I wanna be a CUB SCOUT, baby!

The boys' uniforms and first batch of goodies came in the mail today....Tiger Cubs, here they come!

Kid Rock's I Wanna Be A Cowboy

It was my first TOOTH

Jack was just a little excited to lose his first tooth tonite! He's been waiting since Harry lost his first two at the beginning of the summer, and he's one happy boy :-) So excited to be joining 'the tooth club' at his school....I never noticed anything in either his or Harry's class last year, but the other K teacher had a chart with each child who lost a tooth. He will likely make it tricky for the TF since he wakes up at all crazy hours of the nite, and no one wants him waking the whole family up at 4AM....

JB's First Look

I'll do funny things if you want me to, I'm your puppet

The Enrichment teacher did a puppet presentation today at the boys' school - Harry gave a great answer to one of her questions, and Jack got to act out the part of narrator during a little play about school conduct. It was a lot of fun to get to see each of the grades, and the bonus was getting to see the marionette scene for The Sound of Music 6 times ;-) Jack wants to learn to yodel now, and I think I'm watching the movie again tomorrow since I'm craving a little musical happy!

Harry had his long-time pal Trevor over for a playdate today, and they found that they both have a passion for percussion - they were good enough that I didn't even mind the noise ;-)

Can you tell that they are totally jamming here? So sweet - thanx for sharing him, N!

Marvin Gaye's I'm Your Puppet

There’s class and order and family

Busy days at school and lots of projects at home. Missing Daddy, nearly losing teeth, skinned knees, eagerly anticipating playdates....sweet boys!

Jack's short story, incorporating American symbols, rhyme animals, silliness and a great friend.
Harry's arty animal classification...I don't remember working on classification until middle school! It's turning into quite the education for me!

Robin Walling's Classify It!

And it feels like the very first time

Jack brought home his 'first good citizen test' today - they are doing a round of assessments before diving into groups. He got 100%....
and it looks like he had a little extra time to draw some scenarios: the teacher giving a student two "Jimmys" (thumbs up to non-parrotheads) on the left, and one student is saying 'blahblahblah' while the teacher is telling the class that she has the best first grade class.

Nice way to start, little man!

Harry took his AR quiz this morning, only scoring 2/5 possible - not bad, considering it was a long 4th grade book and he was so excited, but I'm recommending that he work on some easier books until he gets better at taking the quizzes....hate to work that hard and not have it count - he can't re-take the quiz since it gives him the option of finding out the correct answers. We're still working on him remembering what he misses so he can learn from his mistakes ;-)

He was excited to get to write his homework assignment in his agenda. These cool books are based on Coach Wooden's strategies for success, and he's loved reading them but hasn't really 'used' the pages until today :-)

and he did....

There are 25, but I must have copied it down wrong ... he reminded me that he already got 100% and doesn't have to take the test anyway, and I reminded him that he needs to practice writing - it's gonna be a fun year ;-)

A couple of the activities he completed today - the drawing was done during library time, and the graphing was during math. So far, he seems to be enjoying it all!

Foreigner's Feels Like The First Time

The vista I see now is changing

It was a busy weekend, but a good one. The boys played with a lot of old toys in new ways, and Jack was full of imagination, and this was his favorite creation: Long Arm Guy
While volunteering in the library last week, I found out that Harry has been going with his friends who have trouble reading the AR quizzes and reading the questions/answers to them. What a good little helper he's being for his teacher and classmates :-) He hasn't taken any this year, but I just spent an hour listening to him read this book for an Accelerated Reader quiz tomorrow. It was a crazy long book, almost 40 pages, and still worth only .5 points. Who knows what will be on the quiz, how he'll do, or whether the librarian will think we're crazy for letting him try a 4th grade book, but....it's the most motivated I've ever seen him. I learned a lot and he was able to answer all the comprehension questions I asked him...except when he was joking around :rolleyes: He insisted on reading the entire thing in one sitting, so best of luck in the morning, little man!

Jack is reading this "In the wild" series, and this is the dolphin version. They are early 3rd grade, about 25 pages, and also worth .5 points. The librarian gives them a party at the end of each month if they earn a total of at least 3 points.

It's hard to believe how life has changed in the last couple of years - hang on, cause I doubt it will slow!

REM's Accelerate

Oh, the shark, babe, has such teeth, dear

Jack's turn, finally! Who knows how long it will take, but...

That tooth in the front is totally wiggly....front, back and sideways! Every day or so, he asks me to just pull it already. Hopefully, soon....

because that's the face he has when he talks about finally losing that first tooth!

Bobby Darin's Mack The Knife

'Round and 'round a penny goes

Since uniforms didn't arrive in time for today's first soccer games, the teams wore pennies....

Dean suiting Harry up
Jack really played today, listening to the great advice and instruction given by his coach and doing his best. It was a great day of soccer for him!

Harry had a few moments, but spent a lot of time unfocused...their team didn't get to practice as much because of BTS conflicts, so hopefully he'll get a bit more of the fundamentals for the next game. They both seem more ready to really learn a bit this time around!

Erla is not catching the ball Harry just kicked, just a tricky angle.

Charge!Yummy hydrating

and mid-game coaching
(no, they don't play on a zombie team, I just haven't had a chance to get permission from the others in pix)

Jack and an opponent heading for the goal, defended by the lovely Amanda

It was a beautiful day, a great start to the season...and hopefully next week they will have their uniforms for this season.

Great OT news - we signed a contract on the old house today...their first question: when are we going to Oracoke??

Guy Clark's Indian Head Penny

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

It's RW&B Day at school today, and we are all feeling a bit inspired!

However you mark this weekend, may you be proud to be living in the land of the free!

Toby Keith

The Boys Are Back In SCHOOL

It was Back-To-School Nite tonite, and there were a lot of proud kids, and one big kid who kept trying to cause trouble - love ya, babe!

They changed the schedule this year so that parents with kids in more than one class could actually go together. First up, Jack:

He's been totally digging their Social Studies unit on American symbols, proudly showing off his story and picture of The Lady!

You can probably make it out if you click on the picture, but here's the decipher:

The SoL is special because it is our American symbol. The SoL is as tall as a skyscraper. The SoL is greenish in color (thank you to my -ish friend, Tracy...I still pepper it into daily conversation...see how you live on!). The SoL is holding a book in one hand and a torch in the other. The SoL is made of copper. The SoL is....BIG! I love the SoL.

I noticed she looks like quite the warrior in most of the boys' drawings ;-)

Harry could NOT wait to get us to his room, where he showed off some of his work and his teacher bragged on him. He earned his second kindness card today, so he's hoping he may win the drawing tomorrow. Here he is showing Daddy his book "All about me" - he drew pix of his old and new houses, his family, and a few other things....nary a map in site!

It's shaping up to be a great year - can't wait to see how they grow :-)

Thin Lizzy's Boys Are Back In Town

In the sport with a round ball

Harry's soccer team had their first practice tonite, and while there was a lot of this....

there was a fair amount of this.....

and some of this (practicing the big SCORE kick with Luke)...

and enough of this....

to remind me of this (taken almost exactly 6 years ago, H:right) :wub:

He's got a great coach and seemed to have a good experience tonite - their first game is Saturday

Cute powwow, eh? Go Team!

Soccer, Parody of The Calling's Wherever You Will Go

A big ol' pile of SCHOOLwork

The boys brought home gobs of schoolwork today - tomorrow nite is BTS nite, so it's hard to imagine what will be on display!

Harry earned an award for creativity in art but couldn't explain a whole lot about it...something about his orange diamonds group...will be interesting to decipher it tomorrow!

And have I mentioned that he does NOT like to color in the lines....I think this is about the order that he completed these...notice he ends up completely doing his own thing by the end ;) The one with the axe shows him chopping down the door because the house is on fire - thank you, Rescue Heroes! And a sincere Thank You to the ever-patient Mrs. W!

*******************
Jack came home with a whole lot of writing, but was most proud of these....us, too!



You may remember his great love for the Statue of Liberty, so you can imagine there was a whole story about this drawing, Lady Liberty at sunset....he says he didn't have time to draw all the skyscrapers that we'll see when we go to NYC :-)

George Strait and Kenny Chesney's Shiftwork