Valynn's conference

We just got back from Valynn's parent teacher conference. No surprise that she is doing very well. She is reading at an early third grade level. Technically her reading level is higher but her comprehension is third grade. The teacher was very happy with her progress. There was an incident where Valynn was tested earlier this year and came up at risk for not knowing her letters so the teacher had to spend two weeks with her on that. The teacher figured it was a fluke since Valynn is her top reader but had to work with her anyway, Valynn then tripled her score on the retake. She is well behaved and respectful. I went to work yesterday and stopped by the office and was told my little one was in there crying because she couldn't find her coat, she had left it on the bus.

We have a busy weekend ahead of us. Valynn has her horse riding lesson tomorrow and we have a Halloween party tomorrow afternoon. Sunday Valynn has a Girl Scout Halloween party. Somewhere in there Mark has homework to do.

Yesterday I was offered more tutoring hours. I will also be the coordinator for this student between her and her teachers to try to get her caught up in all of her classes and eventually transition back to the classroom. I am also planning on going back to subbing half days in January if everything is going well here at home.

Valynn and Mason have friends coming over to play today before we go get our hair cut so I should finish with breakfast dishes before they get here.

Mark's birthday

Happy Birthday Mark!

It's been a busy two days here.
1) Valynn lost one of her top front teeth last night. Actually dad pulled it out with a string. Unfortunately the toothfairy didn't come last night (Mark said he would have a talk with her).

2) They started working on Mark's birthday/Christmas/what ever holiday I decide to include gift today. They broke ground on the garage. I'll get pictures as it goes along.

Summary of my day. 7:30 the appraiser came to appraise the house for our loan. The good news is he said our home value will more than likely go up $5000-$10000 since the appraisal a year ago. I then talked to Chantel and Tonya to get their groceries lists and took Mason to school. It took me about 30 minutes longer to get groceries today. Imagine what the cart looks like buying for one family of six and I was buying groceries for another family of six as well. It was a very full cart and I wasn't too fond of the grocery bill either. I start my job today. This week the kids are going to Carrie's while I'm working, except for Kyleigh, she's going to Danielle's. Mark will pick the kids up when he gets home from work. Brad and Chantel are coming over for supper tonight to help celebrate Mark's birthday, I got most of supper ready yesterday for that. I'll post pictures when I get a chance.

Hectic week

Well what was going to be a fairly relaxing week turned busy, but that's how it goes. I'll start at the beginning. On Monday the latest Chippewa Estates member was born, Annika Joy. I'm the only one who has seen her so far but the kids can't wait to meet her. We have been very lucky, there was an illness and a staph infection going around school the last couple of weeks, where 1/3 of the student were missing class, we didn't catch them, but the neighbor kids did. Tuesday and Wednesday Tonya and I took supper over to Chantel's. On Wednesday Robbie and Danielle brought us supper (can you say musical meals?). It was very delicious. On Friday I was offered a job at the school. I will be working three hours a week as a tutor after school. I will be starting this week, provided I can get a sitter lined up, the sitter I have lined up can't start until next week. Saturday was Valynn's birthday party. The kids played pin the tail on the horse, had a pinata, and found money in the hay. It was a beautiful day for a party and everyone had a great time. I also made Halloween pizzas. Saturday night Mark went to the Illini football game so a couple of neighbor ladies came over for supper. It was a nice evening and the kids were sufficiently wore out from playing. On Sunday after church we watched the Vikings lose to the Bears and then went to a surprise 16th birthday party. After the party the kids went to pick their pumpkins. Mark's birthday is coming up on Wednesday and then we are officially done with birthdays for a few months.

Valynn is 7

So it has been a couple of weeks since I've posted, we've been busy. I'll start with the most important thing. Valynn turned 7 today. Wow, where does the time go? She is getting so big and too smart. If Mark or I are reading a book and we make a mistake, she corrects us, she brought home her last list of sight words that she needs to know by the end of first grade, and is curious about how everything works. Unfortunately we weren't here to help her celebrate her birthday. We are fortunate to have such good friends that brought her a cake and help her ring in her 7th year. She got a horse blanket from Grandma and Grandpa Larson (great job grandma!). Mark, Kyleigh and I were in North Dakota to celebrate my "other Mark's" wedding. We had a great time. Friday night we drove to Eden Prairie and spent the night with my college roommate Christy and her husband. Another college roommate stopped by to visit with her two kids. We had a great visit with them and wish we could get together more often. On Friday we drove to Fargo (it was cold and rainy, and in IL, sunny and 80). We had a great time at the wedding catching up with old friends from college. A friend of mine was there with her little boy Emery who is one day younger than Kyleigh. We joked that they had their first wedding dates. Of course we couldn't resist taking a few pictures. I also had Kyleigh get her picture taken with the bride and groom. Kyleigh shares a birthday with Mark. We had a long drive back today but were very happy to have to turn the air conditioner on when we got home, much better than the 3 inches of snow in Lignite. The three older kids stayed with some friends of ours over the weekend. They had a blast playing with their three kids but were happy to get home. We brought back "Chippers" (chocolate covered potato chips) as thank you gifts for everyone who helped us out by watching the kids.


Valynn marched in the homecoming parade a couple of weeks ago with girl scouts. As you can imagine Mason and Kyra had fun getting the candy that was thrown. We're doing good, Kyleigh slept 6 and 7 hours stretches at night this weekend so we're hoping this trend continues. She was a very good traveler sleeping most of the way. Valynn and Mason have tomorrow off so we're going to be able to sleep in and take it easy except for gymnastics, get Halloween costumes, finish the head room mom list and buy groceries for Valynn's birthday supper. We should have a pretty easy week, Valynn's birthday party is on Saturday and Mark is planning on going to the school to help install the new playground equiment. We finally got another contractor lined up to do the garage and it sounds like he plans on pouring the concrete this week, yeah (keep your fingers crossed)!!! Mark finished his online class last week so he has a couple of weeks off. He won't know his grade until later since the class is graded on a curve.

Friday morning was hectic here because the school bus left without Valynn. It showed up 5 minutes early. The neighbor kids ran out to the bus when they saw it pull up but because we can't see the bus stop we didn't know it was early and Valynn saw it pulling away. I called the bus supervisor to discuss the situation and then the bus driver called me to apologize and tried to tell me she was on time. She didn't have an answer when I asked her if she realized that there were no kids waiting at the bus stop so she must have been early. If it happens again the bus will have to start driving down the street to pick up Valynn.

Thursday I took Kyleigh to the doctor. She hadn't slept well for two nights and has had a cold so we suspected an ear infection. The doctor was positive she had one as well based upon what I told her. As it turns out Kyleigh didn't have an ear infection, which was good, and the doctor thinks she might have had a sinus headache from being congested or just had difficulty breathing. Our little peanut is now weighing 9 # 5 oz. Wow, is she getting big.

That is about all from here. I think I have the last two weeks summarized. Have a great week everyone.

Just when you need...

someplace to put Kyleigh. That spot is already taken.

That can't be good...

Yesterday I was talking to Mark on the phone while holding Kyleigh. She filled her diaper loud enough for Mark to hear. He said "That can't be good." You thing? Kyleigh likes to lay on our chests to sleep, it reminds me of Valynn because she used to like that as well. One of my favorite pictures was Valynn napping on Mark's chest. Sunday our friends from Bloomington brought us supper and came to visit. The two girls enjoyed holding Kyleigh and playing with her.

1 Month

Wow, it's been one month already. That is so hard to believe. Kyleigh is doing great. She's starting to "talk" and roll onto her side. Last night she was on the couch and rolled to her stomach, she had a little help since she headed down hill to between the cushions. We're getting into a routine where she's asleep by 9:00- 10:00 and wakes around 3:00 to eat and then sleeps until 6:00 when she eats and then goes back to sleep until 8:00. The only routine we need to change is so Kyra and Kyleigh nap at the same time. Right now Kyleigh wakes up around the time Kyra goes down for her nap. This doesn't give me a chance to get my nap in or anything else done.

Last night Valynn and Mason had a sleep over in the girls' room. They both slept on the top bunk and no one fell off. We were up too early this morning. Kyra decided to get up at 5:45 when I was up feeding Kyleigh. Shortly after that Mason decided it was time to get up as well. Needless to say at least we had a productive morning since Mark felt guilty with me awake with three kids, so he got up as well. He is done with the outside of all three windows and got everything cleaned up. I started to get my fall decoration up and we got things burned. Around 10:00 we dropped the older three off at the neighbors and went into town to register to vote, drop off the suburban at the mechanics, and buy a few groceries. After nap time/ quiet time we hope to finish the rest of our projects.