August Fun

Trying on masks at the bookstore:

We got a bubble machine during a summer clearance sale and it is so fun! So many bubbles!

As an invitation to parent night, James' teacher sent home a photo of all the kids in the class holding up a letter so that it spelled out the date and time of the parent night. James saw the photo and told me, "Oh! I have to get down like this and hold the picture. Then you take a picture of me and send it to my teacher so she knows we are coming!". I did and sent the picture, but I wasn't sure if it was something he came up with or if she really did ask them to do that.

We went to the annual reptile show this year and for the first time didn't come home with more animals! We did buy a lot of supplies though.

Anthony and I were woken up by a huge crash in the middle of the night but in the dark we had no idea what it was. I assumed it was the ikea shelves on the wall in the laundry room that always have to be put back up, so I went back to sleep. In the morning we realized that it was our closet shelves!! I had no idea this could happen! I didn't add anything heavy to it the night before, it just gave up. It was a good opportunity for us to go through and organize and get rid of clothes.

Casper has been trying to jump out of his cage and he finally made it! We realized that he was missing and tried to find him without any luck. The next afternoon, Rett was walking into the house and saw him hiding under James' beyblade stadium. He was so happy to be the one to find him for us!

A hawk hanging out in the yard:

Anthony was moving his blueberry plants and fruit trees to get ready for our land clearing and as he was moving this fake owl (which we use to try to keep the birds from eating our fruit) he found a little surprise... He came to come get us to see if we could find it, and the boys were so excited!

They also found a funky spider:

Rett loves to pretend to be superman on the swings at school.

Rett's preschool has tons of mature hickory trees that drop these little nuts all over the place. The kids call them coconuts and love to collect them and play with them.

It happened to be pizza party day while I was there helping out. The pizza delivery guy is like a celebrity to these kids! They scream and run to the fence and jump and down for him.

Yoga day! Fridays all 20 of these wiggly guys get down and do some yoga.

After 6+ months of planning to get our side yard cleared, it finally happened! It took him about two days to clear most of the yard and it looks so different! There were still some parts he couldn't get to because the ground was too wet and muddy, but we are hoping that once we move the goats back there they can finish it off. The muddier parts still need some fill dirt but we are so much closer to moving the goats away from the house and putting in our garden, which is exciting. 😄 James was disappointed that he did most of the bobcat operating while he was at school.

Grading the front that Anthony cleared last year so that we can get the lawn mower in there:

Front yard to the right of the pond:

Now we can actually see the pond from the house! A large fallen tree that was in front of the pond he cut and moved along the back of Seabiscuit's fence so that he can't dig out.

The boys were playing so nicely together and having fun looking at a new game on the kindle, so I tried to take a picture of them. As soon as they noticed me taking a picture, they jumped apart and hid so that I couldn't. Stinkers!

After posting on facebook about harvesting honey from our bees, a friend from church brought me these lularoe bee leggings someone had given her. Now I wear them when I go out and check on the bees with Anthony.

Some of our older chickens have started molting for the first time, where they drop off their old feathers and grow new ones. Most of them just drop a few feathers at a time slowly over a few weeks so that they don't look that different, just a little ruffled. One of our chickens dropped most of them over a few days! She looked so rough, I had to take a picture of it and ask some more experienced chicken keepers if it was normal. Yep, its normal, as crazy as it looks.

James' school had a Chuck E Cheese fundraiser. Now that I'm treasurer of the PTA, I feel more obligated to go and support these kinds of things. I'm glad that we went, the boys had such a blast! James had so much fun seeing his friends outside of school, it was really exciting for him. Rett wore these glasses almost the entire time. He's so cool!

New School Year

Both of the boys are in school!!! Woohoo!!! Rett only goes for 3 hours in the mornings, but oh my goodness. It makes such a difference in what I am able to get done in a day. They were both excited to go to school, mostly because they were happy to go play with friends.

James' classroom is on the complete opposite end of the school than his kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms, in an enclosed building (instead of outdoor hallways). It has been a bit of an adjustment because in the enclosed building, the air conditioning is newer and keeps the building crazy cold. So we had to find a jacket for James to take to school when it is 95 degrees outside!

James' teacher, Ms. Galerno, has so many fun and cool things in her classroom. James really likes these push lights she uses for the groups to indicate when they are ready to move on.

James' school starts earlier, so after I drop him off, I drive 15 minutes in the opposite direction to drop of Rett. He is so stinkin' excited to play with other kids! Every day he tells me that he made a new friend (although he never knows their names). For the first few days when I would pick him up he would say, "Did you miss me so much? I missed you so much!". But he is always excited to go and never gets upset when I leave.

Rett is going to the same preschool James went to, but he has different teachers (they worked there when James was there but James was in the other class). He loves Ms. Wendy and Ms. Shawna! They are so great about putting pictures up on the Facebook page so that I can see what they are doing. I was worried Rett might have a hard time listening in such a large group (they have 20 kids in his class!) but he is doing great! Another interesting thing is that there is a Rhett in his class, so they call Rett by his full name Everett so they can tell them apart. He doesn't mind, but he has to get used to it. Sometimes they have to say "Everett" a few times before he realizes they are talking to him!

On Fridays they do yoga with the kids and Rett is actually pretty good at it! Fridays are the day I stay and help with his class so I get to do it with them too.

At the end of the day before they line up to go to the playground, the teacher gives out stickers to the kids that were following the rules and doing well that day. Rett usually gets a sticker, but some days he doesn't and the reasons why are usually pretty funny. One time he said, "I didn't get a sticker because I was screaming in the bathroom" and another time, "I didn't get a sticker because I was throwing the puzzles". After I picked him up on a no-sticker day, he got settled in the car and then he sighed loudly. He said, "Ahhhhh. I love my life! Even though I got time out, I love my life!" Love this boy!!!

I am absolutely in love with James' teacher this year. I am so impressed with everything she does with the class, how energetic she is, and how great she is with the kids. She really cares about them and it shows! This year was the first time I requested a specific teacher and I am soooo glad I did. I can tell he is going to have an awesome year! At the parent night, she explained how they have flexible seating in the classroom so that the kids can choose where and in what position to sit while they do their work. So they can sit on the floor, in bean bag chairs, on cushions, whatever makes them comfortable. Such an amazing idea! They have done so many fun activities and projects already and there have only been three weeks of school. Tuesdays are the days I help out with his class and I told her whatever she needs me to do, I can make it happen!

Each week she has started the week with a different book and used that book as the theme for the different subjects. The first week the read "The Kissing Hand" (which is about a raccoon being nervous about starting school) and they used Hershey kisses for their STEM experiments at the end of the week.

The second week they read "Stand Tall Molly Lou Lemon". There is apart that says that "her buck teeth stuck out so far, she could stack pennies on them", so they did penny experiments. When I picked him up from school that day, his teacher told me that he loved it so much he didn't want to stop when it was time for recess.

Last week they read "What do you do with an idea?" and they got to make different creations and inventions and present them to the class. This was James presenting his, he had to explain his "design process" :) This year is off to a great start!