Progress Report Comment Sheets

These are the comments from Adelynne's and Amy's teachers.
Adelynne's teacher says:
"Addy consistently demonstrates respectful and appropriate behavior at school. Her respect for our classroom and school-wide rules maker her an excellent role model for her classmates. Addy continues to exhibit a good level of comprehension with fiction and nonfiction texts. She is currently reading at grade level. She makes logical predictions, connections, and inferences. She has also strengthened her ability to summarize fiction text by focusing on the important characters, events, and details. Addy has worked to increase her fluency and expand her vocabulary. Addy is beginning to build a foundation in writing. She thoughtfully implements new literary devices and revision ideas. She has also learned how to expand a small moment by adding details and description. Addy continues to strengthen her mathematical skills and understanding. She is increasing her number sense and strengthened her ability to add and subtract tens. Addy is ready to work towards automaticity with her addition and subtraction facts in the next term. She has participated in social studies and science with energy and persistence. Addy can identify and describe different kinds of communities. She has also explored the properties of rocks, how they change over time, and how they are used to meet our needs."

Amy's teacher says:
"Amy is an absolute pleasure to have in class! She comes to school each day excited and eager to learn, and she is always respectful to her teachers and peers. Amy is a cheerful and cooperative member of our class, and she is a positive role model for her fellow students. During whole group and small group lessons, she is an attentive listener, and while working, she always puts forth her best effort. Amy takes pride in her work and it shows!
  Academically, Amy is meeting and/or exceeding all of the grade level standards, which is great! She knows all of the upper and lowercase letters, as well as their sounds, and this surpasses the expectations. She also knows all of the high-frequency words we have learned so far. Amy loves reading books by herself and with her friends, and she is currently working on decoding words. While writing, she uses her knowledge of letter sounds to record multiple sounds per word. In math, Amy can count to 110 and she can read and write numbers 0-100. She is starting to solve oral addition and subtraction number stories as well. Overall, Amy is off to a wonderful start in Kindergarten, and I know she will continue to shine!"

I am very proud of both of my girls. They both have and exemplify excellent character and values, and that far exceeds their academic levels in my book. But I am also grateful that both of my girls are doing well academically. If you read my last post you will probably be able to get a feel for how Adelynne's teacher is just by reading her comments about Addy. I just feel like Addy's teacher's comments are so business like and have no emotion. At least they're nice comments.

And this is a off subject, but today there was an awful shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut. 20 children and 6 teachers/adults were killed. This news has been so heart wrenching for me today. I am aching and mourning for the families that have lost their precious children; that were not able to welcome their kids home from school today. I cannot begin to comprehend the heartbreak these parents and families are beginning to deal with. I cannot imagine the terror, the emptiness, the darkness they are feeling. I do know that I am grateful for my faith in Jesus Christ who loves us all and can heal all wounds. I hope those that are aching for their children will come to feel the hope in Christ in their darkest moments.

First Day of School

The girls did not start school until September 4th, the day after we returned from our trip. Both Adelynne and Amy were excited and scared to go to a new school.

Here they are ready for their first day, and Amy's being a goof. Grandma Biggs made them their dresses.

Sweet girls

My beautiful 2nd grader! Just so hard to believe, I still catch myself saying she's in 1st grade.

KINDERGARTEN! (?) How did that happen?! She is in full day too because that is all they have at their school. At first I was very nervous about full day, but I think its been great for Amy. The first few days were a little challenging for Amy though. She would ask if she could come home and have lunch, or if she had to go to school the next day. But by the start of the 2nd week she didn't look back. She loves her teacher and has made lots of friends. Her favorite friend is a little girl named Irene. And there is a boy named Andrew that she has a little crush on, and he seems to have one on her too. He drew her a picture and wrote a note that says  "Andrew loves Amy." When I asked Amy about it, she told me that he is nice and she likes his hair. Oh my little flirt! (But don't worry, Dylan, Amy still loves you most and says she is still going to marry you). 

This picture is just before school began. Adelynne really struggled with her new school and her teacher and classmates the first couple of months. She is doing much better now, but she really missed her last school and her 1st grade teacher and her best friend, Ana. I think her teacher has been the hardest for her (and for me). She is a nice teacher, but she is very business- like. She is not very affectionate or enthusiastic. I feel like her teacher is teaching college not 2nd grade. But despite my opinion, Adelynne has come to love school again, and says her favorite part is writing. Her favorite specials are library and music. At their new school they have P.E. every day, which I think is great.

Good luck, Adelynne! I think I was very nervous for her, but no tears from me, I'm usually more excited than anything. I always loved the first day of school when I was in school, but I never moved and switched schools as a kid.

She looks nervous, doesn't she? That's her teacher smiling back at us. (And I'm sorry about the large woman in the corner, but I didn't want to cut out Amy's teacher). Who is fantastic, by the way. Amy adores her. 

Bye, bye sweet Amy. There were no tears from either of us. But looking at this picture I want to cry. Gosh, they grow up fast! (Said every mother on the planet).

School's out!! Her first day was great at least. And that is her teacher holding the door.

Amy showing me her favorite part of the playground, other than the swings. Its a really cool slide that has individually spinning tubes.

Back home again, all tired and sweaty from having so much fun. We get to walk to and from school because we live so close and I really love that. Amy was sad that she didn't get to ride the bus for the first couple of weeks, but she's gotten over that now. I feel very blessed that our girls are at a great school. Every person I have met that has had kids at their school just can't say enough good about it. I think it was another way Heavenly Father was looking out for us when He led us to our house and we were able to rent it. Such a tender mercy.

Turning Two

So I briefly mentioned in the previous post that we drove back to our new home on Aurora's 2nd birthday. We spent 18 hours in the car that day. It was such a long day. I felt guilty the entire day as well, even though I know Aurora did not know the difference. Just so we could have a more fun celebration of our baby turning 2, we had some cake and ice cream on Labor Day. Aurora was pretty excited, can you tell?

Adelynne is singing to Aurora:

The candles:

You can see our stacks of boxes that still needed to be unpacked. We arrived the day before the girls' first day of school, so there was a lot of preparation we needed to do that day.

Aurora brings so much fun and giggles and joy to our home. She is constantly making us laugh with her silly faces and actions. She is so sweet and cuddly. She still sticks her tongue out a lot, especially when she is concentrating on what she is doing. She loves to dance and sing. If she finds a toy microphone she will start singing into it, and sometimes begs her sisters to play on their guitars to back her up. Aurora's favorite show is Diego, with Dora being a close second. Her favorite food is chicken nuggets and her favorite snack is chocolate. I still nurse her before her nap and bedtime most days. She loves when her sisters play with her, and she loves to take off her clothes and take baths. Her vocabulary is growing, although she is still difficult to understand. She has said a few of her own prayers, where she is really just mimicking what she sees us do, but it is so cute. She loves to play at the park and is very frustrated when she cannot because the weather is too cold. There is so much fun to this little toddler. I'm so grateful to have her in our family.

Way back when....

This is the start of the back blogging. You have been warned.

Way back in August.... So we moved. Like we really moved. We packed up all our things in our tiny little apartment in West Lafayette, Indiana and shoved all of those things into a moving truck that turned out to be significantly too small. Huh, who knew? As our dear friends took our belongings out of the apartment to the truck, it seemed as if more things appeared. Things just seemed to be bleeding from the walls. How did we have so much stuff in that tiny apartment?? Geez! So we had to leave behind the things in our extra storage unit. We packed up and drove out of town on August 3rd. We drove to our new home in Evanston, Illinois. Luckily, and gratefully, our new home is only 3 hours away from West Lafayette, so we were able to arrive in time to have some fantastic help unload our moving truck. We were able to get most of the house set up over the weekend and attend church on Sunday, ANNNND, pack for our trip. That's right, our trip. You know our yearly trip we have taken for the last 6 years, now 7, since we moved to Indiana? The one where we drive all the way to Utah, Nevada, and then California? That trip. On Monday the 6th, we registered the girls for school, and a couple of other tasks, and then we hit the road. Long story short.... we got back to our new home on September 2nd, Aurora's birthday! The terrible thing about the trip, I only have one picture from my camera to show for it; here is proof that we were in Cold Creek on August 16th:

Some highlights from our trip that we really did go on:
- ran a 5K with my sister. It was not a registered race, but a mapped out course just for my sister and I. We both trained all summer to run together. We didn't have a remarkable time, but our goal was to do the distance together without walking, and we did.
- had a birthday party for Aurora and Brek with my siblings and my parents. It was the first time for our family to meet my brother, Mark's, new wife and her twin boys. I was so glad to finally meet my new sister-in-law. And my sister planned a fun Elmo themed party for us all.
- Biggs Family Reunion 2012!
- Stay with Grandpa and Grandma Belt at Cold Creek.
- Belt family Party to celebrate Ronin's 2nd birthday
- visit with Grandma and Papa Great. Saw our former cat, Nemo, who now belongs to my grandparents. He is half the cat he used to be! Looks amazing and is totally happy in his new home.
 - Stayed with Grandpa and Grandma Biggs. Played with cousins.