Ketchup

So busy, a little emotional(stressed!) but generally no good excuse for bad blogging. So here is a post of random photos among random happenings here...
(geese at my Dad's lake)

We were at my Dad's last week on one of the beautiful days we had. Lovely! It always feels like a bonus when you get to enjoy the outdoors when it could just as easily be snowing and nasty.

I also spend the day Saturday shopping in Michigan City with friends. We had such a great time. So good for us to get to be together and talk, and eat and shop and just be ourselves. Good for our kids to see we have lives outside of them.

(my Dad and Summer)

( yes he got wet. Duh.)

Summer has lost 2 teeth in a week. Its always such drama! She also thinks that the tooth fairy is Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson. She even wrote him a letter to go with each tooth. I think she may have a little crush. Better than her current crush on Rich from the Imagination Movers.

Summer had a field trip this week to a LumberJacks game. Jason went, and then took her hunting. They just sat in a tent where Summer insisted on rattling antlers and making entirely too much noise, but you can bet she'll never forget it. Speaking of deer, Jason got one this week! Thats very good news in this house. Also I have conferences with Sum's teacher that night, and got lots of good news on her. She's such an amazing girl. And I love that she had a teacher this year who can see it, too. Great teachers are priceless! You just dont see it until you get stuck with a less than stellar one.

On a bad note with Summer. She is really having some issues with a specific girl in her class. Now this child is what they used to call a bully, but these days everyone is so afraid to point fingers, that I feel that Summer is getting drug down simply because a bully has singled her out as her main target. The school has gone so far as to develop a special "club" where these 2 along with a few more girls meet once a week to talk and learn problem and conflict solving. Things have been slowing changing until today when this girl punched Summer in the stomach on the bus. There is just no excuse for that! Summer is not physical in anyway. Not even to her siblings. Ever. She wants out of club, and is done trying with this girl. Apparently the girl was written up on the bus. When Summer came home in tears and pain, I called the principal to fill him in. at this moment I am still waiting on a follow up call from him. But when your daughter is the one who was hurt, it just makes me want to explode! I have no patients for this behavior, and Jason is really on top of it, too.

(coloring at Grandma's counter)

We had conferences for this teeny one too. Can I just say there is nothing better than a teacher meeting that exceeds your expectations!! The thing with Teagen, is she flies under the radar. She know SO much, and never tells you. She does not require the constant"mom! look what I did!""Look what I can do!" no. I just find full on notes and pictures and pages colored to perfection, all done by her. She rocks out puzzles like a 1st or 2nd grader. I was told today that Teagen is writing ahead of most all day kindergartners, and is by far the most advanced of all the schools preschoolers(as far as writing). The deal is, we dont work on this stuff with her. She just knows it. I am both baffled and proud.

And this is how Grady insisted on attending the conference...

wearing a headband, circa 1979.

Something tells me conferences next year will be interesting.