How many of you reading this blog...what is it like two of you now...remember being in fourth grade. Give a shout out...okay so about half of you remember. Great. Did you have to do a monthly book report? Yeah, me neither. I mean I think we read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, but I don't even think we did a report on that.


Needless to say, my daughter has to do a monthly book report and seeing as she hasn't even done book reports before, she hasn't yet picked up on the fact that you should pick really, really, short books.


Last month she did a report on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and she had to design a postcard from the main setting of the book and then write a letter to herself from the main character detailing what happened in the book.


Did I mention this is a 500+ page book and she has to summarize that in 5 sentences. Personally, I'd like to see her teacher do that.


This month's project was no better. In fact, I think I disliked it even more. This month my fourth grader, for those of you without children she is 9 years old, had to design a movie poster. She had to make sure the book name and author were on the poster, create her own rating system (NFP = not for parents) and include a 5-7 sentence description with a cliff hanger so as to not give away the ending.


Did she learn her lesson from last month? No--this month she did the final Harry Potter book Deathly Hallows. I let her use my circut to cut out the dolls and this is what she came up with. I'm not sure we followed the directions, but she was totally impressed with herself so that should count for something. I'll let you know what her grade is on the project A, P, B or BB. Yeah, that's really how they grade at my school Advanced, Proficient, Basic or Below Basic.


Whoever thought a B would be a problem? I used to love seeing them **smile**

I'm not sure if I should ask for some applause or if I should just be too embarrassed to post about this. Seeing as I find few things embarrassing, I decided that I would post a picture of my latest completed project and one of the many reasons I am not done reading the first book in the Twilight series much to my friend, Jean's annoyance. Disclaimer: Jean can read an entire 300 page book in about three hours so I don't think we should be using her as a scale.

We had a wonderfully crazy busy weekend that involved at Halloween party for the elementary students, which I have to give a shout out for. Some parent complain about the annual tradition of dressing your kids up and letting them ask for candy from strangers. I, myself, think we should do it more often. Maybe some of us would actually speak to our neighbors then. A major pet peeve of mine.

Anyway, this one is my girls, one is dressed like Velma from Scooby Doo the other is dressed like Hermione from Harry Potter. Cruella DeVille, is the principal at the elementary. You've gotta love that. That is even her real hair! Here is a group shot of all of them together




















Picture number three and number four is from our really LOUD end of the season soccer party, held at a local pizza shop that I'm sure has yet to recover from the event. No doubt them made a killing! Our coach this year is wonderful and he really gets involved with all of the kids. They just love him. This is a group shot of the teammate and their trophies and the other one is of my daughter and her friend J. I'm pretty sure these two are meant for each other. What do you think?















This sweet little girl is my niece and she turns four on Tuesday. All she wanted was a MULAN dress and doesn't she look wonderful in it. IMO, Another argument for Halloween occurring more than once a year!

A strange thing happened to me the other night. I was leaving a school board meeting, my fourth in 7 days, with another random attendee (RA). I held the door for her and said, "Well that was short and sweet,"

Startled to be address (a native to my county no doubt), RA says, "Yeah, that wasn't too bad. Are you here for a class too?"

"No," I laughed, "I'm with the paper."

Change setting: Now I'm alone in the car.

So did RA think I was cool enough to be a college student? Mistook me for a high school student? Alright, I look young, but I don't think I look like I'm in high school. After all that was nearly 20 years ago for me. Surely I've aged....gracefully.

I've never been "in style" when it comes to hair or clothing, so maybe things have just retro'd themselves back into cool again. After all, I saw leg warmers were making a comeback.

Who am I kidding? "Old people" go to college too. RA probably mistook me for a non-traditional student. Isn't that the politically correct way of saying, "Oh sh** I lost my job and now I've got to go back to school student."

Anyway you look at it, one thing RA didn't say was, "So do you have a kid in the district?" which therefore will allow me to conclude in my rather delusional world that she didn't think I was old enough to be her mother.

Even though, I most likely am.

Where are my old leg warmers, anyway? Maybe I should break them out for my next meeting.

It really is true. It happens overnight. One day you wake up and your daughter doesn't talk to you like she used to. She doesn't confide in you. She has secretive phone conversations and glares at you with contempt.

Today I found out that my almost 10-year old put both mine and her father's initials on a spelling contract, indicating that she completed an oral assignment when she did not. Obviously, she knows this is wrong, why would she do it?

I'm so frustrated. My sweet little 3rd grader has turned into a ignorant, often indifferent, 4th grader. Is it because she went from oldest on the bus and in the building to youngest on the bus and in the building?

Is it just part of growing apart from us? Is it just a part of trying to be cool...to fit in?

She's been in trouble at school. She's been written up on the bus. Why didn't I see this coming? Did this really happen overnight? What am I doing wrong?

No matter how you look at it, I don't like it. Worse yet, I don't know how to stop it. I wanted to have a girls' weekend with her, to maybe take her to see High School Musical 3, now I don't think that would be the best approach to encouraging her not to forge my name on things.

UGH...why does this parenting thing have to be so hard.

I should probably say that I'm one of the biggest Reba McEntire fans in the world and last night I had the opportunity to see her live for about the 7th time in my life as part of her tour with Kelly Clarkson (whom I also enjoy).






Words to describe this concert are so inadequate. It was wonderful! Fans of the Reba TV show will know Melissa Peterson as Barbara Jean. She opened with a comedy routine that my face and gut still hurt from laughing from. She also later reappeared during the "I'm a survivor" theme song to try and sing with the duo.





Highlights from the show were of course the "Does he love you" duet; the "Because of you" duet and all of the harmonizing.

Like I said, words can't describe it. It was fantabulous!

One more sleep! That's what my son keeps saying, reminding me that there is only one more sleep until his birthday and his party.





I'm signing off now. Getting ready to go the the Reba McEntire/Kelly Clarkson concert with my mom. Should be a blast.

I think he likes it. What do you think?

Here is one of the 10 pages I made over the weekend. I didn't get as much scrapping done as i would have liked, but who can focus with the ocean outside your window and mojiotos in the refrigerator.

These pictures are from a big dinosaur dig in Animal Kingdom. My kids really enjoyed it. They felt just like archaeologists. It was hard to get them to leave and it was a nice break for mom and dad.