glitter, dandelions and my beautiful girl

 A few weeks ago I took Michelle to Berthusan Park to practice my picture taking

on her. It was a very relax, fun goofy time with her. While I still have a long way to go

in my practicing I got some pictures that I really love. These pictures

really show her personality/mood (which is always changing) as she is right now in this point in time.

 

  

 

 

 

 

balancing family time

Today we had a rare family day!

With busy schedules and an almost teenager

in the house we don't all get to be together as much I would like.

Michelle is at the age where she would way rather be hanging out

with her friends which I remember being the same way.

I try to find a good balance of letting her hang out with friends

but also being home with us. Today Josh had a softball tournament

down south. Michelle wanted to come along so she could see a friend

who's dad played on the team last year. I was like alright whatever helps

her want to come too. They only ended up playing one game so we were

back home in no time. We all had some down time before dinner.

We had dinner as a family and then took a bike ride together.

When we got back Jordan wanted to shoot some hoops.

We all hung outside. Michelle brought out her volleyball and Josh joined 

her in hitting it back and forth. Before we headed in I wanted to get a picture

of Michelle since she is rarely around to let me do this. As I was snapping

away Josh came over and got in the picture with her. He then grabbed her up

and started giving her kisses on her face. I ended up getting two of my 

newest favorite pictures! I love that he wanted to get in a picture but 

show Michelle how much he loves her. 

Afterwards Josh and Jordan cut their hair and Michelle asked if she could paint 

my nails. It was a fairly perfect day in my books! 

We don't have to many years left with these two. 

teacher conferences

Tonight we had back to back teacher conferences for the kids.

First off we had Michelle's at the middle school.

Her conference was actually led by her.

She has been prepping for a month getting stuff ready.

She did a great job sharing her goals, areas she enjoys, areas she can

approve and so on. We went over her grades and she is getting mostly A's

and a few B's.  She does great on day to day work.  We just need to work

on tests and studying to get those B's up to A's.  Which is her main goal for

her 2nd trimester.  Her favorite subject was art and making pots, drawing/sketching

and this last week they designed their own stamp. It turned out really cool.

She also really enjoyed doing poetry in language arts.

Second trimester she will lose art and music to start drama and PE.

We left Michelle's conference grabbed a pizza and crazy bread then dropped the kids

at home before rushing to Jordan's. We made it right on time!
His conference went well and teacher had mostly great things to say about him.
He doing awesome in all subjects! He likes to work mostly on his own.
He has a harder working in groups and doesn't like to speak up.
She said when given an assignment he gets right to work, stays on task and quickly finishes.
She also said he has super neat handwriting!
He is having a hard time in PE and music with following directions and participation.
Since he was a young lad he never liked to try new things that he though he couldn't do.
I think this is now greatly affecting him in school.
When they learn a new concept in one of these classes he doesn't want to try.
He has approved a ton in PE once I was aware of the problem
and stayed in touch with teacher and talked with Jordan.
We are now going to do the same thing with music.
Explain to him what we expect of him and that I will be in touch with his teacher.
If he doesn't improve he loses every single electronic item in the house until
I hear about a great improvement. This means even on the weekends which is a huge
deal to Jordan.  I hate hearing he is being a turd at school and not behaving in class.
He enjoyed knowing I was checking in with his PE teacher and hearing great things
about his so really hope he changes in music too. There is a ton to be the class clown
and a time to sit, listen and follow directions.  Nip in the butt now before it goes on to long.

Both conferences went great.
Kids are both doing good in all subject!
It was nice that Josh and I got to go together.
Jordan made a super cute weekend news paper I wish I could share but the teacher kept it
It read something about how is weekend was awesome and that he got to watch the Seahawks.
He wrote who they played and that they had won!
He even had a picture of the teams playing with a scoreboard!

Halloween {2013}

Yesterday was an all around fun filled day.

Started the morning off in Jordan's class for some fall fun activities.

There were stations set up for the kids to rotate through

such as cookie decorating, graphing candy/snacks, making spider suckers,

playing memory, bowling ect. I got to be in charge of the candy graphing!

Since it was early release day they kids had lunch at 10:20.

After lunch and recess we did one last station before playing fall bingo.

Following bingo the kids got to eat their cookies, have some juice 

and a few kids including Jordan had brought treats to share.

School was out at noon so Jordan had plenty of time to play with his buddy Ty

for a while before his mom came. They always have so much fun playing together

and they are both great at using their imaginations.

After Ty got picked up Jordan and I had a little down time.

I "tried" to take a nap while he played on ipad.

I have been super tired the past few days from not sleeping well at night.
At 5:30 we met up with all the cousins to take a few pictures before
trick or treating begun. This is the first year I let Michelle go with a group
of friends on her own. She went with a group of eight girls. I gave her a time to
check in and time to be home. She actually came by the house at her check in time
with her friends which was nice to physically see her.
After pictures we went to Jana's neighborhood.
Jordan was done by the time we got done there so we walked home.
He wanted to give out treats at our house for a bit.
When we got tired of answering the door around 8:00 we just stuck the
bucket on the porch and it was gone in less then 10 minutes.