Playing Dress up

Elaine was playing dress up, calling herself "Princess Elaine". 

Allan did his duty as a little brother, teasing her, calling her "Princess Peach". 

She hit him with her purse.

 

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Cut the the first two out last night and the last one this morning. Miss Tina is gonna laminate them so we can use them over and over for the church nursery bulletin board. :)

they are supposed to look like these guys:

Happy 9th Anniversary, Baby! :)

 

We enjoyed the dinner and tournament at Medieval Times.

 Codi & Jenna watched the kids, so we could go out childless. Jimmy cheered loudly for the dualing knights, like he was yelling at a pro-wrestling match!! We were on the red knight's team. Jim had LOTS of fun. We both like the dinner: Dragon's Blood (Tomato Bisque), Dragon Scales (Garlic bread), Dragon Toes (a single pork rib... which Jimmy didn't eat), Dragon Eggs (Roasted potatoes) & an apple turnover... we can't remember what the Serf, aka waiter, nicknamed the dessert.

Rick update:

My friend/boss' tumors have stayed the same size for a while now. So everyone thought his current treatments were working. Rick had another body scan last week. His last one was in April. In 4 months the tumor in his side has grown more than 25%. They are changing his "medicine" (what he calls his chemo, as to not alarm people). We are hoping his next medicine stops the tumors from growing any further. As always, please keep praying for my friend and his wife.

First Day at Robert E. Lee elementary

Allan wasn't feeling well, so I didn't make them take lots of pictures. He and I have been fighting a cough for about a week. 

Today (Tuesday) we got him dressed for school, made his sack-lunch and Jim was loading him in the van when he noticed Allan felt really hot. He stayed home with me. It turned out to be a good thing, since during the day he both threw up and had diarrhea symptoms. We walked to the school to get Elaine and picked up the registration packets for the Extended School Day program. The packets have to be turned in, with payment, at the district's Extended School Day office, which was having some sort of teacher-in service day today. I got them on the phone. They said they have space in the program for both my kids! :) They just weren't taking registration packets today. Jim is gonna turn in the paperwork on Friday.

Switching Elementary Schools, reluctantly.

Jimmy left work early and got the kids registered at Hodge elementary last Monday, the same school they've always attended. He even completed transfer paperwork, because technically since we moved last September out of Hodge's attendance zone, they've been attending the school as transfer students. We had the principal's blessings for our kids to return and everyone was geared up to attend meet-the-teacher night that coming Friday night.

Well, Friday morning Jim got a call from Hodge, letting us know that the school district denied Hodge ALL their transfer-requests (besides 5th graders). The Friday before school was gonna begin, we learned our kids would be attending a different school altogether, closer to our rent-house. Jim talked to our principal, who doesn't want to let our advanced kids slip outta her hands! But nothing can really be done. She said that in a few weeks she may have been able to get the kids transfered back, but we wouldn't want to do that in the middle of a semester.

Also, when Jim went to the school district's transportation (school bus) office he received more bad news. If we ever did get the kids switched back to Hodge, the school buses would no longer be a part of driving the kids to their after-school babysitter, Wendy. We've always been honest that wasn't our neighborhood the kids were being bussed to, but now it seems to actually matter that it's not our residence. So, even if we got the kids back going to Hodge, we still wouldn't be able to keep the same after-school babysitter. Not having to change babysitters was one of the reasons we didn't want the kids to change school's last September. Wendy is Elaine's girl scout leader, so that was very convenient.

The worse news Jim got from the transportation office is a little more ridiculous. The kids' new elementary is Robert E. Lee elementary. The school's attendance zone is all less than 2 miles out from the school in any given direction. With that said, they only have to provide buses to students who live more than 2 miles from the school. Think about it!  No school buses AT ALL provide service to Lee elementary.  All their students are either picked up by parents or go on a kindercare bus (etc.). With having only the weekend to plan, we've had to scramble together a plan for how to get the kids picked up from school and supervised until Jimmy can get home. Today my co-worker, Emily, picked up the kids.

My goal is to get the kids enrolled in the 'extended school day' program that is held at each Elementary school in Denton county. If there is space for both kids in the program, the kids would just stay at their school having homework time, activities and sports time until Jim had to pick them up at 6pm. It sounds like they wouldn't be as shuffled around, if I can get this set up tomorrow when I'm off from work. I"m praying they have room to take two more kids in the program. I'm also praying that there aren't huge late-registration fees.... but we couldn't have planned ahead since we thought the kids would be attending a different school this year.

Codi's Surprise 21st Birthday Party

Coco and Gucci before the party started. We spent the day setting up... wore Gucci out!

Emily

She came home from work... S U R P R I S E!!!!  ...now go change your clothes because you're not dressed for a party.

Coco's doggie, Gucci

Codi with her present from Regina

 Jenna

Ashley    Emily    Codi

Miss Liss

Modeling her Birthday Tiara... Jenna is making Codi wear that to the Rangers game Wednesday.

Codi   Liss

Codi & her "best-gay-friend" Garvis

Cody *very surprised* by Garvis

Elaine's keyboard: Day One Aug16th

A babysitter gave Elaine this keyboard like 3 years ago and we never opened it up. Whenever we thought about it, it either seemed like a large noise-creator, brother-instigator, or bedroom clutter-creator. Anyways, we opened it up for Elaine last Tuesday, August 16th.

I was home from work, so I printed sheet music for 5 or so songs of off the internet. I told her what little I remember about how to read sheet music (from being in 4th grade choir) and I used my label-maker to label the keys on her keyboard. 

She spent some time writing in the piano keys on the sheet music.

She practiced for a while. She wanted to play the songs without using the sheet music, because she thought using sheet music is "Cheating". I told her it isn't, but she still would rather play without the sheet music.

This is a video of her playing the first day...

The next day, by the time I was home from work, Elaine could play 'Ode to Joy' with her eyes closed.

Pics the babysitter took playing with the kids

this day they played with a curling iron.

Elaine went to Summer Camp

Elaine left for summer camp in Oklahoma last Saturday. She just got back tonight. The camp she went to had horseback-riding, a water-park and pool, canoeing, a lake to swim in, and worship services.

Elaine!

Worship leaders

Girls waiting to ride horses.

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While she was gone, we took Allan to see 'Captain America' at a movie theater, because he is very into the Avengers right now. He watches the Avengers cartoon all the time!