Coasting Along

Things at school are finally coming together for Tori, and she is just zooming along. She has been reading books and taking AR tests, more than I thought. She also knows her spelling words this week. Math is not so easy. But she is coming along in that too. The daily drop-in-the-bucket math sheets have stopped, and that seems to have improved her attitude. She is finally getting into multiplication and division. We are not sure how they are teaching that, so we are just helping however we can. She keeps saying seven rows of five, so they must be teaching them to group the numbers together rather than just memorize the multiplication tables. Interesting the ways they teach math now.

Tori is looking forward to Christmas, and hopefully, the arrival of a new American Girl doll that she intends to name Emily. She already has a doll named Emma. She lives under her loft bed in her own room. She has a bunk bed and is waiting for her sister to come. Here’s hoping Santa has a doll under the tree for Tori on Christmas Day.

Candy Is IN

The Fannie May candy has arrived. We have delivered most of it, excluding the ones we need to ship. It is coming soon, I promise. The school made $19k + on it, so thank you. This is their only major fundraiser, and every dollar counts.

Tori and Eli were very good deliverers. They took the candy to the neighbors willingly, and delivered it to the people next door all on their own last night. Eli has no qualms about ringing doorbells or speaking to people. He also helped the scouts last week place sacks for a canned food drive in people’s doors.

Tori got an A on her spelling test last week. Hooray, Tori! Huts found an app that has been helping her practice her spelling. Now, we need to find an app that will help her with multiplication.

Attitude

Tori started off the school year as usual, struggling a bit. She had forgotten a lot and had to climb back up the hill. She is there now, and her attitude proves it. Instead of feeling dumb, she is now using that as an excuse to not do her best. Christian is the smart one, not her, so therefore, she doesn’t have to work as hard. Case in point, a 65% on her last spelling test. When I asked her about it, she told me she did not care and would write the words she missed 100 times. When I told her that if she said that once more, she really would be writing her words 100 times, she shut up and gave me a mean look. So, the attitude is here, and this week, she is once again resisting homework. She doesn’t want to read her book or study her spelling words and pretty much threw a fit about it last night. Too bad, so sad. She did writer her spelling words, and she did read her book,, and she will be doing both again tonight. Wish me luck!

Tori started off the school year as usual, struggling a bit. She had forgotten a lot and had to climb back up the hill. She is there now, and her attitude proves it. Instead of feeling dumb, she is now using that as an excuse to not do her best. Christian is the smart one, not her, so therefore, she doesn’t have to work as hard. Case in point, a 65% on her last spelling test. When I asked her about it, she told me she did not care and would write the words she missed 100 times. When I told her that if she said that once more, she really would be writing her words 100 times, she shut up and gave me a mean look. So, the attitude is here, and this week, she is once again resisting homework. She doesn’t want to read her book or study her spelling words and pretty much threw a fit about it last night. Too bad, so sad. She did writer her spelling words, and she did read her book,, and she will be doing both again tonight. Wish me luck!

LaLa's Still Hot

If you don’t know by now, Tori has been a fan of LaLa Loopsy dolls for a very long time. She has several of the larger dolls, and almost all of the minis. For a while this summer, she wasn’t playing with her LaLas, and we wondered if she was growing out of them. She even gave us some stuff for the yard sale. Now, she is back into them, watching the TV show and asking for five of the larger LaLas for Christmas. She has done her homework on the dolls, and yesterday, she told me that she did not want the My Little Pony dolls. Whew! Glad Santa has not bought any of those.

On another note, we are selling Fannie May candy right now. $12 a box. Thanks to all who have ordered so far. We will ship it to you should you want to order. All proceeds go right back into the school.

Progress

Tori has had some ups and downs at school this year, but finally, she is getting into the swing of things. It is only Tuesday, and she has most of her spelling words down pat. She is also starting to catch on to more of her math.

Tori has been reading more, too, chapter books now. Right now she is reading a book about dogs. She is all into Buddy and his pals.

Hot Hot Hot

The heat index is 100 today, and with some schools not having air conditioning, a heat schedule has been implemented for the rest of this week. That means the kids are getting off school an hour and a half early. Christian is lucky. He rides the bus. The other two have to go to latchkey, but not today. Annie picked them up so they could swim for a couple of hours before they have to go to soccer practice. Tori likes to play in the park and walk the trail while Eli practices. Meanwhile, Christian and I are going to be baking cookies for Back to School Night at the school. Yep, we are baking cookies in a hot school. Lucky us. Then, drenched in sweat, we get to walk around the school and meet his teachers. Fun, fun!

Tori Girl

Tori had a decent first week of school. She had no problems lining up on the first day and she went willingly most of the week. She did well on her first spelling and math tests. She is trying to get into the groove, but it is not easy. It usually takes her a month or so for everything to really start clicking, hence her teary episodes doing homework. We’ve had a few of those this week and last.

Tori got really upset the second day of school when she realized that Ms. Lynn had been moved to latchkey at another school. She was really hoping to see her and had a complete meltdown. Fortunately, she has been better about everything this week and has learned the new staff’s names. Of course, they are starting to change already. There was a new woman there this morning, so who knows, Ms. Lynn may come back.

Last Dance

Tori has her last dance class tonight. My friend is coming to watch. She stuck it out, tears here and there when the focus was on her, but she made it. Now whether she chooses to take another class is up to her. She seems torn between taking Ballet II again or trying something else. For now, she says she wants to focus on school and seeing what is going on there She is going to be upstairs this year in Ms. Roach’s class. She wanted a male teacher, and I thought she would cry when she didn’t get one, but she took it in stride. She is all set for a good year with Ms. Roach, even if her friends are in other classrooms.

Hairspray Girl

Tori decided to let her bangs grow a bit so she can sweep them to the side. In the meantime, she has been training them with hairspray—loads of it. She puts on a headband, pushes her bangs over and sprays and sprays and sprays some more. She smells lovely and her bangs are extra crunchy, which causes her to play with them until they fall back into place on her forehead, I don’t know that we’ll ever get to the side swept bangs at this rate.

It's Official

Tori can swim. Saturday was her last swim class, and she swam, freestyle, on her own for several feet. She also passed everything else on the list. Now, all we need to do is get her some time to practice.

Tori also learned how to tie her shoe and ride her bike this summer. She is timid, but she can do it. And, she can now change her own earrings. Hooray, Tori!

Side Bangs

Tori is changing her hairstyle to sideswept bangs. I am supposed to get some hairspray and help her start pulling them over. I wonder how long this will last—as long as the nail polish on her fingers? That comes off pretty quickly.

Tori has grown up a lot this summer, doing more for herself and making her opinions better known. She can pretty much ride her bike and tie her shoes. She can change her earrings too. She can also make her bed and clean up her room when she feels like it. And, there is no need to help her in the bathroom anymore. She can care for her hair all on her own now.

My little girl is little no more!

Shocking! She's Ready

After a weekend of boys, Tori announced she was ready to go back to school. She can’t wait to see her friends and find out who her teacher will be. She is the only one of our three who is a returning student, so she does not have to attend registration. We are hoping they have the classroom assignments posted then anyway so we can see who will be her teacher. She has a two-in-three chance of getting a male teacher again. I think she is ready for that; in fact, she even mentioned she was hoping for Mr. Hagan, whom Christian had. We’ll see.

Tori has also started talking about middle school. We’ve told her that she is going to Mark Bills, and she is ok with that. She may even be looking forward to being at a different school than Christian. Anyway, she is already talking about walking home. I am not real keen on that idea, as it is about a mile away from our house and there could be bullies. We’ll see what happens. She still has two years to go!

Party Time

Last weekend was Tori’s party, and this weekend was her friend Dakota’s. They played together for three hours, doing crafts and swimming in the pool. Tori came home happy but exhausted and hungry. The snacks were good, but after all of that swimming, she needed more. We got her McDonalds and a yellow Minion and she scarfed most of it down. She was really tired this morning and stayed home too.

School is less than a month away. Only Tori can fit into her clothes from last year. We got her a few new shirts and are looking for shorts this weekend. She needs something she can fasten and unfasten with ease. They get short bathroom breaks, and the buttons on her short are just too tough for her little fingers to undo—mine too. Wish us luck shopping!

Birthday Party

Next weekend on our anniversary is Tori’s birthday party. Yes, we are late, way late. We had so much going on in June that we had to push her party to July. She is having three or four girls over, and most of them are staying the night. She asked us to plan the actually party—pizza, cake, gifts, water fun and shirts (decorating T-shirts), and then she is taking over. She has got lots of things in mind for the sleepover. Whether she will get to do any of them is another matter. She had things in mind last year, and the party took on a mind of its own that night. One little girl that is coming adores our cats, so watch out, Squeaker and Junior. Shaylee and Tori are coming for you!

Anyway, we are prepping for the party this weekend. We have to get the shirts and the decorating supplies. We also have to get some water guns. We already have bubbles, and the sprinkler, and the water balloons. We also have to get a cake next week. Lucky for us, Tori has had a cake already and is looking for anything special. We’ll pick up a sheet cake from Walmart or Kroger, and that will be that.