First Day of Pre-School

Keree was excited to get up this morning, because she knew it was her 1st day of school. She picked Berry Crunch cereal for breakfast and happily ate it quickly (which is rare since she's a slow eater). Keree was also excited because she got to wear her new sparkly shoes. We left 15 minutes earlier because we weren't sure how traffic would be. We also had two different start times for her classroom on our paperwork. So we weren't sure if her class started at 815a or 830a. We arrived a few minutes before 815a, we snapped a few pictures outside and then one in front of her class door. Keree was excited to see a few of her friends from last year's class waiting in the hallway near other classrooms. We walked into Keree's classroom and it was complete chaos! It turns out that her classroom is being used for extended care, so children who have to be dropped off before class starts is in there. Well they left the room a complete disaster and the teacher's were having to clean it up. We also found out that their class start time was changed to 830a, which the main Teacher got really nasty with us for being early. I tried to politely point out to her that all the paperwork she sent home at Open House said class started at 815a. I told her nicely that maybe she should have made sure the changes were made to it before sending it home. I didn't feel bad because there was quite a few other kids and parents coming in at the same time as us. When we picked Keree up, the summary said that they played for most of the time getting use to their new classroom, that they played the cookie jar game which helped them learn their new friends names and that they read the book 1st Day of School. The first thing out of Keree's mouth was they weren't allowed to draw pictures today during free time. I told her that was ok, that she could draw when we got home. Keree was wiped out when we got home, so she ate a quick lunch and then laid down for a nap. Keree slept close to 3 hours and I finally had to wake her up. We spent the evening taking some new pictures to use for our advertising. Keree loves getting to get dressed up in our creations and getting her picture taken. I have to say some of them I took this evening, I'm going to order 5x7's of them to hang up.

Lesson 32

Well the best laid plans of doing two lessons a day didn't happen today. When we covered Lesson 32 today, Keree seemed to struggle with a few of the "w" words. So after we finished Lesson 32, we went back and reviewed Lesson 31 and then re-did Lesson 32. By the time we were done, she was finished with school for the day but luckily she had a firm grasp on "w" words. In the late morning, we headed outside for a short time. It seems that the two Hornworms either ingested some of the tomato poison or they fought each other, but both of them seemed dead. So we decided just in case they weren't dead, we still emptied the bug house far away from our house. When afternoon rolled around, Keree laid down for a short nap, it was basically a power nap but while she was asleep, I was able to get two tutu's done. When Keree got up, we walked by Dorothy and she was laying on the bottom of the bowl (just 1/2 hr before she was happily swimming around). Both my Mom and I looked at each other when Keree asked what was wrong with Dorothy. We told her we thought maybe she was just resting. Keree looked a little longer and goes "no, your wrong she's not breathing, she's dead." My heart broke for her, she kept asking us why did Dorothy have to die. We told her again that goldfish don't live very long but she didn't see satisfied with that answer. It seemed this evening rolled around all too fast. We headed to cheerleading practice. The rules state you are suppose to arrive 15 minutes early, well that time came and went, then 6pm came and went. We were about to leave when a few other girls and their Mom's showed up. All of us was standing in the parking lot talking trying to figure out what was going on, when another women approached us. It turns out that our Coach couldn't make it, so she was filling in. *Grumble, Grumble, Grumble* I have to say that this Coach who filled in was really on top of it, even though she was just winging it with the cheers to a point. They learned there first Half time dance tonight and I can't wait to see it set to music. They also learned 5 other cheers. We ended up taping them performing so Keree can practice at home. While they practiced J's Mom and I got to catch up a little bit. It was nice getting to talk to another Mom. As you know earlier in the summer, I was a little concerned having the two of them together on the same team but after stressing to Keree that this was not playtime with her friend, she took the practice very serious. Keree is very excited about practice and can't wait till the next one, which is on Friday. Tonight, Keree headed to bed early. Tomorrow is her 1st day back to Pre-school. Actually, this will be technically her Third 1st day of Pre-School and she's very excited to see some of her friends tomorrow. I on the other hand is feeling a little emotional, this is the last year before my daughter goes to Kindergarten. I guess also I'm little emotional because Sunday is our 4th Forever Family day and I can't believe how quickly the years have passed by. Well off to bed, so I can make sure I'm up in time for school.

Attack of the Hornworms & Lesson 31

I can't believe how late we slept this morning, even Keree slept in till after 830am. Since we are having a break in the miserable hot weather, we were happy that we could play outside for a bit. After Keree picked the few veggies that were ripe, she rode her scooter up and down the sidewalk, while my Mom and I discussed what was destroying our tomato plants. In just days, they went from beautiful, healthy, lush plants to just sticks that were starting to die. We kept think maybe it was a bunny, deer or raccoon that was eating on them. So we sprinkled them with what was called on the bottle tomato poison. We have tried to keep our garden organic but it's sort of do or die for our poor plants. While we were sprinkling them, my Mom noticed this gigantic caterpillar on one of the stalks. This caterpillar was as round as a hot dog and almost as long as a hot dog. My Mom picked the stalk off with the caterpillar. We have never seen a caterpillar like this, so we really spent some time examining it. We finally convinced Keree to hold the stalk and soon as she did, he started climbing up it. She freaked and dropped him to the ground. We finally convinced her to come back and just watch him crawl around instead. Neither my Mom or I wanted to squish it because it was so large. So since we had to run errands, we took him with us in the car and threw him out into a grassy area far from away from our house. After our errands and when we got home, we spent plenty of time researching the strange caterpillar that we found. We found out that it was called a Hornworm and we found out that there are two types distinguished by the Horn on their rear. The Tobacco Hornworm has a distinctive red horn on it and usually found in the South, while the Tomato Hornworm has a distinctive black/brown horn on it and usually found in the North. We are Middle America, so I guess we could have either Tobacco or Tomato Hornworms. But ours was 100% for sure a Tobacco Hornworm. After Keree took her nap, we finally headed back outside. We had read also that the Hornworms hid underneath plants and we guessed because of the damage of the plants that were being ate on, more than likely there was more caterpillars feasting. Keree and I searched, searched and searched some more. We also tried to shake our tomato plants because we were told they would make a clicking sound. No matter how hard we tried to listen, we never heard anything. Finally underneath the Patio garden structure on one of the tomato plants, was a Hornworm. We had also read that if you capture them and feed them, they will eventually turn into a Hawk Moth. So we put the one we found into Keree's bug house. We then went back to searching, by this time my Mom was searching with us and right as we were about to give up, there was a Hornworm. So we put him in with the other Hornworm in Keree's bug house. We had lots of fun sitting outside watching the Hornworms through the magnifying door on the bug house. We couldn't believe how quickly they could eat a leaf and no wonder our plants looked like they did. So it seems now that everyday towards dusk we will spend some time trying to make sure there is no other Hornworms eating our plants. We finally ended up heading inside when the mosquitoes started biting. We watched Keree's favorite show Wipeout, it's so funny hearing her crack up laughing and then in the same second, telling the tv that they were trying to do their best. Once the show was finished, we worked on Lesson 31. I can't believe the summer is almost over and we are not finished yet. I blame myself for not being as dedicated as I had planned on being. So I'm hoping for the next 10 days to cover two lessons a day, which we would then be at Lesson 50. Which then in reality, we could be finished totally by the end of September. It's going to be interesting to see how well I do, considering she is going to pre-school for 2 1/2 hrs every morning, 2 - 1 hr PT sessions a week, 2 -2 hr Cheerleading practices a week, 1 - 1 hr visit from the homeschool teacher a week, 1 - 1hr socialization with the homeschool coop a week, we have a few big shows booked and of course anything else that comes up. I'm ready for the challenge!

Monday, Monday

Even though the alarm clock was set, we overslept. I'm not sure if I turned it off or just didn't hear it go off. Needless to say, we woke up at 636a and had to be at PT at 7a and because the short-cut roads are closed, it takes over 30 minutes to get there. We rushed around, woke Keree from a deep sleep, threw on clothes and was out the door in 4 minutes. I will admit, I did speed trying to make it there on time and actually, we only ended up being 7 minutes late. Luckily our PT was having a rough morning also, so she took things a little easy. Especially when Keree exclaimed that she was "grumpy this morning". After PT was over, we headed to the Doctor's office to have Keree's TB test read. Well even though they were open, they decided we had to come back for it to be read.....long, ugly story. So I had to run to downtown ESL to drop off some paperwork for Keree's insurance. What is bad, there is about 20 different offices in the 1 office. I about died when I walked in and the line wrapped around the room at least 3 times leading to the windows. Then there was about 200 people sitting in chairs waiting to be called back. Luckily, one of the workers came out and started asking people what they were there for. Since I was just dropping off documents, I got to take a seat and within 10 minutes, I was finished and out of there. Luckily, I shouldn't have to do down there again anytime soon. Once we were done, we then headed back to the Doctor's office to have Keree's TB test read and have her blood drawn. It took them over 40 minutes before they came out to read the test (it took less than 30 seconds to look at her arm). They then took us back to a room, so we would have a better hold on Keree for the blood draw. She started to totally freak when she saw the needle because she didn't want a shot. When we told her they were drawing blood, she calmed down some. She had to watch the entire process of them taking blood and of course her vein blew shortly after they stuck her but they got enough blood before that happened. She honestly wasn't that upset, it was when they were going to stick a band-aid on her that she totally freaked out with blood curdling screams. Keree was so exhausted but luckily she stayed awake until we got home. As soon as we got home, she laid down and tried to take a nap. She was so overly, tired that she just didn't want to close her eyes. Instead, I ended up getting super tired and fell asleep before her.

This evening then was her Pre-School's open house. She is going more for socialization than anything. I'm honestly not that happy with the Teacher's she will have. Her main teacher is staying the same, which this is the same teacher who thought Keree was a bully at the end of last year. Which all the other parents couldn't believe she said something like that to me because Keree is so far from being a bully. Keree is usually considered the most friendly, nice child there is. Needless to say, I have very much thought about pulling her out since Keree is also doing homeschool. So we will see how things go and if I don't think it's a good situation this year in her classroom, then I'll make the decision at that time. But right now, I'm trying to keep an open mind. So when we arrived, the first thing we did was find Keree's cubby. Inside was some paperwork and also a Scavenger Hunt. Since they are in a new room, it was nice to explore the classroom for a short time. The Main Teacher tried to talk to Keree but she sort of shut down, which is so unlike her in any other situation now days. When someone asks her a question, she will tell them all kinds of stuff. Instead Keree said nothing, she looked at her with a blank stare. She did talk to one of the assistant teacher's, Ms. A but it was a sort of short one sentence line. I asked Keree later why she wouldn't talk to her Teacher's and she didn't have an answer. So we will see, she starts school on Thursday and praying it will go well.

Break Down & County Fair Wins

This morning, our first stop was a local church, they were having a Back to School party. We thought it would be a fun thing to do. We have also been involved with the Church when they have had other parties for the kids of the community. Well what the failed to tell anyone was with this party they were having it during church service. Well, we were all dressed in our break-down clothes, so we all had sleeveless t-shirts and shorts on. I was so embarrassed when we walked in and everyone else was in their Sunday best. So we sat through 2 hours of church service, which was peppered with Dancing Gorillas, Cows, Puppets and Games. The service ended with them giving a handful of school supplies to all the children in attendance. As soon as Church was over, we headed to the County Fair to finish our breakdown. We had loaded the majority of stuff last night, so all that was left today was our grids and racks. When we arrived there, our first stop was to pick up Keree's entries, ribbons and check. Keree was so excited to pick up all her ribbons and then I explained to her about the check. She couldn't believe that she had won money, she was thrilled enough with just the ribbons, the money was the icing on the cake. We then headed over to where we were set-up and started breaking down the grids, packing a few of the last boxes and then loading. While we loaded, Keree laid down on the bench by the van. One of the workers, we had seen over the last week saw her laying there and told her Hi and asked her how she was doing. Keree said "I worked too hard, I'm tired". All I could do was laugh at her. We were all tired and hot by the time we got home. We spent the evening relaxing, catching up with our family and trying to stay cool.

County Fair Day 5

We got a slow start to our morning. After we got dressed, we had a little time before we had to leave. I was checking email, while Keree was watching Bob & Dorothy swim around. Keree kept telling me to watch them, so I had just finished watching them swim and turned back around and Keree goes "what's wrong with Bob, Mommy?" So both my Mom and I stop we are doing and look, Bob is floating belly up and not breathing. We hurried and transferred him out of the tank, we tried to do everything we could think of, practically giving him fishy cpr. Keere was so freaked out by the whole thing, she couldn't believe Bob died right in front of her. I couldn't believe that the fish died right in front of her. She came close to crying but had more questions than anything. She wanted to know where fish go after they die, what we were going to do with his body, why did he die and the questions went on. By the time we got to the Fair, she was doing better about losing Bob. When the fair started, Keree and my Mom went and watched the Dress your Dog contest. It was a little disappointing that there was only 3 dogs competing. When Keree got back to our booth, she just wanted to chill out. So we popped a movie in and built her a little tent out of our red table cloth (just her tennis shoes were sticking out). I think between it being nap time and what happened with Bob, she was just mentally exhausted. After she watched her movie, she never did fall asleep but she was feeling better and wanted to walk around. So my Mom took her outside and she got to play a game. Unlike previous days, she didn't want to play goldfish again, so she played the ducks. She ended up winning a stuffed monkey who looks like Curious George. Off and on during the day, her friend Ru would stop by. Keree meet Ru on the very 1st day of the fair and we ran into her Momma and her off and on over the past few days. Well towards the end of the day, Ru joined Keree and they watched Monster vs. Aliens...well the last 1/2 hr of it together. So while they watched the movie, Ru's Momma and I talked. Once the movie ended, they were headed home, while we still had an hour left of the show and at least an hour or more of break down. After they left, Keree and my Mom walked around a little bit around the booths. One of the vendors had a few ride tickets left and they gave 2 to Keree. Keree was excited because that meant she was going to get to ride the carousel again. The show closed and we were hoping to get everything packed quickly, so we could all go out together and watch Keree on the carousel but it didn't work that way. So while I finished packing, my Mom and Keree quickly hurried out there and she got to ride. My Mom said it was crazy because they were already packing up the horses while Keree was riding. The downside to this ride was Keree didn't enjoy it. The motion was just to much for her, so my Mom had to hold her tightly until the ride stopped. Once they headed back inside, we finished packing a few more things. It was 1130p, when we finally decided to call it a night. We only have the grids, racks, the monster and the denim to load up tomorrow. When we got home, we checked on Dorothy before we let Keree see her. We were scared that after what happened to Bob, that she was going to be dead also. Luckily, she was happily swimming around.

County Fair Day 4

Well after much hunting this morning, Bob & Dorothy finally have a new home. I couldn't believe how hard it was to find a reasonable priced fish tank. We went to 3 stores and all they had were these expensive $40 kits. Since we don't know how long Bob & Dorothy were going to live, we didn't want to make that kind of investment (our kit was under $9). So we spent this afternoon moving them into their new home and giving them a little food. Keree was so excited to see them swim around and they seem to be so much happier not living in plastic bags. We then headed out for our 4th day at the County Fair. When the fair started, my Mom and Keree went to watch the Dress your Chicken contest. My Mom said that Keree loved the chickens and especially loved the Chicken dressed like a Bride. She said that the winner was a Chicken who sat in a salad bowl filled with lettuce and tomatoes. Hence, Chicken salad, I have to say it was adorable and they said the chicken was so good and just sat there. Keere was also excited because she got to pet a Chicken. Most of the people who were entered into the contest keep Chickens as their household pets and they are really tame. Once Keree got back, she told me all about the chicken and went on and on about the Chicken who was getting married. Later in the evening, Keree and I got to walk around the fair. Keree had ate earlier with my Mom but I was starving, so we were trying to find something reasonable to eat. We decided while we were out there to play a few games, first up was the duck pond, she won a Pink Princess crown and then our next stop was skee ball. We didn't win anything there, we were 1,000 points away from winning (one more ball and we would have had the prize). More than anything, it was fun. After much searching for a sandwich, it turned out the cheapest way to go was to get a Gyro. Keree and I then headed inside, we walked around looking at the other booths and eating our sandwich. My Mom had a customer at the booth, so we spent a good 45 minutes walking around looking. Finally, after I realized it was the same Customer, who wasn't buying anything and had her stroller, little girl and herself taking up the entire floor of our booth because she was sitting down. I was tired, so I butted my way back into our booth. My Mom spent over 1 1/2 hours with this lady and all she bought was a $3 bow. My Mom said she kept asking questions, trying to figure out how things were made. My Mom was trying to be nice but I thought it was funny that the lady high tailed it out of there when I came back. I told my Mom I pretty sure she was was trying to steal. She sat there with her stroller basket right next to her, she was waiting for the moment for my Mom to stop looking so she could just throw them underneath the basket. She knew with my Mom, Keree and I there, she wasn't going to be able to pull off the heist. Keree spent the rest of the evening watching a movie on the portable DVD player until it was time to head home for the night.