The Harris Family: A little of this....a little of that

First, I am way behind at blogging. Well, we all knew that, but I haven't blogged about Lauren's party. Mostly because I took, oh I don't know, maybe five pictures. Really. Two of which were blurry. I was good at picture taking at one time. I think we have at least a million pictures of Kristen. But with every additional kid, I'm just lucky to even throw a party.

The days leading up to the big day were rough. With Kristen having to go to the doctor with an ear infection, to cleaning, to spending 12 hours making a cake. Let's just say I was happy to have it all behind me. I wish I would have taken more pictures though.

We were very happy to see Paul's grandmother. I didn't think she would be able to make it, but we were very happy she did.

It was a good party and a wonderful time spent with family.

In other news, we have started school back. We took about a month off and then plunged right back into it. It was nice sitting down to do math and just picking up where we left off. No review needed.

Kristen is in 3rd grade this year. Her favorite subject is science and she wants to work in a ice cream shop when she grows up. Apparently, since both Paul and I worked at Dairy Queen, she thinks it is the most awesome job ever. She can't wait to make an ice cream cone.

Lauren is in 1st grade this year. Her favorite subject is games. She thinks every subject should come with fun games to play. She wants to be a librarian when she grows up. Which is a major upgrade from last year.

And this little guy is starting pre-school. He loves school (for now) and every subject is his favorite. He wants to work with his daddy when he grows up.

I did realize after the first day that I was not at all ready or organized for the school year. So, this is what my kitchen looked like as I tried to get the old moved out and the new moved in.

Kristen asked if it was going to stay that way. UUUmmm...NO. We did add some cursive to our wall.

Kristen is super excited to learn cursive this year. She loves to practice her name and she can't wait to be able to sign it in cursive. This might actually be her favorite thing to do so far. I find her practicing several times a day. All on her own.

She's still learning her multiplication table. While math is definitely something she is strong at, it is getting harder, and thus she is beginning to grumble and groan when math rolls around. I don't blame her. I'm just glad my phone has a calculator on it.

While Lauren is still very anti-school, I am trying to make it more fun. Lauren's definition of fun is more playing less learning. I'm trying to incorporate some fun games, but there also comes a time for sitting and listening.

I was very proud of her because she did this worksheet all by herself. Read it and colored it. This is a major accomplishment. She has since read and done about five more worksheets and stories like this. Reading is so hard. We've stopped Hooked on Phonics and will be focusing on a different mini curricula until I feel she is ready to plunge back into HOP.

Dallas loves school. One day I had switched the order of his school up a bit and he cried thinking he wasn't going to get to "sit at the table and do chool".

He's learned so much in the month and a half we have been doing this. He can count to 20. Recognize numbers 1-10. Knows his shapes and colors. He is learning his letters and letter sounds. He already knows A-E (upper case) and is excited to put his letters on his letter tree. He is a human sponge.