1,450 feet

Luke has been planning trips to all the tallest buildings in the world.  We started with the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.  He was counting down the days.  In the month of March he was most excited about this trip, second about Spring, and third about his birthday.  He was so excited that he woke up really early and got in his clothes and calculated the trip distance and our arrival time.  It was a little cloudy, but that was a good thing.  We were glad we weren't there a normal day where there are 25,000 visitors a day.

You can test your maternal or paternal instinct when up 103 floors with nothing under you and your kid's feet but 6 inches of plexi-glass.  My smile in this picture is certainly fake.  Dave needed to recall the kids when he was taking pictures of them to get them on firm ground.

We had so much fun.  We also saw family when in Chicago to round out the trip.

100 days smarter

Luke has been looking forward to the 100th day of kindergarten since day one.  He took in 100 metal castings to weigh, 100 Hershey kisses to eat, $1.00 worth of coins to purchase things with, wrote 100 words, colored 100 squares by 2s,5s,10s, stamped 100 scoops of ice cream, drew a picture of himself at 5 years old and 100 years old, and also sent me an e-drawing over the computer.  He also made a book of the following....

I wish I had 100 puppies.

I wish I could eat 100 Popsicles.

I do not want to have 100 garbage cans.

If I had $100 I would buy crayons.

 Luke has transitioned well to being in kindergarten.  I am so proud of him.  I also feel lucky that he does not hate kindergarten.  The environment is so different than his school last year.  He is used to having a teacher that knows exactly how he works and learns best.  At his old school they would make a program just for him that he would work on individually.  They would not let him move on until he had it perfect.  Public school is so different so I am thankful he has been learning.  We have been doing a little supplementing at home.  He still has a crazy work ethic sometimes.  He finished 4 of the books below in 2 to 24 hours.  (I don't have all the books that he has completed pictured.)  Some of the others he has been doing a page or two at a time.  These books have about 80 pages each.  He thinks subtraction is easier than addition and multiplication is his second favorite.  They don't sell a book for division in this series otherwise we would have it.  Thank you Luke for working so hard.

 I also purchased a book of 100 reading lessons that Luke has finished.  I think this book was put together just brilliantly.  The story of the day looks like the photo below.  Luke likes reading, but it does not come as easily as applied math.  Despite all of Luke's accomplishments this still does not seem like enough according to Richmond School.  Luke doesn't notice the pressure, but the conscientious mother surely does.  We will just keep on doing our best.  I don't believe that the sooner you learn something the smarter you are.  I think it is just fine to learn when you are a little older, but that is not how this school operates.

 Luke doesn't read his phone books anymore but now he loves trying to make a really long word document.  His current record is 603 pages.  His average is about 315 pages.

On the 100th day of kindergarten I had a conference in Chicago.  This is the farthest Dave and I have been from the kids in 5.5 years.  I thought Dave looked especially good in his suit which he also has not used for over 5 years.  I loved having Dave with me.  I only knew one of the other 10,000 people there.  The conference was extremely boring so I am so thankful Dave can love me through anything.

 Here I am accepting my award for being an Orthopedic Clinical Specialist. 

 We didn't tell Luke we were going to Chicago because he would have REALLY wanted to come with.  We have a trip planned to the Sears tower on March 24.

Making the Best of Winter

I am falling to the bottom of Gretchen's list so that is always my signal to post.  We have been enjoying winter so far.  We have hosted a D6 and had Lori and her family over for dinner.

 Lori, her Luke and baby 2 inside.

Eva got to go snow tubing with the neighbor girls.  It is so cute to see her trudging through the drifts to make it over to the nieghbor's house.

 Here we are sledding at Hartland South.  We sledded until all the mittens came off and became full of snow.  It made me consider buying $25 mittens for the kids but I couldn't quite do it when I was at REI on Friday.

The first time we came to this sledding hill was with our nephews 9 years ago.  We did not own sleds so we had them use our snowboards.

Snow and slick snowpants are a great combo for speed.

 Eva didn't want to go down first, so here Luke is clearning the snow for her.

A day in the life part two

Book time.

 Phonics time.

 Letter C practice.

 Counting beads.

Floors are cleaned weekly however the entry needed special attention.

 Last placement of furniture after carpet cleaning.

 Letter work.

 Last day of bible study for the week.

Waiting for Luke.

 Yeay, Luke is home from school.

After school snack, Friday is popcorn day.

 Letter of the week.

 Luke always reads beary good reader right away.

 Hang up back pack, check.

Off to mommy's work.

 Time to ride the glass elevators.

Four hundred pound weight, Luke's favorite.

 One pound weight check.

 Pick up forgotten french toast.

 Dinner, Seasoned Tilapia, potatoes, peas and carrots, and assorted fruit.  Say memory verses and wait for Daddy! 

These days are precious and I can't imagine what I would do without them.  It is sure a confidence booster to record the best part of your day and forget about the "time outs" and discipline issues.  It was also much more fun to tell Dave about my day with pictures rather than words.  So if you need to feel better about your day, post about it.  If you need to laugh at your bad day, post about it.