Quiet Week

There hasn't been much to write about this week. It's FCAT testing. Jasmine is the only one taking FCATs this year. She did both parts of the math test Monday and then does reading on Thursday and Friday. Hopefully she will do great on the reading. Probably not on the math with having to test at the 6th grade level when she's struggling with 5th grade math. I'm okay with that. It's just part of life for Jasmine, and we're both very realistic about it. She knows she needs to do the best she can and then not worry about it.

Friday and Saturday is the Extraordinary Women's Convention in Pensacola that Jessica and I go to each year.  However, she failed to put those dates in the time off book and is scheduled for a double on Saturday. She can't get anyone to work it. She forgot once before but got someone to cover all but her last shift Saturday so we left the convention early. This year I am taking Jasmine in her place. She's a little young for it, but there are always home school girls there so she won't be the only young one.
UPDATE: One of the people who wasn't willing to take Jessica's shifts Saturday needed a last minute replacement tonight. Jessica was like, "I'm not feeling very generous about taking shifts when no one will help me out Saturday." The guy was suddenly available to take her shifts Saturday, so she will be going with me after all. Tyler and Jasmine will be going out to lunch and to The Croods Saturday while I'm gone. (She was very disappointed not to be going, and I wouldn't have told her she could except that everyone had turned Jessica down for shifts.)

This year in addition to the regular speakers, Karen Kingsbury, Pam Tebow (Tim Tebow's mom) and comedian Tim Hawkins will be there. Seriously, I was not going to go again if Chonda Pierce was there again. She was horribly inappropriate last time.

There is always a theme for these conventions. This year the theme is "Enduing Love." I don't remember what it was when she was there (two years ago I think). But she talked mostly about sex over 50. At a Christian Women's Convention. With probably 100 preteen/young teen girls there. And when one of the worship leaders signalled her she was out of line, she made fun of him from the stage. So not impressed. But she ended by singing a nice Christian song, and that was supposed to make up for the crap she'd talked about. If she was doing comedy in a bar, it might have been funny. It  was just horribly inappropriate for the situation.

Jessica and I went to Firehouse Subs after her dentist appointment yesterday.  Not good news for one of her molars unfortunately. She has her first root canal in three weeks. (Waiting until after dive class is over) At least it's so much more humane now than 20 years ago. Those were truly awful!

Adam had  a great time on the senior trip last weekend. Today the track team drives to Jacksonville (about 5 hours) to compete in regionals tomorrow. So he missed two fulls day of school last week for districts and senior trip, and he missed two this week for regionals. I sure hope he's keeping up on his school work!


Rick's foot is still healing, and Max's paw is still healing. Max was supposed to stay in for 14 days, but he got very upset this morning so went out. He's used to going out at night, and he's been in for 5 nights. He'll probably show back up later, and we'll see if he wants to stay in a couple more days.

Jaden is very good about using a litter box, but Max is not. He prefers our bathroom rugs! Blah.

Tyler is on week two of his job. It's been quite an adjustment for him to go from playing on his iPad a majority of the day (as well as helping around the house and with the twins' homework) to working 3-4 ten hour days. It has shifted our morning a bit earlier. The first group out now (driven by Rick) includes Tyler, Jessica twice this week, Adam and Jasmine need to be out the door by 6:00. I walk the twins down to their bus at 6:18. Then all but Adam need picked back up. He rides home from track with a neighbor.

Kaleb is still struggling with behaviors. He went from being on green for two weeks to now being on red every single day for two weeks. Kayla is doing pretty well at school but has gotten into the habit of ugly talk on the bus. Always something new to deal 
with. : ) There are lots of exciting things coming up, so I'm hoping for a turn around in behaviors. Sometimes they get stuck in a cycle of misbehavior and it takes a lot of consistency and patience (which I was seriously lacking this morning!) to get them turned back around. 

Have a great rest of the week. I probably won't post again until after convention.

And one more thing I keep forgetting. Below is the cover for my book coming out in July. Remember that I have little to no say about the covers. When the showed it to me, I asked if we could lose the chin and add a second child who is not white. But the sales and marketing people vetoed me. I am okay with that. They are "adding some diversity" to the inside for me.