Quinn's First Report Card

Quinn received his mid-year K-3 Progress Report this past week.  It had several categories, including

• "How I Feel" (does he play well with others, good attitude about school, etc) 
• Gross Motor Skills (kicking a ball, hopping on one foot, balancing on one foot, etc)
• Fine Motor Skills (gluing, cutting with scissors, painting, zippers, etc)
• Personal Care (going to the bathroom, getting dressed, etc)

There were some other categories, but I had to turn it back in to his teacher and was not able to write them all down.

Quinn received all G's, which means Good Progress Made, except for one area. 

He received a W for Working On, in the area of cutting with scissors. I am not sure if he has just started learning this, or if he's tried all year and can't get the hang of it.  Either way, I'm not concerned. If that's his only area to "work on", then this boy is doing great!!

And he was so proud of his "Giant Good Note" as he calls it!!

Geocache Bash!!

Our Sunday School class held a Geocache Bash a few weeks ago and we had such a great time.

What is Geocache?  Let's just call it 2012's version of a treasure hunt. There is a website you can go to, create an account, and it allows you to view where "treasures" have been hidden in your area. There's even an APP for smart phones so you can do this on the go!  It tells you the location and you can use the GPS in your phone or car to lead you to the treasure. Some are hidden in large containers, like a plastic tub or ammo box. Some are hidden in containers smaller than your finger. Most include a log that you sign, and sometimes you must exchange a small item. Then you can log onto the website to tell the owner you found their geocache.

Our youth pastor, Pastor Josh, got hooked on this and showed a lot of people how to play when several people from our class went to Gatlinburg back in the fall. Then someone got the idea we should do this as a class social. Buddy and I were excited to participate, since it was our first event to go to since he has come home from working out of town.  Some of the ladies stayed back to watch all the kids....the rest of us divided into 3 teams and went a-huntin' for treasures!  We were assigned a starting "cache" to look for and then we were on our own, with each "cache" counting for a certain number of points.

I was on a team with Buddy, my friend Pam and her husband (our driver and navigator), another guy from our class, Curan, and Pastor Josh's wife Abby.  My team was very courteous to let me not climb up and down the hills or anything else dangerous, as it had rained for several days and all was slippery.

We tied for 2nd place....a nice way of saying we lost. But it was a blast. Here are some pictures of some of the Geocaches that we found. Abby took a few pictures and I took the rest. Given that it was at night, rainy, and we were on a time-frame, please excuse the blurry, not so great quality of these pictures!



This was #3 out of 8 that we found....took us all of about 3 minutes. Curan is not bored with the pic...he is looking for our next location!



1. 

We wasted so much time at this location, not realizing until after 10-15 minutes of looking for the treasure, that we were at a "Virtual" geocache....meaning there was nothing to find. We just had to arrive at the location.




This one was neat....it was 1 of 20 along a roadside. This particular location held 2 separate Geocaches!

 


This was #2 out of the same location....notice everyone holding up 2 fingers!




This one was called a "skirt lifter". No we weren't being dirty....we had to lift up the "skirt" around the bottom of the light post.



This was the last one we found, although we did attempt to find one other after this. The top of the box that Curan is holding said "This is an official Geocache".....Abby was extra excited about this one!


We attempted to find 11, and were successful with 8 of them. The team that tied with us had 8 out of 11 as well. The winning team found 10 out of 12. So all in all, it was a good time. And what did the winning team win?  The privilege of eating the first slices of pizza! 

What's Dixie been up to?

The last time I mentioned our new puppy Dixie, she was a little bitty thing....same size as Tillman.

Um...not so much anymore!

I can pet the top of Dixie's head without bending over. Tillman can walk underneath her, on the rare occasions they are out at the same time!  Dixie and Tillman don't get along as well as we had hoped. Perhaps when we get all the puppy out of her, she will settle down and they will like each other. For now, we value Tillman's health, and Dixie doesn't realize Tillman is smaller than her.

Most recently, we had her spayed, which was more of an ordeal than we realized it would be. I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if she had not been able to get to her stitches, despite the lampshade sized cone she wore. But the stitches got infected and we got to visit our local emergency vet! And Dixie got to upgrade to an even bigger cone, and proudly wear it for over a week!  She's much better now though and hopefully life will get back to normal.

Here's a couple of pictures of our "puppy"....despite her size, she is still a puppy!  Only 6 months old!  She's laying down in all the pictures because she won't stand still long enough for me to get a decent shot of her upright.

 

Gopher Buddies Awards Night

Our church's children and youth participate in Word of Life clubs for Bible Study on Wednesday nights. Quinn's age level group is called Gopher Buddies.

Quinn has a devotion book that we work through and special Bible verses to learn. The leaders also read a required book to the children each month. They participate in Christian service projects and get credits for coming to church on Sunday.  Then the WOL clubs have awards nights several times a year during the Wednesday night service.

The first awards night Quinn didn't get any awards. I had trouble this fall figuring out how to help him learn his required verses for Mrs. James's K-3 class at school, and then help him learn these additional verses for Gopher Buddies. Only one verse was the same for both groups, and the Gopher Buddies verses were longer, since they are meant for children up to age 5. One of the ladies who helps his group has a daughter who is in Quinn's preschool class. She mentioned that she helped her daughter learn her GB verse on the alternate week from Mrs. James's verse.  That helped, and so in January, when there was another award's night Quinn finally received his prizes!

Here he is with the Gopher Buddies group. I have no idea if this is all the children, but it is a large group!  Quinn is on the end of the second row. The girl beside him is in his class at school, but the other kids are some of the 5 year olds....and Quinn is their height!

They sang two songs, and then one of the workers came up to pass out the awards.

Quinn made "Membership" into the Gopher Buddies Club, which earned him the official Gopher Buddy Bag. He also earned "Level 1", which earned him a patch to go on the bag. 

He was so proud to show off his awards when we got home! Now, I've got figure out how to iron on the patch!

How do you like my hat?

Quinn got a whole Carharrt outfit from his Nana (Buddy's mom) for his birthday. Buddy often wears Carharrt clothes for work due to their tough, rugged qualities.  Part of Quinn's gift was a black toboggan hat, just like Daddy's.

I just had to take a picture when he wanted to wear it to school for the first time!

Everybody knows that a dog's best friend is a human.....

I love that quote from Lady and The Tramp!

Quinn and Tillman have been best friends since the day we brought Quinn home. For a brief moment in time, they were actually the same size!!



Lately, Quinn and Tillman have taken to snuggling together on the couch, especially on cold mornings. Our routine is that when Buddy gets out of the shower, he wakes Quinn up and brings him to our room for a few extra minutes of sleep. When Buddy leaves for work, Quinn comes out on the couch to watch a cartoon while I get ready. He always wants to cover up with this fuzzy orange blanket (that Tillman happens to love). Usually I come out to get Quinn ready to get dressed to find them snuggling.

Except, one morning recently, I came out to get Quinn and found this.



Yep, that's Quinn, feeding his Cheerios, aka "snack" to Tillman!  You can see that Tillman doesn't think this is a bad plan at all.

There's just nothing like the love of your furry best friend!!

My Momma is Amazing!!

My mom is a crochet wizard!  She is always making blankets for someone. She has made blankets big enough for king-size beds, and blankets small enough for my dog Tillman, and her dog Desi (RIP), both of whom weigh in the 10-12 pound range.  Her specialty though, is baby blankets.  She basically makes a very large Granny square, with a pretty border. If you are in our family, and have had a baby, then somewhere you have a blanket hand-made by my mother.  She even makes blankets for other people....meaning they buy the yarn, she makes the blanket, and they give it as a gift to someone else. 

She surprised me at Christmas with a present for Baby Jacob...and he hasn't even been born  yet!

And then she showed up at Quinn's birthday party with another blanket for Baby Jacob!

She made both blankets in about two weeks, each.  And the pictures don't do either of them justice.

(And just in case you are wondering, Quinn also got two baby blankets when he was born....a solid blue one, and an orange and white one.)

So, if you are in need of a blanket, just let me know!!  And one of these days, Mom, we've got to take time to teach me this stitch...I just can't figure it out!

Allow me to shed some light.....

A couple of weeks ago, I got 15 compact fluorescent light bulbs in the mail....FOR FREE!!

Anybody can do this, provided that you use Duke Energy for your home's power needs.

I went to this website from Duke Energy and put in just a few bits of information about our account to see if our home qualified for this program. If you do, Duke Energy tells you how many CFL bulbs you are allowed to get. We were able to get 15 and requested them to all come at once. I ordered them at the end of December, and they arrived in just a couple of weeks!

As you can see, we've already made use of a few of them. Some are the equivalent of a 60 watt bulb, and the others are the equivalent of a 75 watt bulb. They are best to use in lights you leave on for long periods of time, but can be used in any light socket, like a regular bulb.

Not quite sure why this picture rotated, but you can still see how many there are...and look at all the bubble wrap....very carefully packaged!

I had seen this offer advertised on our power bill for a few months but never took the time to look into it.  So glad I did, because the bulbs will last a long time, and we've got plenty to use!

Biker Boy

Buddy and I decided to get Quinn a bike for his birthday.  With his birthday falling just 15 days after Christmas, we always try to come up with 2 really nice big present ideas and do one at Christmas and the other for his birthday.

We found him a really nice blue bike and got Spiderman accessories to go with it. Quinn is really in to Spiderman right now, thanks to a little friend at school. So his helmet, elbow/knee pads, and riding gloves have Spiderman on them.

We gave him his bike after church on the day before his birthday, since Monday nights we always spend at the fire station for training, and his party wasn't until Saturday. We didn't even wait to change out of our church clothes....someone was too excited!!

Buddy did the typical "dad" thing and pushed him around the street several times. Quinn definitely has a lot to learn with regard to pedaling, but this is a work in progress!!

He is so proud of his bike, or as he calls it, his "motorcycle"!

Quinn is FOUR!!!!

On January 9th, my sweet boy turned 4 years old! I can hardly believe that this day has come. He is growing up so much and is doing so well in school. He is just a precious part of my life and makes his daddy and me so proud to be his parents!

This precious little baby......

....is now my big 4-year old boy!!

School Spirit Week

Quinn's school had their School Spirit Week the second week of January, to coincide with Homecoming on that Friday night.  Each day of the week was a different dress-up theme. Quinn got to participate in several of them. I was so excited, because for several years now, my church friends have posted pictures of their kids during Spirit Week...and now Quinn got to have his turn as well.

Monday, January 9th was "Favorite Character Day".  I wanted to dress Quinn up in his Woody costume from Halloween, but remembered it was a one piece suit. I figured it would cause to many bathroom issues, so we went with his Spiderman shirt instead.



Tuesday, January 10th was "Sports Team Day". Quinn wore a Clemson basketball jersey. His orange shirt certainly stood out brightly in the sea of Carolina Blue, Duke Blue, and Panther Black-n-Blue!  It was also the day he took cupcakes to school to celebrate his 4th birthday, which was the day before. We took football cupcakes on this day so he could celebrate with his K-3 class that meets on Tuesdays.



Wednesday, January 11th was "Pajama Day" but K-3 was allowed to do this on Thursday, the 12th instead.  The Thursday theme of "Multiplicity" would have been a bit tough for little kids....dressing the exact same as friends. Quinn's Show-n-Tell day is also on a Thursday, which is why "Bob and Larry" are in the picture with him!

 

Friday, the 13th, was School Spirit Day, so everyone wore school colors of Red, White, and Blue. The mascot is The Patriot! Didn't get a picture of this day, but Quinn did wear a red shirt.  I tried to get him to wear his new school sweatshirt he got from Nana for Christmas, but it's a little big and he wouldn't put it on.

I was so glad Quinn got to participate! We love our school!!