Wow, how time does fly

You know I never mean to let this much time go by without a blog post. Several times I have gotten on here in the last month fully intending to post something profound. Ok, I'm never profound, but at least a chatty post about our lives. I finally sit down to post something and I've got nothing in my head. What's really weird about it is usually, three or four times a day, something significant happens or the kids say something adorable and I think, "I should blog that." And then by the time the kids are all in bed and I've relaxed and let my brain stop thinking about everything I need to do, my brilliant, half-written blog posts that existed in my head have vanished. I need to figure out a way to blog from my cell phone.

Anyways, today was the primary program in our ward. The kids were so cute and not just my kids either. There was this one little girl in Emma's class who was singing really loud. Seriously, her little five year old voice was drowning out the rest of the primary. Poor Emma was standing right next to her. Emma had her hands covering her ears. What was really cute about it was that the girl didn't exactly know all the words. She knew most of them, but sometimes she got it wrong. She still sang her little heart out. Derrick chickened out and wouldn't go to the microphone to say his line, which he had memorized. I was really looking forward to hearing him say "There is safety(mispronounced) in following(mispronounced) the prophet(mispronounced)." Emma's line had Joseph Smith in it, she pronounced Smith as "Smif." Maybe it was the blue color of her dress combined with "Smif" but I couldn't get the image of smurfs out of my head for quite a while.

All the kids have been working hard this week to get caught up on lessons. In the beginning of October we took the kids to science camp. It was so much fun. But it was also three days of scheduled lessons that didn't get done. I figured we'd do the lessons the following week during fall break. I was weak and didn't make them do their lessons. We did get some done but I didn't push them to get completely caught up. So then this week we really were committed to getting caught up, until Tuesday when we had to go to park. And then on Friday we had a field trip. So next week we will be fully committed instead of just really committed to getting caught up.

What makes it really hard to catch up is that all of the kids had portfolio assignments due. A portfolio assignment is basically an essay/report that needs to be turned into the teacher. They typically count for a high percentage of the grade so they need to be done right. I check all of them before the kids turn them in to make sure the kids understood the assignment. I also typically help them redo/format so that it meets the assignment criteria. We had so many overdue lessons that each of the kids had at least one portfolio they needed my help on. One of the kids had four portfolios. I also help them study for their tests and quizzes. Which were backed up as well. I finally had to tell the kids to go ahead and turn some things in without checking them. We'll see how that plays out for their grades.

Science camp was a lot of fun to do together as a family. In most traditional schools, only one grade will go to science camp. This was a family event. Derrick was the only one who wasn't able to go because he was too young. He got to stay with his aunt though and he had a blast. The camp was three day and there were really cool activities for us. Everyone had so much fun. I'm looking forward to next year already. Maybe next year we'll actually take the camera out of it's case and snap a few photos. Maybe.

The field trip we went on last Friday was to Apple Annies. It's an orchard/farm around here. They had a corn maze that was really rather cool. Again it was a whole family event. I've never really been able to go on any field trips with the kids because chaperones are not allowed to take extra kids with them. I've always had so many doctor appointments that I was asking people to watch the kids for that I didn't feel right about asking them to watch the kids so I could go on a field trip, so I never went. It's really fun to be able to go on field trips as a family. As a HUGE bonus, Chris was able to come home from his business trip a day early and join us at the farm. Love it when that happens.

They had a market set up with pumpkins and squash and other vegetables were on sale. While we were walking through it, one of the big boxes had knobby squash in it. Derrick looked in and said, "Dad, those are freaky pumpkins." I love it when the kids start using words that I just don't expect from them, like freaky.