Did You Know..............

Below is a short video of Leah reading a Thanksgiving fact at her Thanksgiving party at school today.



Leah poses with her golden pineapple/turkey center piece. It is really cute, but what a waste of a good pineapple! Fortunately, Publix had them $2 off! There are two pictures here because Leah wanted to make sure that you could see both sides.... : )

Hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving!! We are going up to Palm Coast tomorrow to visit with Grandpa over the Thanksgiving holiday. My sister might come over here on Friday with her girls for a little visit too. It is hard to believe it is Thanksgiving, because it was 80 degrees here today.

Another Year Older

Today I turn 46!!!! My younger sister proceeded to remind me that I am now on the slippery slide to 50.......thanks, Jane! I am celebrating a birthday my mother never got to celebrate. I realized a few months ago that I was finally older than Mom lived to be, but it is now official. She never made it to 46. It is a strange feeling to be older than you ever knew your mother to be.

So far I have spent my day outside. First, I had to go to school and spray paint pineapples. Yes, pineapples. Leah's class will be doing a craft tomorrow at their Thanksgiving party that involves gold pineapples. Fortunately, that did not take too long, and I got back home and did some yard work. I had been working on the flower beds for the last two weekends pulling out some ornamental grass that was taking over and planting some small shrubs in its place. Well, two trips to Home Depot and 27 bags of mulch later, I can pretty much say I am done. There are just a few more little things I want to do. Below are some before and after pictures of the front walk.

Another Day.....Another Field Trip

I am glad to have this week behind us. It was fun, but busy, and I am tired. If you remember from the last post, Rachel had a field trip on Monday. Tuesday Rachel and I had our bimonthly trek to Orlando for speech. Rachel was not in a good mood that afternoon and was not very compliant with the therapist, but the therapist gave us some new words to work on at home. Thursday, Allison had a field trip. Her class went to a nearby education center. They learned all about the water cycle and discussed the sea grass in the nearby lagoon. They had to play investigators and try to solve the mystery of the disappearing sea grass. Below are some pictures of Allison's trip, including the required souvenirs (thank goodness for spell check, now if I just had grammer check!).

Today Rachel's class had a Thankful Feast. I had no idea what that was supposed to be and did not have time to eat before I went. The teacher had put together a cute slide show of all the kids. We ate lunch with the kids and parents in the classroom and watched the slide show. It was a nice little visit. After the feast I HAD to go to the grocery store, and I was really glad I didn't have to go hungry. I was very thankful that the teacher really meant "feast." I spend enough money at the grocery store anyway. I can just count on an extra $15 on the tab if I go hungry and the $15 is never spent on healthy food either!

A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

The weather here in Florida has been beautiful! Saturday the girls had a Fall Festival at their school. I had to be there to volunteer from 2:30pm to 4:00pm. The weather was perfect, and it was nice to have an excuse to sit outside! Below is a picture (albeit a blurry picture) of the girls riding the little "train" at the festival-Allison and Rachel are together and you can see Leah in the back in the blue shirt....I have no idea who the little girl in the front is, but she sure seems to be having a great time! Rachel liked that. The big girls had a blast playing in this huge blowup ball they were calling the hamster ball. You could crawl into the ball and run inside it....the kids looked just like a hamster running in those little plastic balls. They loved it, and the grownups got a good laugh watching!

Today Rachel's class had a field trip to Publix. I had no idea until the girls started school that you could go to a grocery store for a field trip! Allison did it in Minnesota, and I thought they did that because there was really no where else to go in Duluth. I was really surprised to get down her to Florida and have more trips to grocery stores. I have now been on the Publix field trip three times! It was somewhat interesting the first time, but it is starting to wear thin now. Rachel was not too interested in the goings on, but she did keep her little hair net on this time. On her first trip to Publix, I had to put the hair net back on too many times to count. Hair nets and children with sensory issues do not go together!

When the kids got back from their field trip, they got to play on the playground for a while. Rachel was glad to get back to the school and swing. She spent most of her time on this swing. Out of all the swings on the playground, the teacher tells me that she will only swing on this one. After watching her on the playground, I now know how Rachel manages to carry home a handful of mulch from school each day! She loves to drag her feet as she swings on her tummy.

Unfortunately, this is going to be another busy week. Tomorrow, Rachel and I have to go to Orlando for speech, Thursday I have a field trip to the beach with Allison, and Friday is a Thanksgiving feast with Rachel at her school. At least we are running around in gorgeous weather!! I love the cooler days of "winter."

Thank Goodness For A Slower Week

I am glad that last week is over. It was busy. Tuesday I kept Rachel home from school to take her to Orlando for a check up with the ENT and audiology and her speech therapy. Before we could head to Orlando, we had to run Leah and her tortoise to school for show and tell. Leah was student of the week, and it was her day to bring in five things that tell about her. I took the girls to school, went to Leah's room for about 20 minutes, and then Rachel and I headed back to the house to return the tortoise to his home. Then we headed to Orlando. At the ENT appointment, the doctor told me that Rachel had fluid in her ears and that her hearing is not 100% so he wants to put in tubes....yuck!! I thought we were going to make it without having to do tubes since Rachel didn't have them when she was smaller. We will be doing that December 8th, and it will make for several visits over to Orlando. I am not looking forward to that. At least the surgery is quick and does not have a painful recovery like the tonsillectomy.

After the ENT we played on a playground for about an hour, ate lunch in the car with Rachel watching movies and me working on my Sunday school lesson, and then headed over to the speech therapist. The offices are only seven miles apart, and I was able to work the appointments on the same day, so that was convenient! The therapist that we have been seeing, told us that she would be leaving the practice in January....uugghh! We really like her. We were seeing the therapist that founded the group, but one day had to reschedule with this therapist and found Rachel really worked better with her. We have also seen a third therapist at the office that does not work well with Rachel, so I am not sure what we are going to be doing in the future.

Wednesday, Leah was home with a fever. No other symptoms really, so she was back at school again in Thursday, thank goodness. Not sure if that was a good thing to have her back so quickly, because it meant I had to go to two lunches at school. It was the school's annual Thanksgiving lunch, and they invite all the parents to attend. Leah and Allison both still want me to come, which is great, but I hate sitting through lunch in the cafeteria with what seems like 100,000 kids! From the school I had to run to the grocery store. I had put that off as long as I possibly could. I did make it home with about 10 minutes to spare before the girls got home! As soon as the girls got home and ate a snack, it was time to take Rachel to horse back riding. The weather was very pleasant and breezy. Hopefully, the really hot weather is gone for the winter.......I will keep my fingers crossed for that!

Friday I spent the day trying to catch up with stuff around the house. I just hate house work. The place starts getting dirty before I even get done! Saturday had us back at gymnastics. I swear that the weeks are just four day long now. Every time I turn around we are having to go to gymnastics. Rachel is loving it, but it's a 20 mile drive. I wish it were closer. Mike had to leave Saturday morning and fly down to the Keys for some airshow/work thing, so the girls and I just hung out around the house Saturday afternoon. I watched the Alabama football game alone and kept texting Mike with the score because he did not have a way to watch the game.

Sunday was another nice day. It was warm, but not hot, so Rachel and I spent the afternoon, walking and biking around the neighborhood. Rachel just loves to walk. Unfortunately an uneven sidewalk tripped her up and she scrapped both knees, but she kept right on going. I finally walked too far for her and ended up carrying her for a the last little bit of the walk. I had no idea that I could wear her out. She usually is fussing when I am done that she wants to walk more!

Below are the school pictures for the big girls. Rachel's picture came earlier and is posted in an earlier post.

Leah Second Grade. Allison 5th Grade.