Open House

We finally had our open house for K & T at school.  I was anxious to meet the teachers since Tyler is very disenchanted with his, and Katie's seems a lot stricter based on the homework ("home fun") and graded sheets we have seen sent home.  We thought it would be a true open house where we could both go to one class and then the other, but found out when we got there that they each had a presentation to last for most of the hour.  So, I went to Katie's class and Lance went to Tyler's.  Lance said he could definitely see why Tyler is having trouble warming up to his teacher - she is certainly not as sweet and nurturing as his Kindergarten teachers.  Hopefully he will adapt and she will recognize the potential Tyler has despite his tendency to create his own entertainment in lieu of doing "boring" assignments.  My primary concern is that he is such a perfectionist and seems so down on himself lately and I don't necessarily think she is the right compliment to that, but we are hoping for the best! 

He is begging us to join Cub Scouts (and therefore Katie wants to do Girl Scouts).  Between baseball, gymnastics, a ton of homework (already), and things that the adults enjoy like football games and tennis/golf - I have no clue how we will fit another activity in - but I have rarely seen Tyler as excited about anything as he is about the Cub Scouts itinerary, so we are going to let him sign up.  When asked why he wanted to do it, Tyler said "fishing, canoeing, hiking, get to make cool cars for this derby thing, and friends."  The last one sealed the deal since Tyler does not connect as well as Katie with other kids and doesn't seem to make friends very easily, but his favorite buddy from his class last year was the one telling him all about it and trying to convince him to join, and that makes me want to encourage that friendship and their shared excitement about rockets and caving.  Tyler was pulling out all his persuasion techniques so it is obviously something he really wants to do - I will sign him up and I even have Lance on board to take him to the camp-out and help him build his Pinewood Derby car.  Katie has a lot more work to do to convince me to let her join Girl Scouts, however - selling cookies is not how I want to spend my time!  We will go to the preview thing coming up and in the meantime I will talk to her all about how much more fun gymnastics and tennis and soccer and anything else, are  :)! 

This weekend we had a first in a long while!  On Friday night Lance and I went to a pre-party for a golf tournament he was in and the kids stayed with the grandparents.  I am sure they stayed up a little late since they went out to dinner and the next day was jam-packed.  We went to Target right after I picked them up (we swung by the toy aisles for them to "look at what they want for their birthday"), went swimming with a friend all day and then had a birthday party for So-So.  It was a nice restaurant and the kids were encouraged to act like they did at the one we went to for our anniversary.  They were good, and obviously exhausted, but I was very proud of them for not acting up since they were  very tired five year-olds who were asked to sit patiently with no coloring books or anything for two hours.  They were energized when they got in the car talking about their evening and how much fun they had at the "fancy" restaurant with So-So, but as we were talking and singing we suddenly realized that Tyler was suspiciously quiet - right before Katie decided just to "close her eyes for a minute."  We can't get them to fall asleep like that on a school night, of course, but that is just a testament to what a fun day they had and one of the first times in a loooong time that they have fallen asleep in the car!