3rd Grade Progress Report

Hard to believe it's been 9 weeks of school already.  I am sure Collin does feel that way but it feels like to me that he just started last week. Based on the graded assignments coming home in his daily folder, we had an idea of how he was doing.  Plus, Dad talks to the teacher and she said he was doing good in Reading.  I had not seen much improvement but maybe that meant he was status quo.


His 9-week progress report came home yesterday.  He received S in is Social Skills, Work Habits and completing his assignments.  It's not an E but an S is acceptable in the Holmes house.  His grade so far are:

• Writing - 88:  Not bad.  He does need to practice on punctuation but he is much better than last year
• Reading - 80:  Well, if he is doing good, an 80 is not that great.  What else can we be doing?
• Oral Language - 90:  Not surprised there. He is communicative and can regularly find words to express himself....even when we don't want him to
• Spelling - 99:  Wahoo!  Great job buddy!  We do practice spelling words during the week but he generally gets them all right the first time.  Maybe they practice them in class too which would help.
• Math - 92:  Still getting good grades in math.  This would be a higher score if he would slow down when reading the word problems.  He is MUCH better at this than last year.  Dad printed off some math worksheets for him to work on during math homework when he gets home.  I think this is really helping him.
• Social Studies - 78:  Lowest grade.  What is this all about?  How do we increase this baby?  Maybe it has to do with his reading the question when he is answer it?  We have no idea but will be sure to ask during the parent conferences scheduled in a month.  Not sure I can wait that long.  I'll email the teacher to see what's driving that score.
• Science - 96:  Great job!
• Handwriting - E:  He has always had really good handwriting.  Glad to see he is keeping this up.
• Art - E:  Maybe he takes after his mommy?
• Music - E
• Heath/Fitness - S

The only comments the teacher had were:  "We are off to a great start.  Please remember to practice math facts and read daily."  I think she included this one on all of the reports.  Seems to have no personalization unlike the reports we have seen from his other teachers. 

Non-Technology Fun

Taking a break from the computer and iPad, we spent several nights last week, after homework (I am not that crazy!), playing with toys in the playroom or the TV room.  What a concept!  Collin had the idea of playing with the matchbox cars and building a twisting track to race the cars.  I then got the idea to include dominos at the end to see if a car could make it down the track and knock them down.  Only one car made it...after at least 20 attempts but we did have success.....and a lot of fun doing it.

Here is one that did not knock the dominos down but at least made it to the end.  Most of the other cars did not make it past the loop.  I am not sure why because there are at least 10 cars that usually do.

The next night, we just worked on the dominos building different designs.  Here is the one I came up with:





Collin had a great idea of using the table because it was flat compared to the slatted wood floor.  While I was building my side, he also had the idea of the dominos falling off the table and then to the floor to start a new domino track.  Great idea.....and it worked!

Custom Made Bed

Maybe Collin will grow up to be an interior designer.  The last several nights, he has arranged his bed with pillows (several confiscated from our bed), blankets and stuffed animals to create a "comfort zone" for us to cuddle up on while reading at night before going to bed.  The first several nights, I had to stay out of the room while he was designing before he allowed me to walk in with my eyes closed (he guided me which was some of the fun) before I opened my eyes for the big reveal.  Each night, we discussed what we really liked about the design, how comfortable it was and what we would want to change for the next time. He did use the words "heavy" and "big" to describe me but I tried not to feel too fat after these descriptions.  He was trying to say that it was hard to figure out how to fit both of us on the twin bed comfortably with all of the stuff on it. 


I don't have pictures of the prior designs but did take a picture last night.  This was different because he involved me in the design this time.  He gave me a piece of paper and told me to 1) draw a design and 2) let him know how many pillows, blankets, etc. were needed. I drew this:

The part in front of the bed is the trundle bed pulled out slightly so we could have a foot rest.  My legs get sore all curled up on the bed for 20 - 30 minutes while I am in the room with him...so I was selfishly thinking of me.  When I explained the design to him, he was excited to start working on it.  After about 10 minutes, he lead me blinded into the room and this is what he came up with:

My side of the bed....

Collin's side of the bed....

...and the entire bed.  Notice the camo sheet hanging from the wall.  This is his little hiding area on the other side of the bed.

I love how we had two monkeys in the bed with us.  The monkey that has been with Collin since he was born and his "lovely" was covered and smiling.  I also had a pillow given to me before I went through chemo.  I pulled this from the guest bedroom and made a point to mention this pillow and how he thought I would really like it for the back of my neck.  VERY sweet of him to think of that because he has seen me take a small pillow before and put it behind my neck when we sit on the bed against the wall.

This design WAS comfy and the perfect place to continue to read Halloween books.  He does not know what he is wearing but he is ready for Halloween, trick-or-treating and ....CANDY!

Collin, The Deep Thinker

There are times I look over at Collin and wonder what he is thinking because he looks like he is in deep thought.  I could be because he is about to fall asleep or he is just bored.  Whatever he is doing, there are not many times that he is not moving around, talking or being very active somehow.


Here he is at school during lunch last week.  Is he:

• Wishing he had the Welch's fruit chews instead of his friend?
• Wondering what game he and his "crew" are going to play during recess?
• Wondering what day it is.  Is there football practice after school?
• Hoping a friend will come over to play after school?

What's even cuter is how he fell asleep one night last week.  He has not slept with his stuffed animals or other pillows in a long time...mainly because he was still wetting his bed and we did not want to have to wash or throw away any of his favorite stuffed animals.  Now that he has still been dry at night (SOOO thankful for this), he has started to pull his animals back into bed with him.  On this particular night, he made a wall with his blankets on the outside edge of his bed.  I thought I would see him sleeping within that wall when I came in to check on him that night.  Nope, the wall was on the floor and he and Big Monkey were positioned like this:



Monkey's arm was over Collin and Collin was sleeping with his arm propped under his chin.  Maybe he was watching his hermit crabs crawl around while he was listening to a book on CD.  He really likes Skippy John Jones - In the Dog House.  I have that one memorized so I have tried switching it out with either Caps for Sale or  I Love You, Stinky Face but Skippy John Jones finds its way back into the CD player...probably because it's about a dog.  Anyway, he saw the picture in the morning and could not remember what he dreamt about the night before.  At least he had a good night's rest.

What to Do?

While I was working the other day, Collin sat in the office with me researching on the computer what he could do.  He loves going to YouTube to watch videos of other kids.  While looking at a video, he got the idea of searching "matchbox cars" and "racing" and found a video of kids (actually it sounded like the dads started it) setting up a matchbox car race track to end in the pool.  Collin thought this was great and disappeared from the office.  He came back and wrote out the following list:

The "dog" part caught me a little by surprise but it was funny, nonetheless.  I worked for about another 30 minutes and finished to find that he had already built the race track to finish into the pool.  He had tried it out a few times and already pulled a few of the cars out of the water.  Sorry, I was so happy to see that he found something to do AND was cleaning up after himself that I did not run back into the house to get the phone or camera to take a picture or video.

He and I did end up playing upstairs in his playroom for a few minutes before we stopped to have dinner.  We were excited because it was movie night and this night, he and I were actually going out to the movies while Dad hung out with his friends.  I love getting to spend one-on-one time with this guy and especially watch him laugh and enjoy himself at the movies.

That Boy Has Some Dance Moves!

In case Collin grows up to be a professional dancer, I wanted to be able to show him that he has always shaken his hips and has some really good dance moves.  Some of these are a few years old but some of my favorite ones of him:

Yes, I needed a break from work.  After all, it's the deadline day...and I am tired of looking at tax returns.  These videos make me smile...and I wanted to share them with you.

About Collin - Self Reported

To get to know the kids better, Collin's teacher had them right a report titled "Selfie" which is appropriate given #selfies are a thing right now.  Here is what Collin wrote:

Some observations are:

• While we know he really likes Luby's "chicken on the bone" (baked chicken breast or wing), I would have thought he would have written about Caliente's (LOVES their chicken quesadillas), Chili's (likes there mini hamburgers and corn on the cob) or Taco Cabana (all about the queso and quesadillas).  He did pick Luby's the last time he was given a choice so maybe this was fresh on his mind.
• Why wouldn't his favorite animal be a dog?  It has been for the last several years when he has written about the subject.  I would not have been surprised if he had written hermit crabs (maybe he was unsure how to spell "hermit'?).  It's now a rat?  Excuse me!  Did he see one in or around the house to make him change his mind?  I will have to talk to that kid about this.
• I LOVE that he wrote one of his favorite football teams is the Longhorns!  Yeah!  I AM influencing him....or it could be that one of his best buddies IS a huge Horn fan and wears Longhorn jerseys all the time.
• I knew he liked the zoo.  We will have to go again once it gets cooler out.
• Not surprised he loves his new school.  I agree that it has a lot of windows which does make it shiny (He spelled it "siney".  I had to think about what word that was supposed to be).
• I guess he really liked our vacation this summer because he put his favorite country is Europe.  I am sure he meant besides the country where he lives, his favorite is Europe....technically, it's the United Kingdom.  We have explained these are not the same especially if you talk to someone from the UK.

Here is the picture that went along with this.



Keep these coming Collin. 

Game 1 - Irish Win!

The Irish played a great first game.  Collin mainly played defense because he told Coach he liked to tackle and that he did not want to be Running Back.  We were not too happy to hear that he did not want to do some of the plays they have been doing during practice.  This did make sense why Collin sat out more than we expected him to based on what we had seen during practice.
It was fun to watch Collin play Safety.  We could see him stay back, watch the ball and then make his move.  He did have a great tackle in the 3rd quarter.  Watch him, #37, stay back and see the guy with the ball before he takes off in the back and tackles the other player, flipping him over during the tackle.

Here are some pictures of other plays.  It was a night game so some of them are darker than I would like.  The final score was 32 - 7.  Yeah, the Irish are off to a great start!

Start off of the game before the kick off

Collin waiting for the Coach to give instructions

Tackle during the 1st Quarter

#37 headed to help his team mate

#37 running after the ball

The Irish after a huddle

After the game, most of the players and parents ended up at a new hamburger place down the street.  It was nice getting to know the 2nd grade parents that we have not met before.  Here's to a great season with the Irish!

Football Scrimmage

We were out of town this weekend in Vegas for a quick get-a-way (mainly to see George Strait and Billy Idol in concert).  While we were away, the Irish scrimmaged against the other football team from their school.  Collin said he made several plays as the Safety for the team and had a great time. I was impressed I got that much out of him.

The Irish won.....well, not officially.  The win really pumped the boys up and they are ready for their first game this Wednesday.

Here are the 3 Amigos before and then after the game.  I am going to enjoy watching these boys play this year...and so many more years afterwards.

Collin, Clayton and Trace



This must be their serious picture after the game:  Collin, Trace and Clayton

Homework....Yuck!

Homework is really never fun.  It's not fun for parents either to enforce homework time on a tired kid especially after not seeing said kid all day AND when several evenings are spent at practice.  We knock out some homework as soon as Collin gets home while he is having a snack.  He likes math and spelling so we choose one of these to work on because it's not as much of a struggle (aka fight) to get him started.  Getting him to read is still a challenge.  He is supposed to read for 30 minutes a day...mainly to build up his endurance while reading.  We can squeeze out 15 minutes but then the excuses start after that.

Today, he went over to a friend's house and....they did math homework!  Yeah, at least his 10 minutes of math was finished by the time he got home.  He can go back over there ANY TIME he wants. 

After he got home, I was working so he joined me in the office to work on spelling words.  He has to write them at least once on his weekly calendar that he turns in to the teacher ever morning.  Here is what that looked like from my viewpoint:

Bye Mr. Greenie

We don't know why, but Mr. Greenie died two days ago.  We wanted to make sure he was dead before we waited to bury him.  Collin had the idea to make a cross with the two popsicle sticks.  He took one of them and wrote "Mr. Greenie" on it.  He wanted to bury Mr. Greenie and found a spot in the front flower bed near a tree.  I dug the hole and he placed Mr. Greenie in it.  I said a few words and then Collin said, "By Mr. Greenie.  Glad you got to play with your friends for a few days.  I am really sorry you died."  That was it.  He seemed to be fine after that.

The Grandkids

Whenever Mimi has her grandkids over, she likes to get some pictures together.  We went out front because it was a nice day...and the kids were already playing on the slack line.  It was hard to get everyone to look forward, not frown, stop moving and pay attention.  Here are some of the good ones.

.....and then some from the front porch.

Mimi's Surprise 65th Birthday Party

We had Mimi's surprise 65th birthday party at our house yesterday.  Collin was excited because Aunt Nancy came to town as a surprise for the party.  We picked her up Friday night and she spent the night at our house which was a treat.  She does not usually spend the night when she is in town because Mimi wants her to be at her house as much as possible. 


We were tried from the week and knew Saturday would be a busy day so, Collin loved it when I said we were going to have movie night with Nancy.  He picked two movies to watch while Nancy laid on the couch with him.  I sat at the craft table to finish some scrapbook pages and watched the movie with them. 


The next morning, we cleaned the house, hung some decorations and got ready for the party.  We did go to Home Depot so Collin could build the monthly kid's workshop project.  It was a dry erase board which will come in handy.  On the way to pick up the cake, Nancy wrote math problems on the board and Collin happily worked the problem.  Hey, getting some math homework done on a Saturday.


The guest started to arrive around 12:30pm for the 1pm - 3pm party.  The plan was for my sister to pick up Mom to take her to my house so we could go out for a birthday lunch.  Lisa let me know when she was pulling onto our street.  Later, Mom told us she noticed the cars but knew it was a holiday weekend and did not think too much of it.  When they got to the door, the had to ring the doorbell because someone had accidentally locked the door.  It worked out because Chris just casually answered it.  They walked into the door and the grandkids popped out from behind the wall and said, "Happy Birthday!".  This is when Mimi realized that this was party and stood there to see who all was there.  When she saw Nancy, she screamed and her mouth dropped open.  She was really surprised!

I love this look!  She WAS surprised.

Precious picture of the sisters hugging.  I especially love Leah's face.  She was happy.

Here is where she is noticing who else was at the party.

Now, I knew Mimi had to know I was at the party because it was my house but I did not get to tell her "happy birthday" until about 20 minutes after she arrived.  I wanted her to get a chance to talk to everyone ... and she sure was not moving down the line very quickly.  Ha!


Pappi and Fernando made the food which was BBQ meats, potato salad, beans, Spanish rice, guacamole, pico de gallo and hot dogs and hamburgers for the kids (they were too busy to stop and eat).  Everyone said how good the food tasted.  An hour later, we lit the candles, wished Mimi a happy birthday and she blew out the candles so we could have cake.  Pappi wanted her to have a red velvet and a lemon with white icing cake together.  We could not find that AND worried about trying to store the cake until it was used so we had two separate cakes made.  They turned out great and were delicious! I am not usually a lemon fan but that cake was really moist and very flavorful.

Lemon cake with vanilla icing

Red velvet cake

In case Mimi forgot how old she was .. on Sept 5th.

Primping her hair and getting ready for pictures

Blowing out the candles

I guess it takes awhile to blow out two candles when you are 65

She did it!

Now, that's a happy birthday girl

We had about 30 people in the house at one time.  There was seating outside under the patio and then a few tables inside...plenty of room for people to sit a visit while eating.  The kids mainly played upstairs and were not too loud until they found Collin's drum set.  As long as the hall door was closed, the sound was not too bad.

Aunt Mary, Cousin Dawn and Mimi...next to Nancy

Let's eat

Mimi with more cousins

Kelly, Mimi and Yvonne

People look like they are having a great time

People started to leave a little after 3pm.  The main family stayed for a few hours to hang out and watch Mimi open her presents.  After cleaning up for about 2 hours, I was pooped...and then Collin was hungry for dinner.  Figures! 


Glad we could surprise Mimi for her birthday and she had fun.  Love you Mimi!