It's been a while...

We made it through the end of 2009 with little drama, lots of happy and well, just general good cheer.

Christmas was fun this year. Kids got a telescope from dad... he got it from work as a 15 year award or something like that. He decided he didn't need a watch or another clock, and the telescope is awesome. We have seen a blue moon and a full wolf moon, along with various stars and maybe even a couple of planets. This is the year Glee gets to study the Solar System and space... and I took the telescope to school last week to show the kids what a telescope is. Apparently, according to the teacher, all of the kids except Glee had never seen a working telescope. Hmm.

This was the Christmas of arts and crafts. Glee got a sewing machine, and she has made a ton of pillows already. She has one other project to finish, a skirt she made by herself that just needs to be hemmed. Thomas got a car design kit, with a working light box that he uses to design his own hot wheels. Lots of markers, coloring books and crafts were left by Santa too. We had a small group for Christmas this year, and I cooked the usual prime rib. It was mouthwatering to say the least... hardly any leftovers even thought I cooked 15lbs!

Then we made it through January... we had some awesome rain storms, a weeks worth of rain, and spent MLK Day splashing through puddles at the high school. It was tons of fun, Glee and Thomas had a blast, and I took lots of photos.

So, the updates... Glee earned Honor Roll... that's for your whole report card having nothing lower than a B. She had all A's except for a B in Spelling. Good report card! Thomas' was awesome too, only thing checked on his was that he needs to work on not wandering around the classroom so much. He has a tendency to forget what he got out of his seat for. That's okay, I do that a lot too! Thomas has passed his math facts to 12, and now his math tests are all vertical questions, that's the big leap in first grade! So much for needing help in math. He's practically a math savant! Really though, there are only two kids ahead of him in his class in math. His spelling is really good too, and his printing is looking fantastic. He is doing great. Glee is now on her divides 7, which means she has gone through the multiplication tables and is almost through the division. I had to teach her long division for some problems they got that were problems for estimating. It made me mad. The teacher told them they should guess at the answer. You don't guess at math. So I taught her long division so she could get the correct answer. Her teacher was annoyed, but I didn't care. Glee is also learning handwriting (cursive) and her teacher will mark the paper wrong if you write a letter in cursive that you haven't technically learned yet. So there are letters in Glee's name she is not "allowed" to handwrite. I say too bad. Her handwriting is really lovely, she does a good job on it!

So there we go... all caught up. Oh, the last thing, I hurt my back in January so bad that I had to make my first visit to a chiropractor. Wow, what have I been missing! The doc made a huge difference... I have still been having trouble... I need to stretch more, but at least I can walk. There was a day or two where I couldn't hardly stand up. It was horrible. I need to start yoga so I don't get old so fast!

Happy 2010 everyone...

we are in the midst of planning our trip to the UK for my cousin's daughter's wedding. We are so excited and happy to have been invited, and I am really excited about seeing my dearest cousin again soon. We set up the computers to talk via Skype, so we are keeping up on the latest news there.