Retirement Privileges

This retirement business is working out well for us! Grammie drops in often and came by after school this week to get another lesson from Honey on how to use her new iPad mini and help Sweetie with some homework while Lovey & I were busy in the kitchen getting supper.

Come on back now, ya hear???

Have Homework, will travel!

Our schedule has gotten a little fuller now that hockey is in full swing.  On Mondays there isn't much point in them coming home as they have to turn around and head back out 30 minutes later and they lose almost an hour on the bus. I pick them up instead and we go somewhere and do homework until it's time for practice. Last week we went to Tim Horton's and they used their gift cards from Uncle Dale (I had to use my own money though, no one was springing for my danish! haha!)

Honey & Sweetie quizzed each other on spelling while I listened to Lovey's reading. Teaming up saves time and gets homework done faster. Win/Win!

Honey's Cross Country Running Debut

Since Honey has been practicing for the 1K race coming up, I suggested she try the cross country team at school too. I wasn't sure if she would, or if she'd even be interested in it. One day she came home and told me she'd signed up. I said "You did?" She responded "well you told me to!". This instantly made me nervous. This could go either way. If she went and hated it, this was now going to be all on me! Luckily that didn't happen and I can now claim all the glory!

Her school had a meet with several other local schools at a park downtown and it was a mob scene. Kids and parents everywhere! It was hard to tell who was where or what the instructions were or where the course was. It was a pretty small loop so we only saw her take off and then again at the finish. It was divided by gender and grade. She started at the back of the pack but managed to pass quite a bit and was near the middle at the end and came in 35th place which she was really happy with.

I love the smile on her face here, so happy and proud!

and in other news today, Sweetie was working on her "treasure box". She has to bring in a decorated box of things about herself, things that are important to her and present it to the class. She wanted a picture of herself for the top of the box so we took this last night in her room.

She has caught my dreadful cold that wiped me out for 2 days but she's looking good so far! I spent most of yesterday sleeping and am pretty much recovered now. I'm crossing my fingers that Murray doesn't get it. He's got a half marathon coming up this weekend and will NOT be impressed if he gets this!!!

Homework on the go

Recently Honey had a homework assignment that involved visiting downtown and taking a picture of a local business. They were making a map of the city and the kids had to bring in different pictures of the landmarks & businesses downtown.

Also, a friend had recently sent me another project! Some kids on the west coast had started a journal and it had been forwarded on from friend to friend. Jennifer asked if we'd participate and sent the book to us. The kids loved reading all the entries from across the country and seeing descriptions of the weather and other kids' past times. While we were downtown getting Honey's homework done, we got a picture to include in the journal too! It was a fun project and I hope the kids enjoy reading all the entries when they get their book back. It's on its way to them now.

Monday Blur

Another Monday just whipped by! We just barely made it to the bus on time, then Murray left for work, I got ready & headed out for groceries. One of the big pluses about winter for me is that my car becomes an icebox! I got the groceries and left everything in the car when I stopped in to go to a couple classes at the gym on my way home. When I was done, everything that should be frozen was still frozen and the produce stayed cold but not icy. In the warmer months, I have to run home, throw all the cold stuff into refrigeration and then race back to make the 9am class! Tricky stuff let me tell ya!

When I got home I unpacked the groceries and had some lunch, made a lasagna for Murray to throw in for supper and then it was time to get changed and go pick the girls up from school. (exciting day so far, I know!)

Lovey's violin lesson was cancelled today  so we had a little bit of leeway before dance class. I took them to the library to kill time & get homework started. We got some done but it's a pretty distracting place! Lovey & Sweetie thought it would be fun to use honorificabilitudinity as one of their spelling words to work on this week. They can already spell all the grade 2 & 3 sight words and spelling words so they're allowed to picke their own each week. Honey thought she'd like it too, then wrote it out once and said forget it, I'm picking something else!!!that's my sensible girl! LOL

Finally it was time to go to dance class for the first time in 2012. They were excited to get there so the novelty  hasn't worn off yet!

Healing Right Up!

Honey's tongue looked a million times better this morning! When they say the mouth self heals quickly, they aren't kidding. It's still not real pretty but it's not a gaping, hanging open wound anymore. She still finds it tender but is able to eat without any problem today and managed to put away her supper and scarf down the freshly made cinnamon buns for dessert!

When the girls got home from school the weather was really nice so we had a snack picnic of popsicles and pineapple (the fruit cancels out the junk you know!) on the blanket out front. Someone decided to be helpful and bring the slippery plate of ripe and juicy fruit out to the blanket but lost some on the way so it had a bit of dirt on it. Lovey wasn't having any of that and boycotted it. She managed to eat her popsicle no problem though (it never hit the ground that's for sure!).
Once they were done their food they decided to do homework outside too and brought their reading books out and we read those. When it was time to do the writing portion it looked like it was about to rain so we packed it up & moved indoors.

and then it was mass hysteria!!! Sweetie couldn't figure out how to spell what she wanted, Honey didn't believe me that there was an "i" in the middle of "like" and Lovey was having conniptions at trying to figure out how to spell the "ong" part of "Kong". My hint that it was almost the same as "ing" which she does know how to spell was not enough to prevent the screaming waterworks.

All 3 were insane and I couldn't fix anybody at that stage of the game so I went out to get the laundry and hope they'd be more reasonable when I came back. I have no idea why I thought this miracle would suddenly happen but it gave me time to pull myself together anyway!

Sweetie wanted to practice what it will look like when her teeth fall out. Can you picture it???
We have a challenge on the forum, the theme is "get low" (apparently there's a song??? not sure.) and so I thought I'd lay down and get this. It's definitely low but I don't know if I like it enough to make this one my entry. I have a week or so to come up with something so I'll keep trying.

Eventually the freak outs subsided and we were able to get all the homework done without me following through on the urge to poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick!