A Great New Year

We are off to a fabulous school year!  After last year I am afraid to jinx it, but we are 10 weeks into 2nd and 5th grades.  We have phenomenal teachers, both kids are excited about science, and their first round of grades were acceptable.  Each has a subject to work on a little more but they are happy and excited about learning.  The kids just began a two week fall break and Drew has already read 100 minutes...without being prompted!!!!

We crammed a lot of extraciriccular activities into this fall: Drew in fall baseball AND football and Mirra in Girl Scouts and occasionally taking a piano lesson from our amazing neighbor (she practices without being asked to!)  Football and baseball are over, giving Drew a much needed break and the opportunity to reconnect with some of his pals.  Mirra was promised that she could choose a sport once Drew's were over.  She chose swim lessons so she can be faster on swim team next spring.  Drew and Andy are looking forward to an occasional winter race.

Drew learned a lot in his rookie football year and began to really like it by the end.  Baseball is still his first love though.

Aside from that we are excited to start hanging out with friends and family again and a calendar that is slightly less covered in ink:-)

And He's Off

Racing season has begun again.  We ran our first race in Springfield, a family favorite track.  The weather was beautiful.  We got a choice parking spot where the kids could ride bikes all day.  The races even finished quickly enough for our family to enjoy sitting down to dinner, having some pool and hottub time at the hotel, and watching some Cardinals baseball.  It was a wonderful way to spend our last weekend of the kids' spring break and a good reminder of the things we really like about racing.

Roller Skating

Both kids got all As and Bs on their report cards.  Drew chose to go roller skating. 

I realized that I am not too old to roller skate.  I am, however, too old to fall!  Being spring break the rink was pretty busy and kids were dropping like flies. I lost my balance dodging them a few times;)  My kids had their share of spills but both had a great time.

Onward

Well, I will be wrapping up my Anatomy & Physiology class next week.  Just in time for Andy's and my trip to New Orleans (YAY!).  My next step is to get going on the series of coding classes.  I am thankful to some friends who have experience in coding and are smoothing the way for me by answering all my many questions during this career change.

-Isms!

The kids are growing up and the cute little "-isms" they used to say are less frequent.  I have a couple today though.

We were walking to the bus when Mirra asked me a question about the "green forever" trees.  Evergreens!




Mirra asked me, "what is the biggest number you know?"  I told her "999 trillion, 999 billion, 999 million, 999 thousand, 999." (No, I don't know what comes after trillions, but I'm sure I will find out soon enough when the US debt exceeds it.)  Then Drew said, "That is a lot of words.  I got kind of bored.  But I love you anyway."

I can certainly say these two keep me from being bored.

Talent Show

Last year Drew danced to James Brown.  This year he chose to sing "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction.  Drew was second to perform in the show and I heard him tell the girl going first "Don't worry.  I'm right behind you."  I told him I was proud of him for encouraging that nervous girl.  He said "Mom, it was a joke." He was standing just behind her.

Drew and his buddy, Henry

On stage after his final bow

Mirra and some of her gal pals after the Talent Show

Mirra photo bombs the pic of Drew and his teacher.

We were pretty proud of Drew's performance.  The audience even started clapping along.  Between baseball and racing we are going to see if we can squeeze in some singing lessons:)

She Did It!

Mirra has never saved money.  She most often gives it away.  While that is very generous of her we hope to teach her to save her own money.  She did manage to save for a couple of months because she was obsessing about having an Easy Bake Oven.  Last weekend her dream came true.  Now she is baking away and requesting recipes for gluten free treats that Drew can eat too.  She even cleaned up after herself last night after using it!

Weather Woes

The snow is gone!!!  The kids have only had one full week of school without delays, cancellations, or early release due to weather.  We have used up all our snow days, will have to make up one day by sending them to school an hour early for five Fridays in a row and have added one day to the end of the year.  Andy and I decided that we must celebrate on June 4 when the kids get out of school for the year...mostly because it means the end of fourth grade homework!

We had one glorious day of 50 degree weather and temperatures are now back in the 20s.  Mirra complains about "that groundhog" every day on her morning walk to the bus.  She blames him for the winter weather because he saw his shadow. 

We have our eyes on spring.  Drew has signed up for baseball and Mirra is taking jazz dancing.  We are also looking at singing lessons for Drew and Mirra has requested to learn piano, that may have to wait until summer break.

Tidbits

12" of snow the day before winter break is supposed to end.

The kids actually getting along during our week of snow days.

My temporary lap cat.  Noel is reigning over the top story but has not ventured to the lower levels of the house.

Mirra's new take on fashion.

Mirra made Pitty a dog house out of the construction set they
got for Christmas.




We enjoyed a fun but busy two week break for Christmas and the day before the kids were scheduled to return to school we got 12" of snow.  The next two days the temperature dropped to -15 degrees with a windchill of -35.  All told, due to weather and road conditions the kids had an additional week off of school.   I have to say it was nice to be at home with the kids without an agenda or somewhere to be.  We managed to do some of those idealistic things I dream about but never have time to do.  The kids did a really good job house-bound for a few days.  But by Friday we were all ready for a change of pace and return to our routine.  I am crossing my fingers for tomorrow morning since it is the first time in three weeks that we have to wake up and actually be somewhere on time.