1. Katie (aside from making a plethora of silly videos of herself) has been busy learning to read this year. She will complete lesson 100 of Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
this morning. I told her in November that if she made it all the way through I’d take them all out to see a movie. Problem: there aren’t a lot of great choices in kid movies available in the theater right now. I’m rather picky about movie selections when paying to take four kids to the theater. She wants to see Hotel for Dogs. I’m kind of leaning toward Inkheart. We’ll see later on this morning I guess.

2. I’ve purchased the 100 Easy Lessons book twice now. When I was teaching Maddie to read (many moons ago), this was THE book. When it was Chloe’s turn, The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading became THE book. In truth, I like Ordinary Parent’s Guide much better and it did a great job with Chloe at that time. As such, I gave away my copy of 100 Easy Lessons because I figured I didn’t need it anymore. Wrong. Katie really needed that method with the arrows and such. She needs the constant reminder to go from left to right. The OPG wasn’t doing it for her, so I had to repurchase 100 Easy Lessons.

Moral of the story? Don’t get rid of anything until all of your kids are past the age of needing it. You never know – what didn’t work for one very well might be just the ticket for another. I learned that in 1 Easy Lesson. One easy, expensive lesson.

3. A lot more of my high school class has joined Facebook recently. They are now posting pictures. Pictures like this one:

I’m the jailbird in the front row. 6th grade, 1986. It has been officially confirmed that yes, I was indeed the dork I remember myself to be.

By the way, the teacher in this photo is one of my favorite teachers of all time. She taught Social Studies and really made us feel like we’d been to the countries we were studying. She went to many of the countries herself and had all kinds of things to show us and food to share. It was a great class. Good job, Miss Ballinger!

4. I’m not sure I like remembering what a dork I was in school.

5. I had a raging headache from 11:45pm Wednesday through 5:00pm Thursday. I had no hope it would go away at 3:00 Thursday and canceled everything I had scheduled for the rest of the day. It finally went away. So thankful.

6. We’ve been back in the full swing of school for a good three weeks now. I need another extended break so I can get my planning act together again. I discovered this free web-based lesson planner and hour tracker last week. It could very well be the solution I’ve been looking for. Now I need the time to figure it out and input everything.

7. The girls and I took a picnic lunch to the seminary today and enjoyed it with one Andi Ashworth. The weather was cool, but not cold. The company was delightful. I only see her once every 18-24 months. It is worth the wait every time.