Parent Teacher Conferences

On Tuesday, Oct 16th, I had a parent teacher conference with Audrey and Matthew's teachers. 

Matthew's teacher, Ms. Faires, said the following:

• He likes to play with Justin but sometimes they get rough.  Matthew says that Justin is his best friend but sometimes he talks about Justin punching him in the stomach. 
• There are lots of girls in the class and they like to gang up on Matthew by giving him hugs.  The teacher tells Matthew to stick up for himself and use words in stead of just pouting.
• The class is very advanced with several students learning to read already.  Matthew is learning sight words ("at", "the") but he is not confident about recognizing them.  He knows how to sound out letters but he needs more practice.
• Matthew is a very good student and hardly gets into trouble.  He likes attention for doing good deeds.  He is the teacher's pet.
• He has trouble cutting with the scissors so we need to work on this.  I honestly think it is because he is trying to cut with his right hand and he probably has better coordination with his left hand since he is left handed. 

I told the teacher that Matthew is loving her class.  He is singing the presidents of the United States and the 50 states song.  He knows more than me! 

Audrey's teacher, Mrs. Raiza, said the following:

• Audrey is very smart.  She says lots of words and she even uses sentences.  She can also count to 10.
• Audrey wants to be the first all the time.  She wants to get her diaper changes first, she wants to eat first, she is the first to do new activities.  She likes to receive praise for putting her toys away.
• Audrey does not like getting her hands messy with arts and crafts.  She says "Ahh, Raiza, napkin" 
• Audrey's best friend is Hazel.  Whenever they line up, Audrey will look for Hazel's hand to hold.
• She is also stubborn.  When the teacher was passing out snacks, she only passed out 1 cracker at a time.  Audrey threw it on the floor because she wanted more.  Ms. Raiza did not give her anymore but Hazel gave Audrey her 2 crackers.
• She is doing well with the potty.  We will switch to panties to officially start potty training her in the coming weeks.
• Audrey does not like to share.  She says "Audrey's, mine" and holds the toy.  I think this is normal.
• Audrey likes to talk about Matthew and Rusty and all the pictures on her board at school.

We were able to drop the bottle a couple of weeks ago and Audrey has been doing great without it.  She was only using it at night.  She is advanced for her age because she tries to keep up with her big brother.  I keep forgetting that she is not 2 years old yet because she seems older to me.

Elsby Block Party

I organized a block party on my street this Sunday.  This is the 3rd annual block party that I have organized.   The weather cooperated with the perfect temperature, 75 degrees.  We had a good spread of hamburgers, hot dogs, sides, and desserts.  Andy had to go to the grocery store and grill the meats  Thanks Andy!

Look at the food on the tables!

I made my grandmother's potato salad.

Chillin' in the yard

Juice box time!

Audrey acts like a big kid.

Matthew enjoyed pulling Audrey in the wagon

 

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Trip to Nana's

We went to Arkansas this weekend to visit my grandmother.  We were going to fly but the flights were not looking very good for our free standby travel so we decided to drive.  It was a 5 1/2 hour drive from Dallas. The kids did very well.  Thank goodness for carseats!  They mostly watched their videos, snacked, sang songs, and we made frequent stops to let them run around.  There were a couple of times that Audrey cried but once she figured out that she was not going anywhere, she fell back asleep.

When we pulled up at her house, she greeted us with a pot roast and gravy.  It was delicious.  Even Audrey ate her greenbeans.  Matthew enjoyed all the animals - 2 dogs, birds, cat, and a fish.  The weather cooled down but we were still able to enjoy the outdoors.  The kids played hide and seek around the tall trees.  We went to a nature center on Saturday and the kids enjoyed walking the nature trail and seeing the different native animals.  We also had arts and crafts time by making some pictures of pumpkins.  Audrey loved paiting the apple and then stamping it on the construction paper. 

We went to church with Nana on Sunday and then we enjoyed a big breakfast before heading back home.  The kids were anxious to get back in their own beds. 

The Malls and the Parks

Matthew took this picture

We frequent the malls and the parks for the play areas.  Matthew knows the names of 3 different malls (Grapevine Mills, Galleria, North Park) and several parks because we go there so much.  Their favorite mall is Grapevine Mills because it has a train and their favorite park is Thackery Park in Preston Hollow.