Boo at the Zoo!

Saturday afternoon my dad and I took the girls down to the Kansas City Zoo for Boo at the Zoo. It's an annual event that's lots of fun. There are about 25 stations where kids can trick or treat, plus they see the animals and other costumes.

Kaylin was Cinderella, and Macy was Hannah Montana. I've put a couple pictures of just her below, because she just looks absolutely different! She's squinting into the sun in these, but with those big brown eyes sticking it, it didn't even look like her.

I overheard about three people who were walking by say, "oh, look, it's Britney Spears!" I made sure to correct all of them--I didn't want anyone to think I would dress my child like Britney Spears! (Yes, Macy did have underwear on.) But to the casual observer, who didn't see Hannah Montana on her belt, or who didn't know who she was, I guess I could see where someone might think that.

Parent Teacher Conference

We had our first parent teacher conference with Macy's teacher, Mrs. Fischer, today. It was strange to be on the other side of the table, after 9 years of being the teacher at conferences.

I won't brag too much on Macy, but her teacher did not have one negative thing to say about her. Her words: "she is the perfect kindergartner, and I wish more kids would be like her." Wow. She said Macy is way ahead of where she should be at this stage. We brought home 10 sight words to start working on, and she already knew 4 of them! Done bragging.

We talked quite a bit about the changes in kindergarten over the years. She said what they are teaching now in kindergarten is what they used to teach in 1st grade just a few years ago. They used to focus on just learning rules, getting along, counting to 10, and learning the alphabet in kindergarten. Now, because of preschool, kids come in knowing all that, and they have to focus on more advanced techniques.

What's in the water?

Normally I have good students. Sometimes there are a few bad apples in the bunch, which must be the case this year.

I currently have three students in out of school suspension: one for stealing a car (took another student's car keys out of his locker), one for stealing things from the locker rooms, and one for bringing a knife to school in his backpack.

What is going on?

Fireman Bobby

Kaylin's preschool is studying the letter F this week. Bobby came with all his fire gear--helmet, coat, pants, boots, air pack, everything. He talked with them about fire safety, then put on his air pack and pretended to "rescue" them while they crawled around the room. It was really cute. He also brought little plastic fire hats for everyone, and baseball cards about Shadow, the Fire Dog they have in Kearney. The kids loved it!

And, on another note, Kaylin's preschool teacher took this picture of her yesterday, and the subject line when she emailed it was "crack baby!" For those of you who remember, her sister had the same problem when she was that age too. No butt or hips to hold up their pants!

Kindergarten Field Trip

On Friday I went with Macy's kindergarten class to the Red Barn Farm in Weston. They'd spent the week studying farm animals, and we had a great time looking at all the animals and picking pumpkins. Having been on field trips with high schoolers, it was strange to be on the other side as a parent. I quickly learned before we even left there is a protcol for everything: folders go in the red basket, not the blue one, they use the bathrooms on the right, not the left, and the line starts at the door, not the sink.

Below is a picture of all the kids in her class.

Our leader was very cool--Farmer Trish. She did a great job of interacting with the kids, and showing them the farm. In the picture below she was using Macy as a "tree" to show the other kids how to properly pick an apple.

There were 5 other parents that went, and we all had three or four kids in our group to account for. I was constantly looking for the heads of my three to make sure they hadn't jumped in with the geese or the pigs. I had a good group: Macy, Katlynn (who lives around the corner) and Evan. They were as sweet as could be. I felt sorry for Mr. Richter: he had four very active little boys, and he was chasing them all day long. Mrs. Fischer really has her hands full. Below is a picture of my group. Notice Evan has a MU shirt on.

What's in a name?

We decided pretty early in my pregnancy with Macy what her name was. We struggled a bit later with the spelling: Maci, Macy, Macey were three spellings we kicked around. I can't remember now which one I wanted and which one Bobby wanted, or why we ultimately decided on Macy as the spelling. I looked through my pregnancy journal tonight, and nothing was written about it.

Imagine my surprise tonight as Macy is working on her homework.

Macy: I've been spelling my name differently at school.

Me: Really?

Macy: (writes MACEY at the top of her paper) I like this spelling better.

Me: Why?

Macy: I don't know. It just makes my name longer.

When I was in middle school, 1 out of 5 girls were named Jennifer Lynn. I went through a phase where I said my name was Jenni, Jenny, and then started putting Lynne. Anything to make myself different from the others. That's the main reason Macy is Macy instead of Emily, Hannah, Chloe, Jessica, etc.

It cracks me up that she did the same thing I did, when I worked so hard to pick an unusual name for her.

We had a busy weekend. Friday night my sister had her annual bonfire. The weather was so unusually warm--we went in t-shirts and shorts. Many years we've worn sweatshirts and huddled around the fire.

Saturday Macy had a soccer game, and she was back to the usual just run around the field. Oh well.

We went to a fireman muster competition in the afternoon for Gladstone. The Kearney team did horrible, and took 3rd out of 3 teams. Oh well.

In the evening we made our last trip of the year to Worlds of Fun. Our girls absolutely love going, and the weather was wonderful. Very crowded, though. I would have rather had colder weather so the lines wouldn't have been so long. We had to cut our trip short because Kaylin burned her fingers. She was riding a little motorcyle ride in Camp Snoopy, and touched the headlight briefly. She held her own until she got off the ride, then she started sobbing. Her fingers blistered up, so we headed out. She cried herself to sleep before she got to the car! By Sunday morning she was fine, and was showing everyone her boo-boo.

On the way home from church, I asked the girls what they had learned in Bible class. Kaylin said, "God made stuff." I asked what kind of stuff, and Macy said, "you know, stuff." Right.

Macy had a soccer game tonight, and was playing her best. At the beginning of the second half, she was standing in the middle of the field for the kick-off. She kicked it so hard it went straight into the net without touching another person!

Pink Panthers

Macy is playing soccer right now, and her team is the Pink Panthers. Here is how her soccer seasons have gone:

Season 1: stood on the sidelines and sobbed
Season 2: ran around the field, but wouldn't go near the ball
Season 3: tried to play, but didn't want to take the ball away from anyone

We're optimistic this season will be her breakthrough season. She's already scored 3 goals in two games.