On to other things....
Brooke is still working on those bottom two teeth. I think they're getting closer. She's got a yucky nose (although clear) today. It seems that every day she chews on those little fingers of hers a bit more. What's odd though is that she's sticking them in the back of her mouth like she's getting molars. Weird.
I gave her some peas last night. She was NOT thrilled about that. I have given her green beans once before and she didn't like those either. She does eat her squash pretty good though. Carrots seem to be rather strong so when I found an apple and carrot combo, I bought that in the hopes that she'll like it. She loves the fruits though (big surprise - all my kids do!).
Unfortunately, little sister has turned into a biter. I'm afraid her nursing days are numbered. She clams down, pulls away & then looks up at me and grins. I can't help but smile back at her, but man she's got a GRIP! As soon as a tooth comes through I'm fairly certain she'll be done! On the bright side, she can hold her own bottle these days.
Brooke's getting quite proficient in the walker as well. She's managing to make the thing move a bit. Fortunately for her she's mostly got wood floors to walk on so that helps her out a bit. Her favorite toy when she's in the walker seems to be a ring to a mason jar. Odd.
Nash is turning into quite the little reader these days. He's currently working on set 4 of the phonic readers from school. These books have 2 stories in them. It takes him about 20 minutes to get through one story, but he does fairly well. I'm a bit worried about a few things though and am considering talking to his teacher about having him tested for speech. Nothing that I think can't be corrected, but it does cause frustration for him and he's already saying he hates school. This kid is amazing with numbers - even if he has had to work hard at becoming a good reader. He loves, loves, loves math. He is forever asking me "Mom, what does __ + ___ + ___ ....... equal?" I think he's going to pick multiplication up in a hurry! The other day there was a conversation between him, me and Sam. It ended with, "Well, it's ok if you aren't the best at reading Nash. You can help me (Sam) with math and I can help you with reading." How awesome is that?
Nash is also still playing basketball. I picked up a basketball at Smith's Marketplace the other day & ended up having to get Caleb a small one as well. All three kids have been dribbling away out in the garage ever since. Nash seems to really enjoy playing and was happy his dad could take him to his game last Saturday. He's got a game tomorrow but has next week off since it's Thanksgiving. Not sure what he's going to do after basketball is over Dec. 21st. I have looked into signing him up for piano lessons in January because he's been dying to learn. Just depends on if Sam's piano teacher is going to take the semester off from teaching piano because of the two intense writing classes she's taking up at USU.
Samantha is getting better and better at her piano these days. She's getting ready for her Christmas recital (Dec. 21 @ 7 pm in Hyrum). I went into The Book Table the other day to pick up some flash cards for her (she's having a hard time remembering the names of the notes) and ended up picking up a book of Christmas music for her. She was so excited. I love that. She's also getting ready to perform at Festival of Trees with her dance group on Dec. 2nd. Her Christmas dance review is coming up as well (Dec. 21st @ 5 pm @ LaShars).
Caleb is giving me a run for my money (as usual). He's starting to use the toilet a little bit better. He will tell me he needs to poop and run in there quite regularly. Getting him to pee in there though, that's now what's become the challenge! I'm sure it will come soon, it's just completely random for now. He's loving preschool and gets quite sad when I tell him he doesn't have school on any particular day. He wants so much to be like his big brother and sister. Thank goodness Miss Shannon is as amazing as she is!
Caleb has recently decided that he's going to tell me, "Mom. You're not the boss of me!" He will then proceed to stick his tongue out and spit at me & then run in the other direction. Not. Awesome. At all. Still working at curbing this new found behavior. Hope to find a solution soon!
Work is going well for me. I'm really enjoying it. It's nice because I have a different schedule each day depending on which school I'm at. All the principals have been good to work with and so have all the teachers. I have about 110 students total between the four schools. The kids just finished their backwards books and were so excited about them. They turned out way cute. Sam is in my 3rd grade group at Canyon Elementary and I think she's pretty excited to show her dad her book now that it's all laminated and bound. They have now started on a research project. They'll have until Christmas break to get it done. I'm giving them the opportunity to decide how they want to present their "report". Should be interesting to see what we get! I'm going to plan a day for the kids to present in January after we come back from Christmas and invite their parents and regular ed classroom. There is a HUGE spread of research projects. I have kids researching Why do leaves change colors to famous people, to events. Sam chose to research Alcatraz. Why? She's been rather interested in the prison system lately seeing as how Uncle Brad use to work at the Gunnison prison. When the kids were picking topics she said she wanted to do the Gunnison prison. I told her she wasn't going to be able to find any books in her school library about that prison and if she wanted to do a prison, she was going to have to pick a famous one. The response I got was, "Well...what's a famous prison?" thus how we ended up with Alcatraz! She's been super into it though. I've found some stuff online for her and she reads it as fast as I can get it to her. I'm curious to see how she'll decide to present.
My fifth graders will be doing elementary debate in about March and I'm excited to see how that goes. I love to debate. I should have joined the debate team in high school. I'm really looking forward to that training (is that weird?). I've also got the Gifted and Talented convention coming up at the end of January in SLC. Actually, it's the same day as the Brad Paisley concert.
Travis is still slaving away in Pinedale. We aren't sure if he'll be home for Thanksgiving or not. At first it sounded like he'd get the day off, but now we aren't sure. It all comes down to the BLM and whether or not they'll let Halliburton guys in on the BLM land.
He's also still going to school. This semester he's only taking one class (had to keep in mind he was going to go hunting this semester and didn't want grades to suffer because of it). So, this semester he's taking a business law class. The entire class is contract law and he is hating it. He keeps telling me how boring it is. It all comes down to how it's worded. He has a hard time staying awake reading his chapters because he's so bored. I think he'll likely end up with a math class in addition to one other one next semester! At least he's doing it and getting good grades though!
Well, there's an update on all of us. Happy Thanksgiving!
