Mother's Day 2010

Showcase Night at School

Tonight parents were welcomed to come into the kids' classrooms and see all of their hard work. This is Sophia's teacher, Mrs. Ray. She said that Sophia continues to be the best behaved student in her class, and she is being awarded a citizenship award on Friday. :) She also said that Sophia is reading and seems to be enjoying it! This is a great stride for Sophia since reading has typically brought on great stress for her.

Zack's second grade class was full of stuff for us to see. First off, he has his own locker this year which is pretty darn cool. Secondly, his class has their own snake! That is always fun!

Above is Zack's self created bio.

Above are his math centers which he loves.

Sophia loves school this year, and was eager to show me the "kitchen" in her classroom. After we were done, we came home and made turkey sloppy joes, mac and cheese and watermelon! Yummy!

Super Soccer Game!!!

Today was the last soccer game in Zack's season. He was pumped up and ready to play. Poor thing...his team lost every game - UNTIL TODAY. In the past, Zack worked the entire field pretty much because the coach had a tough time teaching a group of disobedient kids with the exception of Zack and two others who actually listened to her during practice.

The last couple of games Gina finally convinced Zack to play only his position and let the defensive players succeed or fail on their own. Well, he scored a goal in each of the last two games, and today, he led his team to their first win 4-3. He scored all 4 goals, and they were not easy goals. He worked hard out there, and he looked GOOD! I really got tears in my eyes. He was so aggressive; so driven. It was amazing!

The following photo is as close as I came to capturing one of his goals on camera. He made a breakaway which ended in a goal!!! Yay Zack! We are so so so proud of you! What a fantastic way to end the season!

Healthy Fun

We recently took our Wii Fit Plus out of the box and decided to give it a run. It kicked our butts! Here Gina is doing the hula hoop exercise which she rocked at. Really, she outscored me on every exercise!

As of late, we've started using an iPhone app called "Lose It" and exercise as much as possible. We have a real desire to get back into shape so we can have lots of years ahead of us.

Any of you try the Wii Fit Plus?

Brief Update

The things kids say:

Sophia: Mom can I say the S word.

Mom: (Thinking stupid or sucks) Yes, this one time.

Sophia: I'm gonna kick his ass!

Silence followed by laughter!!!! She had a sad look on her face when she realized that ass is a VERY bad word and is actually the a word!

Zack: Mom can I take my money to Kenny's game?

Mom: Sure knowing he had $5.

Zack: Pulls change out of his wallet amounting to about 47 cents.

Mom: Where is your $5.

Zack: (deer in highlights look) I gave it to Elias so that he would chase the girls with me.

Silence followed by the what the heck lecture. He was told not to take money to school. He has since talked with his friend and teacher to regain the $5. But, he has lost the privilege of being given money for at least 2 weeks. This thanks to Gina. I was ready to eliminate his allowance all together.

A lesson learned at a young age saves valuable time. It is so much easier and less time consuming to instill than to conquer bad habits as adults.

As to the camera, I got another Canon Rebel only faster and with more focus points and higher pixels. I love it!!! Plus I am used to the controls and all. :)

Goodbye Canon Rebel

These are some of the last photos I took with my Canon Rebel. If you follow my blog, I'm sure you know that I pretty much carried this camera with me everyday of my life for the last 3+ years. I'm thinking I had at least 50,000 actuations on the trusty friend. Yes, I had grown so close to that camera that I call it friend.

I have been blessed in a special way. As you know the kids must have 4 post placement reports after their arrival home. These reports are costly, and we had to pay times two. Well, we just finished our last report - YAY! And, we were able to do so without a social worker being involved so I was due a refund for 2 of the four reports. This refund gave us enough cushion to replace my camera with a better one, albeit refurbished. It is not the top of the line by any means, but it will superbly capture, hopefully, the kids journey into their teenage years.

Sure I could use that financial cushion to pay the electric bill, cell phone, car insurance or a miniscule part of one other debt, but my kids have zero baby pictures. For Sophia, no pictures before she was 3 and for Zack 5. I plan to make up for that in a meaningful way, and my camera makes that possible.

It is blue bonnet season here in Texas so the kids and I drove into Garland to find a field that was not on the side or in the middle of a highway. We had great fun even though my camera was on the wrong setting and died before I could adjust it. :(

This Weekend's Soccer Games

Collin Park Lake Lavon