Counting Down to GOTR

Yesterday Alea had her final Girls on the Run practice before the race tomorrow. The girls and coaches at her school all made tutus. One of her coaches bought each of the girls a headband too. Today Alea was suppose to wear her GOTR outfit to school. She was so excited this morning to wear her headband, shirt, and tutu to school.

Tomorrow is the race in Bentonville. We have to be there at 7:30 and it is about a 22 minute drive. It is going to be an early morning. I don't know why races can't start at least at 9:00. This race starts at 8:30 but from what I hear there is a lot of stuff for the girls to do before and after the run. I am looking forward to a fun day tomorrow.

As a coach I will also be running with other girls from my school who do not have buddy runners. All together I will be running with four girls...including Alea.

Wish us luck!!!

Multiplication

I have been dreading the day Alea would start multiplication for about six months now. Turns out I had more to fear that I even realized. With the new Common Core State Standards the students are expected to know by memory their multiplication facts of a single digit number up to 100. This means that tonight we had to start doing problems like 46 X 2 and 23 X 4. Do you know the answers to these problems off of the top of your head?! Memorization is not Alea's strong suit. We are in for a long, rough path. Oh yeah, they start the timed test on this this week and they started multiplication like this TODAY.

Alea just finished working on her spelling list for the week, her multiplication of 5s and 2s up to 100, and read her fluency passage about 4 times. Great! The only homework we have left now is to work on 10s and 4s up to 100, read the fluency passage about 10 more times this week, read 30 minutes a night, study spelling some more, continue working on 5s and 2s to 100, and write a four square summary on the books she reads.

I laughed out loud when Alea came home on the first day of school and told me they would never have homework in 3rd grade unless they didn't finish their work in class or if had something they needed to work on at home. Her teacher had her fooled. Little did she know that she would have to work on spelling, math, reading, and writing every night. At least she had one day of happiness before all of the work kicked in.

A First Date

I had my first date today with a four mile run/walk. I walked/ran to the lake, then did two miles around the lake, then walked home. The first and last mile were more walking than running but the second and third miles were mostly running. I seem to have my best times running around the lake. I would really like to have a 45 minute 5K sometime soon and my first goal to get there is to do 2 miles in 30 minutes. At the lake today I did 2 miles in 29:55. I was very happy with that!

One More Race Photo

The Heroes for Kids 5K page on Facebook posted this picture today from our race on November 3rd. 

If you look closely you can see me near the back wearing my pink shirt. 

Alea is next to me but is too short to be seen in this picture.

Sick Enough

Today when I woke up I had a migraine. Alea came into my room when it was time for her to get up and asked me to take her temperature. She will sometimes complain that she doesn't want to go to school but she doesn't usually ask me to take her temperature. I knew that meant she really wasn't feeling well. I took her temp but she didn't have one. I decided that between the two of us we could equal enough sick to stay home together.

I ended up having to go to the doctor because it had been a year since they had last seen me for my migraine medicine so I had to have a chat with them before they would refill my prescription. The nurse practitioner we saw was nice enough to look at Alea's throat since she was starting to complain that it was hurting. She did a strep test on Alea and it came out fine. That is good news.

I think if Alea had gone to school today they probably wouldn't have sent her home because she might not have complained to the teacher or because her temp was never above 99 degrees but by 4:00 today she was definitely running a temp and feeling/acting sick.

We are waiting to see how she feels in the morning but I'm predicting another at home day. Davin has his big weekly meeting on Thursday so he can't stay home with her. He said he could stay home with her on Friday if needed. I hope she feels better soon. I think she just has a bad cold.

Three is a Magic Number

Three is the magic number today. It took me three minutes to cast my vote on the electronic machines but because they only had 3+1 machines (had to make 4 look like 3 on that one) I stood in line for 3 hours and 33 minutes.

When Davin went to vote today at lunch he stood in line for almost 2 hours. Apparently they ran out of paper ballots early this morning and only had the four machines for the rest of the day. Crazy!

I am so tired! Good night!!

Happy Birthday

Today is my 36th birthday. Alea and Davin sent me these flowers to work today. They are very pretty. 

Alea also made me this coupon book for a 'Mom and Girl Day'. I LOVE this gift. It is so thoughtful. She made sure each coupon related to me or to the both of us together. She is so sweet and so creative.

Alea asked me this weekend what some of my favorite animals were. Today she gave me three rolled up 'scrolls' for my birthday. This picture of the giraffe and the elephant is my favorite. I wish the paper wasn't torn at the top because I really want to frame it. I'm sure the frame place can help me figure this out. 

This is a picture of a gorilla. Go Pitt!

Check out the cute bird!

The whale is so cute. Even the starfish are saying I Love You! 

I told her my three favorite animals were an elephant, whale, and gorilla. 

I love that she added other animals and details to her art. 

I can't say enough how much I love this girl!!!! 

I am so blessed that God decided to make me her mommy.