Starship McGee

I don't know why they call it "Starship McGee."  The kids haven't told me this, but Starship McGee has something to do with the program they do and the awards they give out each month.  This month the award was for caring, and Ethan came home on Friday with a note inviting us to watch him receive that award.  On Mondays I go to help in Ethan's classroom by putting their homework packets together, so it worked out great that I was already there for the assembly.  I usually go in at nine, when I drop off the kids, and I'm done by nine thirty, which is when the assembly was scheduled for.  My mom watches Marcus and Rebecca at this time, but when she heard about Ethan's reward, she said she wanted to go, too, so we all headed to McGee on Monday morning.

We watched Ethan get his reward (kindergarten was first) then we left early, because my sister had locked her keys in the van, and my mom needed to go lend her her van so my sister could take my nephew to a doctor appointment.

Fast forward to four o'clock, when Alyssa came home ans asked, "Mom, why did you leave?  I got an award."  What?!?  No one told me she was getting an award!  I guess in her class it's a surprise.  I felt so bad that I wasn't there to cheer her on when we made such a big deal about supporting Ethan.  She completely understood, though, and in the end it didn't bother her at all.

I made sure to get a picture of Alyssa and Ethan together (a couple of days later) because I really am so proud of them, and I think it's cool that brother and sister received the same award for "caring for others" on the same day.

In other news:

1. We have our driveway back!  Way back a couple of months ago we got sixteen yard (a lot!) of potato dirt dumped on our driveway.  We used this dirt to fill the raised flower bed we're putting in behind the pergola.  We've been done with the dirt for a few weeks now, and we tried to give it away, but it just wasn't working.  So yesterday I put a "Free Dirt" ad on Criagslist, and by the end of the day, our driveway was clean!

2. I also spent most of yesterday outside finishing up the flower bed behind the pergola.  Marcus and I, and then Ethan and I put the ground cloth down and spread a bunch of bark around the rose bushes we put in.  We also saw a beautiful fountain at Lowes that I would love to put back there.

3. I'm losing weight!  I'm ten pounds away from my goal weight!  Other than this week I've been doing thirty minutes on the elliptical each morning while watching "24" and I think that's been helping a lot.  It helps because it burns those extra calories, but it also helps because it has now gone from, "Oh, I exercised this morning, so I can eat what I want," to "I exercised this morning, do I really want to waste all that effort on one cookie?"  (Actually, sometimes I say, "Yes.  Yes I do.")  I haven't been exercising in the mornings this week, because I'm right in the middle of painting the school room, and the elliptical is piled in the middle of the room with everything else. 

4. Speaking of the school room: It's gonna be awesome!  Tomorrow we're putting the second coat of yellow on the walls, then next week after that dries enough, I'll add stripes and a tree, and then after that come the curtains (I love the fabric I got for it!) and the pictures and quotes.  I'm so excited!  It's going to be so great to have a fun and happy place to do our school work next year.