Weekend Update

We made it through our long weekend and I feel ready to take on a new week. Emily had a five day and the boys had a four day weekend due to parent teacher conferences. Here's how they went.
Emily-Mrs. Cochell says she made a super easy transition into school. She says she is quiet but not so much so that she doesn't participate. She has a couple good friends but plays with everyone in her class. She scored a 3 on the IRI and is doing great in all of her other subjects. Her class goes to three specials a week: computer, visual arts and music, and she is loving each of those.

Taylor-Mrs. Duthie says that she loves having Taylor in her class. She says he is a very sweet and curious young man and is well liked by all of his class mates. He scored a 3 on the IRI and is reading at 130 words per minute which is already above what he needs to be reading for the end of the year. He is doing well in all subjects but excels in journal writing. She said it amazes her how much he writes every day. He is having a little trouble in math but he is still where he needs to be for third grade.

Austin-Mr. Price and Mrs. Stevenson are Austin's teachers this year. We had a very good conference. Much better than I expected. Austin has never been a lover of school and only goes because he has to. He is doing pretty well in all subjects. Not excelling but not failing either. They took the ISATs and he scored lower than expected in reading and language and higher than expected in math. I love both of his teachers and they are both very patient with him and are helping him to be a better student.

I was very pleased with their conferences this year. Something my mother in law was told years ago and she passed on to me is "Never brag about your own kids. Let other people do that for you." I have tried to stick by that and never toot my own horn, even though I think my kids are the greatest ever. So it makes me more than proud to hear from their teachers, and other adults, how kind and helpful each of them are. Makes me feel like I am doing something right.

Because it was a long weekend Austin was gone for two nights and so was Emily. What fun it was to spend so much time with Taylor! Rob and I took him to see Wall-E on Friday night. I had already seen it once but I forgot how cute it was. The older Taylor gets the more that child talks. He starts as soon as he wakes up and doesn't quiet down till bed. He almost always has a football in hand or within arms reach and is continually showing me different plays he can do. I usually only hear and see half of it because he is running in and out of the room. He also already has as touchdown dance that is hysterical. Not so showy he's gonna get a penalty but enough to get his point across. He is one cute kid.

Rob, Tay and I made a trip to Albertsons on Saturday morning. Andrea wrote a blog about a promotion they are doing and I saw the ad but totally would have passed it by had it not been for her. Basically for every $30 you spent buying certain advertised items they would give you $15 to spend on your next purchase. To make it even better you can use coupons on your purchase so you can actually spend less than $30 and still get the $15. I spent at least an hour putting together two lists of things that I actually use and then more time perusing coupons.com that had a lot of coupons for the things I was buying but found it to be time well spent. They had to be separate transactions and they went like this...
#1
Spent $27.41
Saved $28.54

#2
Spent $14.83
Saved $34.36 by using coupons and the $15 from my first transaction.
Received another $15 for my next purchase.
Total spent $42.24
Total saved $62.90
I was giddy when we left the store.

Saturday night was Rykon's 2nd birthday party. It's hard to believe that two years has gone by since he made his entrance into the world. He is such a sweet boy and we were so happy to celebrate with him.

Sunday morning I helped with the high school's day of unity. I got there early to help set up breakfast then, after church, headed out to the barn to get lunch ready. It was easy, just sandwiches, chips, salads and cookies, but it was so fun getting to hang out with everyone a little without the responsibility of being there all day. I love this side of youth ministry.

Last night and today Steph and I were on the hunt for felt. We found an advent calendar and a card holder that we are jumping into. We have no patterns and no idea what we are doing but we are excited to begin. Wish us luck.