Leo's Conversation

I just wanted to capture these ideas before they disappear.

Felix tells a story

 Soooo, did you get that his was his retelling of Les Miserables? Somehow stealing bread became "stepping on a penny"

Lego table!

This morning FP and I were talking about our out of control Lego explosion on our dining room table. It has been like this since Felix's birthday. We talked about trying to find a table on craigslist. They are always there, but this morning I found one that doesn't look like a train/lego table.

I paid $30 and brought it home. FP had the idea to try the dishpans in he center. Genius! The kids love it!
 

Fantastic Felix

FP showed the kids some Dr. Who while I was out at a math "meeting" last night. This morning Felix woke up too early and I made him go back to his room. When it was finally time for him to come out, he didn't want to. He was too busy making a little tardis:

Memorial Day

We went down to Austin for Memorial Day
For some reason I took photos almost exclusively of Felix at the cemetery.





After the ceremony, we played at Pop Pop's church and then to Lyle for a yummy pizza lunch at 3BEatery.
Kittens at the DeFor's
Sassy, Tiny & Patches. Oh it was so hard not to take one home.

Playing with Tiny


A pretend nap in David & Donna's camper

Hair cuts

Relia has been begging me to take her for a haircut since her last one. She wanted a pixie cut. So we all went and the minors got theirs chopped off.
A "before" picture of the boys

Felix was so excited that they "put some lotion in my hair to make it stand up"

aaaaaand Miss Aurelia:

The Jungle Book

Relia had her second Whittier play tonight. It was so good. You can tell they have learned a lot from last year's production.
Relia got to open the show as the teacher of Mowgli's class. She did so well!



Baloo was an amazing character

After her big opening scene, Relia had other jobs

Relia's friend Scarlet was Louie


Sheer Khan was awesome too.


Taking her bow

Selfie City or Mother's Day mood swings

I think many of us work up in a bad way this morning, including me. We worked to shake it, but it was hard. It was gray and rainy and I found out we'll be meeting our new principal on Monday afternoon, which worked me up a bit.
The kids were sweet, giving me cards and presents.

Eventually, we settled on an outing to Savers. I've been struggling with my wardrobe as the weather has warmed. I didn't need to worry so much before, but now our school has no air conditioning, and I need some comfortable clothes. Felix and Relia need summer stuff too.
I had tremendous luck.


When I tried on the short black & white one, Relia said "you look like a Principal."
The peacock one has an awful, home sewn, hem that I didn't notice before I got it.

I got 20 pairs of shorts for Relia and Felix (and eventually Leo), and each kid got to pick out a toy.
All for under $150! That helped my mood a little bit.

spring!

I spent my Saturday doing laundry and gardening.
Veggies & strawberries in the raised bed -need to get my trellis up and make a cage to keep out the critters.
Big planters with flowers & sweet potato vine on the steps
Marigolds out front
Some peonies I cut from my big one last summer are taking root
And lots of hostas from my co-worker last fall,  are coming up!

I'm hoping our yard can be a place I love to hang out and relax this summer.

MCTM 2015

I'm calling it 2015 because I'm planning to go back over and over. 

After a great finalizing session, Nina and I headed up to Duluth Thursday afternoon.
(Notes to self: It is cold in Duluth at the end of May, and don't get the "registration area" room)

Hey! I'm a speaker!

The sunrise from our room.

Super cool session on using dancing to understand place value = mind blown

Our Friday afternoon session was not well attended, but it went well, and we learned what we need to do for our big NCTM session in November.

Another awesome presentation on how teachers can see themselves putting the book Principles to Actions to work in their classroom. I will be doing this activity with someone soon.

The super fantastic Christopher Danielson presenting his free (for now, he's almost signed with a publishing company) and ultimately awesome shape book. EVERY parent should download this book. Once it is a board book, It will be my go to baby shower gift.

On every page you have to figure out which shape doesn't belong and tell why. The trick is every shape could be eliminated for some reason. Great conversations have been had with kids and adults around these images.
This is one I made in the session:

They had a ton of free old math books. I took a few because I like the covers and I thought I might be able to make a Kindle cover out of one.
The first page I turned to on one of them was straight out of our dancing session.

I will admit there was drinking and mathematical carousing in the evenings. But that is all I will admit to. I rode home with some other fun mathy people, and arrived home exhausted.