Clearing, Cheering and Child Rearing

As you know, our lot is a HUGE work-in-progress! There are at least 5 million rocks that need to be cleared, it needs to be graded, to have tree work done, grass seed spread, etc. It will take us so much time to get it done. But Rick works on it diligently every week. This weekend he started to tackle one of the future front garden areas. Brynne ran in wearing her rain "boops" and wanted her mittens to work (Rick had on his work gloves). I gave her and Eli each a pair of new snow gloves that hadn't been worn and out they went to clear the weeds, brush and rocks. Rick said they actually did help him.



That evening Kyndal had "Meet the Rams" night at the football field. It was basically just a chance to see the various football teams scrimmage and introduce the cheerleaders.



Monday with the twins went great! I figured if I was going to have the girls that we should do some kind of "preschool" to help us pass the time. My goal is just to take a letter a week, do a craft on Monday and a corresponding snack on Wednesday. I'm going to focus on the letters in all three girls' names. I'm letting Eli off the hook because he actually does have preschool everyday. So, mornings are just play time for him. But, three little girls have short attention spans, even when playing, so I thought this would help break up the day .. and provide something educational too. On Monday we traced and colored the letter "A" and made toilet paper roll alligators. Today we made green alligator rice krispie treats and used the rest of the rice krispie mixture to make an "A". Who knows if they get anything out of it .. it's still fun!






Eli's teacher brought him to the car a couple of days ago and said, "He is doing so good .. I just love him .. he is such a sweetheart!" I said, "Eli, are you a sweetheart?" He said, "I'm not a sweet heart, I'm a sweet diamond!" I thought that was funny. He had been learning shapes that day. But he really is doing so good at school. You know how affectionate he is. It takes him about 5 minutes to get in the door because he has to stop and hug every teacher he sees. Usually when I pick him up and ask him how his day was he says, "I cried one time." But yesterday he said, "I was a good boy." I don't doubt that for a second!

School for Kyndal and Dawson is still going good. So far there hasn't been any homework, so they're happy! And, it's been 75 degrees the last couple of days, so they've been happy to have some nice, cool down time after school and in the evenings. I'm still trying to adjust to our early morning schedule. Sleeping in all summer was nice, now we're up and moving by 6:15 a.m. Kyndal and Dawson have to catch the bus by 7:15.