Julie A. Duncan

I stayed up way too late again working on lesson plans!! It's a very bad habit of mine. I just get so excited. And this time was definitely no exception. We're going to be studying the Creation this month and that is my absolute favorite thing to teach. There are just so many ideas of things we can do. But I only have an hour!! Since there are so many things to do, I try to do more centers with this study. For our study about the sun, moon, and stars, we're going to have circle drawings on one wall where they can trace around items from the home center that are circles to make circle art. There is a night/day sort, creation puzzles, and putting the numbers one to seven in order. Then I'm going to turn the truck table into a tent by covering it with a blue tablecloth. The bookshelf will be filled with books that are mainly about the moon and night time. The kids can go into the tent and look at the books with flashlights. While those are going on, two or three at a tim...

Hmmm. Didn't we just celebrate this Friday?? Someone apparently counts differently. Hailey celebrated this on Friday and Jordan and Ashley celebrated on Monday. Jordan brought chocolate chips and Ashley brought pretzels to add to their 100th day snack mix. They also apparently practiced writing their names 100 times. Jordan said she varied hers. Some said "Jo Jo," some were in cursive, some were her full name "Jordan Aimee Duncan," and apparently other variations. Ashley just wrote Ashley. Another activity was imagining what they would look like at 100 years old. See their interpretations below.

I left the garage door open. Hailey left the door from the house to the garage open. Charley saw the outside. I saw Charley and laughed. "No, no, Charley," and shut the door. I didn't shut the big garage door. I thought Charley would go back and lay back down for her afternoon nap. Minutes later, I noticed Charley was no longer near the door. I looked in her normal napping spots. I went upstairs. No Charley. I peered out the upstairs window to peak on the girls and saw instead....Charley! She seemed totally nonplussed about being outside. She calmly was exploring all of the smells and reveling in the joy of it. I let her enjoy it for a little while before convincing her to go back in. She got really annoyed at Jazz who kept following her for awhile after that sniffing every part of Charley's body. I think Jazz had lots of questions for her. What's the problem?? I still have two feet in the garage! I'm in the shadows. You can't really see me. ...

Letter writing is a lost form of art. Unfortunately, thank you letters are becoming that way too. Not in our house! We worked on getting our thank you cards written for their birthday gifts today. Ashley worked hard and finished all of hers. Jordan finished half and Hailey managed to get two done before she pooped out on the couch! I loved how Jordan spent so much time specializing each card to the individual. For Emily's card she drew the three of them playing dogs because that's what they did with her. For Eva, she drew horses. She drew a picture in red for Grandma because that's her favorite color and in green for Aunt Vanessa's favorite color. She made each card unique. Actually, all three of them worked to make each card special. On some of Ashley's, she drew a picture of the gift. She did a great job drawing the Barbie cheerleader she received from My Mike and NaNa.

Hailey had her 100th Day of School today. Even though she was sick most of the week, she kept saying she had to go for the 100th Day of School no matter what. She ended up taking a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle for her show and tell item. They made 100 day trail mix and 100 day hats. Their teacher also challenged the children to be able to count and write to 100 in order to be a part of the 100 Club. Their reward was a dollar! She had ten students qualify. Hailey said she's still working on it.

Tablets change your lives. I haven't decided if it's for good or not yet though! We tried to take our spelling test on the tablets tonight. In my Liberal Arts Methods class, we talked about using things the children like in order to teach, and girls love the tablets. I thought we would practice writing the words with a drawing app. Then they would email the spelling test to me. Plus, their reading that night was about writing an email and the different parts of an email application. It seemed perfect. Something they enjoyed + spelling + reading must equal success, right? Good grief! It took almost an hour to take the test!! First, we ran out of battery on one and it took Ashley awhile to find the charger. In the meantime, I gave her the tablet I was going to use. But, of course, there was no drawing app on it. So I had to give up on that idea and just go straight to the email idea. However, the tablet Ashley had now only had Hailey's account on it and we had to get hers s...

Hailey and I stayed home sick today, but I still had to go to class. Hailey got to spend an hour at work with Daddy. Here's Hailey's story: I getted to play in there. I played with the bear, the brown bear on the shelf where all of the pictures are. I talked with Daddy's boss a little bit and that I had a fun day there. Even I had peanuts I ate. And I played on the tablet. I played lots of games on the tablet. Even the tablet had stories in it and she talked to me and she said to me, "What's your name," and I said, "Hailey." And she read me a story about dinosaurs and Indians. There was one girl and she was the only girl. It was a storybook and there was only two boys and one of the boys were blue. At work I saw that there was more books but some of the books were not working. Lots were not working. And maybe I didn't know that there was a really lot of books and there wasn't a lot of books. But I haven't go down to the books and I d...

Our water heater woes are - hopefully - over finally. I stayed home (sick, unfortunately) while Jacobi installed our new water heater. It cost $600 for this water heater. Jacobi cost an additional $235, the majority of it was 3 1/2 hours of labor. He commented that should we ever need another new water heater then it would be very helpful indeed if we extended the size of our water heater opening. Apparently it was pretty rough hooking it up inside our tiny little area for it. I think Greg only found a few options when looking for a 19" heater and even then he had to take off the door and trim in order to get the old one out and the new one in. Then it fills up the entire opening so that there's only about six or so inches between it and the top of the door frame to work with getting all of the stuff hooked up on top of it. We have learned through this experience how much our heating and air unit pumps into it. Everyday that our heat ran quite a bit (read it was cold that da...

After opening most of their presents already, there wasn't much left for Jordan and Ashley's birthday. They seemed really excited about taking cupcakes to school though. After dinner, they got to open a couple of presents. They each received a chapter book and to their immense pleasure, makeup for themselves. They wouldn't always have to go to Hailey's House of Design. However, there was more excitement when they opened what we called the family gift. Greg had found three fairly cheap Android tablets and bought them for us to share as a family. Ashley said that was her favorite gift of all!

I was making cupcakes for Jordan and Ashley take tomorrow. I walked near the stove and realized something smelled funny but I wasn't quite sure what it was. It didn't really smell like smoke. I stated my concern and Greg immediately ran to open the laundry room door. Sure enough, the hot water heater had caught on fire and flames were pretty large inside it where the thermostat was supposed to be. Greg yelled for me to find the fire extinguisher while he ran in the garage to flip the breaker. I found the extinguisher and was able to get the pin out. Greg grabbed it and started trying to figure it out. There was a lot of smoke and he finally got the extinguisher to work and blew it out. It took quite awhile to get the smoke and smell cleared from the room and Greg had smoke in his lungs. We were very grateful that we were home. I hugged the cats thinking what would have happened to them had we not been there. God was good to us today. So, apparently the problem was not just ...

It was "Laugh Out Loud" for the girls' birthday party. Jordan and Ashley had never been there before and they all loved it. It was nice to not have it at our house and have to prepare for it. We just showed up with a cake and candles and everything was done for us. They went through their $10 cards pretty quickly but still managed to get enough tickets to get some little things like dolls, a princess crown and jewelry, and fang teeth. Hailey with her best friend Kelly. Is Laugh Out Loud training them to be gamblers?? Look at these hopeful faces! Do we have enough tickets for all of that!

Jordan, Ashley, and Hailey had a ball opening their presents from Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Vanessa tonight. You would have thought they had won the lottery from all the shrieking and excitement over everything. In addition to making them wands, crowns, and some sculpture craft kits, Mom had bought them 18-inch dolls and they just loved them. Each had a special journal that told the doll's name and everything about them. Then there was an additional section where the girls could write in information about themselves too. Mom had also made them additional clothes to go with them that were beautiful party dresses, which also apparently double as exquisite nightgowns I'm told. Vanessa had brought them robes from Singapore which were reversible. Jordan of course turned hers to the black side and Ashley and Hailey left theirs the colored side. They have a dragon on the black side and I told them they could where them on Chinese New Years Eve (Sunday) since it was the year of the ...

Guest post from Hailey: I had a happy day. I had a fun day at home. I blew out a candle and I was so excited that I blowed a candle cause I never knew that I could blow a candle and that I danced for a little while cause I didn't have time. I was excited with my new stuff but it was not toys. It was just stuff. Two was cards from my sisters. One was a coloring book and I liked the make-up thing better cause I really wanted to have it. I had a happy day with Kelly playing at school. I made an ant house for them cause I wanted them to have a home cause they didn't have a home. Even I gave them a bowl. I getted to have birthday cakes and I never knew everyone liked my pupcakes when they liked chocolate. I had a happy day when I saw the presents and I didn't see the presents but they were there behind me. I saw that princess in a circle and I didn't know what color it was and I knew when I turned on the light. And I didn't know how to read and one of my sisters told m...

Greg had a bit of a surprise when his 700 comic books finally came in. One box wasn't quite right! When it all came down to it, apparently the United States Postal Office accidentally messed up some of the delivery boxes and ended up repackaging them, including a note of apology. Our assumption is that someone else probably also received a note indicating this and instead of opening a box of boots, they opened a box of comic books! Anyone need a pair of boots???

I was so proud of Hailey tonight. She was really reading. She pointed at the words, sounded out all of the letters and blended them together to make the words. I only helped her on a couple of the words. She stayed focused through the entire book. I could tell she was proud of herself and I was REALLY proud. She is doing so well.

Today was Martin Luther King, Jr Day. At the university, they were promoting a day ON not OFF where you volunteer to help different organizations in the community. I really wanted to do something like that, but they couldn't give me any opportunities that also involved three little girls. So, we made our own volunteer opportunity. We cleaned up trash twice today. The first time, we just went around the neighborhood walking and got back home with two Wal-Mart bags full of trash. Later in the day, when it was a nice 70+ degrees and a little more suitable for being outside, we drove up to the highway on the other side of our neighborhood. We spent about an hour and only worked one side of the road the distance of about five or six light poles. We filled up six large trash bags! It's amazing how much trash we both generate as a society and just leave on God's beautiful earth. During supper, we listened to MLK's I have a dream speech. I truthfully don't think I...

Finally...at least four months of pictures off all of the cameras. All of 2011 organized into folders, including both pictures and video. I learned ACDSee has a wonderful feature called "Batch Rename" where I could rename all of those DSCblahblahblah completely useless filenames. Now, time to start the backup!!

Today Jordan and Ashley got to go to Eva's birthday. Eva is their best friend at Elgin and she's a red head too. Ashley tells me that they became friends when they went on the zoo field trip last semester. Eva's birthday party was at A Pigment of My Imagination. The girls got to pick out a ceramic piece and paint it. They will fire it and then Eva's mom will pick it up and bring the figurines to the girls. What a great idea! I had seen they had camps during the summer but we never ended up going. They have workshops for children every time school is out apparently and are already advertising for Spring Break. It's not exactly cheap, but we may have to look into it. We could make some pretty neat objects. It's not just ceramic either. They do glass, canvas, and several other art options. Well...this is starting to sound like an advertisement so I better stop! Ashley, Eva, and Jordan Ashley chose a cat bank and painted it like Jazz. Jordan chose a hor...

Tonight we watched the last episode of my girls' favorite show: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The show has been on for more years than they have been alive! Nine years and over 200 families later, it's finally ending. The girls love watching the new rooms and they imagine that they are the ones getting a new house. They always want to change their rooms after watching the show. Last Saturday morning I woke up to my girls chanting "Move that bus! Move that bus!" as they were playing Extreme Makeover with their Barbies. Watching the final episode It's been six years ago, but I still remember Extreme Makeover coming to Lawton. It was so exciting. They had the area blocked off from traffic, but you could ride a bus from Cameron over to it. We took the girls to see it one night. Amazingly they weren't that impressed at that age and didn't even remember they had gone! Greg and Jordan at the house on Feb 20, 2007. Greg and Ashley. They were three ...