Finally

I was trying to teach Hazel to make a face where you furrow your eyebrows and pucker your lips, and she couldn't do it....but Ethne could! Actually, these pictures don't have her doing both parts at once, but she can, briefly. It is sooooooo stinking cute!!

I'm finally feeling better. Being sick is miserable and makes me grateful for what my body does everyday without my even thinking about it. For example, I can do the dishes without having to sit down while I do them. Anyway.

So I just got back from a parent-teacher conference and it was very cool because Jethro's teacher had soooo many positive things to say! She said he has really taken off on reading (I knew that) and his scores for the DIBEL (don't know what that is, except it's a test that scores phonemic awareness--- what's the first sound in the word ball? What are the sounds that make up cat? etc.) were off the chart. Also, she said he's a good helper, gets along with the other kids, and then she started to say, "He's just so....well, mostly all kids in kindergarten are sweet, that's part of the good thing about teaching K, but he's just really nice, and fun personality. It's been fun watching him learn and grow, and I'm really going to miss him next year." Awww. She said that he loves music and dancing (knew that too). I mentioned that we think it's pretty fun to hear what he has learned, for example, Brett was really tickled that Jethro came home and told him how chicks grow from the germinal disc in the egg. Brett made him tell him that a few times cause he thought it was so cool. She said he's always curious and inquisitive and wondering--especially in science. There's some people who come from Purdue to teach science, for a research study or something, anyway so they keep track of the participation and stuff, and she said, she's always writing down Jethro...Jethro...Jethro. I was like, yeah--he's smarter than me in science. Anyway, lots of great things to hear. The only negative things were that he needs work with his fine motor skills--although he can write neatly when he really puts his mind to it, he just doesn't very often, and that he has a hard time putting things away neatly. YEAH. I know that too. So, it was fun. She said he's all ready for first grade. First grade? Crazy.

Here are some pictures from way back when, before I got sick, when the kids went to Lowe's to do one of the kid projects. They made a periscope. The picture of Hazel hammering is one of the only times she hammered. She prefers me to do it for her. That's all right, the real highlight for her is when she gets to paint it at home.

So, very exciting news...Brett has a telephone interview tomorrow for a company in Switzerland. Pretty wild. If only we could skip the whole graduation thing. But nothing better to motivate you than a cool job opportunity, right?

I'm going stir crazy after being sick for so long and not going anywhere, and now I'm still without a car, even though it was supposed to be finished. I'm such a dork sometimes....on Monday I had Brett take me to an appointment I had to go to, and after I got in there, they realized I had come a day early. Sigh.

And then, Brett had the car all put back together yesterday--with a standard transmission, and he woke me up before he left so that he could show me how to drive it (not that I don't know how to drive a stick, I do, it's just that our cars are never just normal. There's always little tricks to them that you have to know.) Anyway, I said, no I'm asleep. So then, I called him and had him tell me all the things, and so I got in the car ready to go to my appointment (again) and couldn't get it to go into gear. I was getting very annoyed. So I went into the house and called Brett and asked him again, and he gave me a tip, and I went back out, finally got it into reverse and backed out into the street, then couldn't get it into ANY gear. Seriously. So. Frustrated. So I pushed it to the curb and called Brett and told him his stupid car was across the street just so he knew. And he came home early--not out of sympathy mind you, after all "I offered to show you this morning"--which is true but at the same time, if we had a normal car like normal people I would already know how to drive it!! Anyway, he took the transmission back out, and took it to a place to get the flywheel balanced, because it hadn't been. So that is why I am without a car again.

I was really really really frustrated yesterday, but I'm over it. I just hope we get our car back sometime in the near future. I guess on the bright side, as long as I was going to be sick, it might as well have been while I was homebound anyway, and I've probably saved money by not being able to run to the grocery store or other stores all the time.

I tried taking family pictures, but Ethne just does NOT cooperate, (as you can see) so I think I'll take them to JCPenny and see if they can get anything better. Why is it impossible to take a good picture of three?

Anyway, that's all from me. Have a day.