Chase Middle School Open House

Let me preface this by saying Ike was grounded before the night even started for completely other reasons. This just may keep him grounded for the rest of his life.


Tonight was open house. We, the parents, were to meet at the school at 6:30 with about 13 billion other parents. No I am not exaggerating. I am never one to exaggerate, especially when it comes to facts.

We were to go to his home room and there the student was to make out a copy of their schedule and then the teacher would hand it to us so we could go and meet each teacher and get a 10 minute run down of the curriculum for that class.

Here is a copy of Ike's schedule he made for us. I noticed two things right away. I will let you study this and then see if we both came to the same conclussion.

Well, did you figure it out?

1. There are no classroom numbers. The #6 is there because I asked his home room teacher to direct me to the next class of his.

2. It is barely legible.

Well we made it to 2nd period and luckily the staff member that was subing in for the sick teacher also noticed some oddities.

1. He put lunch down as his 3rd period.
2. He did not put down a teacher for his 6th period at all.

So this clued her in and she pulled up his real schedule and quickly scribbled it on the back of the original.



Yes, my son, the one who is grounded for finding my hidden key, unlocking my bedroom door, rifling through my dresser and desk drawers and getting candy, who got caught sneaking his DS into his bed after he was grounded.........

MADE A BOGUS SCHEDULE!!

I will admit I laughed. I laughted a lot when we found this out. The teacher was really impressed. In fact she does not know of any other student who has done this.

What really makes me wonder is this....

a. he is a very good student
b. he is doing very well in school.
c. he does not have any tardies in any classes.

So why did he feel like messing with us? What was the point? Was there really even a point? Probably not.

I will just chalk it up to another experience of raising this batch of hooligans.

This old dog learns some new tricks.

This is our snack tote. All things needed for after school snacks. Microwave popcorn, cookies, crackers, graham crackers....well you get the idea. The trouble we have ran into in the past is RAIDS!! yes, we live in a houseful of raiders.

So Ben and I came up with this nifty, Yes we are so cool we use words like nifty. This has saved us lots of $$$. and i looooove saving money.

What is this marvelous idea? Well wonder no more.


It is a footlocker with a padlock on it. They can only get into when I unlock and I stand there and watch what they pick out so I can lock it back up immediately afterwards. Now you are wondering where do I keep the key to this magical box.

On my key chain so that way when I am gone they cannot clean me out and hide the evidence all over the house in nooks and crannies. Which they have done and will do. I know all about this because, dear reader, I did the same thing to my own mother. But usually it was frozen cookies and twinkies. The woman froze everything. But we got the last laugh. We love eating frozen chocolate chip cookies and hostess cupcakes. Mwaa haaa haaa!

I submit exhibit A. Wrappers left over from raiding hidden in a nook or crannie. I am not really clear which one this is.

As you can see I am as pleased as punch with this new arrangement. Been using it since august with stellar success.

All in the family

Saturday I did an "all call" on Daniel's room for dirty clothes. Especially practice gear. His pads and practice jersey were in the car at the time. I asked if I needed to wash the jersey also. Yes, I see this as a mistake now. Why did I even bother asking. The answer should aways be YES. But he told me not to worry. He jersey is protected by his pads and therefore never actually makes contact with his skin.

Fast forward to the next day. I need to get something out of the car that had fallen down on the ground in the back. This position put my nose dangerously close to the aformentioned jersey and pads. I blacked out.

So into the wash the jersey went. The pads were hauled out to the driveway to experience fresh air and Febreeze. Now they smell like lilacs drenched in B.O. A few hours in the sun did seem to refresh them quite a bit.

This morning before school the girls were goofing off with them. Maria tried them on first. She was so cute I just had to get a picture. Anna had other ideas.......



This is Maria's dazed and confused look. Poor baby. You will notice Anna's blur just out of the frame of the picture.



Anna greeted her with a flying tackle.

Anna then tried them on and Maria.......gave her sister a hug? Just must have a concussion.

The cutest powerpuff defensive tackle ever!!

Sweet!

I can post from my iPod now! This rocks.

First Day of School 2011

I cleverly posted my pictures backwards for your viewing pleasure.



The girlies have Ms. Riebe this year. She is new to us, but not to the school. All the boys had the same teacher, Ms. Baugher. I have a feeling she was done with the Brown's.
Headed off to school. Jakey rode his bike the whole 1/2 block. Maria is in the Hello Kitty backpack and Anna is in the Spongebob.

Jakey age 8. Jacob has Ms. Fielding for his third grade teacher. She also taught Ike when he was in third grade.

Jakey being silly for the camera.

First grader....Maria sporting a lovely combination of purple and pink!!

and announcing first grader.....Anna! She was mad because her shoes were not fitting just quite right, but smiled anyways. Of course she wore pink because it is her favorite color.

About a year ago Ike desided he is too cool to smile in pictures so every picture I have of him he has this obnoxious look on his face. I cannot wait until he is much older and sees all this pictures I have of him. He we very excited to go to Chase Middle School this year. He has the same homeroom teacher that Daniel did. He came home with lots of exciting stories and has high hopes for the year to come.

My elementry school students.

I have been seeing this smile so much more lately. I love it! Here is my big sophmore, Daniel. I cannot believe that he is in 10th grade already. Yes, this highschool thing is flying by way too fast. He is in football this year. Plays defensive line and seems to be enjoying himself. It does help that he signed up with his best bud, Forbush, so they have eachother.

So there you have it. The first day of school. Well today is the second day of school, but oh well. Spent yesterday afternoon going through piles of paperwork. Classroom rules, homework rules, student expectations, volunteer applications, yada, yada, yada. Ordered my school books today. Got all four of them used from Amazon for $130 which I was so happy with considering that one book alone costs $152 from the book store. Now to get my notebooks, pencils, binders, pens and what not in order. Maybe I will have Ben take a picture of me on my first day of school. ha ha ha

17 years

Today marks the anniversary for Dan and I. We would have been married 17 years. Wow. That seems like such a long time. Funny how when he was alive we had a terrible time remembering our anniversary. We did a good job on the 5 yr and 10 yr mark. Made sure to do something very special like a weekend away. But all the other years it was usually forgotten until middle of the day then I would scramble and make us a special dinner. But the past two years I have remembered. I have remembered for weeks before it arrives. I have pondered it much these past few days. There is sadness and thoughts of ,"what if".

On one hand I am very happy with Ben. He is a fantastic man. Seriously I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop because he really is an answer to my prayers, which I did not even know I was asking for. If that makes any sense. But I still love Dan. Very much. I don't see that ever changing. Yes, Ben knows this and he totally understands. (see what an awesome guy he is) So what I feel is guilt. Wonderful, familiar guilt. How can I be so happy with this wonderful guy and still be so sad, missing Dan on our anniversary. The heart is a weird thing.

Ben has asked if there is anything special I would like to do to commemorate this day, but I know if I focus on what it is I will be weepy all day long, and yet it feels wrong to force myself to not aknowledge it. Ugh. I cannot win. So maybe this post is my aknowledgement of it. Thank you Dan for 15 wonderful years.

Now to go make the kids breakfast because they are all starving and then get Daniel's stuff dried for practice and him out the door, get the last minute stuff packed and ready for the kids to go back to school and start in on my list of things I need to start school. So basically spend this anniversary the same way Dan and I did when he was alive. :D