I noticed on the sign by the local public grade school that progress reports were already coming out this week. Seriously? It's only been a month! Anyway, I took this as a sign that I could do my own little report on what James has done in school.
James LOVES school. He loves it so much that every day I pick him up he tells me that he doesn't want to go home. Every time! Last week I walked up to his class instead of picking him up in the carpool line. I was carrying Kaitlyn, so I was a little uncomfortable in the heat, and James would not get up from sitting in line. His teacher, Mrs. Wilhite, was even trying to convince him that he could go and come back next time, but that didn't work either. It finally came down to her picking James up and making him stand up to go with me. Jeepers James.
This month has been exciting at school. His class has been studying colors: blue, red, and yellow. On certain days, the kids get to wear a certain color for a shirt, first was yellow, then the next week it was blue, etc. That is a lot of fun. They also put together a collage of things with that color on it such as stickers or magazine ads, etc.
Nursery rhymes have also been big this month. They have learned about Jack jumping over the candlestick, Humpty Dumpty, and Jack and Jill. So far James has come home with treasures he has made, like a candlestick made out of paper and red saran wrap, and a picture of Humpty Dumpty broken on a brick wall. I'll be excited to see his Jack and Jill activity on Tuesday.
So all in all, I think we're making great progress with school, and I'm thankful that he loves it so much.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Books a billion
I've been waiting to enter this information into my blog because I've had a few surprises under my belt that have finally been revealed. This summer, I took upon 730 slides that were living in a box at my parent's house. These slides were shot in the 1950s and 1960s of my mother's childhood, mostly captured by my grandfather, Delos and my uncle Terry (the oldest of the 4 children). I had never seen these slides before, and judging by the shipping address on the box, neither had anyone else since the early 90's. This made me terribly excited. One by one, I scanned and scanned, even the garbage shots, until I reached 730 (or so), I wanted to be able to put ALL of them on a DVD for backup. The scanning alone took me a few months, as I would just do some when I was working on the computer on other projects. Each one that popped up on the screen was a little surprise for me, and usually my mouth was agape at what I was looking at... scenes of my mom when she was 3, making Christmas cookies with my grandma (which she now does with my kids, her grandchildren), and what really surprised me the most is how much I looked like my mom at that age and how much Kaitlyn already resembles her!
The whole process was emotional, from seeing photos of my grandfather (whom I NEVER MET), to seeing photographs of the famous trip to the 1964 World's Fair in NYC where my parents met for the first time. I got to see my grandmother as a young, vibrant mother of 4, laughing and enjoying life as I am living now with my little ones. I got to see my mom go through her geeky stage, as all of us do at some point, and also go to see her become a beautiful woman. I really felt like I was let in on a secret that had all been a mystery to me before this project. Yes, of course I've heard stories and seen a few photographs, but nothing like this.
Originally I was going to make a DVD slideshow and put the best of the best photos on it, and then the idea morphed into a book. I found blurb.com from another project that I was working on, and just had to make the book. It was the perfect idea.
I almost caved and uncovered the secret to my mom about 4 times during the process, partially because I could hardly contain my excitement about the whole thing, and partly because I wanted her help in editing and understanding who these people were in some of the shots. I suppressed that urge to share with her, and was able to present the book to her on her 60th birthday, a complete surprise. I cried, she cried, it was great. :)
Then mom turned the idea into a surprise herself. She ordered more books, one for each of her siblings, and gave them to them as a surprise a few days ago since they are all together at the house in Utah. I was thanked by everyone, which was nice of course, but really, just knowing that they had that experience to see those photos together at the same time is enough for me. I wish I could've been there, but we don't always get what we want (I tell my son this all of the time-ha). I know they will treasure these books forever, and then their kids will treasure them for years to come. I just wish I had done this a few years ago so I could've shown my grandmother.
The second book that I mentioned above was a book that I made for Courtney, my cousin, of her blog. She's been blogging for three years, and started when her second son Gabe was just a newborn. What a treasure. I admit, I didn't read all of her entries while working on this project, but the ones I did read cracked me up. The book has the entries from 2005 and 2006 in it, and that alone got to be HUGE! I had so stop at that point and publish the thing! I included all of the photos that she had uploaded and even put captions by most of the photos. It was a lot of work, but so fun and totally worth it. I also presented it to her on her birthday, and told her to open it with me on the phone. She was a little curious as to why I was so excited about a book that I was giving her, but when she saw what it was, she clearly understood. Apparently I won for giving her the "best present in a long time" award. I'll happily take that honor. ;)
She has already taken it upon herself to finish the project. I would've done it for her, again, of course, but if she wants to do it, that's fine with me. Ha.
This entry came to mind because I just noticed that I'm approaching my 100th blog entry. Time to publish! :)
The whole process was emotional, from seeing photos of my grandfather (whom I NEVER MET), to seeing photographs of the famous trip to the 1964 World's Fair in NYC where my parents met for the first time. I got to see my grandmother as a young, vibrant mother of 4, laughing and enjoying life as I am living now with my little ones. I got to see my mom go through her geeky stage, as all of us do at some point, and also go to see her become a beautiful woman. I really felt like I was let in on a secret that had all been a mystery to me before this project. Yes, of course I've heard stories and seen a few photographs, but nothing like this.
Originally I was going to make a DVD slideshow and put the best of the best photos on it, and then the idea morphed into a book. I found blurb.com from another project that I was working on, and just had to make the book. It was the perfect idea.
I almost caved and uncovered the secret to my mom about 4 times during the process, partially because I could hardly contain my excitement about the whole thing, and partly because I wanted her help in editing and understanding who these people were in some of the shots. I suppressed that urge to share with her, and was able to present the book to her on her 60th birthday, a complete surprise. I cried, she cried, it was great. :)
Then mom turned the idea into a surprise herself. She ordered more books, one for each of her siblings, and gave them to them as a surprise a few days ago since they are all together at the house in Utah. I was thanked by everyone, which was nice of course, but really, just knowing that they had that experience to see those photos together at the same time is enough for me. I wish I could've been there, but we don't always get what we want (I tell my son this all of the time-ha). I know they will treasure these books forever, and then their kids will treasure them for years to come. I just wish I had done this a few years ago so I could've shown my grandmother.
The second book that I mentioned above was a book that I made for Courtney, my cousin, of her blog. She's been blogging for three years, and started when her second son Gabe was just a newborn. What a treasure. I admit, I didn't read all of her entries while working on this project, but the ones I did read cracked me up. The book has the entries from 2005 and 2006 in it, and that alone got to be HUGE! I had so stop at that point and publish the thing! I included all of the photos that she had uploaded and even put captions by most of the photos. It was a lot of work, but so fun and totally worth it. I also presented it to her on her birthday, and told her to open it with me on the phone. She was a little curious as to why I was so excited about a book that I was giving her, but when she saw what it was, she clearly understood. Apparently I won for giving her the "best present in a long time" award. I'll happily take that honor. ;)
She has already taken it upon herself to finish the project. I would've done it for her, again, of course, but if she wants to do it, that's fine with me. Ha.
This entry came to mind because I just noticed that I'm approaching my 100th blog entry. Time to publish! :)
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