Monday/Tuesday: We started out the week with our “work day”. Plus we had the addition of it being “testing time” here in our house. I have tested Chloe every year since 3rd grade, even though I only had to report them to the district in 5th and again next year for 7th and then every year from 9-12. We tried the CAT-E for the first time this year because it goes through 12th grade, and the PASS test we have been using ends at 8th grade. As I was talking to her about testing coming up Jayden piped in and wanted to be tested as well. He is only in 2nd grade and I had no intention of testing him, but since he asked, and I want it to be a normal, no big deal, part of this process, I went ahead and ordered him one as well.  They both seemed to fair just fine.  We sent the tests back to be graded and will be looking forward to having the results returned back to us so we can check that task off of our list for this year.

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Wednesday: Storytime with Mr. Mike is never a disappointment. We were treated to Baby says Moo, by Joann Early Macken. In this story every animal the baby and mommy encounter, the baby says “moo”. When they finally come across a cow, baby is asleep and misses it! All the kids enjoyed participating by adding in the animal sounds and the older ones (like Ava at age 4) had an easy time anticipating the sounds, both because of the animal they saw as well as the catchy rhymes. This story has really sweet pictures and is a great way to explore animal sounds. Definitely a winner in our book!
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Thursday: Our out of the house day! We went and spent an enjoyable social time at the ice arena again this week. The kids ice skate, eat snacks, Chloe even knitted some to give herself a rest due to her competition on Friday morning. Then we headed off to the park since it was sunny and in the low 60s here in crazy weather NY! The kids had a blast chasing around the playground with some other children that were there taking advantage of the warm weather as well. Then we were off to Ava’s Daisy Girl Scout meeting. She was very exited to earn a couple of more badges this week. One for thinking day and one for the Journey book the girls have been working on!  [Note the quality of the picture is lacking because it was taken on my phone and cropped as well.]

I was also given the chance to check out an early learning site that I have never heard of. The people over at ABCMouse have given me the chance to check out their Early Learning Academy. I am looking forward to giving it a whirl with Ava. It is similar to a Time4Learning set up, which I recently reviewed, but ABCMouse is only for ages 3-Kindergarten.

Friday: A 3am startled awakening to Jayden vomiting all over our bed and carpet was how we started today! 🙁 Joey had to leave at 4:30am with Chloe for her competition so I am sure he will be tired tonight! It has been a quiet down day here as Jayden is laying on the couch, and sleeping. So unlike Jayden to be so still. The good news is he has not had in issue since 6:15am and he ate a little dry cereal at lunchtime. Ava and I spent a little time chalking in the driveway to enjoy the continued nice weather we are having today.