Mid year

We are 3 weeks away from the end of the first semester. Where did it go? Poof in a blink of an eye, its all in the past.

We have had a fantastic year, school wise. I am SO proud of Kassel and all the heard work he has put into his school work. He's a real young kindergartner and has a small speech delay but he was worked so hard on his school work this year. He has has done awesome on his math and to my surprise has done great at phonics too. He's not too fond of History or Language arts, but usually doesn't give me too much trouble.

Kassel has speech therapy with a great therapist in an online classroom. He likes "going to speech" to play games with her. At the beginning of the year I was a little apprehensive about speech online, but I've been pleasantly surprised.

Kassel has also been going to preschool the last few months. I went to that preschool, Kaitlyn went to that preschool, how could I not send Kassel? We had to atleast try it. Some people thought it was weird for me to send him to preschool even though he is a kindergartener, but were a bit UN-ordinary. I'm OK with that. Unfortunately it just didn't seam to fit into our busy days. We will not be returning after the first of the year. We all had fun while we were there and thats what counts.

As for Kaitlyn, she's turning into a girl. Not a little girl, a girl. Full of sass, spunk, attitude, rebellion, etc. She's done amazing in school this year. I have to spend ALOT of time working with Kassel and Kaitlyn is just so easy to teach. I take a few minutes to introduce a new topic to her and send her on her way to work on it. I was really worried about teaching her multiplication and division, but even that she picked up real quick. She started writing some stories which she posted on a new blog I helped her create.

She has also joined a League Swim Team. She was on a summer league swim team over the summer and decided to join a year round team. She did great at her first two swim meets. She improved her times a lot. Enjoys the meets as well as practices everyday. Even when its cold and windy Kassel and I bundle up and watch her practice. She's a natural.

Today is Dec 6, 2011. 15 years ago today we lost my mom. I couldn't even be there when she passed for I was in another hospital. I can remember that day like it was yesterday. At other times it feels like a lifetime ago. I wish she was here everyday. I wish she was able to be a part of my children's life. I think life would be so different if she was still around. Love and miss you mom.

From us to you... sending love!

Will life every be normal again?

I once used to have time to scrapbook, relax, see friends, bake, craft, blog, etc.

Not for awhile now. I've often thought of deleting my blog. But it used to have a lot of fun with it. A lot of my friends blogged and even meet other friends through blogging. Life just gets busy. I'm not sure if it just goes hand in hand with the kids getting older, or life choices we have made. I don't know why or how, but it has.

There has been a lot of ups and downs in life lately, but were all still alive and well and that's what truly matters in life.

School is in!

We are one week into our 2011-2012 school year! Last week was a busy week. It's always hard getting back into a routine, especially a new routine! Last year we were tied down to a 9am-2pm M-Th school week. This year we will have a lot more flexibility but still trying to find some sort of a routine.

Our first day of school went GREAT! We all woke up excited and ready to go! We all woke up on time or early and got dressed, ate breakfast and ready to learn! We took some first day of school pictures and then we went on an alphabet hike around the block and had fun with that! Then started in! It went great! We have a busy week planned so we went ahead of schedule and got extra work done.


I wouldnt let the kids into the classroom until it was time to start school. It was killing them! :)


Back to school goodies!


I hope they stay this close forever!


family shadow!


Getting work done! (It was hot can you tell?)

Day two- Kaitlyn knows what shes supposed to do so shes no problem. Kassel, my little kindergartner on the other hand isn't too keen on doing his school work. It was a hard day! But still got at least the minimum done.

Day 3- Meet up at the movies! We met up with some old and brand new friends at the dollar movies. It was great to get out and meet some new people! then we came home and got some work done! Pretty successful day.

Day 4- Back to school party! We had a great back to school party with some friends. We were all dressed silly since we had a clown come and do face painting and a magic show! Great day with great friends! We got some school work done after we got home.




Day 5- Friday! My plan is for Fridays to be completely free of school work but depends on how busy our week is. This Friday we had a yard sale planned and we were busy doing that until 2pm which is when we had a play date scheduled. We got to the play date about an hour late but still were able to meet up with some new friends.

~WHEW!~
Week one, DONE! Mission completed!

Where does it all go??

I don't know how many times I say this but really... Where has the time gone? I mean really, Where did summer go? Where did last school year go? Where did my childrens childhood go? Where did the last 9 years of marriage go? It just went 'Poof'! In a blink of an eye I've been married for 9 almost years, I have 2 amazing kids who are now entering 2nd grade and kindergarten! I was so looking forward to this summer and now its almost gone! I did enjoy the summer don't get me wrong. It was a great summer and I look forward to starting this new school year, actually very excited! We are going to enjoy the last bit of summer and then jump into school with both feet!

This year is going to be so much fun! We school with CAVA a virtual academy. We schooled with them last year but that was a totally different situation as it will be this year. This year we will have FREEDOM! We wont have to eat, get dressed, pack our backpacks and drive to school. This year we will have school in our own home! We will have the freedom to go on every field trip possible, within reason. We will have the freedom to go to Disneyland when we want. Can you tell I'm excited about being able to do what WE want to do?

School starts August 15th! Between now and then we have my cousins wedding this weekend that Kait and I are in. Then we are heading on vacation for a few days! The hubby is taking a whole week off work, which is pretty big for him! Then when we come back, we have one more week to prepare for school see friends and fun stuff like that. We are slowly getting the classroom ready and the kids are so excited to start school. I'm being mean and making them wait!

Enjoy the rest of your summer too! It will be gone all too soon!!!

Clean sweep!

Second day of summer vacation was another 'Get 'er done!' kinda day. Working on getting more Girl Scout stuff done. Didn't get anything done around the house though which stinks because it really needs some attention. But I did clean out one thing that always seams so overwhelming to me. Im not one to get rid of stuff. I'm NOT a hoarder like as in the show! Have you seen those people? WOW! But I do have tendencies like some of them. I always think "What if I need that later?" or "I can use that for something else later on". So yea getting rid of stuff is kinda hard for me. But I did it! I cleaned it ALL out! Clean sweeped my In BOX! Yes Emails! I didn't know that your AOL inbox could get full of emails but it happens to me often. So tonight I went in a cleaned it all out! Yes I will probably regret deleting a few of them. I will probably come back tomorrow and need something that I deleted but OH WELL! It's gone! Man it feels good! Just if it was that easy with other things.....

Knock Knock

Knock Knock, Anyone there?

Just stumbled upon a friends blog and kicked my bootie into blog surfing again. It's been so long since I stopped blogging. Thinking back it started when the laptop crashed, and I could only log into blogger with the laptop, for some stupid reason. I guess its an IE thing because I'm on here now! As I was blog hoping I noticed a lot of people haven't been blogging lately. Not just people I know, I like to use the "last blog" button when I'm bored. So was blogging a trend that is going away? Maybe, but I know for some its therapeutic.

Ok, so who wants to make bets if I actually start blogging for real again? We shall see... place your bets!

So if I do actually start blogging what would I blog about? It started as a crafty blog but then turned into a blob (yes I meant to say blob) of everything with no real direction. I guess that's kinda how life is though. You start with a plan, or an idea and then all heck breaks loose and it turns into totally different directions. I mean really, did anyone really think we would be where we are now? Was this your plan? I'd have to say NO! This was not my plan. Parts of it, YES! Other parts, not so much. I guess no matter how old you are you still have those 'teaching moments", those "life lessons". I guess that's what keeps us on our toes.

Welcome!

Welcome 2011!!!

I know I a week or so late but hey, better late then never! I want to Welcome 2011 and let it know I'm giving it the opportunity to be GREAT!! I really thing we deserve a good year by now. So far so good. Year we've been a little sick and Kassel has been going through his "I don't need to eat" thing but all and all its been pretty good.

This week we started back at school and that always makes things a bit crazy. Kaitlyn is doing great in first grade and excelling very well. Kassel loves spending time with the kinder and first graders and is always eager to do his pre K work. One day while I was teaching the first graders he was doing puzzles off to the side of the classroom and I told the first graders to come up with a word that starts with the 'th' combination. Kassel gets up and comes over to me and says "think!" I turned to him not sure what he was talking about and he said it again and then I realised he was answering the question I just gave the first graders! It was so cool! Defiantly a proud Mama moment! Before the first graders could think of a word he answered it! Even when he's not doing his work hes still learning!

The school that we have is s such a unique experience I just love it! Our junior high student asked if we could go whale watching and we told her we would look into it. with money being tight for everyone now days we didn't really think much about it. One day I was searching around for our next field trip and decided what the heck, lets check out whale watching and stumbled on an awesome deal! We are going in February! Everyone is so excited!! We just cant wait!!

Welcome 2011! Lets bring on a change! Looking forward to what our next adventures are!