2nd grade girl

Second grade has been challenging for my girl so far. Let's face it, it's been challenging for me too. It started the first day of school when she told me on the way home that she hated second grade.  I didn't take her too seriously, even when she told me before going to bed that she was going to call in sick in the morning.  It still didn't really sink in....until the next morning when she barricaded herself in her closet and refused to come out.  After some coaxing, she did come out and ended up having a better day. 

We are still struggling to love second grade.  Now, don't get me wrong, there are way more good times than there have been bad, but it has been breaking my heart to see Katie upset about school and homework. 

Katie is a thinker.  She always has been.  She understand things most kids her age don't.  People have commented on her "old soul" for most of her life. She is sensitive.  She has REAL emotions that she has to express. She is a girl who cries while watching a movie, both when things are sad and when they are happy.  I've seen her wipe tears away many times, she really feels what is happening. She is super caring and puts other people first. She is the first to give away things to someone who needs them more than she does. She's beginning to understand that she is a fortunate girl and that she is lucky to have such a caring loving family.

She still doesn't love second grade. She cries about doing homework. She doesn't like that her class gets in trouble.  She doesn't like getting punished as a class for things that she didn't do.  She doesn't like that other students talk and are disrespectful. She doesn't like writing. She feels stressed about doing work. She is a smart girl and has great ideas.  Her area of struggle is writing.  It takes her FOR EVER to write things. She is a horrible speller. These things cause problems when you are in second grade.   I wish for her that things would come easier. I hope and pray that she is learning some valuable lessons by having to struggle to do things.  There are so many things that she does well.

She has become a pretty great reader. She loves books and is gaining some confidence in her reading ability. She has to memorize a new poem every week, and by Tuesday morning she's got it down.  She doesn't just recite the poem, she performs. My girl has music inside of her.  She loves to sing and dance and she does so with gusto.  The girl has moves!  She's also a great problem solver.  She thinks logically and is good with numbers. She's also confident in most things. She's confident in her own style and is comfortable in her own skin. She doesn't sit back and let someone tell her what to do, she makes her own decisions and sticks to what is right for her.

Katie is a great big sister.  She loves her brother and would do anything for him. She is quick to sacrifice what she wants to make him happy. She always includes him in things and she lets him be a leader in their play. Alex is lucky to have a big sister who loves to help him.

I am blessed to be her mother.

3 new ones!

There are three new posts below this one. Don's miss out on all of the fun! :)

A Five Year Old!

On August 3rd, Alex turned 5 years old.  It really is amazing how fast they grow up. For his birthday, we had a family party. Alex choose to have ravioli for his birthday dinner. I insisted on making homemade ravioli.  I stuffed almost 100 raviolis.  Next time, I'll buy the frozen kind! 

Of course, the big theme for his birthday was Monster Trucks.  As his big gift, he got a room makeover. His room was painted Grave Digger green and the wall are now adorned with a giant Grave Digger Decal and lots of smaller Monster Truck stickers.  He loves it!

Blowing out the candles on the homemade icecream cake!

Wipeout! Wii game.

Do you think he liked the Monster Jam K'Nex set?

On the Saturday after the big day, we heading down to Sky Zone for a jumping good birthday party.  The kids had an hour of jumping on the trampolines, then it was time for pizza and cake.  I think all of the kids and the dads had a blast jumping. Alex had a great birthday!

Celebrating at Sky Zone!

Thanks for helping us celebrate Alex's birthday!

Second Grade!

Katie started second grade on Monday.  Before going to Open House on Friday she wasn't excited about going back to school.  After Open House she said she was excited.
Here is she before heading to school. It is our family tradition to bring flowers to the teacher on the first day of school.

Ready for 2nd grade!

Of course, once we got to school she was excited to see her friends. Here she is with her friends from first grade, Kaia and Hailey.

Friends!

Once the music played it was time to head to their new lines and head to the new classroom. 

Katie and her 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Blomquist

I was excited to hear about her first day of second grade when we picked her up from school.  She didn't have anything good to report.  She was disappointed in her day.  It pretty much broke my heart. She said the best part of her day was seeing her friend, Kaia. She complained that recess and lunch were too short, the kids in her class were annoying, and the day was boring. That night before bed she said she was going to call in sick to school in the morning.  The next morning she hid in her closet and said she wasn't going to school.  Heartbreaking!

However, we talked about things and she asked me to talk to her teacher.  She was concerned because in order to have "Fun Friday" the class has to earn it. She didn't think it was fair that even if she was good, ("because, I'm ALWAYS good") she might not get to have Fun Friday and she really loves Fun Friday.  One of her first lessons that life isn't always "fair."  We got to school and I did have a little chat with her teacher. I left hoping she had a better day.

Day two turned out MUCH better than day one! :)  Yippee! She even told me she made friends with the girl who was bugging her the day before. This morning, for day 3 of second grade, she had no complaints about going.  Yea!   I guess that first grade was so great that there was no way second grade could live up to it. She was spoiled in Mrs. Payer's class. I know she will adjust and have another great year at Gilbert!

A Cousin Visit

It's been awhile since the McCrady's came to Vegas to visit the Oppenheims.  We had a busy week and it was fun to get the cousins together.  Just about a week before their arrival, Jonathan broke his arm.  That changed our plans a bit, but we still managed to have some fun outings.

They arrived Monday afternoon/evening. After picking them up at the airport, we headed to Cafe Rio for a yummy dinner. When we arrived at home the kids had fun showing thier cousins around the house, playing for a bit and the it was off to bed.

Cousins playing with the Iphone!

Tuesday brought a trip to the outlet mall for school clothes shopping for the McCrady boys.  There was also lots of swimming.

Wednesday included a trip to the Las Vegas Natural History Museum.  The kids had a great time. Here are some shots from the visit.

Katie & Nathaniel checking out some of the fish.

Alex is dressed like a Marine Biologist!

They found the dinosaurs!

Thursday brought a trip to Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat. It was HOT!!! The kids LOVED seeing the brand new baby white tigers. They also enjoyed watching the dolphins. Here's the best shot of the four cousins in front of a lion.

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Watching the dophin training.

Friday morning was spent swimming at a friends' house with our playgroup. I didn't think I'd ever get Nathaniel out of the water.  He had a blast. I felt bad for Jonathan since he couldn't swim, but he managed to pull it together.  Friday night, Don took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese and I took Kristina with me to play BUNCO. 

Do you know how hard it is to get 4 kids to sit together nicely for a picture.  Here is the best shot we got of Grandpa's grandkids. Those boys are crazy!

It was a fun week with our family visiting. It's nice that the kids get to know each other a bit more. We are glad the McCrady's came to visit. Maybe next summer we'll be able to visit them in WA.

It's my birthday, I'll cry if I want to!

Well, I'm not really sad. Growing up I always had a countdown to my birthday.  I was known for loving my birthday.  Maybe it's the Leo in me, we love to be the center of attention.  5 years ago my birthday got overshadowed for a great reason, Alex was born the day before my birthday.  Now, this was kind of my own fault, since he was a c-section, my doctor had suggested my birthday and I politely declined that date.  I chose the day before, rather than the day after so that he would always have his birthday first.  Good move....I think.  But, it does mean that we will always have lots of dessert around our house this time of year, because I insist on having my own cake.  This year I made Alex an ice cream cake and I stayed up late last night baking a cheesecake for me.  The trouble is, there will be another cake for Alex's party on Saturday.  Oh well, gives us a good reason to have friends over for dessert, right?

Today I am the same age my parents were when I was born. Kind of weird and cool.  Made me realize that if I live as long as my mom, my life is more than 1/2 over.  I don't want to think like that, but those thought occur. It actually puts a fire under my butt to make sure I live a long life.  I mean, as much as I can control that! I really want to be around to see my kids have families of their own and be a fun grandma!

I spent yesterday afternoon stuffing about 100 homemade raviolis for Alex's birthday dinner.  Next time he requests ravioli for his birthday, I'm using the store bought frozen kind! Tonight's dinner will be grilled shrimp and steelhead trout.  Yummy!  Which reminds me that I'd better go get the shrimp marinating.

Growing up birthdays were always a big deal at our house.  I've tried to keep that tradition going with my little family.  I think I'm succeeding, now just hoping that translates to my family spoiling me on my birthday too. Maybe in a few years the kids will be making my birthday cake.

I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of adventures I can have in my 34th year!

Future Rock Stars

A few weeks ago Katie and Alex attended a Rock Star birthday party.  They had a blast.  Every kid dressed in rock star clothing and had their hair and makeup done. Alex decided to have his hair sprayed red. Next they all had a photo shoot/fashion show, then recorded a song with a group, made a music video, ate pizza and cake, then did some music trivia.  Although it was really hot in the venue, all of the kids had a blast. Katie really like seeing so many of her friends from Gilbert.  Happy Birthday, Makalia!

Rock Star Alex!

Rock Star Katie

Katie and her good friend, Kaia

Playing Guitar Hero

A great quote

A little while ago I came across a great quote.  It really resonated with me. 

"If a child is given love, he becomes loving...
If he's helped when he needs help, he becomes helpful.  And if he has been truly valued at home...he grows up secure enough to look beyond himself to the welfare of others."
                                          ~Dr. Joyce Brothers, 1974
When I read this I thought how true it is.  I certainly hope that my parenting reflects this in my children. I believe that we are succeeding in this quest.

Maybe you are inspired too?  What is your favorite quote?

Summer time fun!

Don and the kids are at a birthday party so I have some nice quiet time to catch my readers up on our summer so far.  Do I really have readers to catch up?

The summer has been HOT.  So hot that Jerry started climbing into the bathtub to cool off.  It's funny because he never goes in the tub when we've tried to give him a bath!

The kids have spent a ton of time just playing together.  Sometimes I've been a little bored because they are so busy playing with each other that I'm ignored! We've also put together a lot of puzzles. Somehow I have ended up putting together many of the 100 piece ones that we've started.  Katie is becoming pretty good at putting together the 100 piece puzzles.  We've spent a lot of evenings playing Uno as a family before bed.

It's always fun to play with freshly made "kool" dough!

It's so nice that they can play board games together now.

We had a big evening out to see The Lion King at Mandalay Bay.  We all really liked it. It's a pretty long show and  Alex got a little restless, but the kids both really enjoyed it.  There has been lots of talk about the show around here.  After the show we went out to dinner at one of our favortie places, Strings.  We don't go out to eat very often and both kids got to pick a dessert.  They thought it was great!

He ate the WHOLE thing!

Our next adventure was our annual trip to San Diego. This time we had a nice visit with my cousin Theresa and her girls. The kids love swimming in their pool and Alex especially loves the slide. They also got to play some games with Leah and Rachel. It's always nice to get to spend time with family.  The weather was amazing, it was actually a little chilly in the evenings, but we weren't complaining!  We had a great day at La Jolla beach where the kids built and detroyed a great sandcastle. We took a drive up the road and spent a day at Wild Rivers water park. The kids had a blast! We spent a day at the fair where we met up with another one of my cousins, Andrea and her son Logan. The kids road the rides for close to 7 hours. We did manage to sneak in some time at the commercial building and checking out the animals.

Playing a game of Sequence with Leah and Rachel.

The kids and their sandcastle.

I think the tube slide was their favorite!

Imagine Alex's excitement when he saw this monster truck parked outside the fair entrance!

Alex and Logan, their birthdays are a day apart. Logan on August 2nd and Alex on the 3rd.

We've enjoyed lots of swimming this summer. We've been fortunate to go swimming at lots of friends houses and finally got our own pool open for business. We love our above ground pool, but it's not exactly ideal for swim parties! Someday we'll have an inground pool.....

The kids had two weeks of swim lessons.  It was sure hot watching from the sidelines.  Fortunately Grammy lives close to the pool and the kids got to stay with Grammy while the other had lessons. They both had a great time hanging out with Grammy, and sometimes Uncle Peter and Grampy. Grammy and Alex played lots of Go Fish.

Katie at swim lessons.

Katie and Don swimming at Chucks over the 4th of July. We had a great time and had the perfect view of the North Las Vegas Fireworks.

The Oppenheim pool open for business.  It's been great to jump in and cool off. Both kids are great swimmers.

Our next few weeks will be busy with summer camps.  Next week the kids have KidShine camp each afternoon and on Friday they will have their performace. The week after that Alex will be spending three mornings at the Co-op for Camp Co-op. The following week Katie will participate in the Co-op Alumni Art camp.  Whew! 

I love summer!

Random Thoughts

I keep coming to my blog thinking I should post something, and am never really motivated to upload pictures and gather my thoughts. So, here are some of my thoughts!

1. I can't believe the school year is almost over! Alex had his last day of preschool yesterday and Katie only has a couple days of first grade left.

2. I've been loving this weather and am not looking forward to the HOT days of summer.

3. We really need to get the garage organized so I can park the car in there again.

4. I am excited to get really working on my Lemongrass business. I need to book some parties for July. The new hostess program is pretty amazing!

5. Katie and Alex were awesome at the KidShine performances. It's always so cute. I love that every kid has a solo and a speaking part.

6. Katie's matinee was great.

7. Katie's got a piano recital next Saturday. Man, we've been busy!

8. Alex really, really, really wants to play tackle football in the fall and I think we might let him.

9. We are all excited to go see the Lion King in a couple of weeks. I love it when shows have Local deals. Buy one get one free is pretty good.

10. We are going to have a great week in San Diego in June.

Star of the Week

Katie was "Star of the Week" in her class this week.  We (Don & I) filled out some letter for her, The Story of Your Birth, The Story of Your Name, and What I Like About You. Those letters and some baby pictures were turned into a poster displayed all week in her class.  On Friday Don, Alex and I joined her for lunch at school, then headed to her classroom for sharing time.  This included each of her classmates giving her a compliment that was recorded on the back of the poster. Then she shared her special item she brought.  It was really neat to be a part of her day and hear all the wonderful things her classmates said about her.

Great shot, huh?

Recording the compliments.  See below for the complete list!

Here she is listening.  I don't know why I didn't get any better shots.  Well, Maybe it was because I had to pay attention to Alex.  By the way, she's wearing pajamas because it was twin day and she was dressed like her friend, Kaia.

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  I love how thoughful Katie is. ~Ms. Terc
• 
  
  I like how she's thankful. ~Makaila
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  She's very good at math. ~Alberto
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  She's good at dancing. ~Ana
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  She is helpful. ~Jayden
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  She has a good heart and she's good at telling time. ~Charisma
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  She's friendly and she stops to help when someone gets hurt. ~Angel
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  She is good at writing and drawing. ~Bailey
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  She is good at playing games cooperatively. ~Robert
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  She is good at maing things and she's respectful. ~Leslie
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  She's forgiving. ~Pedro
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  We love her as a friend. ~Genisis
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  She is a good artist. ~Kaia
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  She's a very nice friend forever. ~Ken
• 
  
  She is talented. ~Thomas
• 
  
  She is kind. ~Sayra
• 
  
  She is a good leader. ~Hailey
• 
  
  Katie is gentle and patient with her friends. ~Mrs. Payer

While we were there, we got to see a dance that Katie made up and taught her class.  There was a lot of talk about what a great dancer Katie is. :) OK, I was going to post the video, but now I don't see the button for that.  I'll try again later.

1st place trophy!!!

On Friday we attended the "Reflections" award ceremony at Gilbert Magnet School.  We were notified ahead of time that Katie was a "winner."  We didn't know exactly what that meant, but it turned out that she won 1st place in her division, primary photography.  She submitted a collage of 4 photos that she took at Red Rock Canyon to represent this year's theme of "Beauty Is....."  They gave awards to the top 5 in each catagory. Way to go Katie! :) 

Red Rock’s Beauty relates to the theme, “Beauty is…” because my pictures show all different colors of the earth. The pictures show that there are many places to explore. It’s beautiful because I can be with nature and see lots of things.

Here are the 4 pictures that were in her entry:

Each year, the PTA Reflections Program challenges students to create art inspired by a specific theme. Themes are selected from hundreds of ideas submitted by students to the PTA Reflections Program Theme Search. Past themes have included "Exploring New Beginnings," "If I Could Give the World a Gift...," "A Different Kind of Hero," and most recently, “I Can Make a Difference by…” and “Wow!” The 2009–2010 theme is “Beauty is…”

Students participate in the Reflections Program by submitting entries to a local PTA or PTSA. Nationally, the program has six arts areas—dance choreography, film production, literature, musical composition, photography, and visual arts—and four grade divisions—primary, intermediate, middle/junior, and senior.

Katie's school

I got a newsletter from Katie's school today and it had some pretty fantastic information.  I'm going to just copy the info for your reading pleasure.

Gilbert Magnet School has been identified as a Magnet School Of Excellence! We applied for a received this top award that is given by the Magnet Schools of America Association.  Therefore, out of all the magnet schools in America, Gilbert is considered to be one of the top school in the country!  ......

Going along with this fine honor, Gilbert recevied the top number of applications for an elementary magnet school in Clark County.  Over 1,213 students applied to become a Gilbert Giraffe next year!  How wonderful to know that "The Arts-a Way to Learn, a WAy to Live" is a believe held by many.

I feel very blessed that Katie gets to attend such a great school. 

Golden Rules for Living

I have read this before, but came across it again today, and I wanted to share.  I am going to print this up and hang in the house where we can all see it.

Golden Rules for Living
If you open it, close it.
If you turn it on, turn it off.
If you unlock it, lock it up.
If you break it, admit it.
If you can't fix it, call in someone who can.
If you borrow it, return it.
If you value it, take care of it.
If you make a mess, clean it up.
If you move it, put it back.
If it belongs to someone else and you want to use it, get permission.
If you don't know how to operate it, leave it alone.
If it's none of your business, don't ask questions.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If it will brighten someone's day, say it.
If it will tarnish someone's reputation, keep it to yourself.

Author Unknown                                       

What a morning!!!

So this morning started out as the usual Monday morning at the Oppenheim house.  Katie is hard to get out of bed and pokey about getting dressed and ready to leave.  I was in the Kitchen packing the kids' lunches when Katie come out and tells me that Alex flooded my bathroom.  OF COURSE!!  Yep, he tells me with tears in his eyes, "Mom, I used too much toilet paper and I couldn't get it to go down and then water started coming out and there is water everywhere." His pants and underwear that he left on the floor are soaked and there is a HUGE puddle of water on the floor.  *sigh*  Of course he chose to use my bathroom and not his.

So, I went out to the garage and grabbed a few towels to start cleaning up the mess.  Then I called Don to figure out how to get the wet/dry vacuum to be a wet vacuum.  I was on the phone, in the garage getting the vacuum together, and of course the kids were out there with me.  Just as I had the vacuum ready Katie tried to open the door.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME???  The door back into the house was LOCKED!  Luckily we had a spare set of keys to the front door in the garage and I was able to get in (after opening all 3 locks on the front door).  Niether kid will admit to locking the garage door. 

Once I finally got in with the vacuum I was able to get most of the water up, throw a few more towels on the floor and take the kids to school.  I only wish I was calm with the kids and not a yelling maniac. Katie was only a little bit late.  By the time I got home after taking Alex to school, I could almost laugh about the morning.  When I got home, there was only a little mess left to clean, the towels I had left on the floor had absorbed the rest of the water.  So, now I'm sitting here retelling my story and all the towels and bathmats are in the washing maching. 

Let's hope the rest of the day goes better than our morning.

Katie and Haiti

Katie never ceases to amaze me.  She is such an empathic person.  She is very concerned about what is happening in Haiti.  She called into last night's telethon and donated all of her money ($23).  She also is selling an old scooter and is going to donate the money to Haiti.  Her school is collecting shoes for the Soles 4 Souls project and she is trying to figure out which shoes from our family can be donated.  It makes me so proud to have a daughter that thinks of other people.  When Don told her she didn't have to donate all of her money she told him that it was her money and she wanted to donate it.  She also told him how lucky we are to live where we live and have all of the things we have.  If you know Katie, you can probably hear her voice as she explained how horrible conditions in Haiti are.  Of course, she had one hand on her hip and the other gesturing in the air as she spoke.  I love that girl!

New project

Check out my new blog. I'm trying to document a year in photos, one photo a day. I wish I could figure out how to make all the pictures appear in order. If you have a solution for me, please let me know.

http://oppfamilyphotos2010.blogspot.com/

Katie's 1st Winter Matinee

Katie school, Gilbert Magnet School, has two Matinees every school year, one in the spring and one in the Winter. For this year's Matinee the 1st graders performed "Let's Make Lemonade" a story about all the fairy tale/mother goose characters. 4 students from each class were chosen to have speaking parts. Katie was chosen to play The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. She did a fantastic job. She really had the audience chuckling. She is quite a performer and loves being on stage. Enjoy the little clip of her performance.

Trip to Arizona

The day after Christmas we loaded up the car and headed to Arizona to visit Dad, Corinne, and their new puppy, Buddy. When we arrived at Dad's new house, we were surprised to see my brother, Jeffrey, had stopped by on his move across the country. It was great to see Dad's Arizona house and celebrate Christmas with my side of the family. The kids had a great time playing with Buddy, playing games with Grandpa and hanging out with Jeffrey. Some highlights of the trip are:
* seeing Grandpa and Corinne's new house
* meeting Buddy
* surprise visit from Jeffrey, Ashley & Tristin,
* going to the Circus
* eating at Organ Stop Pizza
* Don's birthday dinner
* lots of game playing
* riding bikes and scooters