Thanksgiving and Birthday

To make life easier, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family, along with celebrating the twins' birthday, all in one day. Everyone had survived our Dickson adventure, and we were ready for the Princess and Pirate Party that Aunt Boo and Aunt Jenny had planned.

It started with playtime outside.















After getting our fresh air, it was time to put on our party clothes! (Thank you, Aunt Jenny!)



Our pretty Princesses



A Royal Family

Now, Isaac was the only boy who was interested in being in costume. I think Joshua and Andy were busy elsewhere and couldn't be bothered.



"Arrr, matey!"



The Princess and the Pirate.
You know, I'm pretty sure I've read a book by that title...
These guys are much cuter!



Here's the reason Andy was too busy to be in costume. Papa Joe sneaked Andy out to play with the model trains. Andy had been kicked out of the garage earlier because he wasn't following directions, but he was so brokenhearted that Papa Joe took pity on him and let him go back by himself. Papa Joe is such a softie!

Cake time! We finally got Andy to be a little more piratey.



Ready for the song!






Isaac is ready for cake!



Joshua is ready too!



And here is Aunt Boo. Because no post would be complete without a picture of her! :)

Thank you Grammy and Papa, Boo, and Jenny for making this day special!

Fun at Grammy Pat's

Before setting out for Dickson, the tiny Delks and I stayed at Grammy Pat and Papa Joe's house.

Wednesday night we pulled out Grammy Pat's ipad and texted Aunt Jenny to get her ipad ready too. The Delks and Davises were going to chat!



The boys had a better time than Abby. Once Abby realized she wasn't going to be the star of the show, she lost interest. The boys were entertained by Joshua who wanted to show his truck collection, and Julia who was kind enough to listen to Isaac and Andy sing.



Isaac being cute



Abby got one of Grammy's scarves and found a tutu. My daughter knows fashion!



Andy was just having a good time.

Time for a good night's sleep and then Dickson in the morning!

Turkey Day- Dickson Style!

I love the holidays! I love seeing family and friends. I love getting time away from work. I even love having time to straighten my house. (not that I do it, but I could!) The only thing I don't really love- all the road time.

I'm not going to complain since the road time is what takes me to the friends and family I love, but I sure do wish Abby would shut up for more than 5 minutes at a time. 3.5 hours on the road with a talkative 2 year old is not anyone's idea of a good time.



Don't let the cuteness fool you. She talks more in a day than Oprah did in her entire career.

Well, the Delks recently made the trek to Dickson for the annual Thanksgiving Day reunion at the White Bluff Community Center. I didn't get any pictures while we were there, but I did get pictures when we all went back to Aunt Hollye's!

The men, along with Hannah, Ingrim, and Hannah's boyfriend went to Emily's house to watch the game and escape the children. I can't blame them since they were the ones to watch the kids at the Community Center playground. :)



The kids behaved themselves, for the most part. Aunt Jenny brought a Veggie Tales to watch and they were all hooked for a little while.



Joshua was focused! I have no idea which movie it was, but it must have been one of his favorites!



Aunt Boo and Aunt Emily. Such style! Such grace! Such good hair!



Abby doing... something. She really enjoyed playing with Sadie's dolls and doll house. (that is NOT a hint for Christmas) Abby even stayed inside to play when everyone else went outside with Aunt Jane.

I know that there are plans for Christmas in Dickson as well, but we are going to have to play that by ear. For the past 3 years we have enjoyed being in our home Christmas day. We'll keep everyone updated!

Halloween

I hate Halloween. The only thing I like about Halloween is getting together with our friends and being able to catch up on things.

This was the 5th annual Halloween get-together with our neighbors Kayla and Travis (and baby Ansley). Melissa and John were able to come too! (with the twins) The house was swarming with children!



Andy was a pirate. Arrrr matey!



Isaac was a baseball player- no surprise there! But he did choose to be a Reds player, which may have broken Joe's heart a little.



Abby was a ladybug. Or a red and black princess, depending on her mood.



Abby and Andy sitting at their fancy table at Kayla's house.



Kayla holding Ben. Matt was being fed. I neglected to get a picture when he was done. I hope this doesn't cause him to become emotionally stunted.



Baby Ansley causing havoc on Kayla. The hat caused her to misbehave. Arrr, Mommy!

Joe and I took the kids on one lap of the neighborhood before we called it quits. They all had a blast! They loved going up to each door and saying "Happy Halloween!" It wasn't the expected greeting, but it was good enough for them to get what they wanted. :)

Unfortunately, we didn't have as many trick-or-treaters as we were expecting, and we have TONS of candy left over. I've been taking the chocolate to school to share with the teachers during our faculty meetings and professional developments. Teachers will do anything for chocolate!

Grammy and Papa Delk

Joe's birthday was October 30, and Grammy and Papa Delk came to visit and celebrate! I honestly don't know what the kids were more excited about- seeing grandparents or having a party!



No party is complete without presents! Each of the kids received a teddy bear!



You had better believe that candy was taken away very quickly! We have a gallon sized baggie full of candy that the kids get to have a piece out of when they eat all of their dinner. I might have had to sample some of the chocolate, just to make sure it was fresh. :)



After the grandparents left, Abby pretty much commandeered the teddy bears. No one can be as good a mommy to the bears as Abby!



I'm glad the boys were feeling photogenic! Not sure what Abby's problem was.



Here's Abby showing off her sticker creation. Each of the kids also got a Halloween card complete with stickers from Grammy and Papa!
All in all, it was a fabulous party for the kids, and we're lucky that Daddy was born so we could all get together!

Thank you, Grammy and Papa Delk!

Catching Up

Sorry, it's been a while. Let me catch you up on a few things that have been going on in the Delk house.

1. My school blog has gotten some recognition!

You can read the article and my blog post about it HERE. My students love knowing that people outside of school are wondering what they are learning. Most days I hear the question, "Will that be on the blog?" at least twice.

2. Isaac is doing extremely well in school! He has been coming home with a smiley face in his behavior folder and gets stickers for his good deeds.



One thing about Pre-K that he loves is when Ms. Cherri sends home a literacy bag. The bag has a book, a notebook and crayons for an extension activity, and usually a puppet or stuffed animal that goes along with the story.

Two weekends ago, Ike brought home the 3 Little Pigs bag, complete with pig puppet. We pretended to be different characters all the way home, during dinner (and we went out to eat that night!), and all throughout the weekend. The only thing that was missing- a Big Bad Wolf puppet.

Well, I used to be creative at one time. I figured, how hard could a puppet be? I got out my felt, scissors, sewing kit, and an oven mitt.
Yes, an oven mitt. I traced the mitt on one side, then flipped the mitt so I would have a 'thumb' on either side. I hand stitched those suckers, and voila! A Big Bad Wolf puppet!



Two sided, cause it looks neat. I couldn't figure out how to make a mouth that looked good, so no mouth for this Wolf!
The kids had the best time playing with the puppets! I sent the Wolf back to school in the literacy bag so others could play. I might make another puppet for the kids though cause they loved them!

3. The twins are potty training. Andy is better at it than Abby at this point, but that doesn't stop her from trying! Today she went to daycare with 'big girl panties' on. She didn't even last until 8am. Oh well. We are going to keep trying!

Me Too, Woody!

Isaac is reading on a Level 1 in those leveled readers you see at Walmart. I found some books on that level at McKays and turned one of them into a Literacy Bag.



I chose this book because we already have a Little Critter book titled Me Too! on our Nook and I thought Isaac might be able to make a connection.



I typed up the words, added pictures from Goggle Images and Clipart, printed everything and cut them out, and voila!



And everything fits into a pencil case!



He has actually read this so many times that he has it memorized. (much like Aunt Boo had Hop on Pop! memorized) You can hear the twins wanting attention in the background. Well, you can hear Abby wanting attention in the background.

After reading the story, we spread out the story strips and Isaac had to put the story back together. (the video is a little shaky- it's was difficult to film and direct at the same time)


Click on the picture to watch the video!

I didn't film all of it, but Isaac did get it finished! I got the picture of him standing with it, I turned around for one second to tell Abby something and Isaac had already mixed the sentence strips. (I was going to have him read them to Daddy.) *sigh*





I've done this activity with my students and they have a good time with it since it's a Literacy Center that I take a picture of to put on my school blog. I used the sentence strips from 1+1+1=1 for my students, but since it was pretty easy to make my own, I'll probably do more!

You might be wondering what I had the twins doing during all this.



Abby chose robots for her activity. She has the robots shapes page and a pipe cleaner. Her activity was to try to make the shapes with the pipe cleaner. (yes, it is an advanced activity, but she really tried hard!)



She mastered the circle!



I combined Andy's love of pirates with his love of colored pom-poms. His job- match the pom-poms to the circles on the page. Hand-eye coordination.

Here's the problem that I'm finding with doing Delk Homeschool- I can't do all the kids at one time. They all need individual help with their activities. However, wherever Ike goes, so goes Abby. Wherever Abby goes, so goes Andy. If I leave anyone out, they scream and cry. I could send them to their rooms to cry it out, then call them back when it's their turn, but by then they are in bad moods and don't want to do their activity.

For anyone who wanted to know why I don't actually homeschool my kids- that's the reason. They get on my nerves.

Click on the links ( robots and pirates) to see where I got the great activities!