Blogging and Resolutions

Well, today I read my friend Christi's blog and it really inspired me. I NEED to blog more. Most of my blogs are about Brian and the kids. Everyday, uneventful stuff. But, I am not a scrapbooker, so I need to do better. So, even though it is December, I decided that this will be my New Year's resolution.

Let me catch you up on the goings on here since before Thanksgiving. Tuesday they had a family feast at Tuesday school, and Aiden's class sang a couple songs. Well, Thanksgiving, mom and I worked, so we had our get together on Friday. I was under the weather that day, so I slept in a bit, but we went down to mom's and had a wonderful meal and hung around and played cards. Angie really likes to play the game Golf and you can add many players, so that is what we did. We had one seath that people kind of rotated out of as they had to do things.

The kids had a big GT project due at the beginning of December. They had to pick an endangered animal, research it and write a report. There was a list of things that had to be mentioned, like, habitat, diet, etc, and they had to include photos. Then they had to complute an art project that related to the subject. Angie chose Pandas. For the first time, she typed out her report, and that was a little slow going, but she did all the typing herself. I helped her edit it, and showed her how to insert pictures. Brian suggested that we get a keyboarding program for them to start working on. For, her art project, she chose to make a panda out of beans. Brian was going to trace it with our projector, but I felt i could help her free hand one. It turned out pretty well. Tony wanted to do a poster, so we dod a trifold poster on alligator gar. He was going to do a painting on canvas, but he decided to do his painting on the outside of the trifold which I though was a pretty good idea. He wrote his report on paper, but I did help him type and print it some, then we glued it to the poster. It seems each year they are able to be a little more independent.

It was really hard for both Brian and I not to take over, and it would have been so easy for us to take over, but I really want these kids to grow up to be self motivated. I've also been helping the kids with UIL. At dinner the other night, Tony said "mom I am so glad that you tricked me into doing UIL. Ahhh, words every mom wants to hear, lol. But I told him that he WILL do one event a year, and that if he doesn't pick it I will. He thought he was being sly by telling me that his grade hadn't had any sign ups, and then come do find out they did and he "forgot" to sign up. So, I emailed the teacher and told him that he forgot and she gave him the study materials. Sir Tony got 1st place in Music memory. He will also get a team medal for 2nd place team. While I may have to make Tony participate, I have to reel Angie in a little. I told her three events MAX. So she picked her three, but then she had to resign from oral reading because the changed the event schedule and it conflicted with art. So, she got third in music memory, along with a team 1st, and first in art, along with a team 1st.

Aiden had a program at Tuesday school yesterday. It was interesting to see him with the other kids. He is alot smaller than everyone else in his class, and he may be the youngest. They separated him and Audrey and there was already another Aiden in her class. His teachers are very complimentary of him every week. I've heard that he's very smart and sweet, but his size isn't the only thing that reminds me of Tony. Aiden doesn't really like the other kids that much.

One of Aiden's Tuesday school teachers has been volunteering at the school and reading with Zachary. Man he has really turned a corner the last couple of weeks. I have been pulling teeth with him for over a year getting him to learn sounds and sight words. But, all of a sudden, he's READING!!! Not only that, he is starting to like it. He's also writing more and he will ask me how to spell words. And, without even realizing it, he's teaching Aiden.

Angies voice lessons are going well. She is learning to read music and seems to be really enjoying it. We went to our first Opera as a family. It was titled "the Emperor's New Clothes". It was kid friendly, and her voice teacher had the lead. Angie really liked it, but I was really surprised at how much Emi liked it. I also felt alot better about her choice to stop taking dance when her dance teacher didn't even recognize her, but the dean of the pre college music department came up and hugged her and told her that she was glad she came. Then last weekend, Angie sang at the mall in a Christmas concert. She sang mele kalikimaka. Lol. But she did very well and was very brave to stand up there alone and sing. We were really proud.