play on the small courts and he is WAY too big for the court. He tied 35-35. It is all about learning the game at this level, but don't tell Wil as he equates a tie with a loss! He played great and had some incredible shots. Kristen had a SEVEN hour play practice today. She went over all of the lines and choreography. Kate and I watched for a bit when we took her lunch and she looked GREAT. Her first performance is Wednesday! So excited!! Kate spent the night at Sarah's last night so it was an hour and half round trip for me this morning to get her to her 9 am game. Kristen had Nikki spend the night and I finally told them to stop talking at midnight!

Relative...

It's all relative...that seems to be Wil and my current ongoing arguement/discussion. It started with him asking me about a girlfriend of mine who I used to play basketball with and he asked me if she was tall. I said it's relative. This of course lead into a huge discussion of what is relative. That it depends on the relation. That "tall" has a specific nature only by relation to something else. She was not tall for a basketball player, but tall for a girl. She would be tall to Caleb but not to Cousin Tom. You can only imagine the comparisons that were made. So today he tells me that most things in the world are short. I said that's relative. He said "things" are short, I said you mean like buildings and mountains. He said, "no landforms" (too funny), I said what about trees? To which he wanted to know if there were more trees or people in the world? I said that would be a discussion for another day! Which of course lead him to decide to count all the trees in our part of the woods so he could compare it to the number of people in St. Louis. The boy is driven by numbers. But back to the "most things are short in the world" discussion...so why are most things short? I said what about people, they are not things, he said but most people are under six feet tall so that is short. We discussed the average height of people and what average meant. He said so they are mostly short. I said that is relative, he said "not people. JUST THINGS MOM." Like buildings? Ok, mom, you can have buildings cause just think about the millions of things inside of buildings, they are all short. So, like I said all things are short. End of discussion. He is going to be a great lawyer. On the way home I am going to ask him if he had a "good" day.

Winter hum...

I go back and forth on whether or not I love the time between winter break and spring break or if I really don't like it. January to March, traditionally is everyday work/school mode for us. We seem to get on track with sleep and homework and reading and brushing teeth and housework and well...you know all those everyday things that don't really seem to be on the top of every one's list the other 9 months of the year!!!

Wil is working on his very first "book report" of his school career. He received the assignment on Monday and last night we finished reading the entire chapter book. He is motivated! Yes, guitar hero is still his passion (woke up at 6:00 to play it this morning), but he is taking more responsibility for his homework. Not to mention keeping up with his chores of emptying the dishwasher and emptying the upstairs trash!

Kate had a rough morning. She is fighting a cold with lots of sinus drainage. Her tummy was not doing so well until we got a bit of a biscuits in her. She is working on her science fair project at home. This year she had to come up with an invention. She is in the middle of creating a holder for the iphone, so she can play the "bubble wrap" game using both hands. She named it the iholder! She hope to have it designed by Friday.

Kristen is in the mist of a new semester. Her core classes do not change at midterm but her electives do. She is having problems with one of her new teachers. I am going to give it a week before I email the teacher, to see if Kristen can work it out on her own. Also FRENCHY has taken over our life! The first performance is NEXT Wednesday at the middle school theatre. It only seats about 50 people so we don't even know if we will get in to see it, but then her big performance is at the high school on Jan 23. We have spent the past few days getting her costume pulled together. Still in need of a pink jacket! But we have the school outfit together (red poodle skirt), the bedroom scene (pj's), the beauty school drop out scene, the dance, the diner (need pink jacket), and the ending (white shirt and jean capri). We need to have it all finalized by the weekend as dress rehearsal is next Monday! She is very proud of herself for knowing her lines, she was telling me how several people do not know their lines or if they do they don't know their marks or cues! We practice every night in the front room and she not only does the lines, but walks through each scene as we practice! Of course she has all the songs and choreography down pat! I am excited to see her with her peers!!

Sonny is still trying to escape the kitchen on a daily basis. He is getting big and has not had one accident in the kitchen since he has been "trapped."

Like I said, everyone is in school/work mode! Normal rhythm of our life, piano, soccer, basketball, violin, school. Now we need some SNOW!!

The new babies...

And Sonny is still trying to escape...


And as Kristen said,"The van had a baby." Our new minicooper, Daddy's work car.