Boyd Bear Tracks

There hasn't been too much excitement lately. Lucas and I have been faithfully working on school. He's counting up into the 60's now. And, he just started learning about dimes (so, he's been learning to count by 10's).

Ellie got a pre-school workbook for Christmas, so she keeps asking when she can do her school. We've gone through the colors and now are working on shapes. Next is patterns; but, I think she may know how to do them already from watching Lucas do patterning in Math class.

On Friday, we worked on making Valentines for the other missionaries. Maybe tomorrow we'll get around to making valentine shaped cookies (we never did make Christmas cookies!). Making valentines was a huge process. I made the cards (with pop-up hearts) and then Ellie and Lucas decorated them. As part of his schooling, Lucas was supposed to write a "letter" so he had to learn the correct form (you know. . .Dear so-and-so; blah, blah, blah; Love, Lucas). I had him write in the three valentines he made. He really struggled because he had to write so much. Of course, he was just copying because I wrote it all down for him; but, it was still a lot of writing. At least I can check that off of the lesson plans :-)!

Jon is still busy with a lot of "reconcilliation" meetings with church people. So, we've decided that someday were taking a two week vacation to get away for "family time"! (it doesn't look like it's in the VERY NEAR future--oh well, at least it's something to look forward to). We did go on a "surprise" family picnic one day. I decided that we would just go to a park to eat lunch. We even took Boomer (poor Bungee always gets the short end of the stick!). It was a beautiful day and the kids really enjoyed climbing around on the fallen tree near where we had our picnic. Jon and I enjoyed the warm sunshine and the quiet (no phones, doorbells, etc.).

I finally got another teacher for Sunday School so I only teach one hour now. However, I really need to get the Sunday School organized soon (curriculum and teachers) because I only had enough material for her to teach for five weeks. Maybe we can start practicing for an Easter program. Of course, then I'd have to come up with the program! Right now I'm sharing a missionary story (Doming--the popsicle boy). The kids love it! Some kids missed last week and were begging me to tell them that part of the story too so they wouldn't miss out :-). We're just about to get to the most exciting part of the story. Now they're really not going to want me to stop and leave them hanging!