October 3, 2014

(click here for today's pictures)

Ms. Van Gogh

• Robby left for work this morning as the kids were eating breakfast.  He was able to hear me run down the morning with the kids before he left.  It went something like this "we are going to do our school work until 10.  If I catch anyone not doing their work then I will add 5 more minutes to our work time."  That caught some attention...enough  that I think I might have to do that more often.  
• We did end up having to work until 10:10 which wasn't too bad.  I didn't have to do spelling with the kids but Graham managed to finish his work, Anderson had one thing left and Reagan only had her reading and one other page to do.  Those leftover things can be down this weekend (maybe).
• After our stopping time, we read some and then the kids worked on their Van Gogh pictures.  This was a bit stressful for my Reagan-the perfectionist.  She didn't think hers looked good and was so stressed the whole time she was working but it turned our really nice.  The boys did well too-Anderson was a more impatient with the task and wasn't too pleased with me saying that he had to fill up the entire page.  Campbell stuck with it and worked the whole time but Keaton would just hand me a color and tell me to "draw here for me."  
• Speaking of Keaton, Robby had bought her a balloon for her birthday and yesterday, she took it outside.  I really don't know what happened but all I know was that Keaton and Campbell ran in the house screaming-they were hysterical.  Reagan was right behind them-she was being just as noisy as the other girls but she wasn't distressed-she wasn't hysterical like Keaton and Campbell but she was hysterically laughing.
• It took me a few minutes to understood that Keaton's balloon had floated into the sky.  I tried to calm her down and tell her that another little girl would get to play with her balloon and I thanked her for sharing with someone else.  Her little heart was beating out of her chest-I could almost hear it over Reagan's continued laughter.  Apparently, Reagan saw the whole thing-Keaton and Campbell screaming and then both girls trying to chase the balloon across the yard while screaming "come back, come back."  When Robby came home, he told Keaton that he would take her to buy another balloon and Keaton dutifully asked if Campbell could have one as well.  Guess the first thing that Keaton asked Robby this morning-can we go and get a balloon this morning?
• This afternoon was spent doing some chores and watching a few tv shows.  Campbell helped me go through some of our bins of clothes-I don't know why but I sure have lots of overalls for my kids and we hardly ever wear them!  Odd.
• Tonight we had supper at the Hallums-our kids were excited to have lots of kids to play with.  Everyone played outside for a while and then came in to eat supper.  Supper was yummy spaghetti and Whitman sat and ate (well, mostly drank) while the grown ups just hung out and talked.   My Reagan did get hit in the face with a ball and got a bloody nose and later Anderson's nose just started bleeding-goodness gracious!  
• After supper, the kids moved their play inside and the girls worked really hard on making paper fortune tellers and the boys played on a leap frog toy and tried on a few costumes.  My Whitman happily played by himself most of the evening and Keaton had a blast keeping up with the big girls.  By the end of the evening, my kids weren't ready to leave and the Hallum kids would have gladly rode in our big can home with us.  
• Once we made it home, the kids quickly put on their pjs and headed to bed-they were exhausted and tomorrow is a busy, busy football day!