Well, that was fun... sorta

Today was the teacher appreciation lunch at the boys' school and lucky me got to sub for both the boys' teachers while they attended the lunch. How is that possible you ask? Well, it's a huge school so they stagger when the teachers go to the luncheon - they all go at the time their kids go to lunch, then get to stay for an extra half hour. Yep, a whole hour for their lunch. You'd think we'd given them the day off they get so excited. Superman has lunch at 10:30 and Sunshine has lunch at noon, so I actually had 1/2 hour between classes. So I had time to yak w/ the other moms for awhile.

The Kindergarten teachers were apparently worried that parents would lose one of the kids and made color coded nametags with "Kindergarten" and the teacher's name on it just in case. Luckily I know most of Superman's class from volunteering up there so I was able to keep up with most of them. Had a tad bit of trouble w/ the special needs child, since his aide went to the luncheon also, but at least I knew he was supposed to be in "my" class. We were supposed to play BINGO, but then the teacher found out the office was showing a movie (they all have TV's in their room and can turn it on to a certain channel to watch stuff). Something about a little bear that made no sense to me. Then, Ms. S came back and said that was one of her favorite movies. I think she needs to get out more!

Third grade was a bit trickier. No one gave me a nametag and I was supposed to somehow make sure they all washed their hands on the way to lunch. Good luck on that one. At least 3 boys came out with soap still on their hands and I had to send them back. Boys are so weird.

After lunch I got to discuss voice in writing with them. Not something I recall learning as a third grader, but my kid is a genius and apparently in some accelarated school and no one bothered to tell me. I swear. They did economics last month. I didn't learn about economics until high school. I was really impressed with the kids' answers and discussion. Then I read a story while they wrote down when they heard the author using voice in the story. I didn't quite get the assignment, but they did.

I was pleasantly surprised when it was time to go. I thought it would be much harder. Not sure I'm ready for a full day of subbing just yet, but a couple of hours was kind of fun.

A White THANKSGIVING??

We're back. Cold and wet, but home. While it may be cold and wet in Central Texas today, the big surprise of Thanksgiving 2007 was that is snowed out in West Texas. Real snow. By the end of the day there was about an inch and a half in the yard. The kids had a blast. I was cold. Freezing cold.

All in all it was fun. However, I wasn't able to take many photos because, as I have mentioned, I was cold. I didn't have my gloves and the camera was, you guessed it, cold. You might say I'm not a cold weather person. Mark went outside and actually played with the kids in it. Of course, he didn't bother to take photos. I took the one above from the safety of Mom's patio and ran right back inside the house.

It was definitely an interesting Thanksgiving. We had made some huge efforts to plan getting toegether with my Dad's side of the family. It's been at least 5 years since we spent a holiday with that whole clan, so we were looking forward to it. Of course, they had to drive down from Lubbock and called from Tahoka (sorry, have to mention that because how many times does one have the chance to mention Tahoka in a blog entry?) that the snow was so heavy they couldn't see a foot in front of them and were turning back.

Lucky for us, Mom made the half of Thanksgiving dinner with the ham, turkey, cornbread dressing and green beans. They had rice stuffing, jello mold and pecan pie for lunch. I'd feel bad for them, but knowing that crowd they rounded up some other food fast!

True to Midland form, the snow melted by Friday afternoon and we headed out to see Santa. Superman was so nervous he'd forget what to tell the big guy he wanted for Christmas. I thought he was about to cry when it was his turn. He kept turning back around asking me "what do I want?" He managed to remember that he wants a remote control helicopter. Whew. At least this year Santa didn't offer his own suggestions.

Sunshine was more interested in the cookies and hot chocolate - he's figured out that as long as Daddy knows what he wants from Santa, there's a good chance he's getting it. Dunno if he believes Santa is real anymore, but I do know he's smart enough to fake it if he doesn't.

And here's the whole gang.

I love taking them all out together because everyone is freaked out by that many siblings so close in age. Ha! Like I'd be out of the mental hospital already if I'd had 4 kids in 5 years! Especially THOSE four!

Now I'm off to take a HOT bath because I still have not warmed up from the cold. And some joker left the AC on in our house and it actually got cold here while we were gone!

Learn a word, give some rice

Here's a neat little game someone posted over at Paperbackswap.com. For every vocabulary word you get right in the game, they donate 10 grains of rice.

According to the FAQ, your playing the game earns money from the advertisers on the site and the money is then used to purchase rice. Fun little game too. I've earned about 1000 grains of rice just now while talking on the telephone to a friend.

One last try

Once again we've undertaken a project trying to fix the patches of dead grass and mud in our front yard. I forgot to take a before photo, but just imagine all the mulched parts in the after photo with patches of dirt and mud instead of mulch. And instead of the plants.

From the street:

And here it is from the driveway:

Much better and now everytime it rains we won't have so much mud in the house. After 3 tries at replanting grass, it's just not going to happen. I'm not sure if the plants I put there will survive or not. Between the tree roots soaking up all the water and the kids playing football in the front yard it's not likely. I just had to try anyway.

When uploading these I noticed the color isn't very good. Which just adds to my case for needing a new camera...

New pet?

For about a week now, I've had a green anole living in the space between the window and screen in our office. At first I thought he just kept running in there, but he's geen there every time I come in here for a week now. I'll try to post a photo later, but it's not really a spot where it's going to show well. And my camera is currently on a cub scout campout.

Anyway, my new pet is growing on me. He's moderately cute, he doesn't shed, he doesn't bark and he finds his own food. Hmmm. Maybe the dog could learn something from this tiny green monster.