Wow, has it really been 4 months since I posted? Either my life has been extremely un-noteworthy or extremely busy! I also need to change my layout. But that will have to wait for another day!

Well, the quiz year is going great. I posted an update on that on my sidebar.

The kids are doing well in school, all of them making straight A's. Denae is still enjoying preschool two days a week and as the teacher of her class, so am I. We have 6 kids in the class and it is lots of fun.

Dallas started softball in our church boys club this year. He is the youngest player and Kevin coaches his team. They have been enjoying that. The teams are made up of 7 to 11 year olds and there are 3 teams that play each other.

We enjoyed a visit from my mom and dad last month. They were able to come in for a few days and saw Dallas' team win a softball game and saw the kids quiz in a tournament at our church. And of course they spoiled us all while they were here. We can't wait to see them, and hopefully the rest of my family sometime this summer. Still keeping my fingers crossed that I get to go back for a couple of weeks with the kids.

Yesterday the kids were in a parade on our church's childrens ministry float. It turned out so cute and was lots of fun. I took pics, so when I get them on my computer I will post them. What? Is that laughing I hear? I sense that some of you don't believe me. I sure don't know why. I am such a faithful blogger! lol

We are also starting our practices for another kids play on Father's day. These are so much fun and all my kids are participating this year. I really enjoy helping and even got Kevin involved this year!

Well that is about it for now. Stay tuned for more exciting updates in the near future as I share some great news! And no, Jessica, it's not about a baby!

Darilyn's Award

Darilyn received an award at the monthly assembly. Her teacher honored her with a Sightword Superstar award because she can recognize and spell all of her sightwords (about 70 right now) and also the Math Whiz award because she has the highest math grade in her class. You go, Darilyn! Mrs. Askins, her teacher this year and last year, told me that Darilyn is also very responsible in class and is the type of student you want to have in class. We have a parent/teacher conference tomorrow and I am expecting to hear great things about Miss Darilyn.

Accepting her award certificate from her teacher.

Mrs. Askins, Darilyn and the other 2 award winners

Miss Darilyn proudly showing off her award

Darilyn showing off her empty space in her mouth. She recently lost another tooth. This one on top as you can see.

Hey, I'm back!

Well, technically I've been back home for a couple of weeks, but I haven't been back on my blog for a while. It was so good to see my mom and dad and brother and his family in TX, but I sure did miss Kevin and the kids. Kevin came to the airport to pick me up and he brought Denae with him. My goodness, was I ever glad to see them! They had a good time while I was gone, but I think they were glad to see me, too! lol

The girls got their school pictures taken and back already. I think they turned out really cute this year. They wore their new cowgirl shirts. The bottom picture is the whole outfit that shows in the class pic. I took it before I sent them to school.


After I got the girls school pics, I decided to try to get some pics of Dallas and Denae so Grandma could update her picture frames with something more current than Dallas at 6 mos and Denae at 6 mos (I am horrible at getting new studio shots of the kids by themselves). These turned out really cute too, and the ones below are my favorites. I love the one of Denae looking back and laughing at Dallas because he said cheese in her ear.

And, the girls are doing really well in school. Delaney got her first progress report which they send out every month. She has straight A's. Darilyn got a great report as well, but it didn't actually have any letter grades or precentage points. They should get their first report card at the begining of Oct, right before they go off track for 4 weeks.

I have started doing preschool with Dallas and of course Denae has to join us. It is going really good. We are working with Dallas on letter recognition. We have flash cards that we use with capital and lower case letters. He is doing well and is starting to try to write some of the letters, too, although at this point it is more like drawing the letters. Denae has flash cards too. They are actually first word cards, with a picture and the word below it for begginner readers. She just tells us what is in the picture. For the cat, dog and horse she also gives us the sound it makes. She also "blows out the candles" on the pic of the b-day cake after telling us it is cake. And the gift card is a 'prize.' Anyway, it is fun for her to have her own pre-school cards and she stays out of Dallas letter cards and the girls' math and sightword flash cards.

I am going to post some more pics in another post, but before I close this one, I wanted to welcome back my long lost neighbor and friend, Kim. She is finally home from visiting her family in Oregon for a month (I wish!!) We missed you!

First Day of School

For those of you who do not know, my girls are in year round school, track D. Their track, as well as tracks B and C, started back to school on July 21, two weeks ago. So, they are already hard at work in school, even though summer's only half over. And for those who might feel bad for them, we actually like it, especially when October and February get here and we get 3 and 4 weeks off. Anyways, this year Delaney is in 2nd grade and Darilyn is in first. Darilyn has her same teacher from her 1st/kindy combo class last year, Ms. Askins. We really like her, so I know Darilyn will do well this year. And Delaney has Ms. Gaskins. She really likes her so far this year too, especially since Ms. Gaskins gives her students 'smart sticks' aka red licorice, for being smart and doing well. I think Delaney has gotten at least one everyday for things such as asking if stories can be past down 'from generation to generation' to coming up with 24 ideas for a story during a brain storming session (the page only had 14 lines, so she turned the page over and continued writing on the back) So far both of the girls have brought home great work, but as Delaney told Darilyn, "This is all review from last year, so it should be easy!" I think they are doing more than just review, but I am very happy with their work so far. And as to how Dallas and Denae are doing without the girls, well that is stuff for another post. In fact, a few more posts, probably!

Darilyn's Kindergarten Graduation

The day after the zoo field trip, we had Darilyn's kindergarten graduation. It was really cute. We had it in the classroom with the other 8 kindergarteners and Ms. Askins even let Delaney stay with us. The kids sang a few songs. Darilyn got to do a special part at the end of one of the songs, and that was the high light of her day, I think. The kids then each got a diploma from the teacher. Then it was time for doughnuts and juice. What could be more fun than that? Funny thing is, we got up extra early that morning and took the kids for doughnuts as a special treat for Darilyn's big day. Of course they were all able to eat one more. We wouldn't want to waste an oppurtunity for eating sugar!

Trip to the Zoo

Darilyn's class went on a trip to the zoo the day before the last day of school. (That last week was a doozy between fieldtrips for both girls and pizza parties and holidays!) I was able to attend as a chaperone and really enjoyed it. Thanks Kim for watching Dallas and Denae so I could go!!We were able to see everything except the repitile house. The kids were disappointed about that, but had a good time anyways.

Our favorite exhibit was the penguins. They were so cute! We went to see them first and had a hard time getting the kids to leave. And then, they wanted to go back at the end, even though we didn't have time to. We always enjoy going to the zoo and hopefully I can take Dallas and Denae soon. (I've heard rumors that Zoo Train's last class might be at the zoo. How fun would that be?!)

Spring School Pictures

Okay, help me out here. I can curl my daughters' hair on Sat night for Sunday church and have curls that make it through two services, naps, school on Monday (including recess) and the various hairdos involved with these multiple activities. However, on school picture day, I curl the girls' hair the night before and fix it so cute for the pics and the curl doesn't even last until pic time. Of course, on this day they had to run laps for PE time before the pics. Hello! Does anyone understand this mystery? Oh well, the pics still turned out cute, but the cute curly hairdo was loong gone!

Random Pictures from December

Pictures of the Girls at School and Other Things

I went to the girls' class today to take some pictures for scrapbooking. The girls love to scrapbook, so for Christmas we are making their teacher some scrapbook pages of the class. Of course, we will have to make double the pages so the girls can put them in their own scrapbooks. And for those wondering, yes, my kindergartner and first grader have the same teacher. She teaches a kindy-1st combo class. I took Darilyn's pic with the kindys and Delaney's with the 1st graders. The other teacher is an aide in the class for one of the boys. I thought I would share those with my blogging friends and family.


When I got home, I took some pictures of Dallas and Denae. I made Denae's bow this morning (Thanks for the ribbon, Mom!) and she wanted to show it off for Grandma. Then we had to have more pictures of Dallas, and Denae wanted in those too. My kids are not camera shy at all!

In the above picture Denae is saying and signing please. I told Dallas to say Candy for the picture, and Denae said, "Please." That is her way of saying yes she would like some.

Back in School

Well, Delaney and Darilyn are back in school after 3 weeks off track. They were excited about going back because, as Delaney said, "We love school!" I really enjoy the year-round school more than I thought I would. And as for the girls, they get another short break at Thanksgiving in just a few weeks, so its all good!

Also yesterday we started Bible quizzing with them again. They are beginner quizzers and this will be the second year for both of them. Last year, Darilyn was the second youngest quizzer in the district, having just turned 5 at the end of December. And, even though she answered only a few questions at the tournaments, she memorized all of her verses (almost 200) and could reference them at 95%, just like her big sis. For those of you not BQ savvy, that means we mixed up all of the verses she learned and she could quote them perfectly within just a few seconds per verse. She and Delaney both did a great job and we were so proud of them. So yesterday they both learned the first three verses of Galatians. Today we'll learn 3 more and on and on it goes! I thought I would share a couple of pictures of them from last quiz season.

Delaney and Darilyn at their very first tournament

Their team took second

NEW GLASSES

Delaney got her new glasses a few days ago. She looks so cute in this pair!! She looked cute in her other ones, too, but for some reason they were always needing adjusted, either because they were too loose or crooked. I don't know why a 6 year olds glasses would need adjusted all the time lol! We hope the new ones will hold up better under stress. At her most recent appointment the opthamologist, he said her left eye is still not improving like he would like, so we now have to patch her right eye for 4-6 hours a day instead of 2. This makes her left eye do all the work and she ends up with headaches, etc. Needless to say, she was not very happy with this news, but the new glasses helped her attitude improve. She really likes them a lot. By the way, the shirt she is wearing in this picture she made at shcool at the end of the lessons on Johnny Appleseed. They also had apple tasting and made homemade applesauce. Yumm! Sure sounds like fun!

Fairy Tale Town

Darilyn's kindergarten class went to Fairy Tale Town today as a part of their unit on Nursery Rhymes. They had such a good time. It was really neat with all kinds of fun things, like the Old woman's shoe house that was a slide and Cinderella's pumpkin coach. Also, it was her first time to ride on the school bus, so that was exciting. As one of the little kids said, "It's our lucky day!" Kevin took the morning and worked at home so he could watch Dallas and Denae and the little girl I babysit while I chaperoned the field trip. THANKS, BABE!!

The girls also got their first report card today. They both did wonderfully well and we are so proud of them! They are actually in the same class at school (a kinder-1st grade combo class) and their teacher just sings their praises about what good students they are and how mature they are for their ages. Darilyn has brought home many papers with positive comments from the teacher and Delaney has received an award for being an excellent writer/illustrator (apparently she draws pictures to go with all of her journal stories!) Anyway, just want them to know how proud their mommy and daddy are of their achievements at school so far!