It's That Time...

To those who have asked, here are the wish lists for holiday gifts for each of the family members.  (Steve, you may use this as a reference as well so you don't have to ask me what I want on December 24th.)

Casey:

• Ipod/MP3 player

• DS Game "Legendary Starfy" (It is pronounced starfee in case you were thinking of making the embarrassing mistake of pronouncing it "star-fie" like I did.)
• Big lego sets
• Tech Decks (little mini skateboards)
• Pokemón cards (yes they are back together again this year)
• Free ticket to Legoland (I don't know what he meant by this, I can only assume he didn't want someone to give him the ticket and ask him to pay for it)

Bridget:

• Ipod
• Clothes (T-shirts, skirts, pants)
• Shoes (I think she meant like tennis shoes or flip-flops)
• Water color paper
• Chalk pastels
• Gel pens
• Stuffed animals
• Webkinz dog (no specifics)
  
• Tech-deck
• Beading kit
  

Gillian:

• Littlest Pet Shop (no specified types, just "big kit")
• Barbie clothes
• Gillian clothes (skirts and dress shoes)
• Baby doll (yes, another one)
  
• Necklace kit
• Anything that any other five year old girl might want with kits, art, doll stuff, dress-up, etc.

Meghan:

• Socks and/or shoes
• Dresses with long sleeves
  
• Long-sleeved onesies
• Winter knit hat
• Stroller (any kind of umbrella stroller, our very awesome maclaren stroller was stolen and now we have no way to pack it up and go.  Very tragic.)  Here is a sample of what it looked like but she would be happy with a used one or less expensive one like this.  She is not picky.
• Stacking toys--she loves to put things in their place, like shape sorters, etc.  We have a few floating around but she might like one little wee thing here or there.
  

Steve:

• Books (he has a wish list on Amazon.com and it is super boring--click here for details)
• Non-white button-up dress shirt.
• Tie

*Lee:

• Santoku knife
• Vans (any color size 9 ladies)
• Roxy Ts size large (any color but black or navy)
• Button-up dress shirts (any color)
  
• Book Catching Up Leading the Way
• Book Secret of Total Student Load
• Book Why Don't Students Like School
• Book The Global Achievement Gap
• Book Change by Design
  
• New headset for phone
• Mini Pastel Silicups
• Itunes anything

*Mine seems the longest because I know me best of the people on this list.  Also, I need to give Steve a long list of things in case he is at Smith's at midnight and can't find some of the other things.

This and That

I finally am taking a break from this whole school biz for a day or two to catch you up on the various and sundry events of my life.
1. Dessert Contest update

I need to take better pictures of the food before people eat and I will do that next time for sure.  We are down to final four:

Katie
Jeannie
Bridget
Me

So for the next round, Katie and Jeannie will duke it out in what will undoubtedly be the dessert match-up of all match-ups.  I will face my 8 year-old daughter.  I don't know if she has been winning on merit or youth but obviously it could be a humiliating loss for me.


2.   Grandma Jo and her sister's birthday.  A local campground featured an almost all-ladies cast of fun family activities.  Happy to see step-mom looking so good these days. We miss Hippie Artist but he would have wanted her to be happy and she was smiling.  Good to see.

3.  Any given Sunday in downtown Indy.  The Colts were playing the Pats, big game I guess.  Here is some of the evidence from my downtown stroll when I was on the road last week:

4.  Any given Sunday in SB--Meg and Katie as twinners:



















The Sunday toddlin' crew:

5.  Casey making Ebelskivers
















6.  High School Rally in Southern Illinois:

Theme for the game?  Meat house:

7.  Chillin with my eldest child on Wednesday, finally some reprieve after all this school fighting biz:

Update for the People

Latest update.

The reporter was so beautiful I decided not to even bother fixing my hair. 

The Bane of My Existence

A New Haircut

Sorry to beat a dead horse but here is one more video that shows the district's side.

Does not include my reference to our 6th grade scores outscoring every school so it makes it sound like he has data and we have touchy feely, but at this point, maybe touchy feely will get us a few more supporters.

What do you think of my new haircut anyway?

Last Night

Wow.  The show of community was incredible.  Check out this site and click on the video to see it live.

Does it seem like the 60s?  My mom would be proud.

Incidentally, I didn't march, I just met people there since I was nervous about presenting.

More propaganda

See if you can find my daughter in this vid:

Don't Close Our School

You have to click the little teeny link next to the closure sign that says "Video High"