Indianapolis

In an effort to knock another state off of Rion’s list, we headed to Indianapolis Thanksgiving day weekend. We visited the Children’s Museum and did the Indianapolis Motor Speedway tour. What’s more “boy” than that? Well, they were both a little mad that we didn’t have tickets to the Colts game that night. I guess that in our house football is more “boy” than race cars. Rion’s even starting to talk about football and trying to learn about the game. I’m not sure if it’s because he really cares, or if it’s just to join the big boy’s conversations. - N

In Indianapolis we went to the museum and the race track. At the museum we did lots of stuff. Stuff on the upstairs floors and on the downstairs floor. One thing was looking at dinosaurs. Another thing was we looked at stuff at Egypt. Another thing was we saw trains. There was lots of stuff at the museum. I love Indianapolis! At the race track we had a tour. Our tour showed us the bricks right in front of the finish line. It showed us where people sit to watch the race and watch tv. One night at a restaurant we ordered some stuff, but it didn’t come with our food and the food was pretty good. We stayed at a hotel and when we went to restaurants there were tons of people with Colts shirts on. I couldn’t believe it. There were so many people with Colt shirts and they all had Peyton Manning on it. Done. - Owen
I want to go see the Indianapolis Colts play. I really want to. I went to Indianapolis and we drove there. It was one day but we got to play at the museum part of the time. Then we were in the museum and we played with lots of stuff. It’s so fun. We are going to go there again. I really want to go to the baseball team play there. I went to a racetrack and we got to go on the bus. My dad and Rion went next to each other on the ride first and on the ride back me and my mom went together to sit down. We didn’t see any cars. They only had motorcycles. We saw motorcycles in the building. And there was lots of, lots of, lots of, lots of, lots of race cars. - Rion

Turkeys

We are home this year for Thanksgiving, so we decided to cook a traditional meal, but we each got to choose a dish. Mike picked sweet potato casserole. Rion picked chocolate covered bacon. Owen picked turkey and frozen hot chocolate, and I picked lemon pie. We added dressing, green bean casserole, cranberries, beer bread, and pumpkin pie to round out the meal. It is all very yummy! - N

I like Thanksgiving because you get to spend time with your family and watch football games after you eat lunch. And for Thanksgiving I made a candle and a turkey so mom could light it while we are eating dinner. This Thanksgiving everyone got to choose something to eat. I chose turkey and frozen hot chocolate. The turkey was really good. I LOVE THANKSGIVING! – Owen

I like Thanksgiving because we love turkeys the best. I wanted to see a real turkey. There was only one real turkey. They were so big. One of them were bigger than me. Two were smaller than me. One was the smallest. The end. – Rion Stufflebeam

Since Owen wanted a cooked turkey, Rion decided that he wanted to see a live turkey. Did you know that zoos don’t have turkeys and the farms are mostly closed this time of year? I called 5 zoos, multiple farms, and searched the internet before finding a Hibbard Road Gardens in Winnetka that brings in turkeys each year. Rion made the trip to see turkeys. It took us 30 some minutes to drive up there for 30 seconds of turkey watching, but he was pleased. By that point, the turkey hunt had made us hungry, so we stopped for mac-n and gelato. How can you go wrong with that? - N

Happy Thanksgiving!

Three (or more) things that we are thankful! 

Mommy:
1)    My family

2)    Our life together

3)    Our health

Owen:

1)      My family and friends

2)      My toys

3)      Our Thanksgiving feast

4)      My country

5)      All sports

6)      My teammates

Rion:

1)      My candy

2)      My dog

3)      My relatives

4)      Our house

5)      Our food

6)      Our toys

7)      Our sugar

Daddy:

1)      Family

2)      Health

3)      Our home

Villa Park Recreation's Fall Camp

For his Thanksgiving break, Owen tried Villa Park Recreation’s fall camp. It was a hit and he’ll return for Christmas break too. We’ve tried KinderCare and Lombard’s Y’s Kids, but this was the clear favorite. - N

At fall camp, I only went three days. The first day there were lots and lots and lots of people, but on the third day there were barely any people. And, on the second day kind of much people as the first day. At fall camp, we went in the gym. We did some crafts. The craft we did one day was that we got to make a little hangar for our door. Fall camp is awesome! We got to go outside. It was pretty chilly. And one day we got to play with these Pokemon cards. At the end of the day on the third day, we played 500 and every single time Jen threw it I kept on catching it and catching it. I don’t know why I kept on catching it. So, that’s the end of fall camp. - Owen

Rion's 2nd Karate Stripe

Parent-Teacher Conferences

We had parent-teacher conferences for both boys this week. Rion is doing great at daycare. Most of the behavioral issues he had dealing with a new teacher are gone. He loves to learn about new things and is advanced with his reading and writing. His teacher told us that if a teacher ever says he needs to be medicated or has issues, tell her that she’s the problem. J As long as you keep Rion busy and intrigued, he is a pleasure to have in class.

Owen is also doing great at Ardmore. He’s at a 3^rd - 4^th grade reading level and scored in the 80^th percentile versus 2^nd graders in math, even though he’s only in 1^st grade. His teacher is great about challenging him in the classroom. She allows him to do multiplication fast math on the computer, and worked with the accelerated teacher to develop a tic-tac-toe game that he plays each week. His tic-tac-toe board contains harder activities for him to complete, while the class does the typical stations. When he gets bored in class, he will get into some trouble but apparently it is standard boy behavior. We are very proud of both boys!  

Writing Class

Writing class is fun. The first thing we wrote about was animals under the sea. The second thing we wrote about was the coldest city on Earth. Mr. Koeller is the teacher of writing class. He is fun to write with. Mr. Koeller has done lots of projects for us. There is only supposed to be three or two people in each first grade class who can go to writing class. I was one of them. – Owen

The accelerate teacher at Ardmore started a new class for proficient 1^st grade writers. Owen was chosen to participate and is really enjoying it. They get to research topics and then write about them. And, Mr. Koeller talks sports with him, which is a big hit! - N

Fire Zone

Rion and I joined Carissa and Nate for a morning out at Fire Zone. It’s a fire-themed hands on play area. They had a fire truck to climb on/drive, an ambulance to play in, ladders to climb, poles to slide down, a 911 center to answer phones in (and push lots of buttons), outfits to wear, water to spray, and a special room with smoke and fire lights where they could pretend to put out a fire. Outside they had a real fire truck on display. The boys had a great time running around and playing. I think Rion’s favorite thing was working in the ambulance. He loved saving a dummy from the fire and then fixing him in the ambulance. As a mom, I hope that’s the only kind of “burning” building he ever runs in to! - N

At Fire Zone we went outside and inside, played ambulance, and me and Nate we went on this fire truck that’s inside. We saw a real firefighter. Then after that we got to play with more toys. Then we had to go home. That’s it. - Rion

The Power of Candy

Anyone that's shared a meal with Rion knows that 1) he will only eat what he wants and 2) what he wants will not be healthy. We have tried everything imaginable to get him to eat more vegetables but the best we can do is one bite of vegetables per year of age. Right now, he has to eat four bites a night. So, last night I told him that he could have an extra piece of Halloween candy if he ate the rest of the vegetables, which was probably a cup of broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. Fifteen minutes later, they were gone and he wanted his M&M's. This is the same kid who will take half an hour to eat four kernels of corn, which he takes little bites of. Anyway, candy works. However, I'm not sure that's really improving the quality of his diet! - N

Report Card

I got 3s. I had a better report card I think than the first one I got in Kindergarten. It’s cool because I did so much good writing and reading. We got to celebrate my report card because I had it so good. We went to Shaw’s. It was cool. I think that I had a good report card. The end. – Owen

We are so proud of Owen’s accomplishments at Ardmore! He is doing great! We also love the teachers and all of the effort they put in to make sure he is getting the most out of his education. - N

Karate Class

The key to a successful car trip

Roller Skating

The boy’s dentist has an annual roller skating, pizza party. This was the first year we were brave enough to attend. Rion loved skating! Owen, not so much. - N

We went roller skating. It’s so fun! We get to crash into everything. My brother wasn’t better than me. I could roller skate without my mom and my dad. My brother can’t do that. He has to hold my dad’s hand. And, at Dr. Mike’s party we ate pizza. The end. – Rion

On roller skating I didn’t do so well. I kept on falling, and falling, and falling. It hurt me so bad. Dad fell one time because me and Rion knocked him over. Rion beat me in a race. I had to hold on to the wall. - Owen

2nd Grade Math

I go to 2^nd grade math because I’m really good at math. And, I have homework every single day. It might be hard. I have Library on Monday I got to go with them to. On every single library day you have to do a reading test on the computer. The one I got to do was Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets. That’s the only one I’ve done so far and it’s really cool. Because you know why? I’ve read it so good one time that I had to do a test and I got all of the answers right. Every day I have to do one page on the math sheet and at the end of the school year I have to do multiplication and division. It might be hard. I already know how to do multiplication and division, but I’m not that good at division. - Owen