Not one, but TWO Students of the Month!

Shorty after I posted last, we found out that Grace was named Proactive Student of the Month for her class as well. They finally posted her photo on the bulletin board. Check it out!

School News

We've got 9 weeks of school in the record books. We've had our first report cards. We've done our first real "project". We are getting in to this whole school routine -- and let me tell you ... it's BUSY. I'm not talking busy every now and again. We are BUSY all the time!

Some days I feel like I've been standing in one place, spinning around and around and around. I'm dizzy with busy! My head spins daily! But, we are having a blast with our girls!

Chris and I make an awesome team with this. We occasionally high five each other while we're racing through the house getting whatever's next ready to go -- be it kid, project, dinner -- we've become some kind of well oiled machine. The down side is, when we finally fall on the couch at about 10 o'clock at night, we just look at each other and say -- "oh yeah, you live here too!". Note to self: find an occasional date night in the midst of all the chaos that is our lives right now.

In spite of busy, the girls are exceptional students! Both report cards prove it. We are so proud of them!

We had our first real classrooom work project to do (see photo). Maggie had to get her family together to decorate a turkey. It had to be a family project. Everyone needed to participate. We all had fun doing it. Maggie wanted to make the belly red felt with Cheerio feathers and wanted green construction paper feathers in the plume. Grace wanted orange construction paper feathers and wanted the bottom feathers to be little pom poms. I wanted fall leaves scattered on the construction paper feathers so that it had some fluff to it. Chris wanted to handle the head and the wings -- and he picked the pink eye -- since it seems to run in the family. Lots. Grace had the idea for the pipe cleaner feet and I made those. Maggie wanted a pipe cleaner beak. I made that as well. The girls glued everything on. And Maggie added a hat with a flower. A true family effort!

Maggie was also featured on the school bulletin board for being her class' Proactive Kid (see photo).

Grace and I are going to be hitting up the craft store soon. Since I was homeroom parent for Maggie's class Harvest Celebration, I'm going to be a guest in Grace's class to do a Thanksgiving craft with all the kids. She is very excited about this -- and so am I. It's such a blessing to be able to do these things with and for my kids.

Halloween 2010

We had a great Halloween with the girls! Grace was Strawberry Shortcake, while Mags called up her inner superhero and was the all hot pink Supergirl!

They had a great time trick-or-treating! For the first year, I had trouble keeping up with them. They RAN from house to house -- not skipping anyone. They scored so much candy that Grace's bucket handle broke! It was so much fun watching them.

Gearing up for Trick or Treat, it was a busy day. The school's Harvest Festival was that day as well -- and I'm a homeroom parent. So, the early part of the day was spent at the school setting up for games and crafts. The whole school had a costume parade through our neighborhood. I made sure I was home for that. But as soon as the girls passed by the house, I ran back to the school to finish up, so the party would be ready to roll once they all got back from the parade.

Our little goblins had a great day, so all the hard work was worth it!

Enjoy these pictures!

Rockin' Kindergarten

The girls rocked kindergarten today with (one of their many) KISS t-shirts. Now those HTE folks can see how the Dickerson girls roll ... :)

Both Grace and Maggie are LOVING kindergarten. They both love their teachers, they are both making lots of new friends. And, they are learning so much!

Hurricane Town Elementary is a Go Global school. This means they embrace another culture, teach it and teach its language. The school's culture is Japanese. So, in kindergarten, the girls are learning about Japanese culture and, yes, can already speak a little Japanese! Boy, has elementary school changed in the 35 years since I've been there!

As far as English-based learning goes, the girls are reading sentences now! And, they are doing some math. I am amazed at how far they've come in just a month of school.

Also, extracurricular activities have started again. Dance officially started last week. Maggie has decided she really wants to be a Daisy with the Girl Scouts. Grace is undecided on that, but wants to take guitar lessons. And, Maggie is still in speech at Marshall University one time a week. Needless to say, we stay super busy. But, we love every minute of this time with our girls!

Enjoy these photos!

First Day of Kindergarten

Well, it's official. The girls are officially school-aged kids. *sigh*

They seem to like it. Maggie seems slightly more excited about it than Grace at the moment. They are in separate classes and Grace wishes she were in with Maggie.

Maggie has perceivably the more fun teacher, better classroom and friends from the neighborhood and t-ball in her class. Grace has a classroom that's maybe not quite as colorful -- and there is not a child in the class she knows. I thought that if it had to go down that way, Grace in the all-new-kids class would be the way to go. She's never had a problem making friends! But, she is having a problem this time around. She talks about a couple kids in her class, but at recess all she wants to do is go find Maggie and play with the friends she already knows or new friends Maggie has made. And, her little eyes seem a little sad every day when Maggie excitedly talks about her day. Grace will tell us a couple things, but she is not bursting with the excitement that Maggie is showing. It makes a mom's heart hurt! I want her to come home, super-happy with her day and tell me she made the best friend ever and she loves her class. But so far, that's not happening.

There were four sets of twins that started Hurricane Town Elementary this year. The administration decided to split them all up, citing reports of better end results. I understand this and was totally okay with it since they split them all up. However, recently, I learned that they kept one set together. I am hoping it's temporary, because they are bringing a 4th kindergarten teacher in for overflow kids. Grace is only accepting it because "that's the way it is with twins". But, if she figures out there's a set together, she's going to really be upset.

For now I'm just hoping that each day I see more and more excitement on her face. She IS very focused on learning. And, she does LOVE her teacher.

Both girls are starting to read a few more words. This is so exciting for them. Both teachers follow the same curriculum using the same books (but a little different teaching styles) so they can talk about the things they learned together. They have special words each week to concentrate on -- these words are sent home on Friday and they use them excessively in the classroom and ask you to use them at home daily. We are doing that. I also tuck a little post-it note or cute, simple picture I draw for them in their lunchbox every day along with a Hershey's kiss. This week is the first week for these "popcorn words", so I've been using them. They are easing them in to it with just two words this week. The words are I and AM. They can already read the words LOVE and MOMMY -- so I just add one or two words to the note and they try to sound it out or let their teacher read it to them. Yesterday's note was I AM THINKING OF YOU! LOVE MOMMY. Today's note was I AM PROUD OF YOU! LOVE MOMMY. It's fun to hear them read the note back to me when they get home from school! ;)

Look at my very grown up looking girls heading out to kindergarten!

Newport Aquarium & Kings Island

We recently took a fun little trip to Newport Aquarium in Kentucky and then hopped on over to Kings Island and Boomerang Bay for more fun.

On the walk to the Aquarium entrance, the girls met a real mermaid who gave them a magic stone! Then they enjoyed seeing all the big fish displays and petting a few starfish and crabs. They also enjoyed trying to get a bird to land on their arms in the rainforest -- and playing in the rainforest themed indoor playground. After the aquarium, we got a fun bite to eat at Johnny Rockets -- and then a clown on stilts made some balloon animals for them. It was a fun afternoon!

Of course a big highlight for them, always, is checking in to the hotel and checking out the pool. For hours. So, we swam until late -- then crashed in preparation for our day at Kings Island.

Our day started out early with breakfast with Snoopy and his friends. Then we spent the rest of our morning at Planet Snoopy on all the fun rides. The hot afternoon was spent at Boomerang Bay at a few of the kid themed water areas and pools. Then, back to Planet Snoopy and International Street for the rest of the evening. We did catch a Snoopy on Ice show while there and the girls absolutely LOVED how that dog can ice skate!

We left around 8 o'clock, stuffed Snoopy and Lucy in hand, and two tiny girls were asleep shortly after. They slept most of the way home, which always makes for a faster trip.

Enjoy these photos!

Creek

This past Sunday morning, we decided to take the girls to Ritter Park (Maggie calls it Critter Park). The girls wanted to picnic with doughnuts and fruit and play on the awesome Alice and Wonderland themed children's playground they have there. After our picnic and much playing, we decided to take a walk to a bridge we could see in the distance.

It was so pretty -- creek babbling, ducks swimming, nice flat rocks for skipping... I remember playing in the creek for HOURS when I was a little girl. So, when my girls asked if we could make our trek down to the creek and play around, I was very excited to say, "of course!" We discovered a crawdad, saw little fish, watched the ducks and skipped some rocks. That was all fun, but the one thing they really wanted to do was GET IN! So, clothes, shoes and all, I told them to go for it. After all, that's what being a kid in the summertime is all about, right?!

Above are some photos we snapped of the girls creek excursion. Enjoy!