Update

Just an update to the last post....Will came home from school today and said, "Hey Mom, I took another STARS test and I went up in my AR books!" He was so excited!! The AR tests are typically done for 2nd grade and older, but in Sumner County, they start "practicing" in the 1st grade. They take home an appropriate level book, read it a few times at home and then take a test on it at school. Will's school lets the kids take the test but they must take it just like they will in the 2nd grade - completely by themselves. (I have heard from elementary teachers in other schools that this is unusual. The other schools only let select kids take these in the 1st grade and they are assisted by the teachers).  For Will, this means he logs into the website (with username and password), chooses the correct book and test, reads the questions and chooses from the multiple choice answers - all without any assistance from the teacher. Will has taken about 12 of the AR tests and make 100% on each one of them. He got to take the STARS test again today to see if he had advanced in his placement. He did go up and is now placed in the 2.1-3.1 AR level - this means he reads at a 2nd-3rd grade level! We are so proud of him! And we're proud of how excited he was about it! Go Will!!

February Fun

Since the weather has been so nice lately, I took Wyatt and Weston to the zoo last Friday. The animals were so active and the boys loved it! This elephant came almost right up to us and was growling (or whatever elephants do) very loudly! The tall sticks in the bottom left corner of the picture, that was the fence!

This trip was the first time Weston had been to the zoo where he knew what the animals were. The first thing we saw were the monkeys and he was amazed!

He would ooohh and awww and point at everything!

The elephant trainers brought them around to do tricks. That's what I think anyway. It may have been daily exercise or something, but it was neat!

The baby giraffe was so cute!!!

Wyatt wanted to get as close as he could to everything! This picture was in front of the growling elephant!

They both had fun on the playground.

And of course we had to visit the giant snake in the snake house. This was requested by Wyatt from the time I said, "you wanna go to the zoo today?"

Another fun thing we have been doing this February so far is swimming lessons with cousins Landon and Noah!

They are taking lessons at the YMCA twice a week this month so hopefully this summer we'll be pool ready!! Landon is 6, Will is 7, Wyatt is 4 and Noah is 3 - they are LOVING it!! After each lesson, they come back talking about the neat things they learned to do like "jellyfish float".

Will and Wyatt are all signed up for spring baseball/tee-ball which should start soon. Will lost another tooth at school yesterday! (this makes 5 total - 2 of which were at school!) He said he ran into another boy outside, they bumped heads and it knocked his tooth out. He said it didn't hurt but it took a while to find the tooth in the grass! He is learning so much at school! It's amazing the reading assignments he's bringing home. Last night was an article about Pablo Picasso that could not possibly have been on a 1st grade reading level. It was very impressive that he moved through it so easily!! I wanted to take a picture of the article but forgot. I'll take a picture of his next hard one. Monday's reading assignments are typically 1 page articles that are much more difficult than the rest of the week. He's advanced so much recently in reading, general logic and math/science skills too. He reads about 3 books per night for homework and then he reads to Wyatt at bedtime each night before daddy does. The thing they are "engineering" now in the 1st grade classes are working hand pollinators. The kids think about what it might look like, draw the picture, decide what materials to use, test those out, build it, test it, re-vamp it, etc, all until it works. He came home the other day talking about different things that could pick up pollen but not release it and then other things that did both! He's using these skills to "figure things out" at home too. It's so neat to see his mind working like this!

In other news, we are in the middle of updating our kitchen and flooring. We have granite now! Trent is putting in the tile backsplash this weekend. The next phase is to tile the kitchen floor and put hardwood down in the rest of the house! Should be fun!

2012

Welcome 2012!!

We rung in the new year with some good friends and a hot tub :)

It was sweet Annie's 4th birthday and she celebrated in style! The 2 other babies (Myla and Weston) didn't go for a dip!

Since new year's we've just been hangin' around...

Actin' silly...



We haven't ALL been sick with strep, stomache bugs and ear infections....

no not us

At 7, 4, and 1 years old we're innocent, quiet and  never, ever messy!

On that note, I'm really too tired to type anything else.

Here's to a Happy, Healthy New Year!

Bye Bye



Christmas 2011

On Christmas Eve Eve this year we went to visit Santa at the town square. He had set up a “mini north pole”  in Gallatin so we bundled up and headed out. 

We stood in line outside for a long time but we eventually got to the north pole!

Weston was still not too happy with Santa, so Trent held him in front of Santa for the picture!

And we stood next to the biggest Christmas tree the boys had ever seen!!

We came home and decorated Christmas cookies. It was a very christmasy day J

The next morning the boys had a special message from Frethan. Christmas Eve is his last day with us for the year, because he goes back to the north pole with Santa that night. The boys were so excited to learn  that Frethan had reported good things to the big man.

They were also very excited to see what silly thing he had gotten into now! This time it was lots of Dr. Pepper!

Christmas Eve we spent with my parents for lunch and Trent’s parents for dinner.  We opened lots of gifts and then came home to wait for Santa! They said goodbye to Frethan, set out the milk and cookies and went straight to bed. They were so excited!!!

Christmas morning we woke up really early to see what Santa had brought. Will was super excited and jumped out of bed. Wyatt, not so much. It took some coaxing but he came on down and Weston didn’t want to do anything! They had a room full of toys and loved everything!!  After church, the rest of Christmas day and the next 2 days we spent visiting family. We had a great Christmas!!