Alexander and Glenn's Accomplishments

First, let's start with Glenn since I forgot to mention something last post. For the month of February, he was the student of the month in his class. You may remember that he was student of the month ever year at his old school for being caring. Well, that was the trait they were acknowledging in February. It's good to know that he shows this trait in the classroom! We're very proud of him.

Glenn had been having difficulty with his spelling tests. Come to find out, they are at the end of the day, so that may have been part of it (no one wants to think at the end of the day!). Well, we have been practicing the words playing a game, and he got a 100%! We celebrated by going out to get frozen yogurt. I haven't found out what he got this past week, but I'm sure he did well.

And Glenn's third accomplishment to mention is that he lost a tooth today. He was eating apples and carrots all day trying to get it out and it happened this afternoon. We had a bit of a fiasco tonight when he went to bed and couldn't remember where he put his tooth (I had put it in a ziplock bag on his desk, but he decided to play with it). Bob finally found it in Alexander's room (don't ask) and Glenn put it under his pillow. Then he told his dad, "No music in my room tonight. It might make the tooth fairy dance!" I was laughing so hard when Bob told me what Glenn said. We wouldn't want the tooth fairy to dance (not sure why)!

Alexander's school had their spring program this week. In the pictures below, all the kids are three or four years old. We have been practicing the songs and hand motions for weeks. He did awesome! He did almost fall off the stands a couple times, but caught himself. The first picture below is from "Row, row, row your boat." During the part that begins, "Merrily, merrily, merrily..." they put their hands on their cheeks like this. It was cute. I can't remember the song that the second picture was fun. But he knew all the words to the songs and the hand motions.

 

 

Gardening, design, and the kids...

I know, I know... It's been a whole month since my last post. But there's a reason for that- we are just so busy! Here's proof:

I've been setting up my vegetable garden. The former home owners left more pavers than we know what to do with. So, I decided to use some for a garden. You can see in the picture below that I will have three squares. And then I will have pavers around it up to the retaining wall. And it'll be pretty, too (I hope). I'm putting chives around the border of one square, marigolds around another (keeps out the aphids) and some little purple flowers (just picked up some seeds tonight) for the third square. I have it all planned out and will be growing most of the vegetables from seed. I think the only plants I'm buying are strawberries, tomatoes (who really needs a whole seed pack of tomato seeds?!?!) and dill (never have had luck growing dill from seed). I have four pots in the pool area with other herbs and am going to grow more herbs in hanging planters in the FL room. I love having fresh herbs for cooking.

 

(and yes, that light outside is not straight... it's on the list)

I've been decorating the house. I told Bob that I wanted to be able to decorate the house for my birthday and not to buy me anything. He was of course okay with that. So, I got started early. We have all laminate floors in the house, so I finally got a rug for the living room and Alexander's room. I had been wanting to get rid of the ugly gold vertical blinds in the dining area, and finally did. I actually got these curtains free through credit card rewards. They have a shimmer to them and the branches are silver:

 

Here's a cute picture of Alexander sleeping. I take so many pictures of him sleeping that I might have to make a photo album of just sleeping pictures:

 

Glenn created a poster for a county wide contest on how to attract butterflies to the home landscape. We did the research together. He decided what butterflies we were going to focus on (because the caterpillars and butterflies like different plants depending on the species). He chose three species and he chose a picture of the caterpillar and butterfly for each species. Then we found pictures of plants they like in my seed catalog. Of course, I came up with the explanation of what plants the caterpillars like and butterflies like. I didn't hear anything about the contest. I actually asked Glenn about it this week and he said he and a classmate had to bring their posters to the office because they were the best in the class. So, I was excited about that. The winners were to be displayed at the county's Master Gardener Spring Festival.

Well, we went to the festival today (because I wanted to get more gardening information about gardening in FL and just to see all the plants for sale). We walked in and the first thing we saw were the posters from the contest. Glenn didn't win, but he was one of about ten in his age category chosen to be displayed. His was the most research oriented poster because I followed the standards for research posters shown at conferences. The others were pictures of landscapes (I guess that would have worked, too). His classmate's was also chosen, so I was excited for her, too. Here he is next to his poster (sorry it's not clear, but I didn't bring my regular camera, just my camera phone. Had I known it was going to be there, I would have brought my camera).

 

And we finally swam in the pool today. Bob has been itching to turn on the heater, and I finally said yes. We all loved it!