Acorns!! For you, Annamarie!

We had such a great time in Julien, the kids wanted a souvenier! So rather than spend money, they gathered Acorns! Just the bottoms mind you, there were tops but they were not as nice as the bottoms! The kids literally polished them until they shone! So for our dining room table I made a candle arrangement with the acorns the kids gathered and polished. Annamarie has such neat ideas for seasonal decorations! Steve does too! They decorate their house so beautifully! I am inspired! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Let's all do the Cockatoo!

Ok, maybe not. But Kaleigh sure had fun!
This bird sure liked Kaleigh! The owner of the bird said that Cockatoos rarely speak unless they are with someone they are truly comfortable with or just plain like A LOT! He said this is the first time he has seen this bird talk to a person other than himself! The bird really just said "Hello" but we all heard it and it was pretty cool! Usually they just squawk like this!

A Wonderful Weekend!

Ok, I never quite know where the photos will fall on my blog, so I will try to go in order. We went down to visit with Steve and Annamarie and family down south and had a relaxing, fun, wonderful time! The adults got along, the kids got along and the visit (in my humble opinion) was a huge success! The top photo is our time at the park with the cockateels and the parrot.

More on that later, video to follow... Then the next photo down would be the last day when Carl was able to go with Steve on a cool helicopter ride and training session! I think he had a blast!

The kids and I got to see the helicopter too (before we left for home). The next photo down was the delicious meal that Annamarie prepared for us, that we all enjoyed! It was heaven having someone cook, who does it so well and enjoys it! I truly enjoyed doing nothing but enjoy! Oh wait I did "chop" some lettuce...heehee. Then the last photo is of all of our kids at Vieja Mall. It was fun and they just got up on the rock like that! Gee you think these kids have their photos taken much? All around good time! Thank you so much Annamarie and Steve! And thank you Mckenna for watching the kids and letting the grown ups visit a while!

Ashes, Ashes, we're all OK!

Ok, so there is a fire near us...kind of. I mean if you are looking at a map of the Yorba Linda/Brea area, yes, we are pretty close to the Brea fire. It would take us all of 5 minutes to drive up into the fire. However, that is up on the hill where all the brush is and we are a bunch of houses, businesses and a large Hwy away from it. So we are all ok, no sign of any evacuation orders and mostly everything has been north of us moving east and north. Yes, the 57 fwy is closed as is the 91 fwy. Things are looking worse for our school then our residence. We are waiting to see if anyone from the school will be calling to say not to come to work or the kids to school. There is an area about a mile from the school that has been evacuated so.... who knows.

Kaleigh did get home safely from her camp out at Lake Arrowhead so that is all good. The air quality is something different. It is smokey and stinky and we are not thrilled with all the ash that has fallen on our cars, and everything else! As you can see by the photos there was a lot of ash that blew our way. The last photo was of the Yorba Linda fire when I was on my way home from our Silent Auction at our Church. Needless to say our Auction was not too well attended because of the fires. We still did pretty good though. So no worries, at least so far.

Kaleigh's first "Real" Girl Scout Outing...
Well, it has happened, Girl Scouts has dealt a blow we weren't prepared for. The first camp out with her troop is this weekend, today, tomorrow and coming home on Sunday. Not real close by either. Lake Arrowhead. I was going to go until I found out when it was! The same weekend as my Silent Auction at our Church! Well, as some of you know (mainly Tina), I started this Annual Silent Auction about 12 years ago, it was my baby and it has done really well in the years past. I Emcee it, I run it and it would most likely not go as well without me. It is tomorrow. Well, I know that Girl Scout stuff like this doesn't come about every month, so I really wanted Kaleigh to make her own mind up about it. She didn't really want to go without me, but she knew if she didn't go, she would hear about how fun it was from all her friends! Plus her best friend would have been upset. Well, I left it up to her and she had a few tears over it, since she was truly undecided for a long while! She finally decided it was better to try and possibly get a little homesick then to not go and be horribly disappointed because how fun everyone will make it out to be (even if it isn't that great, her friends will make her think it was, don't ask me why, must be a 9-10yr old thing). So she is at this moment up at Lake Arrowhead, in most likely a gorgeous cabin, having a great ol time. I told her she was more than welcome to call me and talk to me if she missed me but so far everything is good. We will see a little closer to bed time whether or not she is handling it well. More on this later.... I miss her though....sniff.

Pumpkins-Real vs. Fake

For the last couple of years I have carved fake pumpkins that I purchased very cheaply at Michael's. They are a resin or plastic of some sort and last forever! The only problem is that they are so hard to carve that you cannot do a lot of detail work unless you have wood carving tools! The normal pumpkin carving tools are too wimpy and will break if you are not careful. So the kids do not carve any part of the pumpkin, but they do design them. Last year, Kaleigh drew her face on and I carved it, and Cole basically just told me how to make the face. Then this year they just told me what they wanted.

The photo with the three pumpkins are the ones from last year. You have the cute surprised face, the cute baby face and the mean ol' face.

In the other photo are the pumpkins from this year. Kaleigh's butler-faced pumpkin (on the body of the skeleton) and Cole's Spongebob teethed pumpkin. They had fun coming up with the designs and we get a lot of compliments. Next year I may have to get at least one real one that Kaleigh can try carving!
Oh and sorry it is daylight, this was taken Nov 1st before they were put away!

From a friend in Washington....State that is...
(She sent this via email and I choose to pass it along...it made me smile : )

A creative approach to redistribution of wealth as offered in a local newspaper .....

Today on my way to lunch, I passed a homelss guy with a sign that read "Vote Obama,I need the money," I laughed.
Once in the restaurant, my waiter had on an "Obama 08" tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference.
Just imagine that when the bill came, I decided not to tip the waiter and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need, the homeless guy outside. The waiter angily stormed from my sight in a huff.
I went outside, gave the homeless guy the $10 tip, and told him to thank the waiter inside as I had decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was really grateful.
At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homelss guy was grateful for the money he did NOT earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money that he DID earn even though I decided the homeless guy needed it more.
I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

Fun with Fog and an "Airzooka"!

So this years Cookie Dough and Magazine drive was not as successful as past years, at least not for my kids. They didn't work as hard and so their prizes were not as huge. A few years ago, Kaleigh received a fog machine as one of her prizes and we have had a lot of fun using it each year at Halloween! Well, this year both kids earned various prizes, the best (in all of our opinions) was the Airzooka! So tonight Carl and I went out in the backyard with the kids and played. It was fun! Carl made fog rings as you can see in the photos! The kids did too, but I wasn't able to catch one of theirs since they move too fast! Carl did it a little slower so I was able to catch them! Cool, huh?

Mickey's Trick or Treat at California Adventure!
A fun time was had by all! Wow, this night was crowded! We have gone in the past and usually on a Thursday night (Fridays were always sold out), so it wasn't usually too crowded, but that was not the case this night! Whew! We were fighting crowds a lot of the time! We still had a really good time though and would do it again! As you can see, Kaleigh was a Mime and Cole was a dalmation "Lucky" from 101 Dalmations. Joshua is their friend, who was a storm trooper. I had some fun marking up his costume. Mom didn't want to buy the costume, (he is a big boy and would need an adult small, which was really hard to find, much less expensive!) so she asked me if I could draw something on a shirt to look somewhat like a storm trooper. I said I could try. You can't see it much in the photo but it turned out ok. There were even some people that asked my friend where she got the costume! They were impressed! Yay! Made me feel good when he got a compliment! Kaleigh acted her part swimmingly! She barely said 3 words all night! It was fun and they enjoyed trick or treating as well as going on some of the rides. We even got to go on the new one, "Midway Toy Story Mania", it was fun! Now onto Halloween!

Sink and "F"loat - Science for 4 year olds.

So our science in my class tends to be simple enough for four year olds, for obvious reasons! We do science once a week and it coincides with the letter of the alphabet for that week. Yesterday was the letter "F". We had a lot of fun with finding out what things sink and what things float! I am amazed at the difference in children and their methods of deduction. I tried to start out by saying that if something has no air in it and is heavy it will sink, but there are things that look solid that have tiny air pockets in them etc etc. So, they knew that the sponge would float, but they had to be convinced that a rock (porous) would float. First we had a regular rock then I passed out the porous rock. It was very light, but some still were sure it would sink. It was a rock after all! We also had fun with a little boat (all believed it would float), then we added little plastic piggies into the boat. The question being, "how many piggies will fit in the boat, and how many will it take to sink the boat?" There were quite a few piggies in the boat before the weight of one side made it tip over and sink. It was a fun time!

Things are going better! Yay!

We are now a month into school and things in my class have calmed down quite a bit. I think my one ADHD child is figuring out that school time is a bit quieter than home time and that there will be things expected of him. He had a great day on Monday and Mom (and I was hoping she would) got him a special toy as a reward! So far the trend has continued. We are hoping it was a permanent turn and not just a couple of good days. He is by no means an exemplary student, he still talks out of turn and sometimes has trouble listening and doing, but nothing as disruptive as before. So at the end of the morning when all the children have gone, I don't feel like falling down and sleeping for the rest of the day! It is good.

Today we shared puzzles and they worked really nicely together!

So life at school is good!

My Class - September 2008 Well, here are my kids! There are 6 boys and 4 girls and they are a handful! I should have been more thankful of my class last year! Compared to these guys, last year was a dream class! Now don't get me wrong, they aren't bad kids, just really loud and active! I would say there is the one who is ADHD and is really giving me a hard time during certain parts of our day, and there are a couple that just don' t like to listen. We are working on it but man, what a group! I have a few, however, that are my helpers, they help put things away and are always wanting to please! Kind of how my sisters and I were at that age! Well, maybe not all of us! But most of the time things are going smoothly, but for one, listening and cleaning up toys is the worst part of the day and it just doesn't happen. Nothing seems to work either! I am getting to the point where everyone else is getting a treat for clean up except this kid! But we are moving forward.... not always a lot of help from those higher up. The director came in today when I called, but too late to see the worst of it. So... maybe another day! But they are all sweet kids, they are mostly kind to each other and some are pretty sensitive! Not a mean bone in their bodies so I guess I should count myself lucky after all!

We are Starting to "Become"!
Yeah, I know, it sounds like something from a science fiction movie! I have always been a bit negative about the moms that enroll their children in a million activities, they never have time to relax at home! I have found that my kids did best doing stuff at home like I did as a kid. My mom never sent us off to summer camp, nor did we have 5 or 6 extra curricular activities after school! Well, we have been skating on the edge of "doing things" for a while and this year Kaleigh decided she wanted to try dance. So we signed her up for a dance class. Just 4 weeks, once a week. Just to try it out. Cole is still in swimming lessons (not his choice, but hey we live in California!), and since Kaleigh had said she didn't want to do lessons anymore that was fine. Then Kaleigh decided she would like to swim, but not on a swim team. Well at the swim school they go to they have Pre-competitive swimming (just basically polishing up your strokes and your stamina) and she was encouraged by her old swim teacher to join. Kaleigh loves swimming so she asked if she could. I said sure! I loved swimming too and she is a natural! So then we found out that Cole's swim lessons are Mondays, Kaleigh would be swimming Mondays and Wednesdays. Ok so now Kaleigh has MWF activites! Plus she is also in Girl Scouts which starts this Sunday! Ok, that is more than we have ever had before! Cole is still just in swimming, but has showed an interest in Baseball, which will begin in January (I think). So the kids are finally coming up with some things that they would like to do, and I am happy, although it does mean we are "becoming" more like the other families (not a bad thing, as long as we don't overdo it. For example Kaleigh wanted to get into Choir too but I think that was because her two best friends were doing it. That would have been every TU/TH afternoon. I said no. Too much and not enough time for school work.
There is enough of that to give me a headache!

Oopsie!

Well, you learn something new every day! I found out um...yesterday, that unless you have a current TB test, you can't even go into your classroom! So my TB test expired in July (I did one 4 years ago) and I waited until the last minute to do it (needles ick), and then when I DID do it, I totally forgot about going in after two days for them to check it! Grrrr....I mean it was my fault no question and you do not know how I am beating myself up about that! But then I was told...again, yesterday, that it is illegal for me to work as a teacher without the current test on record. Well, no one told me how urgent it was....I know I know, duh on my part but still you think they would have been a little more on top of things! Anyway, so here I am, on a Friday sitting here while someone else teaches my second day of school....sigh....I think I need to get some serious help with my memory! I did invest in a small day planner, and yes, I have tried that before and I do well for the first few months then I don't do anymore. Well, I think I may have to try a little harder, seeing as how bad my memory has gotten! For some reason faces, names and places are no problem, but it is the appointment dates and times that I seem to have trouble with. Especially now that Kaleigh is taking Jazz, Cole has swim lessons and so on. So those of you who read my blog are my witnesses! I will keep my day planner up to date!!! I am even using it to try and put together a budget! Tina used to do this....she would write down everything she bought, which store, how much, etc. So that is my plan as well. I am going to try to remember at the beginning of each week, to write down all the things that are neccessary for that week and any other dates that need to be put in my calendar. I will do this on Sunday when I have a quiet moment to myself. Ok, that being said, I now need to go shopping to get Kaleigh her poptarts that I forgot to get when I was at the store yesterday!!!

The Challenge....part 2

So, first day of school was yesterday. 9 of the kids in my class are great! They get along ok, they are pretty much a really neat group of kids. The tenth child is sweet but not so easy to handle. I will call him Bud. Bud doesn't like to sit for crafts, he will get up and go to the toys. I pulled him aside and really talked to him. I told him we would get along great, but he really needs to listen and obey his teacher. He is very flighty too, almost ran out of the room at the beginning of the day. Luckily mom was still there and she brought him back into the room. Once the kids were all there, I closed the door. He pretty much refused to do the "ME" picture, where the kids just do the best they can to draw a picture of themselves. Usually, I end up with quite a few scribbles and some pretty good stick figures. He did nothing. Then when we were coming back from the playground he wanted to be first so he pushed ahead and shoved a little girl down. She was ok, but I had to talk to him again. This is definitely a case where it would be beneficial to have an aide. We don't do that at our school however, so I wonder why a parent would even want them at our school. It does make it difficult to teach the whole class, when there is one that is so disruptive. The other parents expect a lot due to the fact they are paying quite a bit for this school. It isn't fair to them to have less than 100% quality teaching. I am going to be documenting all the problems for the mom and for my director. Mom was kind enough to pull him out of school last year, maybe she can do it again! He just won't get the individualized attention he needs and the others need to be able to learn! If he stays I will have to learn to let him wander a bit, because no matter how or how many times I tell him, he doesn't listen. I don't think he can do some of the things like sitting and looking at a book. He is too antsy. Ah well....
If you all have any thoughts on the matter feel free to comment.

The Challenge Begins

Here we go again.
The last few years have been very rewarding, I have taught preschool now for two years and this is my third. I am teaching 4 year olds again but this time I have 3 days a week instead of 2. I am glad because I can fit more in.
Now I am a worrier and I am always nervous on "Meet the Teacher" day. I met my students yesterday and found out that I will be having another challenging student. The first year I started out with a little boy with speech delay (I thought it was a lot more than that but...) who left after October because I told mom how disruptive he was (pulling papers out of cubbies and walking around the room tearing any paper he could find) and he was replaced with a little girl who spoke no english! So that was my first year teaching, then last year I had another challenge.
A little girl who seemed to me to be somewhat mentally challenged in that she has a hard time following instructions and could not answer simple questions with anything that made sense. For example if I asked, "What is your favorite thing to do at school?", she would say, "My mommy is going to get her hair cut!" There seemed to be a connection missing there. This year I will have a little boy that has been diagnosed ADHD. I am not an expert so I don't really know how to deal with him. I am hoping (since mom pulled him out last year because he couldn't handle it) that he has grown enough for this to work. Mom is very willing to work with me so that is good. Better than her being in denial. He apparently was adopted and is a drug baby, so the problems started there. So I am praying that this year I will be able to step up and do a good job for these kids and their parents! Wish me Luck!

Legoland Monday!

After a great nights sleep at Steve and Annamarie's cabin, we headed for Legoland! The weather was pretty nice and the kids had a great time! We did meet up a couple times with Vince, Kelly and the boys and did some things with them like the Driving School and they also introduced us to the cool 4D movie! We hadn't seen any of those before! Thanks for that!

Cole's highlight was going on the newest rollercoaster, "Technic Test Track" It was pretty high and pretty steep drops and at first he didn't want to go on, but Dad was very encouraging so he did it and loved it! Kaleigh said no to that but for the first time went on the Dragon rollercoaster. It is definitely more tame than the Technic but it was still more than she had done before! They both went on the trackless rollercoaster, "Knights Tournament" and I took photos. That was toward the end of the day and I had a bit of a headache, so Carl swapped out with them and they both did level 2! I was very proud of them for trying new rides! The photos are of the kids in the stockade, Mom and Dad in the stockade, Kaleigh on the Aquazone ride and Kaleigh and Cole with SpongeBob! It was a really nice day but at the end of the day we were all pooped! As you can see in the first photo, which was of course the last taken, we are beat! But a great time!

A Big Thank You!!!

On behalf of my family as well as for most everyone that attended, a big thank you is in order! I know some have already blogged a thank you but I thought it needed to be said again! We all had such a great time and that was due to the planning and inspiration of Steve and Annamarie!

I also want to thank McKenna, Lauren and Patrick for their hospitality as well, they made it really fun for the kids! Another thank you goes out to Robert and Celeste for making the shirts and doing the Geocache stuff! Thank you also to Diana and Hayley for watching over the littler kids too! I think we all enjoyed this trip, and would like to do this again sometime! With all of the address swapping and Christmas card promises, I hope we can all keep in touch!

Thank You Renee!!! So while down south for the reunion, Tina, Diana, Kaligh and I drove into the city to drop off Leonie at the airport. Before we needed to go there we stopped at Horton Plaza to do a little shopping. We also ran into Renee and her beau Justin! While we were looking in the GameStop store, I told Nae about the kids love of Lego Star Wars and that they were saving their money to get the Indiana Jones game. Renee decided it would be a good idea to get Kaleigh and Cole an early birthday present and proceeded to purchase said game!!! So a Big Gigantic THANK YOU!!!!!! The kids are already playing it and I had to cut them off at 4 hours!! It was good seeing you Renee and nice meeting Justin!!!

Getting Ready!

Ok, so we are getting ready for our trip down south and are working to get all the laundry done, and pack and make sure we have space for the Kiester clan to land and sleep! I don't think it will be any problem, we have the room and lots of things to pile up to make it nice and comfy. I am working on moving a coffee table to make more room so there isn't any weird configurations needed! Kaleigh and Cole are having a watch as much Spongebob, Fairly Odd parents and other Nick toons as you want day. I know it isn't great, so sue me! Just an expression people! They did go over to Aunt Helen's for about 2 hours and just played their little hearts out and soon they will get bored, and I will send them outside once the air cools off. Maybe they will go outside and play in their moonsand, who knows. It was just kind of a lazy day. Something that most people don't really recognize anymore! I am happy to say I don't feel the least bit guilty either!!! I know I usually do if I know that something really needs to get done, but today isn't like that at all and it feels great!

The kids are pretty happy too!