Finished First Week of Schoool

Mark came home yesterday symbolizing the end of his first full week of public school!  He had a good week.   He made lots of new friends, enjoyed some "good, good food", was introduced to organization and tests, was interviewed for the paper, learned how to ride a bus, adapted to the fact that all work has to be done in cursive, got his first assignment for a major project due in a week and a half, and even had to deal with a very persistent little girl wanting a boyfriend.  Pretty full week if you ask me!  The best part of the whole week, was watching him walk in yesterday evening with the biggest smile I have seen!  He was just bursting to tell us something.  He unzipped his backpack and pulled out his Friday Folder (the folder that they only bring home on friday with the weeks paper, newsletters and important info) and showed us with great pride (the good kind of pride ) FOUR A+'s!  He got an A+ on his States and Capitals test, his Spelling test, his Math paper, and his Reading quiz!  The best part though was seeing how excited and happy he was over his performance.  He studied hard and really put his nose to the grindstone this last week and that was such a joy to see!  It showed us that we actually accomplished our goal and teaching him to be a hard worker and to do his absolute best on his schoolwork.  Now I am a realist and I know that this was just the first week of school and we are going to have some ups and downs with this, but it has just been a really great start!   Mark also showed great maturity and character in dealing with the little girl and was very quick to talk to us about it and ask what he should do, so I am feeling more at ease with our decision with him and am just praising God that he has enabled Mark to do so well!  So as not to leave the other two out, I will share a bit about them as well.  I am really enjoying having Abbie home for school by herself.  We can enjoy doing her school together and she is just speeding through her work.  She is also stepping up and taking on more responsibility, which is wonderful to see!  Ben is just being Ben.  He is such a joy to interact with and you never quite know what you are going to get.  Thursday Ben brought me a present that he had found for me.  He proudly walks up to me a plops a huge toad into my lap while saying "Look Mommy what I found!".  It would have been helpful for me if I had seen it coming, but we ended up looking at the toad for a while and found a little tree frog while doing that.  As long as he doesn't bring me a snake we will be fine .  Have a great weekend!

Mark's in the newspaper!

Mark was interviewed at school on his first day of school last Friday and I finally got hold of a paper from Saturday where it was printed.  Here is what the Anderson Herald Bulletin wrote about him:

"Mark McClure,11, was enjoying his first day in a new school on Friday after transferring from Pendleton byt was already wearing a black Lapel Bulldogs windbreaker Friday.  "I got it at a rummage sale," the proud new student said, stretching the front of his shirt out for others to see. 

Summer, he said, never seemed to end this year.  "I'm happy it's over,  It just lasted too long."

Then again, it was only the first day."

I quoted this from the Anderson Herald Bulletin.  He got a good amount of exposure in the paper.  Not bad for his first day of school!  Hope you enjoy this little excerpt as much as we did.  My rummage saling is now documented in the paper!   We got a good laugh out of that!

School's approaching

We are gearing up for school now and enjoy our last days of summer break.  Mark starts school a week from today.  We outfitted him for school this week and got all of his school supplies.  He is pretty excited about this "adventure" as he calls it.  He enjoys new social settings though.  Abbie is eager to remain homeschooled this year and be a part of our homeschool group.  Ben will be in the preschool of our homeschool group this year as well and he is excited about his school starting.  We are still slowly getting settled into this house and our enjoying it more each day as we get a little bit more settled.  We have acquired 3 kittens since moving here that our outside and the kids are having a ton of fun with them.  We got Daisy, our dog we had in Illinois, back rom my parents and now Chloe and Daisy are best buds.  They just love romping around together until a ball gets involved.  They really like to fight over those tennis balls.  We have had a few really encouraging showings on our other house, but no takers yet.  We are confident that God will provide a buyer in His timing and aren't worried about it.  We've had a break on canning until the tomatoes start.  I do have quite a few jalopenos that I might try my hand at canning this weekend.  Ben has figured out how to record his shows on our DVR as I discovered this morning when the DVR started to spontaneously record WOW! WOW! Wuzby, his favorite show.  Chris, Mark, and Abbie hadn't set it up for him, so we have concluded that Ben has mastered the satelite TV.  Chris informs me that it isn't hard to set the DVR, but I have trouble with it and usually have to have Mark help me.  Now Ben can do it.  Look out world!  We celebrated Abbie's 9th birthday this last week.  We went to Outback per her choice and then had Grandma and Grandpa over for dinner and cake the next evening.  I can't believe that we have an 11 year old, a 9 year old, and a 4 year old!  We are having fun though!  Here are a few pictures to leave with.

Abbie pretending to blow her sparkler candle out.

Our kitties hanging out. 

Our superheroes!

Canning Time!

We had a wonderful visit with Chris' parents when they were here a week or so ago.  We had great fun at Connor Prairie, a colonial time interactive museum.  It was just nice to be able to chat with them for a bit.  We had to have our air conditioner and furnace replaced, which was happening while Chris' parents were here of course.  But we have never had such a great air conditioning system in any of our houses before, so we are very thankful that we were able to replace it!  We had 4H right after Glen and Mikala left.  That meant practically living at the fairgrounds Sat. till Mon. night.  Mark showed 2 pigs and got 8th and 9th on them.  He then showed one of the pigs in the Junior Showmanship, which judges the 4H member on their ability to control the pig and show the pig to the judge.  Thirty kids competed in the Showmanship and Mark was selected in the top 7 to go on to the Championship Showmanship where he placed 5th out of the 7.  That is great since this was his first time showing and most of the kids that were part of the 7 have been on large pig farms their entire lives.  Then the pigs were sent to the market and we will have some fresh pork in about a week!  Abbie was in Mini 4H and showed one of Mark's pigs (Minis can't have their own animals, they must show a regular 4H member's animal) and was told by the judge that if they were placing the minis that Abbie would have gotten Reserve Champion!  Abbie also had a foods project and a scrapbook.  Minis just get participation ribbons.  Ben was very disappointed that he couldn't show anything due to him not being old enough, but he is proving to be quite a pig wrangler!  Then Tues. my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, Chris, and I picked and snapped enough green beans to can 56 quarts!  On Wed. we shucked and desilked 2 large laundry baskets of corn for freezer corn!  Thurs. Chris and Mark cleared out a fence row so that we can get a new fence put up for the dogs, My brother mowed our yard and my sis-in-law and I wrangled 5 kids and cleaned house until they left for home that evening.  We have 6 trees behind one of our barns that have to be removed next week as they are endangering our barn and then the new fence will be put up sometime after the trees are removed.  We have some more beans and corn to put up in the next few days and I have been picking gallons of black raspberries and blackberries to make jam with later.  I am freezing the berries until I have time to make jam.  We are also trying to get ready for the new school year to start.  So we are keeping busy enough, and I still haven't completely unpacked.  Well that is a quick update as to what we are doing and I will try to leave you with some pictures.

Oreo is giving Ben a kiss!