September 30 - October 6

 Monday September 30th I took the kids to school then went to Walmart to get groceries, the kids costumes, and helped Lisa print the Hershey 5th Grade volleyball button pictures. We then went to Lisa's and made the buttons. I came home that afternoon and did some laundry. Rachel and I then had practice that evening from 6-8. Mike stayed home and put the little ones to bed!
   Tuesday the kids had school and I went to coffee with Sarah and Capri. I then went to school and Rachel and I had an evaluation with Luke McConnell the school reading and socializing specialist. Rachel is still struggling with reading and I was concerned about possible dyslexia or something else that maybe we were missing that was causing her to struggle. After the eval, Dr. McConnell was very happy with how Rachel did and really just thinks she is never going to be the fastest reader. He thinks she needs to be challenged more with bigger words and helper her find her best strategy to break them down and be able to sound them out. Overall she has a fantastic gift of visualization and remembering letter sequencing, so she just needs to keep reading big words and converting them to memory. He challenged us to read books above her level and help her learn as many words as possible each day. The crazy thing about all this is the day after we had her eval we got a letter in the mail stating that Rachel had been accepted into the HAL program at Hershey. The HAL program looks into students that have scored at the 90th percentile or above on the MAP Test in one of the four areas of reading, language, math, or science will automatically be screened for the High Ability Learner Program. Since being accepted Rachel was able to attend a fun day for only HAL students at the Lincoln County Fair building where they spent the day doing STEM activities. After Rachel's eval on Tuesday I went to the gym and gave blood for the red cross and then helped Jen with some HELP club stuff before grabbing kids and coming home to make Chicken Enchiladas.
    Wednesday the kids had school and I came home and worked on the house and laundry. I then went out and picked all the squash and gourds as they were calling for a hard freeze that night. I then picked the kids up from school and we went to CCD. I dropped the kids off at home and ran to town for a meeting for volleyball. Then it was back home for dinner. I had started beef stew in the instapot that morning and it was very good!

He does his hair every morning before school

   Thursday I took the kids to school and came home and worked on the computer. I then worked on decorations for the book fair. After school Delcey came with us to take Rachel to Piano and to get ice cream. After ice cream we came home and did homework and everyone was in bed on time.

Playing with my new phone camera

5th Grade and Kindergarten working together

2 more dog tags for Rachel!

    Friday I took the kids to school then took some gourds to Michelle. I then went and had coffee with Stacy. After coffee I stopped by Lisa's and helped her make some shirts before picking up lunch and going to the school to meet with Emma. After school we had volleyball practice and then Elly and Grace came home with us to play.

   Saturday I enjoyed sleeping in and a nice long workout. We then went to homestead pumpkin patch until lunch time. We had so much fun even though it was very windy and a little cold. Our favorite game was the human foose ball game we played with friends. After lunch Alec went to the Rec Center for a birthday party for his classmate Neela, Rachel went to Elly's, and Becca and I held her birthday party at Jazzercise. We had so much fun with her friends and Lisa. We then went to River's Edge and watched some of the game with the Brunz and Spiegle families. 

   Sunday I ran to church at 8:30 then we went to Hershey for the volleyball tournament. The girls had a good time but ended up only winning one set. That evening we came home and I went for a walk before we all sat down and watched a movie!