Adventures in La La Land

1. I've been reading Andrew Peterson's Wingfeather Saga  to my 3rd grade library class every week because I've heard such amazing things about it and I knew I could trust a Christian author. Fantasy is never my first choice, but when I polled the kids at the beginning of the year about their favorite genres, fantasy took the lead handily. The first book in the series is The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness , and I'll admit that it started out slowly. Honestly, that's part of my dislike for fantasy. So much time is spent building a world and introducing the reader to never-before-heard-of creatures and characters, that it takes a while to get to the action. I've tried to make it as engaging as possible by doing crazy voices and sharing pictures I've found on Pinterest of the Wingfeather World, and the kids have been good sports, but I've been considering abandoning it and moving on to something else. I decided I better finish the book before I cast it asi...

Sorry for the delay. We were out of town, and I didn't bring my computer with me. More on that later. 1. Levi has taken a sudden interest in the library - not because of the books, but because of the toys. Haha. I'm always looking for ways to get him out of the house and away from his screen on the days he's home from school, and the library is a hit for both of us! He can play to his heart's content with all their fun, new toys, and I can do my schoolwork. Conveniently, I'm heading into the end of the semester and have a couple big projects coming up. One of them is a thorough report on my local library. Win/win!  2. In less exciting news about Levi, he paid his first visit to the principal last week. 🤦🤦🤦 Truth be told, our school has a new discipline process called the "Redemptive Thinking Process." It takes the pressure off the teachers to deal with each individual discipline challenge, and gets the kids out of the classroom to cool down, assess thei...

1. We had conferences for the girls on Monday. Sometimes I want to ask if I can just opt out of conferences. Their teachers didn't have much to say - they do their work, participate in class, behave, and are getting all As. That's why God gave me Levi: to keep me humble. 2. I got groceries 4 times this week. On Monday, I got two Instacart orders: one from Aldi because they're cheaper, and one from Meijer because Lucy requires certain brands of foods that Aldi doesn't have. 🙄 On Wednesday, I ran to Dollar General after dropping the kids off at school because Meijer didn't have the pepperoni I ordered and Lucy was beside herself  at the thought of eating her sandwich without pepperoni. There was door slamming and wailing. So I bought the stupid meat and threw it in her locker. Later that day I went to Family Fare looking for the frozen pizza that was out of stock for my Instacart order. It was out of stock at Family Fare too, so I ended up getting Starbucks and Littl...

1. We had a fun Halloween last week. It was nice having it on a Sunday so we didn't have to scramble to get ready after school. The girls are all about the makeup, and Levi has FOMO, so he got his done too.  Lena: neon cheetah, Levi: transformer, Lucy: Mal from Descendants Levi's costume was a little small to begin with, then I shoved warm clothes underneath it and he ate a big dinner and his belly busted right out of it. Lol. I was pretty proud of that make-up job! Lucy was excited to find a colored hairspray that actually worked in her dark hair! She's been working hard on taking care of her hair and it's so beautiful with all those natural curls. #jealous After a quick stop at Justin's parents', we met up with my family at Niki's for a cousins' picture and obscene amounts of candy. The Cousin Crew.  Then we hopped over to my street to prowl the neighborhood for candy. This is the first year Lena actually walked up to houses without me at her side! We ...