Busy Monday, October 21

Today's 'To-Do' List

• Menu
• Shopping
• Laundry
• Lunch with Peter
• Dishes
• Pay Library
• Take Brielle to Orthodontist
• Shop for Brielle's project stuff

Menu

• Tacos
• Spaghetti w/Meatballs
• Banquet Homestyle Bakes Chicken, Mashed Potatoes & Biscuits
•  Pulled Pork (or Eating Out?)
• Hamburger Helper
• Pizza
• Chicken & Rice

This Week's 'To-Do' List

Tuesday - Swimming lessons (pretty easy day)

Wednesday - Brielle Orthodontist, 4-H (5 to 7!)

Thursday - Parent Teacher Conference for Brielle, 4-H, Parent Teacher Conference for Katherine, Meeting with district customer service representative for school.

Friday - Take Katherine out Shopping, MtG for Peter & Brie. 

Saturday - Pokemon for Peter & Katherine, Katherine's friend's birthday party

Sunday - Finish Halloween Costumes, Carve Pumpkins

Last Week

So last week went crazy and a lot of things came to a head. Not only was work very frustrating and it looks like it will continue to be that way but we finally had a knock out drag out with Katherine's Homeroom/Lit/Social Studies teacher. Apparently Katherine was chewing on a bracelet just a silly plastic one they got from one of the fundraisers to encourage the kids to go out and fundraiser and the teacher told her to go throw it away. I really have a problem with a teacher telling a student to throw away what is their possession no matter what the monetary value of it is. I see no difference between a free bracelet and a million dollar necklace. For me it is the principle of the matter. After my husband heard this also he got very upset and we ended up sending a pretty nasty letter to the school. We are now going to be dealing with people from the district office and it may come down to us changing which school Katherine goes to. I dislike the idea of uprooting Katherine but she's had far from a positive experience there. She's emotionally young and needs time to adjust which is a family trait but they want her to stop and go automatically. She's already had books taken away from her from school aka she's not allowed to read while at school. She's not allowed to have her journal at school either which we were trying to use to help her express what she was feeling and thinking in a more controlled manner instead of going, "Hey!" I'm also having problems with this teacher because it is a constant string of negative feed back which means Peter and I don't know when changes at home make any difference. And here's the funny thing, I got onto the webpage that lets me see grades inputted and while I'm very new at this I didn't realize I could click them and see notes so I sent the teacher a question asking why Katherine had a 0 on an in class test! Later that night Peter showed me I could click on it and the note said, "Took twice. Never turned in." Now after our nasty letter the teacher won't reply to emails but I went back on the site yesterday to find out the Science Teacher's name so I could send her an email letting her know what Katherine's science fair project is and I realize one of Katherine's C grades (Her Lit) was suddenly a B and I look and that test I asked about suddenly had a grade with it. Now I don't kick up dirt and jump on people so that my daughter can have the 'easy way' but because I need to have positive and negative feed back and someone willing to work with me so that Katherine can succeed so I'm not sure why there was a sudden grade other than Katherine has told me that this teacher has lost work before and perhaps that was the case or perhaps Katherine turned it in last month in the wrong place which makes me question why the teacher doesn't check all her papers.
In any case I'm not saying that either of my daughters is perfect but by golly I expect teachers to want to actively engage the parents in a positive manner. 

We will see how things go. For the most part I've been dealing with the stress of that.

Saturday was the big Kid's Halloween Party that my friend Sarah and I started talking about last year. It seemed to be a blast and I wish I had more time to make things for it. I made spiders with googly eyes though. (no pictures sadly because they were cute)

I started peeling grapes and putting raisins in there to look like eyeballs but peeling grapes is horrifically tedious and I soon gave that up and only did a handful of grapes and put them in with the rest of the grapes. 

I also made cups.

My better picture isn't realistic because I made a second attempt at them because the first time I did it I just swirled the rims in and it tripped on the inside and outside and then I thought about all those sticky fingers! The next attempt I used the Corn Syrup & Food coloring (red and a drop of blue) and put it on a baby spoon I had around and swirled the inside. I had to freeze the glasses though because the corn syrup wanted to completely drip all the way down to the base. They were still need looking though.

I then made witch's hat cookies. These were the gluten free ones for our friends that can't have gluten for medical reasons. I took a package of sandwich cookies and dipped them in chocolate then used frosting and a Hershey's kiss.

These were my shortbread cookie ones which are much simpler you just flip the cookie over. 

Everyone thought they were really cute and they got ate fast. 

Well that is my week at a glance.

I'm hoping this week goes a little better.