Ben's new badge

Ben got his Bobcat badge in scouts tonight. Not sure how excited he was, but we were proud!

Oobleck

Ben made Oobleck at school awhile back after reading the Dr. Seuss book about it. We thought we'd try it at home, and it was really fun! It's a solid when you squeeze it, then when you let it go it runs like a liquid. Very cool! It's just 1 1/2 cups of corn starch and 1 cup of water...and we added some green food color to make it look like 'real' oobleck. Actually I had to shake some more corn starch in because it was a little too runny. The kids had a blast!

Matt is here

HI I AM MATT AND I THOUGHT THIS WOULd BE FUN

Hmmm....seems Matt has figured out how to blog, that's a bit scary LOL!

Can this get any cozier?

Tyler, Grace, Ben, Tucker, Lucy and I all scrunched on my bed and watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas tonight. One of the most exciting parts of the holidays is watching all of the old favorite christmas specials. Now they're watching The Wizard of Oz, which sort of gives me nightmares, so I think I'll skip it.

On a totally unrelated note, I love to stockpile toilet paper. :). I told you it was random! Mom brought me a 12 pack of TP, and it totally made my day. We go through so much TP around here, it's always nice to have a big stack of it. Thanks Mom, it's the little things :)!

Happy Birthday To Lucy!

The baby of our family, Lucy, turns one today! Hard to beleive she's one already...she still acts like a little puppy most of the time. Now that you are one Lucy, NO MORE POOP and PEE ON MY THROW RUGS! Got it?!

Here is her birthday treat, bologna with a pink candle in it. By the time I put the plate down and backed up for a picture, the little snot had snatched that flaming bologna right off the plate and dragged it under the kitchen table. I smelled vague smells of burning fur here and there, but not whining, so she must not have gotten hurt too bad. And when I looked the candle was out, hmmm, she's magic!

Tea at the Chambroulet

Grace called me upstairs tonight for a Tea Party. She had the lights turned off except for her pretty purple lamp (recognize that Phyllis?), and had towels on the chairs as chair covers. She served goldfish crackers and water. I asked her what her Tea Room was called and she said "The Chambroulet" (pronounced Sham-brew-lay). That's the name of a hotel on a show she watches on the Disney Channel. She was a very good hostess!!

Report card time!

This is a bad picture of the pictures....my scanner wasn't working, so I just took a pic of their school pics from this year. Matt looks like he's about to ease his fist just under his chin like Uncle Rico would have told him to do in Napoleon Dynamite :).

Rich and I went to Grace and Ben's teacher conferences tonight, and we're proud to report that we have two great kids! Grace is the social butterfly of her room....Bubbly enthusiastic Mr. Smith says she's 'a good friend and likes to help the other kids do things'. Also known as "Bossy". She isn't mean to anyone though, and has a lot of friends in the class. Mr. Smith showed the class the 4D ultrasound pictures they got from his wife's sonogram the other day and they are incredible! It's just like looking at your baby exactly the way it will look after it's born....really cool. After Mr. Smith showed the picture Grace was very excited to come home and look at her ultrasound pics from her baby book. She took a look at it and said "This doesn't look anything like Mr. Smith's baby, you can't even see my face!!". So that was a bit disappointing.

Mr. Smith says that Grace is doing very well in reading and reading at the top of her class. She is also doing well with numbers and handwriting. The only things she got marked down on were 'controls talking', and 'finishes work on time'. She's a perfectionist, so her work has to be complete and beautiful before she'll put it away. And the talking thing runs in the family...Matt, Ben, and Grace all got marked down for their uncontrolled talking. This has to be more of a Kinney trait....I was scared to even speak when I was in school LOL! I was painfully shy, so I never had the talking problem.

Ben had a great conference too. He is at the top of his class for math, and got high marks for rounding and counting money. I think he will be an accountant when he grows up. He's a good reader, but needs to start convincing himself of that and choosing bigger chapter books to catch his interest. We really have 2 fantastic teachers this year at Northwest, we really lucked out since we didn't know anything about any of the staff there. We ran out of time at Ben's conference to discuss his medicine changes and how it's effecting his daily work, but we are meeting with his teacher again next week to talk about that stuff.

All in all they are doing so well, and we are very proud of all the kids! Now to coast along and hope for the best in the next 12 years until they are all out of school. Then our college worries begin :).