It has been a super busy week, full of conferences, soccer practices & soccer games, band practices & performances and some appointments, but it has been a good week.
Monday, November 7th
Ashley had the lesson for family home evening. She has done lesson before, with my help…but this time she did it all on her own. She taught a lesson on thankfulness. Each of us were given a paper leaf to write down something we are thankful for. These were what the seven leaves say:
- Playing soccer
- Daddy-Daughter dates
- Mommy
- Opportunities of life
- Temples & eternal families
- Jesus Christ
- David cause he’s so cute.
It was kind of interesting to see what each person said. Each week on Monday we are all going to add new leaf. It will be fun to see what will be written down next week. Ashley did a great job! She brought home the tree and the leaves from activity days the week before.
Tuesday, November 8th
This week is conference week at school, so the kids have had 1/2 days all week. All of the conferences went well.
- Carlos had all A’s, B’s and one C. The C was in Algebra 2. He made plans with his teacher at conferences to retake a quiz. So hopefully that will help bring his grade up. On thing I have to commend Carlos on, is that he is a very hard worker when it comes to school and his grades, when he could easily give up. He has an IEP (individualized education plan) for writing, reading and math. He is below grade level in these areas and he has chooses to be in general education classes. His U.S. History teacher told me that he is doing great and keeping up. He has not had to use any accommodations with Carlos. Other teachers’ comments about Carlos were that he is organized, polite and motivated.
- Jose – 3 A’s and 3 B’s. Lots of nice and positive comments from his teachers. World History teacher was super happy with Jose’s straight A’s on his tests so far. He says Jose puts in a lot of effort. When I talked with Jose’s band teacher, I asked her if he had been giving her any trouble. I ask this because Jose has a good sense of humor, likes to joke around and have fun. Sometimes, he just doesn’t know how to turn that off, or know when enough is enough. She told me I have nothing to worry about and that if she does have to ask him to stop, it is only once and he never pushes it. (*sigh of relief*) She said that he is very bright and is a good kid.
- Here is Ashley after we came home from her conference. It went well, she is a little ahead in reading. She reads 86 words correct per minute and the goal for her grade is 70. She is also in the highest level math class for her grade. (Math was always my hardest subject…..Go Ashley!) She does need to work on her spelling though. The hard part is that they don’t do spelling tests anymore. So that is something that we will be working on at home together.
- Emily….what can I say? I always worry about her being one of the youngest in her class. She just turned 5 in August. Her teacher says she is doing good, but that she is very shy.
On Tuesday night, my husband taught my son how to shave. I thought it was sooooo cute that little David was in the bathroom looking up at them curiously. Now when David is in the bathroom, he points to his chin because he wants to shave too. It will be a long time before my little guy will need to shave!
Thursday, November 10th
Today after school, I took the younger 3 kids to play in the fall leaves and we ended up doing a little fall photo shoot. (I will post pics from that in a separate post, since there are so many pictures!)
Then when we came home I put David down for his nap and I spent some time with Carlitos helping him with his homework. It is kind of nice when the kids get out of school early, there is more time to spend with them.
That evening, my husband and I took the younger 3 kids (Carlitos was at soccer practice) to the evening performance of the Veteran’s Day community concert. The concert is put on by the high school band, high school choir and middle school choir. Jose is in the front row on the right side of the teacher at the end of the row. This is my 2nd Veteran’s Day concert and this is becoming one of my favorite concerts of the year. The song that really left an impression on me this year was, the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” which was arranged by Peter J. Wilhousky. Here are the lyrics from the last verse:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!
While God is marching on.
I am thankful that children in our schools are still able to sing and play songs like these and I hope that never goes away.
Friday, November 11th ~ Veteran’s Day
Emily with her little flag. I asked her if I could take a picture of her with it and she posed like this all on her own.
Jose before the daytime showing of the Veteran’s Day community concert. (They did two shows).
Later that night, we ordered pizza and the boys had two of their friends over. We watched the U.S.A. vs. Mexico soccer game. We have people cheering for both teams at our house and the kids have players who play on both teams that they like as well. It was a fun night.
Saturday, November 12th
The boys were in a soccer tournament this weekend. The little ones enjoyed playing on the playground during the 2 soccer games. Luckily we were close enough to the playground, for me to be able to keep an eye on them!
The boys after their games. Both games ended in a tie. They were good sports. Now out to eat!
Carlos had been promising to take the girls on a daddy-daughter date. Emily has been looking forward to this all week…even though it might be hard to tell, because of the look on her face in this picture LOL! I think she was just getting tired. It was a long Saturday for these girls. They went to see the movie, Trolls. They were super happy when they got home and went straight to bed since it was almost 9 pm.:-)