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!

Learning to read

Here is Paige reading her first and second books from Kindergarten last week. Check out the improvement between the two! She cracks me up.



Here is Kevin's first book. He lucked out and got an easier book, but he really is so smart. He came home a few weeks ago wanting me to teach him to count to 100 and last week he was able to do it without help, so he was the 2nd person in his class to be able to get a certificate. Kevin is doing so much better with his speech, but we still have a long way to go. His speech teacher will now be working with him 1 on 1 to get him some extra help.

Updates, Updates, Updates

Before I get started, here are some sayings I don't want to forget......

Darci -
Says "Oh my goodness!" all the time now
She said, "I learned that from TB (TV)" last month
She is always asking me to paint her "fingertales and her tales"
In the van the other day, Darci told me that she was going to get married when she went to college and then she was going to go to preschool.
Darci has a great memory, I told her she could go to preschool when she was 3 and she yelled out, "in January!"

Paige -
Last night I heard her yell, "Mom!!! Darci turned the light on and now she's leading the band!!" Darci was sitting up pretending to lead music to an invisible band.

With the puppies, she said, "Oh, I found the butt, these little holes are the butt."

We were driving around and he pointed at the lights up at Tad's mine and asked if that was the United States. I said, no that is Safford, a city in the United States. And the United States is a country on Earth, just like Brazil, Canada, India, China..... then Paige said, "Oh, China doesn't have any more money... " I said, where did you hear that? She said, "Daddy says that".

Kevin -
The other day, I said no when Kevin asked if he could have a shave ice. He said, (very seriously) "I'm going to call 911 and tell them I don't want you as mommy".


Here are some more pictures of the girls haircuts. I've really been happy with them.




Darci is still falling asleep in the hall........



Halloween craft fun.... this one turned out really cute, and all the kids got to draw them in. Derek actually drew his own faces. I'm sure if you look closely you can figure out who did what. These will go outside when I decide where to put them.






Not Halloween, but this is a FHE sign that I made.



Exploring....









My little plot of garden is growing SO many tomatoes and Okra. Luckily everyone here loves tomatoes and fried Okra.



Over Labor Day weekend, I took a trip to Texas for Tad's brother Ryan's wedding. This involved 6 or 7 adults and 3 kids in a 15 passenger van for 15 hrs each way. I sat near the back most of the time and am still feeling a bit carsick from it. But overall, it was fun. Tad wasn't able to go because he was working. And thank you to our friends and my mom who helped out with babysitting some crazy kids for 4 or 5 days!

Sisters-in-law.....


Sisters-in-law with my niece Caroline


My sweet niece Caroline


In the van.........


Darci bucked up in Grandma Noni's van ready for a fun few days....


Sweet Baby Miles - worth the trip!




Caroline with her "tie-dye gold dress" and Caroline with Britni


The beautiful couple and family


After 30 years, he finally asked her to dance!