Purses

Ron asked what I wanted for Christmas this year and after thinking about it I decided that I wanted him to buy me a purse and matching wallet. Then he says, "You really like purses, don't you? Isn't that what you asked for last year?" I've been secretly obsessed with purses for awhile but since I'm not really "girly" I don't admit it often. Leave it to Ron to figure it out! Anyhow, this lead to a search on the internet of cute purses. I began to think of all the brands that I might like. I found a few cute but not to die for purses. Then after thinking for awhile I began to wonder if any MMA brands make women's purses. So my internet search continued and nope, there are no MMA brands that make them. I think I found a new avenue for them! Maybe I'll email the crazy guys from TapOut and pitch my idea! I'm sure all those half-naked girls (who aren't really there to watch the fight anyway) that you see at the fights would carry a TapOut purse! I could make a fortune! =)

The Past Two Days

The past two days I have been attending the ACSI Convention in Anaheim. ACSI stands for Assocation of Christian Schools International. Every year our school attends this two day seminar. Basically what happens is we sit and listen to a speaker talk about the theme of this year. This year's theme was Transformational Teaching. Next we get to choose from an array of classes to take on various topics in Christian education. Over the past two days I have taken 8 classes. This is more than what is required but since I do not need 1 hour to eat my lunch I skipped my lunch period and took extra classes. So, here is the list of classes I have taken:

1) Unlocking the Mystery of Self Esteem
2) Motivation
3) When is It a Speech Problem?
4) What 99 our of 100 Educators Don't Know About Classroom Management
5) Teaching Tips to Grab Kids Attention
6) Tips for Working With Urban Parents
7) Memorizing Math Facts
8) Autism & Aspergers in a Nutshell

Tomorrow all of the staff will get together and we will give a brief presentation of the things we learned over the past two days.

The class I learned the most from was Tips for Working With Urban Parents, Memorizing Math Facts and Teaching Tips to Grab Kids Attention. I think I'll talk about those 3.

Lost Tooth is Lost!

This morning Ron and I were still laying in bed when the boys got up and started playing. Seth comes into our room and says, "Dad, I lost my tooth! Evan hit me in the face and it came out!" Without even opening my eyes I said to Ron, "There goes the idea of you pulling out his first tooth."

I got out of bed to look for the tooth but it's lost. Evan really did hit Seth in the face with a kickboard that you use to learn to swim.

This is Seth's first lost tooth...well naturally anyway.

High School Musical 3

Today was our Kinder, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade field trip to the El Capitan Theatre to see High School Musical 3! The really great thing about the El Capitan Theatre is that before the movie starts there is a little show. We went there a few years ago to see Santa Clause 3 and they had fake snow fall from the ceiling! This time when we went an employee called up four volunteers who had to know the HSM songs. My little (not so little anymore) Seth was the first one to raise his hand and he got called up on stage! He did such a great job. He had to sing "Get Your Head in the Game." He didn't know the words to the verse but did an awesome job with the chorus. He did such a great job that he won the High School Musical 2 DVD! He takes after his daddy (and his mommy)

Seth's Project

Seth was given his very first Kindergarten project. Mrs. Brainard, Seth's teacher, sent home a note with a large picture of a turkey. This, along with all of the other Kindergarten projects, are family projects. The goal is to get the whole family involved. And so we are to decorate this turkey however we want. Here is the result of our family project.

Already?!

About a week ago (before Halloween) I was at the grocery store and saw a HUGE display for Christmas. I thought to myself, "They just keep getting it out earlier and earlier don't they?" Then a co-worker mentioned the other day that she was at Starbucks and they had their Christmas cups out already. I can't believe we're already thinking about Christmas! Seth has found two catalogs filled with toys and has circled everything he wants for Christmas. Which, in short, mans he wants EVERYTHING! However, on the bright side, he is learning that his brothers should also receive during Christmas so he has lovingly selected a few (and I do mean a few) things for Evan. When I questioned why he didn't circle anything for Levi he very matter of factly said, "Mom, they don't have baby toys in this book." He also has learned that there are 'boy' toys and 'girl' toys so he has cut out all of the 'girl' pages from the catalogs. Such is the life of a mom with three boys and no girls in the house. (except for the dog)
For the record...Christmas is 47 days away.

Pirate Dog

We recently had an emergency at the Perry home. Our kids are fine and Ron and I are fine...it was our dog Daisy. We bought Daisy when she was just a puppy, only a few weeks old. I found an ad in the paper for a lady in our city that was selling Chihuahua puppies. I took Seth with me to go look at the dog. Of course he adored her from the moment he saw her (so did I). We handed over the money and brought home our puppy.
On Halloween she had an accident (we aren't exactly sure what happened) but I heard her yelp and went out to check on her. Her yelp reminded me of when I hear my kids cry. As their mom I know the difference between a frustrated cry and a hurt cry. So I ran out to the front yard and found her eye was injured. It was actually popping out of her eye socket. (Sorry if that's tmi)
We took her to the vet and she had to have the eye removed. So now she is our pirate dog with only one eye. It doesn't look as bad as it sounds but she still has stitches and in the interest of those with weaker stomachs I decided not to post a picture.
She's actually very happy and normal. She doesn't seem to be in any pain or discomfort. I've researched this online and found that it is a common injury in small dogs and that most continue to live very happy and long lives.
The funny thing is that Seth is now very protective of her. Evan got close to Daisy and Seth said, "Don't hurt her you know she doesn't have any eyes left!" He then corrected himself and said, "Well she has one eye."

Any Thoughts?

As a teacher I use a curriculum to help guide me. I teach the concepts that I am given in the curriculum but do not always use their methods. I add and subtract things based on several things like the needs of my students or materials available. For example, a few years ago I realized that my third graders were not doing well on their science tests because they didn't know how to study for them as they had never taken science tests before. So I created for every chapter a review sheet with questions that would help them prepare for the test.

When Ron and I taught in the youth ministry at our church we never used a curriculum. We tried to a couple of times but always found them to be lacking something. So every week we would sit down, usually together, and think about what the group as whole needed to hear. We knew them all personally. When we decided what we wanted the topic to be, we sat down with the Bible and began to see what God had to say.

So I wonder...do pastors use other sermons to help them prepare for their services? Do pastors always create their own sermons or do they borrow from other pastors? And when a pastor uses another pastor's sermon is that okay? Is there some curriculum or big book of sermons that pastors can go to if they get stuck? I would think that if a pastor gets paid a certain amount of money to preach that he would preach his own sermons. If not, is this a form of plagirism? And if they do use another pastor's sermon then who is the pastor of the church?

One would think that since I spent time working in a church office I would know how a pastor spends his time. But honestly, during my work in the church office I never paid attention to the process of sermon writing.

Any thoughts?

Halloween

Last night was Halloween and we took the boys over to Jesse and Amy's house to go trick or treating. There were about 15 kids all together and we probably wiped out the neighborhood of their candy just with our group. Seth was dressed up as a knight and Evan was dressed up as SpiderMan. We didn't dress Levi up since he was in the stroller all night, can't eat all that candy and also didn't feel well. The boys got really tired from all the walking. Seth fell asleep in the car on the way home and Evan almost did. Evan has so much energy and the candy that he ate after trick or treating probably added to the energy level. The boys had a great time and it was so cute to see them walk up to the houses saying "Trick-or-treat". We made sure they didn't walk on anyone's grass and that they always said thank-you. Evan would go knock on doors and say "It's me!" as if he knew everyone!

On a side note. Evan is turning into quiet the polite little fellow. Last night Ron asked him if he wanted to go with Amy and he stopped and said, "Hmm...no thank you!" Gotta love him!