Fallin' Two

The girls were at my mom's house last week. I thought I'd work a ton and get all caught up. Ha! and Ha ha! I did get a little ahead of where I was a week ago, but please...... When will I figure it out? This job doesn't end till June. I'll catch up in June. That sounds good in theory. What I did accomplish was a nap every day after work, something I did pre-invasion of the littles. Still, I'll happily give up my naps for the craziness that has become our life.

For the girls, the week ended with a walk up the Butte on Friday afternoon. I was teaching math in my classroom. My phone rang. I told my class to ignore it and keep working. It rang again. Huh. Weird. On the third ring I said, "Boys and girls, someone needs my attention." So I answered my phone. It was my sister, which was weird because I'd talked to her twenty minutes before. She said, "Hi. It's me. Don't panic." I later gave her a hard time about that opening line, because how do you NOT panic? In the end we decided it was better than, "Hey it's me. Her injuries are not life threatening." or "Hey, I need your insurance information." I couldn't come up with anything better. Suggestion box is open.....

Anyway, back to The Butte. The short story is that Peytie was walking with her hands in her pockets and fell forward, catching herself with her chin. She ended up with a pretty deep cut that required some stitches, so my mom and sister took her in and had her sewed up. She was a rock star. She's super proud of the fact that she got a shot and "didn't even cry" (though she was mostly numb already). And she thought the doctor was hysterical because he listened in all the wrong places to find her heartbeat. Silly doctors.

If I'd had to guess, I'd have put my money on Peyton to be the first to need stitches. But in fairness, when Libby bit her lip, she did require some glue. Those are our girls. We're raising 'em tough..... And you should also know that one minute before this happened my mom taught her how to put her hands up into her sleeves so in the event that she should fall, she'd be able to catch herself. But what would I write about then?

Up next......Halloween!

Fallin'

Wednesday afternoon the girls were dying to carve their pumpkins. They drew the faces and Daddy did the carving....

If you think this is scary....

.....check out this shot. hint: The neighborhood is worried we'll be giving out crack to trick-or-treaters this year.

Peyton's Masterpiece

This morning we went across the street to our neighbor Ava's second birthday party. It was a pajama party with coffee and homemade cinnamon roles. That's MY kind of party. Waiting for 8:30 to come, however, proved challenging for the littlest party goers in this house. Libby stood in front of the clock this way from 8:20 to 8:33, because I'm trying to teach her to be fashionably late.

After Ava's party we headed to the fabric store to put the finishing touches on these little gems. There's no way we'll be trick-or-treating in them because the girls can't really see where they're going. But, we did have some fun with them this afternoon. Libby was thinking she might want a monster party for her fifth birthday, so this was a trial run. Now, she says she wants to go to Build-a-Bear. Of course she does.

There is a medical clinic near our house that gets covered in a blanket of yellow every fall. The girls saw the leaves on the ground today and begged to play in them. Yes, yes and yes. But first I had to go home to get my camera.

I have to clarify one thing. I love taking pictures of my family and I aim to one day actually know something about photography. I don't, by the way. Anyway, my friend Amber commented on this picture last week and asked if it was a spontaneous display of affection by my girls. I'm nothing if not honest. I replied, "Ha! No." Most great shots I get happen by bribing, or threatening my children. But then, the shots are so sweet and love-filled it works as a counter balance to the orders I barked in the photo session. I've also heard that the secret to great photos is to take a million of them. That, I do. But I just wanted to come clean. Most shots I take look like this.....

.....and I'm thinking of making this our Christmas card.

Pumpkins!

Yesterday's after school activity + dinner after = The Perfect Day.

Look at Peytie's face.

Little Load

Picking Sunflowers

Ghosties

The Beach

Last weekend we headed to the beach and ended up hitting the best day of the week weather-wise. On Saturday morning I woke up, laid in my bed listening to my mom talking to the girls at the other end of our trailer. Then my mom said, "Well, it's eight o'clock. Should we get moving?" My momma looooooves to play at the beach. We started at the North Jetty. It was warm, no wind and we had a great time walking in the sand collecting sand dollars.

Writer

The lasso is actually Grunden's leash, but maybe it would work on kids too?

Love.

Wordy.

We left the jetty and stopped at a lookout for a better view.

Then, we headed for the dunes.

We can find fun anywhere.

The sand was wet, so our sleds only worked with man power.

Lunch at Mo's and a stroll along the water front.

Then, we got ice cream at BJ's and rode over to the boat ramp to watch the action from the fisherman. Just after we got there, Shane pulled up to the dock with his customers after a long, but slow day. They'd caught a grand total of two fish. We met him and went out to make a couple of passes at some Coho salmon. Within minutes my rod went down. I'm a little fuzzy on the details, but I do remember that things got a little crazy at that point. Shane yelled at me to keep the fish out from under the boat. It was already under the boat, and it had wrapped itself around the prop a few time. Oops. He yelled at my mom to reel up, and she did, but not before tangling her line around the eight rods sitting in the back of the boat. Oops. Miraculously, I managed not to lose the fish and Shane netted it. We untangled the mess in the boat, killed a fish and comforted the girls who were standing wide-eyed at the horror unfolding before them. And by we, I mean Shane did all of that while rolling his eyes at the rest of us. Then we headed back up river for another pass......

Within five minutes, my rod went down again and this time my mom reeled in her fish. I offered to net it, and Shane replied emphatically, "NO! I'll do it!" Huh. Ye of little faith. When the fish was safely on the floor of the boat, my mom and I high fived each other and said, "We are SO good at this!" More eye-rolling from our guide. I reminded him that he'd been "out here all day and caught two fish. We got it done in about ten minutes." He told me I had a hot spinner. Please. I know.

Anyway, we had a great time, and having some fish in our freezer is a total bonus. Maybe I should learn to hunt. Kidding. I do love the reaction I get when I suggest such things to my guide though.

A scenic stop on the way home.

This was E week at school. Elmo Eats an Egg. Get it? And she brought an Empty box. We live by the alphabet these days.....

The littlest guide in the family helps her dad.

Ooh. I forgot to mention. We lost another fish in between the two that we caught because the spinner broke. Puh-leas. An equipment malfunction? I guess you get what you pay for.

A Shake Up. And a Few Melt Downs....

I went to work business-as-usual today. I opened my email and saw that my principal was requesting a short meeting before school which is really rare. I already knew it would be about staffing in our building, but I didn't really anticipate the impact of her words, mostly because I didn't think this would really happen. It happened. She said something to the effect of, "We, and four other elementary schools who are dealing with over enrollment, received extra staffing to lower our class sizes and go back to straight grades." Jaws dropped. People cheered. Everyone took a deep breath and then kicked it into high gear to reconfigure (reconnoiter was my principal's exact word and I giggle every time she says it. So I looked it up. It's a real word. A military term. I'm adding it to my vocabulary.) our classes. Because our superintendent wants this change to take effect on Monday. Monday. Dude.

Our school rallied. IAs came to our room and took our classes. New schedules were made. New class lists drafted and finalized. Letters to parents written. And then we waited till the end of the day to tell our students. The only time I've ever had a class's attention like today was during last years Human Growth and Development unit. You want a kid's attention? Tell them how babies are made, or tell them you're not going to be their teacher anymore. I had their attention. After I delivered the news they had one question.... "Who is my teacher going to be?" That was an easy one to answer.

"I'll be keeping my fifth graders and we've got a great fourth grade team. And, you guys..... come Monday you'll have ten less kids in your class. That's huge." Still there were tears. It started with a few and spread to many. And I was honest with them. This group of 36 kids was a really nice group. But they deserve this. We all do. Learning in a classroom of 26 is better than a classroom of 36. It just is.

Props to a really great principal who was on the forefront of listening to our staff and making this happen. Now, I've got some new lists to make......

October, Part Two

On Saturday we went up the Mckenzie to Kevin and Susan's cabin for the afternoon. We had lunch, and then stayed for dinner which we weren't planning, but we were just having too much fun to leave. Here, the girls got warm by the fire. A fire that was too hot to sit by for more than a minute. It's starting to feel a little like fall....

The girls loved making brownies with Kevin and Susan.

Then yesterday, after I got some coffee in me, we made these. I found the backpacks last year for a buck each at Michaels. The girls picked what shapes they wanted for the faces and they have new backpacks for October. The best part, though, was the Sunday morning at the kitchen table. Cartoons on, fireplace running and the girls and I hanging out, doing stuff together and talking. I love a cozy weekend morning with my girls.