Flights Are Booked!

Grammy and Grampy are coming to Charlotte for Thanksgiving and we can't wait!!!!!!

Amelia's School Pics

Unlike last year she actually smiled, somewhat tentatively :-P

Double Fisted

(With lizards that is.)

Mid Quarter Grades

After some technical difficulties I was finally able to log on to check out Charlie's mid quarter grades, the first actual grades (ok well they're not ACTUAL grades yet) of his academic career. So far he has an "A" in English Language Arts, an "A" in Science, an "A" in Social Studies and a "B" in Math. The "B" is a high B (a 92) so I have hope that we might be able to bring it up to an "A" as long as Charlie does well on the math test he has on Thursday. 

So awesome job Charlie!! Your mother didn't get those kind of grades till, well, never :-P

Weekend Wrap Up

We had a low key but fun weekend -- Friday night I traded in my iPhone 5 for an iPhone 6, which would be super except that I apparently had not been backing up my photos to iCloud so I lost all of them, and who knows what happened to my music because I have less than half of that :-(

Saturday we spent the day mostly doing errands: we went to the mall and bought Mike some new clothes for work (new job starts Wednesday!) and then Mike did the grocery shopping and brought home Chinese food. 

Sunday the kids basically spent the entire day outside (well Charlie spent a large portion of the afternoon at Mandy's learning how to make rainbow loom bracelets) and I was able to get laundry done, make chicken & asparagus & black bean enchiladas and sugar cookie ice cream sandwiches with banana pudding ice cream inside, and generally just got to relax. 

I am definitely getting used to this not-working-on-the-weekend thing!!

Reptiles

Charlie found lots of critters out and about today, possibly having been disturbed after Mike mowed the lawn this morning:

Needless to say Charlie was in his glory. 

A Reprisal Of The Chocolate Covered Raisin Incident

Remember a year or so ago when Amelia stuck a chocolate covered raisin up her nose? We got a repeat performance today, when the director of her daycare called to inform us that Amelia had gotten a bead stuck up her nose, and could we please come pick her up. 

Amelia claims that she did not intentionally stick this bead up her nose. She says that she was holding the bead between her thumb and forefinger and that she gave it a little squeeze and pop! The bead flew into the air and landed smack dab up her right nostril. I told Amelia that if this is actually what happened I'd be taking her out to buy lottery tickets tonight!

So seeing as we don't have health insurance until Wednesday and the bead was *right there* visible not all that far up her nostril but just not coming out when she blew her nose, Mike took her over to me at work to see if we could take a crack at getting it out there before he took her to urgent care. 

At work the doctor and nurse practitioner on staff were all too happy to come at her with a pair of alligator forceps and a lot of "bless her heart!"s (because we are in the south after all) at which point Amelia started crying and the bead promptly came out in a big glob of snot :-)

Here she is enjoying lunch at Panera after her ordeal, which hopefully (??) will be the last such incident of her childhood!

Studying...

For his first social studies test. The three branches of government? Checks and balances? Responsibilities of a citizen? Do we have it all down...? We'll see...

Sous Chef

Girls' Night Out

At Cantina 1511. The mango margaritas are soooo good!

Still Summer In Charlotte

My New Ride!

Birthday Party

Amelia went to Rebecca's 7th birthday party this evening -- a sleep over minus the actual sleeping over in Amelia's case. But she had fun having pizza and cake, playing bingo, painting a bobble head dog and watching 1/4 of The Lion King before she was ready to head home for bed. 

Here are a couple pictures:

Skink In A Cage

(But only briefly, before it escaped. )

Celebratory Dinner!!

Mike landed a job as a data analyst with Bank of America today!! He starts September 29th! We had celebratory dinner and drinks at Cowfish:

Congratulations, Mike!!! 

It's That Time of Year Again!!

Apple pie baking time!!

Breakfast Of Champions

You rock that BOG literacy test this morning, Charlie!

Two Girls, Three Bee Stings -- Ouch!!

Amelia and Rebecca were playing on Mandy's front porch when they somehow managed to get stung -- Amelia twice in the hand and Rebecca once on the arm. Let me tell you -- 2 girls with bee stings = a lot of screaming!! I had to actually chase Rebecca up the street and bodily carry her into the house & Amelia's screams I'm sure were heard by everyone on the block. Poor kiddos! But of course I couldn't resist getting a picture :-P

Monday Update

Other than going out to dinner Saturday night and the boys going out to watch the football game yesterday afternoon, we had a very quiet weekend. 

Amelia had stomach cramps and nausea all day Saturday and then stomach cramps and diarrhea all day Sunday so it looks like we didn't escape the stomach bug after all. So I kept her quiet for the weekend and cleaned and did lots of loads of laundry in an attempt to keep the germs at bay. 

Charlie played so much kick ball in the cul de sac over the weekend that he was literally limping and had bloody toes this morning, no joke. (But where was he again this afternoon after school? You guessed it. )

I had emailed Charlie's teacher Friday night to inquire as to how he has been doing so far in school and she emailed me back last night, saying that he is a very conscientious student, that he seems happy and well adjusted, and that based on the assessments they have done so far he seems well prepared for third grade. And speaking of assessments, he has his literacy BOG (Beginning of Grade test) on Thursday --  the standardized tests at Elizabeth Lane seem never ending. 

Today was Mike's official birthday, but it being a Monday and all we didn't do much in the way of celebrating (ok we didn't do anything.) He had an interview this morning which he should hear back about by Wednesday, so we are still hoping that his real birthday present will be a job!

First Football Game

Mike and Charlie went out with the Kaplan crew to watch the first Patriots and Eagles games this afternoon:

Early Birthday Dinner

I took Mike out to dinner tonight for an early birthday celebration. Mandy babysat and we went to Copper, a very yummy Indian restaurant. 

We came home to find Charlie still outside, playing the longest game of kickball in recorded history with his cousins and neighborhood kids. 

Amelia, however, has been decidedly under the weather all day and was camped out on our bed complaining that her stomach hurt, which was pretty much where we left her. Hoping she has a 24 hour bug that does not actually involve throwing up :-( 

Here's a selfie Mike and I took at the restaurant:

Curriculum Night

Today was Curriculum Night at Charlie's new school. It was very informative in many ways ;-) First I got to sit through my first PTA meeting where we were expected to scan and download the PTA budget and minutes onto our smartphones to follow along with the meeting  because, well, who doesn't have smartphones? Or the scanning app that I am apparently supposed to have on my phone...? I looked over Mandy's shoulder and discovered that the 6 figure annual budget for the Elizabeth Lane PTA is approximately 20 times what the PTA budget at Charlie's old school was. This means that the third graders have iPads and the fourth graders have laptops, with more of both to come. 

After the forced PTA meeting I got to go to Charlie's classroom and listen to his home room/science/math teacher and his literacy/social studies teacher expound upon the third grade curriculum. Which it turns out, is awfully extensive and includes science content on the scientific method, mass, energy, forces in motion & the solar system, social studies content on citizenship & government, civilization through time, etc ., cursive writing( which they do NOT teach in Quincy) and of course he'll be doing multiplication and division this year in math. This is all in contradiction to what Charlie tells me, who routinely answers "Nothing!" when I asked what he learned in school today...

Things That Live On Our Porch

That make Charlie very happy. 

Mac's Speed Shop

We dropped Heather & Matt off at the airport via Mac 's Speed Shop where we enjoyed some authentic North Carolina BBQ. Even the kids enjoyed themselves -- Amelia particularly liked her "plain Jane" chicken wings. (Plain Jane, that's Amelia's taste buds!) And Charlie , it turns out, is a big fan of southern banana pudding :-)