Hollister's Haircut

Well, we've done it again ! We got a new dog ! Don't be surprised, that's just what we say when we bring Hollister home from the groomer because he looks so different with all of his fluffy fur shaved down. this groomer even shaved the fur off on his tail! Steve said he looks like a hairless cat. Anyway, he's still our lovable pet, fur or no fur!

Tales from the kitchen

This year Bethany has an elective course called Personal Development. It is essentially what we used to call Home Ec. She has become very interested in cooking and the kitchen since the start of this course. while I was away this past Saturday, I received a call on my cell phone from home. Bethany told me that she and Felicia had made cinnamon rolls that morning for the family. I calculated that I had not recently bought the Pillsbury tubes of cinnamon rolls, so I asked "How did you make them?" Bethany's answer -"from scratch! I found a recipe in one of your cookbooks"
Still puzzled, I asked, "but didn't you need yeast?" "Well, the recipe called for that, but i didn't know what it was, so I just made them without it"
When I got home, I explained the importance of each ingredient in a recipe adn how you can't just leave things out, particularly in baking. I had a good chuckle, but Bethany declared that they were still good ! they must have been okay, because they were all gone when i got home, I never got to see them.
One of her upcoming assignments is to make her family dinner one night, so I will post about that when it happens.

Pumpkin Bread

Fall in our house always means pumpkin bread and to celebrate the start of the new season, I wanted to bake this yesterday. I didn't have any cloves or canned pumpkin, so I got out the bowl and added all of the dry ingredients, figuring I could go to the store after the kids were on the bus and once I got back home, I could add the other few things and have them in the oven by lunchtime. I went to the first two stores and no luck on finding the canned pumpkin. By the time I was at the third store and the shelves held not one can of pumpkin, I found a manager and asked what the deal was! He told me that they had placed the order but they had not come in yet and he knew that all the other grocery stores in the area also did not get their orders yet either. Well, I knew I had already put all the other ingredients in the bowl at home, so in desperation, I called Steve at work and had him go to a grocery store on the side of town he works and he arrived home that evening victorious with a can of pumpkin. I didn't get it baked in time for the kids to have fresh bread when they came home from school, but they are enjoying it this morning as a special treat for breakfast. Coincidentally, when I logged on to my computer, my homepage had a news blurb about a pumpkin shortage this year !!!! No kidding...

Here is the recipe for our family's favorite pumpkin bread :

3 C. sugar 1 tsp. cloves
3 tsp. baking soda 1 can pumpkin (16 oz.)
1 tsp. salt 2/3 c. water
1 tsp. cinnamon 3 1/2 C. flour
1 tsp. nutmeg 2 sticks melted margarine
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Mix all ingredients together in one bowl. Pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for about 60 minutes.

This Little Piggy Cried Wee Wee Wee...

Okay, so it's her pinky finger, not her piggy toe, but Felicia is crying Wee Wee all the way home over her newly broken finger. Our family's first ever broken bone!(that includes Steve and I). We're thankful that it is only a finger, however, it's going to be hard for our most active child to be laying low over the next 4 weeks waiting for her finger to heal. No softball, no cheer stunts and tumbling, no P.E. at school, no kickball at recess or in the cul-de-sac. What's a girl to do? Well, maybe we'll find a new hobby by default....

School Stuff

I found out a few days ago that our Elementary School, Grange Hall was recently named as a National Blue Ribbon School by the US Dept of Education. There are only 314 schools nationwide and we are the only one in central Virginia with this award for 2009. The blue ribbon award is based on academic achievement and all public and private schools in the country are eligible. Yay, Grange Hall ES ! Way to go!

Last night was Back to School Night at Tomahawk Creek Middle School for 7th and 8th grade. Steve and I had to split up and each follow Bethany and Sam's schedules to meet each of the teachers and get an overview of their class and expectations in 7 minutes !!! They seem to have really great teachers this year. what made me nervous was Bethany's Algebra I teacher telling us that this course was the first one that counts as a high school course and the grade they receive will be the first to start their GPA !!!!

Ellie had an eventful second week of school. She was not feeling well on Tuesday morning and had to stay home. When she went back Wednesday, she came home giggling that a boy in her class had kissed her on the lips !!! She's also had color week and has to try to wear the color of the day everyday. This is actually pretty hard--we don't seem to have all the colors to wear, at least not in the right season! This goes on for two weeks and I think we only have about 3-4 of the colors in her clothing!

And, of course, what would the beginning of school be without all the paperwork? Once again, my kitchen island is a dropping ground for piles of papers I have to read, sign, send money in for, or serve as a reminder for something coming up. I don't know how people with more than 4 do it, because it makes my mind swirl trying to keep up with everything!

First Day at Work

I can't believe I'm back in a classroom with young children ! This is how I started out as I was earning my early childhood Ed. degree all those years ago right after high school and now I've come full circle. I was all planned and prepared for the first day with the kids!
Imagine my surprise when I walk into Ellie's room and see her lying on the floor. I asked "what are doing on the floor?" and those words you don't want to hear on an important day "I don't feel very well" . I put her in her bed and told her to rest some more, I was going to take a shower. Of course, my mind is racing a mile a minutes trying to figure out what I'm going to do and how am I going to call the director at the preschool to tell her I can't come on the first day ?!!!!! Fortunately, when I called Steve (already at work), he was able to rework his day to stay at home and work from there. Whew! I was hoping this wasn't an indication of how the rest of the day was going to go !
I was able to go to work and meet my students. Our classroom is The Busy Bee Threes.
They were only there for an hour, but we had plenty of activities for them to do. Here they are busy making snacktime placemats that they will use all year and playing with yellow playdough that I had made at home because yellow is our color of the month. We had a great first day!

We received a cute apple mosaic from one of our students--isn't that sweet ?
Our director also handed out mugs filled with fresh flowers that had been delivered to the school for each of the teachers. What a great place I've found to work for my first job in a long time. I think it's going to be a good fit.

Fall Sports

This fall Felicia is not only cheering, but playing fall softball as well. Saturday morning she played a double-header ,we got home for lunch, then rested a bit before we had to head off to the football game. Well, the first game of the season was on Saturday night and it was a perfect weather night. The football players played a great game and won against a really good team that has beat them in Superbowls in recent past years ! My little point and shoot camera I had with me that night didn't get great shots, but I wanted to share them anyway. After the game we went out for pizza with friends and didn't get home until 11pm !
My friend's daughter, Brooke, and Felicia are always the two loudest cheerleaders--you can ALWAYS hear them!
Look at that girl jump !

Practicing their stunts. These girls have great teamwork and the two girls holding Felicia up also happen to be her two best friends, Brooke and Taylor. Felicia loves to be the "flyer", never afraid to go up. I don't like to watch at practice, it makes me nervous !

Back To School !

Well, the first day of school is always exciting and everyone is always up and ready early ! This morning, all 4 kids were dressed and ready by 7:15 am. I had made bacon, pancakes and blueberry muffins, but they were too excited to eat. Ellie was really the only one who ate a full breakfast.
Here is Ellie, proud as can be with her backpack on. Her shirt says "I Love recess " so cute !
When Alex and Brooke arrived, I took their picture on the front porch. The middle schoolers were ready to head off to the bus stop, the others still had another hour to wait.
Heading off to the bus stop with her bus name tag on, her lunch box packed and her backpack on her back !
Here is everyone at the bus stop--we like to call them The Beckenham Bunch.
felicia, Brooke, Taylor, Brooke Martin and Ellie at the bus stop

Not a second of hestitation ! Kindergarten, Here she comes !
I'll miss you at home, baby girl...

Croquet

A few weeks ago, I found and purchased a croquet set at a yard sale for $1.00 ! The whole set was brand new in a case, the mallets are actually wooden ! For the past two days, we've been playing this in the backyard and the kids are really enjoying it. Our neighbor, Zach, (Sam's friend) actually seems to be the reigning champ overall.
Bethany with mallet in hand
Ellie drew with chalk on the driveway while we played
Our yard is tricky because there are a lot of hilly spots

Success for Sam!

Felicia's Shopping Day

This weekend, I took Felicia out for the day shopping. She had accumulated gift cards and money for her birthday and she wanted to spend it. She and I had a lot of fun together and she was thrilled to be on a shopping trip where she was able to choose all the stores we went in and she had money to spend on whatever she wanted!!! What could be better than that?
Her first stop and purchase was at Barnes and Noble, one of her most favorite stores.
another favorite store. In here she bought a new watch, a new top for school and a Webkinz.
Choosing a treat at the candy shop.

Look at the size of that peanut butter cup ! Even my sweet tooth child couldn't finish this !

Pop Tart Morning

This summer, Ellie has been enjoying eating poptarts for breakfast and I've been indulging her. Normally I buy the Poptarts for the kids to have for a snack, but I usually don't prefer they eat them for breakfast because of the sugar in them.It's really not a healthy start to the day, but she enjoys them so much and even has a certain ritaulistic order to eating them.
Before she eats it, she likes to break it into little bite size pieces so she can dunk them in milk
licking the jelly inside
now for the dunk
taking a bite--yummmmm...
She was enjoying hers so much that I had to join in--I , however, prefer my pop tarts warmed in the toaster and I do not dunk.

Pure and simple Saturday morning delight !!

Meet the Teachers !

Yesterday morning was Meet the teacher day at Grange Hall ES. The kids are able to bring in their supplies and fill up their desk, pick up info. and forms to take home and fill out and meet their new teacher for the school year. This is Felicia's sweet teacher, Miss Gallagher.Felicia will have an awesome year in her class ! This is Felicia's last year in Elementary School and Ellie's first !
Felicia's classroom. Felicia's desk is just to the left of Sam's back in this photo. She loves that she is right up front.
For kindergarten orientation, parents dropped their child off at a designated hallway and the teachers/staff escorted them to their classroom, where they found their seat, took a tour of their classroom and met their teacher. From there, they went out to the bus loop and a qucik walking tour of the school down to the cafeteria, where they were served a snack and that was where we were to pick them up. During this time, the kindergarten parents were in the cafeteria first to hear the principal/PTA speak and then we had the opportunity to go to our child's class to meet the teacher and help get all the supplies we brought put away.
After picking Ellie up in the cafeteria, I brought her back to the classroom just to get a few pictures. Here she is at her table with her supplies.
Ellie with her teacher, Mrs. Bowman
What a beautiful and spacious classroom !

Each child was to bring in 20 glue sticks--this is just one of 4 bins !!!

Felicia is 10 !!!!

Since Felicia's birthday fell on a practice day, we decided to invite the cheer squad for the whole day to do a pool/pizza/practice party. They arrived at 12:30 and we went to the pool, picked up the pizza on the way back and had cake and ice cream after dinner.
At the pool
Opening presents--this is Felicia with her friend, Logan, who made her own gift card holder ! Inside was a Michaels' gift card--Felicia loves to be crafty.
I told her to make 10 wishes !

Playing in the backyard before we headed to practice.