The Rest Of November

At C's school they have a reading program. The kids are encouraged to have spent 130 hours in reading activities by the end of the school year. The hours can be her reading to me or me reading to her or her reading to herself. The reading is tracked in 10 hour intervals. After each 10 hours the kids get a surprise. C was the first one in her class to reach 20 hours. She was proudly holding her surprise. A ticket for a free cookie.

Look how big that turkey cookie is!!

She has reached 33 hours now.

We all know C is a people person. She loves all her friends so deeply and is fiercely loyal to them. Even when they are not so nice to her. Every morning when I drop her off she will see one of them and run off to meet up with them. Kind of hard to see but C is on the left holding hands with 2 of her friends. All the moms dropping of kids were oohing and aahing over the sweetness of the 3 girls holding hands while walking to class.

Even though our pool is not heated Jake has enjoyed swimming in it lately. 

Jeremy will let him in it to stir up the water. Jake loves it!

We had crazy hair day at school.  It wasn't advertised well to the kindergarten parents and so we did not even know about it. When C got to school and saw all the kids with their crazy hair she started crying because hers was normal.  I ended up coming back at her recess and making it a bit crazy.

Jeremy has developed a recent addiction to Groupon. He always seems to find all sorts of deals on there. He bought us 4 tickets to a small amusement park in Phoenix. Most of the rides are geared to younger kids. There were only 3 rides that C was not tall enough to do.

Because we had 4 tickets we told C she could invite a friend. We took Emari.

The first thing we rode was the double loop roller coaster. I did not get a picture of it.  Then C wanted to ride the log flume. Yes, in November. But it was a warm 84* that day so it sounded good to us.  The girls also did the Go Carts, some swings and spinning rides.

They did a small Ferris wheel and C did the log flume a few more times. Emari did not want to get wet so she sat them out. We also saw Santa and got some pictures with him.  We ended the day with a early dinner at In and Out burger. Perfect day.

With Christmas approaching I told C she had to get rid of some toys to make room for the ones Santa would bring.  This is only 1 bag full. She got rid of 2 bags. Sparky, I did take out the turtle that Morgan made. You can keep it at your house.

C has recess 2 times a day. Because we live in the dessert the playground floor is not soft grass, but small rocks and sand. So each day she comes home with her shoes FULL of sand and rocks. The crazy thing is that they have recess in the morning. So my poor child walks around with this stuff in her shoes for the of the day. I have finally convinced her to empty her shoes out before she comes in for recess.

One night I went to check to see if C was asleep. She was, but not in her bed. When I transferred her to her bed, she woke up and demanded I put her back on the floor. Silly girl.

It has finally been getting cool in the mornings. I am talking about 50*. I was so excited to bust out my winter boots. Of course by the time school let out I was already back in my flip flops. This weather has taken some getting use to.  After being in the Midwest for almost 3 years I am use to it being cold in November. Here I have been wearing shorts and tank tops!

C is continuing to enjoy being a Daisy.  Her troop is small, only 6 girls. But I like it that size as they are getting to know each other.

We have some fun Christmas things planned for them this month.

This is one of the houses in our neighborhood. This photo does it NO justice. It is breathtaking. It is hard to see but they have a mini Ferris wheel with little elves on it, tons of big moving props and probably millions of lights.

I can not believe how fast November flew by.  This is my favorite time of the year. We have lots of fun holiday events planned. I am going to try really hard to get them all up on the blog so I can remember them for years to come.

Making The Grade

At the end of September C's first progress report came home.  At her school kids in grades K-3 get numbers instead of grades on their report cards. 4 is an A, 3 is a B, 2 is a C and 1 is failing.  I am super proud that on her progress report she got all 4's and only 2 3's.  

Her actual report card came home at the end of October.  Mrs. W told us that a 4 means she has mastered the concept above and beyond what is expected.  She told us a 3 means that she has mastered the concept. She told all the parents that we should expect to see mostly 2's and 3's on their report cards.    If we saw a 4, then our child was going above and beyond in that area.

I am super proud to say that our little miss C got all 4's and 3's!!  We told her beforehand that if she got all 4's and 3's that we would take her some place special.  A post on that will be coming shortly.

We had our conference with Mrs. W who said C is a joy to have in class. She is eager to learn. She is a great sharer and a friend to all.  She is also a bit of a Chatty Cathy. This came as no surprise to us as even from a baby she loved to talk!!

Her 2nd progress report came home last week.  Again our girl rocked it!

Right before school started all the kids got their assigned teachers mailed to them. We did not get the Kindergarten teacher that everyone said was the best. We got the teacher that was new to the school.  Lots of parents who did not get that #1 teacher were upset. By the first week of school all the parents in Mrs. W's class were now overjoyed. Mrs. W is the sweetest, most kind, wonderful teacher. You can tell that she really does value and love her Kindergarten kids. I could not have dreamed up a better Kindergarten teacher for C!! I am so thankful we got her.  I assure you she will be the teacher from now on that all the parents want their kids to have! And C LOVES her to death!! She is constantly drawing her pictures and talking about her. 

Their report cards will come home at Christmas. Which means that we are almost halfway through the school year!! I can not believe that she is almost halfway done with Kindergarten and then onto 1st grade she will be go.  We are both super proud of how much she is learning, how well she can read and who she is becoming!

Thanksgiving Wrap Up

C had a fun last day at school on Wednesday before the break.

Mrs. W organized a Friendship Feast for lunch. All the moms brought the food items and the kids enjoyed a feast for lunch.

Some cute pop-tart turkeys one of the moms made.

My girl and her table. 

On Wednesday evening we went to Amber and Ron's house to enjoy some desserts with them. They had celebrated their dinner that evening as her husband is an ER doctor and had to work on turkey day.  One of their neighbors had this awesome display. The picture does it no justice!

Enjoying some desserts with her friends.

Sweet girls playing sweetly.

On actual Thanksgiving I took C and Jake to the park.  You can tell how warm it was by that lady wearing tank and shorts.  The park was packed.

Everyone was enjoying the warmth.  

Jake was happy to go with us but not happy once he realized he had to be tied up. He so badly wanted to run and play with all the kids.

I had a awful headache for most of thanksgiving day. After the park I went upstairs to take a nap.  Hoping that would help. I slept for over 2 hours and woke to the sounds of C setting the table. My sweet girl was so proud of herself.

It was just the 3 of us but Jeremy still made us a turkey with all the sides. We enjoyed a delicious dinner  and some pie and then had a quiet evening. Apparently the drug in the turkey made everyone sleepy as they all were asleep before 9pm.  

We have some fun things planned for the rest of the weekend.  Happy Thanksgiving!

All Things Halloween

I should have posted these back in October but I fell into a bit of a blog funk.  But better late than never.  I am one of the room moms in C's class and got to help with her class party. Mrs W. wanted all the volunteers to wear witches hats.  Here is my plain $3 hat from Target "before".

Here it is "After".  It cost me only an additional $2 to make. I had the tulle and ribbon. I only had to buy the spider.  It was fun to make and i got lots of compliments on it too.

I let C host her 2nd annual Halloween party the weekend before Halloween.

I had different activities for the girls to do. Coloring, making Halloween jewelry, a skeleton scavenger hunt.

My sweet friend Amber graciously volunteered to bring goodie bags for all the girls.

Group photo. We had 1 unhappy guest at this moment.  I think she just didn't want to be in the photo.  All of the girls got to school with C.

For the treat I had them make monster brownies. It was cute how all the "monsters" turned out so different.

Daddy was super nice and let C blow up her bounce house inside the house. The bounce house was a hit and ALL the kids loved it.

We also took advantage of a the Halloween party in our neighborhood. They had a huge area with scarecrows, monsters, games, balloon makers, dance floor.

This gypsy witch told C that she saw a messy room, a dog and a good reader. I would say she could see the future.

Of course if there are treats around my daughter will find them.  Decorating her cookie.

Jeremy and I were able to have a Halloween date night. I love a good scare and all things scary. He took me to a local Halloween house. It was good but we know there are ones much better. Next year we plan to go to one of the big ones in Phoenix.

I still have so much to blog about. Hopefully I have gotten out of the blog funk I was in.