ISAT results

I knew it wouldn't be long before I was bragging again! In the mail today, we received the results of Justin's 3rd grade ISAT (Illinois Standards Achievement Test). He took these tests in spring 2008. This picture is of the first page, which shows that he exceeds the states standards in reading and math performance. How awesome is that? They provided a detailed explanation of the graph and also provided national comparisons. Justin's national percentile rank in reading is 95% and in math it is 97%!!!!! He's barely even on the percentile chart for his weight, so it's nice to see how high he is on these charts!

Back to bragging

The boys are about 5 weeks into the new school year, so it's time I started bragging again. This is a picture of Justin's first science test of the year. As you can see, he really knows his Living Things. He was really interested in cells and their make-up. Everyday after school he would talk about it on the way home. The other picture is a little certificate he brought home from school today. (You can click on the picture to enlarge it and read what it says.) Miss G. isn't Justin's teacher, but a student teacher that is in their classroom for twelve weeks. She just turned 22 a few weeks ago, now she's the same age as me! Ha, ha.
Kyle is currently the "Friend of the Week" in his class. He had to write a paper about himself to read aloud to his classmates, complete a poster with pictures of him and his family (and pets), and on Friday, Jason will be spending some time in his classroom.
Stay tuned, I'm sure I'll have more to brag about soon!

Gifts from above

Unfortunately, all of the earnings from the sale of my grandparents' former home had to go towards my grandma's "rent" at the nursing home the last five years. But my grandpa had a small life insurance policy for my grandma. My mom and her two sisters split the amount evenly and received their checks a couple days ago. My mom insisted on sharing some of it with Justin and Kyle so that they had a last gift from their Great Grandma. My mom said it was Great Grandma's way of saying thank you for visiting her. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure my mom feels a little weird about having this money. I know she became upset when it came to her. It probably helped her to come over to my house and hand over $250 in cash to her grandsons. Their eyes almost popped out of their heads!!! They had never held a $100 bill in their hands before! Then it was off to Target's Lego aisle...
Justin and Kyle knew about this ahead of time so they had time to plan. Since they're obsessed with Legos and had just gotten a new Lego magazine in the mail, they knew exactly what they were after! They both chose Star Wars Clone Wars products. Justin's is a total of 1034 pieces, Kyle's is 799 pieces. They're BIG!!!
I admit it was fun to see them go in and grab the huge boxes. Whenever we go to a store with toys, we stop in the Lego aisle. The boys stand there and gawk at the large items. Those are reserved for Christmas and birthdays, but not this time! My mom came to the store with us to buy them. I know she enjoyed the moment as well.
Thank you to Grandma B. and Great Grandma N. for such special gifts! They will be appreciated for a long time to come.

The grass is always greener

After the hurricane passes over us. It feels like we've had non-stop rain for the last week. I think there was a small break in between the hurricanes, but there were a few days where it rained the ENTIRE day!!! I know that what hit us was mild, but so many clouds make life gloomy and now we have to deal with the flooding. However, the grass looks fantastic! We didn't have much rain over the summer, so even with fertilizer and sprinklers the grass didn't look very good. Not to mention the area around our playset where the "army game" mostly took place when school was out. The grass there was completely flattened. After a lot of rain (and kids in school) it has recovered. I'm really looking forward to mowing this week. I can just picture the well defined lines there will be afterwards from the lawn mower. One of the little things in life that I find extremely rewarding! I admit, I'm an odd sort of person. I love to vacuum, and I feel that mowing the grass is like vacuuming the carpet. Okay, that's enough about me for now.

It's been awhile

As far as I'm concerned summer is over. For me, it ends when school resumes. I'm enjoying this cool weather and have my fall decorations out. That include pumpkins, but only those without faces. Those with faces will come out in October. We're already discussing Halloween costumes around here. And as you can see, my pets are enjoying the sunlight.

The last week of August flew by and I feel like it was a really long time ago. The boys started school that week and we also had to say good-bye to my grandma. Justin and Kyle had never been to a wake and funeral before. Justin took it pretty hard. He was very emotional. It was sad to see him that way, but I was glad to see that he realized the seriousness of the situation. As if there wasn't enough going on that week, Kyle's betta died. He had that fish for three years!

I'm happy to report that the school year has gotten off to a good start. Kyle has adjusted well to being at school all day and Justin is doing well with his glasses. It's cute how they can discuss lunch and their elective classes with each other now. They even managed to bring home a virus already! This week we have curriculum night at the school. We already know Kyle's teacher. She's the same first grade teacher that Justin had. She's the one that hugged me on conference night and thanked me for having such a wonderful son. I predict the same for this year...

Make sure you scroll down to the bottom of this page to see the gadget I added to my blog: Random cat of the day. It's from a pet of the day website. I don't know these cats, but some are pretty cute and I found humor in the title.