Oklahoma State Fair

Way back in September we spent a day at the state fair. We had a great time seeing all the different animals. Max found a goat that he wanted to take home, Macy warmed up to a little pot bellied pig, Anya got to see her beloved Clydesdales, and Ally happily observed the "disgusting" animals from a distance. The animals and the exhibits are my favorite part of the fair, I would have gladly went home then, but A&A had to ride some carnie rides first. It's so trashy in the carnival part of the fair, but with that said this carnival had some really big & nice rides. Oh and I almost forgot, we also saw one of the weirdest circuses I'v ever seen! I can't even explain it lol! It was a fun and memorable day. :)

TDY

Josh left yesterday for Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, OH. He'll be TDY (temporary duty) for about a month. He's doing some training there for his new SGP job here at Tinker. He wasn't thrilled to go, he has already texted me saying he was bored! Before he left I went grocery shopping stocking up like the end of the world is near ;) I think we'll be fine, it will be good practice for the inevitable deployment I'm sure is coming at some point. :( I really do need to find a babysitter though, 5 hours a week without kids is not going to cut it!

Poster Contest

The PTO sponsored a poster contest during the book fair last week and Anya won! It was not promoted very well and not very many kids participated, but I'm still proud ;) We started the project Sunday night before the posters were due, and when we were finished I told Josh to just hit me over head if I ever started something like that one hour before bedtime again! The posters were an illustration of a favorite book. It was for all grades, and when I started it with Anya I kinda forgot that of course Ally would want to make one too! Anya's poster was about penguins, her long time favorite animal. Ally's was a super cute drawing of The Little Mermaid. Anya got to choose a book from the fair as her prize; she picked Kittens 3D. :)

Crockpot Cookoff

The PTO organized a crockpot dinner for the teachers during conferences last night. I brought Waikiki meatballs. Anyone that wanted too could sample the dishes and then vote on which one they liked best. Long story short, I won!! I was very surprised cause I made a couple of errors/short cuts making my meal ;) I even got a prize!
Here's the recipe...
Meatballs-
1 1/2 lbs ground beef (I used ground turkey)
2/3 c saltine cracker crumbs
1/3 c minced onion
1egg
1 1/2 ts salt
1/4 ts ginger
1/4 c milk ( I actually forgot this and my meatball were so dry lol)
1T shortening for frying (I baked mine)
Sauce-
2T corn starch
1/2c brown sugar
1/3 apple cider vinegar
1 can, 15 oz pineapple chunks(save juice)
1T soy sauce
1/3 c green peppers silvered

For the meatballs just mix everything together in a big bowl and shape into balls. Fry in shortening until brown or bake in oven at 350 for about 20 mins. Dump cooked meatballs into the crockpot and make sauce. Mix cornstarch, brown sugar, juice from pineapple, vinegar, and soy sauce together and heat on stove until sauce starts to thicken. (I actually skipped the stove part and just poured it directly into the crockpot after I mixed it) add pineapples and peppers to the meatballs already in the crockpot and cover with sauce. Stir everything together to coat with sauce and cook on low 3 to 4 hours. Serve over rice.

Parent Teacher Conferences

The short version...my kids are both brilliant ;) No really, they both had great PT conferences, and we are very proud! We didn't get an actual report card, but they are both testing at or above average in all areas. I was told that the girls are both well liked, very polite, and sweet. I'm so glad that they are happy here and they easily transitioned to a new school!

Ally excelled with her writing sample. The standard was to be able to draw a picture that represented the story that they read together in class. She was able to go beyond and complete the sentence using the correct sound for the first letter of each word! I was also able to talk to Ally's new speech teacher; she was very pleased with Ally's progress and said that most of her speech errors were now age appropriate. She also said she wouldn't have guessed Ally had Apraxia if she had not been told. There may a light at the end of the tunnel after all!

I was also glad but not surprised to hear that Anya is a super reader. She was tested at the beginning of the year, and is reading at a level greater than 80% of her peers nationwide. They also did correct words per minute test, the beginning of the year goal was 36 wpm, and Anya got 96! That surpassed the end of the year goal they had set of 90.



Ally's Illustration of the story they read in class. It says, A crane helps us lift.





Ally's pizza art



Anya's desert scence. I should have taken a picture of the story attached to it, but it was rather lengthy. It was about the lizard wanting to be friends with the other animals. . .



There is a chain of these paper dolls that goes all around the 2nd grade pod, the middle doll is Anya. The chain is to represent the "Rachel's Challenge" thing that they are doing at the school. It  basically is that you can start a chain reaction of kindess just by doing one nice thing for one person. http://www.rachelschallenge.org/




 

USO Sesame Street

Tonight we went to a Sesame Street live show on base put on by the USO. Max and Macy loved it! They were so cute dancing and clapping. It was a perfect 30 minutes, full of lots of action. The kids all got a lighted Elmo spinner toy too!

Friday Night

The PTO hosted a family picnic night Friday to celebrate the end of their "write a check" fundraiser. The goal of the fundraiser was to raise $20,000 for the school to buy more playground equipment and technology such as iPads. The "write a check" is just as it sounds, no selling anything, just donating money to the PTO. It was fine with me! They had fun rewards for the kids every time they reached a percentage point of their goal. They had face painting, cotton candy, pajama day, super hero day, pie the teachers, and ultimately the principal was supposed to kiss a pig at 100% of their goal! As of Friday night only 80% of the goal was met so I don't know if the principal will kiss a pig or not. The kids were also supposed to bring in change for a side contest going on to see which teacher/staff member would also have to kiss a pig. I was kinda of surprised to hear (probably shouldn't have been) that only 30% of families were participating! It's not like we live in a poor neighborhood, and with 950 students, each kid could have brought in about $2 and met the goal. Oh well I was happy to do our part. The PTO was responsible for putting in the sidewalk that connects our neighborhood to the back of school, allowing our kids to walk, avoiding the traffic and chaos of drop off/pick up!

So back to the picnic part ;) It was a little wild. We got our pizza etc, made our way through the crowd, just sat down to eat, and an announcement came over the intercom that they needed a doctor. Hmm off Josh went... So the kids and I ate, then the girls went off to play on the new playground equipment they had just installed from last years fundraiser. About 30 minutes passed and I was starting to wonder about Josh. I was supposed to be taking a shift at the dessert table and the girls were back asking to get a snow cone (josh had all our money). Luckily he made it back fairly quickly and we found out a man had a seizure and fell back hitting his head on the book fair shelves. He was fine but they had to send him by ambulance to the hospital. Poor guy! We still had plenty of time though to dance, eat, play, and buy silly string for the annual silly string fight. The girls were very excited and although my pictures stink (I need to carry a real camera) Anya reported that she sprayed the principal and assistant principal. Max even got in on the action a little bit, but poor Macy got sprayed in the face early on and was done with the whole thing! I'm glad the rain held off and we were able to go, it was lots of fun!