Seven Things Sunday

**Disclaimer - I just made that title up.  I'm sorry if someone already uses it and I didn't link to you. : )

I've been trying to get back into regular posting on this blog and just keep forgetting.  I think I'm going to try this Seven Things Sunday and see if that helps!

So here goes:
1.  We are coaching 3!! kickball teams this year.  Why? Because we are insane.  Once games start we will have a game every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evening for one team or another from March 25 - June 7.  Insane I said.

2.  It is SPRING BREAK!!! Woo hoo!!  We might take a little trip to do some touristy stuff but I am just looking forward to sleeping late and getting my house cleaned up.  (After typing out #1 I realized that this may be the last time the house is cleaned until June.)

3.  I went to a work conference a few weeks ago and I came back SO MOTIVATED!  (This doesn't always happen so it is really exciting when it does!) I have really changed my outlook and schedule and I am so much happier for it. 

4.  My daughter had to get glasses recently.  Actually, she begged me to call and make an appointment for her to get her eyes checked.  Needless to say, she needs glasses and is wearing them nonstop.  This makes me feel like a terrible mother.  I should have had her eyes checked much sooner. 

5.  My mom's birthday was a couple of weeks ago and I didn't fall apart.  It helped that we had kickball stuff to do all day.  I was sad but it was nothing like how horrible my birthday was.

6.  Laundry sucks.  (Maybe it would suck less if I would actually try to keep up with it but that never happens in my house.)

7.  After trying to clean this weekend I have a question:  Where in the heck does all of the paper come from????  I swear that there are several trees worth of paper in my house right now.  Ugh!

And now some random pictures of us:

Jimmy and I at the kickball fields early one Saturday morning for registration.

Meagan, who is 14 and growing up more and more every day.

Garrett, with a stick on moustache courtesy of his sister who weirdly has a thing for moustches. (Terrible puntuation I know, and I don't even think moustaches is a word!)

Where did last week go?? and a Birthday shoutout

If you follow me on Twitter my title will sound familiar to you.

I looked at the calendar the other day and said wait . . . it can't already be Tuesday. And then a couple of days later I looked again and said wait . . . if it is Friday, where did Wednesday and Thursday go??

Needless to say my new job is keeping me really busy.

I am having a Pampered Chef party on Thursday so this week I am going to have to say no to the TV when it calls my name and actually clean up this mess I call a house.

What was I thinking when I said I wanted to have a party?? I just couldn't resist the siren song of all of those new products in the catalog as they chanted Buy me - buy me. Since I am not independently wealthy, a party is the only way to go.

Jimmy was a huge help in getting the kitchen done yesterday. What would I do without you babe??

My awesome mom has also volunteered to come over and help me get the house into shape. Thanks Mom!

On a related note, today is my mom's birthday!

Happy Birthday Mom! We love you!

Where do I start?

We, as a family, have been SO busy the last few weeks!


Here is an update on each one of us:

Elizabeth - work is keeping me busy. We have begun after school tutorials, which are good, but make put me even further behind in getting home. At school we have begun switching classes. One person teaches Science and Social Studies and two of us teach math (one person teaches new concept and the other person reviews/reteaches previously taught material and problem solving.) This method has been very successful for us in the past. It is actually a relief to me because I don't leave every day thinking, "I didn't get to that lesson" or "I forgot to do that"

Right now the students are grouped by homeroom but last we will move kids around depending on their needs.
I am also coaching DI (Destination Imagination) so I meet with that group of kids on Mondays after school. They are a great group of kids, very self motivated and creative so it is a lot of fun working with them.

Garrett's soccer skills are really taking off! In the last three games he has scored at least once. He score three times in one game! Right now he is home sick. He had a fever last night and now has a rash all over his body. I took him to the doctor this morning and he said it was viral and could take 2 - 3 weeks for the rash to disappear. He also seems congested and is coughing some so we will have to see how it goes.

Meagan is also doing great. Yesterday she came home and told me that she made a 100 on her 2nd Six Weeks Math test, a 100 on her 2nd Six Weeks Social Studies test, and a 93 on her practice TAKS test in reading. She is juggling DI, Bible Drill, Kickball and Lone Star Challenge on top of all of the regular homework and reading that is required.

Jimmy is busy coaching kickball, picking up the kids, helping with homework, working with his dad, putting up with me . . . you know . . . all the usual stuff.

Back to School Busy-ness sets in

First of all, I know I totally made up busy-ness. I was going to spell it with an i (business) but that's a totally different word.

Anyway, soccer practice started this week. Jimmy said it went really well. Jimmy is helping one of the other dads coach. He said the kids had a lot of fun and really worked hard. There are a total of six kids on the team. Three play on the field at one time. A little girl from Garrett's kinder class is on the team. We have practice twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) and our first game is on Saturday, Sept. 27th. I'll post pictures!

I did not get to attend practice because I was at a technology training. A few years ago our district added an elementary technology person to our school district. She is a former teacher who is awesome! She figures out how to work all of the programs we have and then she meets with us once a six weeks or so to share information about how we can use technology in our classrooms. She also holds workshops after school and in the summer to teach us how to use these different programs in our classrooms. And the cool thing about these workshops? We actually get paid to attend them! She looks for websites/activities that we ask her too, etc. We have to turn in one technology project per six weeks and she has made this task SO much easier to complete! Thanks A - You rock!

Jimmy and I are still getting used to be the parents of a middle school child. At elementary school she had a responsibility folder. She wrote in it each day and her teacher initialed it. We signed it each night. Well now, she throws everything in a zippered binder and I have to dig through it and see what her homework it. This week I fell down on my job and this is why she came to me at 8:45 to show me her science study guide - FOR THE TEST THAT WAS THE NEXT DAY! Sigh. The bad thing . . . I think that this is only the beginning.

The good thing is that our district has a program where I can check all of her grades on line any time that I want to. I can see each assignment that has been counted for a grade and what grade she received.

Winter kickball will be starting soon for us so that is going to add two more nights of practice for us to attend. Jimmy and I both have to attend since he is the coach and I am the ball girl, I mean assistant coach. (I need to learn how to do that neat strike through thing.)

I need to pick my DI team and get started with meeting with them one day a week (after school). I know that tutoring will be starting soon.

Uggh . . . I don't like to have nothing to do, but it seems like my calendar is starting to fill up really fast!