Dancing Elves...

Christmas wouldn't be complete without our yearly Elf dancing...

Surfing Elves....

Happy Birthday Derek!!

Derek turned 8 on November 10th... I can't believe he is already 8!!! He is very sweet and quiet when he wants to be and loud and obnoxious when he wants to be too! He is in 2nd grade and doing great. I'm pretty sure he is going to be smarter than me, not that that says anything.... We had a little party for him in Nana and Grandpa's playground. It was dark and cold, but with a train ride and glow sticks and pizza and cake it turned out fun for all the kids. Derek has been wanting a hamster for a while, so Nana and Grandpa gave him money for a hamster and Grandma Toni and Papa gave him a cage and we got him some other stuff and some accessories for the cage. He's been great with it (Raptor) so far, plays with it everyday and makes sure there's always food in the bowl.

Raptor....



Darci "helped" me make the cake and cupcakes for his school class.



This is why I am going to buy cakes from here on out. They NEVER turn out even remotely pretty, so this is what we ended up with this year!

Kevin in Kindergarten

Kevin has done amazingly well in Kindergarten. It's funny because they make you do a Kindergarten pre-assessment here to see if your child is really ready for Kindergarten. Kevin scored really well on everything except the coordination stuff like jumping and standing on one foot (?). At the end of the assessment the teacher told me "sometimes with summer birthdays Parents decide to wait a year.....". But he has excelled at everything. He is ahead of Paige on most intellectual type things, she is ahead on social things. His speech is getting much better, that is really the only thing holding him back right now. Here is some of his doodling and handwriting....




Crazy name writing in the beginning...





His handwriting is SO neat!









Here, he was making his own tracing lines.





These videos are Kevin and Paige reading about 2 weeks ago. It's amazing they are reading this good after only 2 1/2 months of school.

What Paige is learning in Kindergarten

I am so proud of this girl for how well she is doing in kindergarten. She had NO preschool whatsoever and has really picked up on things well.

This was how she was spelling her name the first week of class. I was worried, I thought there was no hope!



Then it progressed to this...


And now it is this....So pretty!!


She loves to draw, here are some of her creations...














One of my favorites...


She loves to trace her hand and draw in pretty fingernails.,,




Oops, this is sideways...



Now she has pretty neat handwriting...Her teacher is really strict as far as making sure they take their time and do things right instead of getting sloppy.

Derek's Imagination at School

Derek is pretty imaginative when it comes to drawing. If he has free time at school, he usually comes home with something that he scribbled down in a few minutes. I love what he comes up with. Here's a few....

Toothless to the rescue...



Killing Ninjas....



More Dragon stuff



Halloween



Space



Spinosaurus



Good vs Bad



Jurassic Park



Schoolwork....He always gets great grades, but his teacher has the same complaint as his teacher last year - sloppy handwriting! He has spelling words every week and they have to come up with sentences for each word all on their own and I just love some of the things he's come up with...

I especially love #9 below



I like #5 & 7...



#2...



#6!



And just to prove he can write neat when he wants to...

Still here...

We are still alive I promise! I have SO much to post just have not had a chance! I started working on my bachelor's degree and am trying to finish 11 classes in 6 months, so that is taking a lot of my blog time but my goal is to get caught up on the blog by next week!