Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?

"Are you Smarter than a 5th grader?"

This is a little phrase that has been floating around in my mind on occasion this past year. I have never had the chance to play the game, but I would be afraid to find out. I think of all the time I spent in school growing up and wonder how much I really remember.

The nice thing about having a lot of kids is that I get to see some of those things that I once learned. Bit by bit I catch a glimps of what they are learning in school. Right now the math is easy, but when they get older I hope I will still be able to explain the complicated steps. As for the spelling, I admit that even this morning I had to check the list to make sure Jacob was spelling a word right.

Well Samantha is wrapping up her 5th grade year and leaving elementary school behind. She has had a busy year! She started out stretched a little thin, she was in choir, orchestra, piano lessons, dance lessons, the Nutcracker, plus church activities. She loved the days where she had nothing and could just come straight home and not worry about anything else. Over the course of the year she dropped a few activities and seems a little more balanced. I can trust her to get her homework done, and we never check out enough books from the library because she goes through them so fast.

She has really shined this last year. In December she was in the school Geography Bee and made it to the top 5. As Scott helped drill her in preparation I was humbled by the fact that she knew some of the answers that I didn't. We made a big deal about the Nutcracker knowing it was a one time thing, since it was too much of a commitment to ever do it again. I had fun watching her in her orchastra concert, in February but she never liked it as much as I did growing up.

For the past few weeks she has been giving a lot of thought to her science fair project, she came up with her own idea.  She wanted to see what kids of germs we come in contact with on everyday things we touch.  I am not sure how the school felt as we tested the doors, handles and drinking fountains, but it was fun to watch the bacteria grow. 

Well, today I had a fun day.  Scott and I got to go judge the science fair at the school.  I love to see the experiments and hear the kids present.  Samantha had a great project but I really feel like she put her poster together last minute.  Anyway I didn’t believe her when I picked her up from school that afternoon (because it was pouring rain) and she said she got 1^st place.  What?  It wasn’t until we were in the car and she pulled out her trophy.  I know she had a great project, but to win 1^st place two years in a row!!   What a lucky girl.  After being a judge I can appreciate how it all depends on what the judge thinks, what they like and what they decided to deduct points for.  She was really excited and I am really glad that she has done so well.  She really like her project and all week end long keeps coming up with ideas of what she will want to do for next year. 

I got to judge the classrooms so I started asking the boys about their classroom experiments and practicing presenting.  The next thing I knew we were recreating the experiments that their classes had done and other ones that they had heard about.  Looks like we have a family of scientists. 

Where are the memory collectors?

You hear of bill collectors but where are the memory collectors. I will admit that things in our house hold have been a bit chaotic since adding another baby to the family. I have had a few bills slip through the cracks but I am immediately aware of the problem. A water bill got sent to the tax collector (they have the same name-) and I knew something was up when we got a notice that our water was going to be turned off. I ignored the budget for a few months but then I was itemizing receipts in February from October; needless to say Christmas was long gone.


However since I got pregnant last year my precious productive time when Alex is napping from 1-3 pm disappeared as I joined him for the afternoon on the bed. I was shocked in mid June when I went to post ultrasound pictures on our family web page for 2010 was blank. I tried to fill the year up and make up for it, but I never got those 6 months updated. In fact in that period of time Jacob was baptized and the pictures were never uploaded to the computer, they were erased months later when we assumed that everything had been backed up. No one else took pictures that day. Here is a picture of Jacob 1 year later.

Everything else in my life has deadlines. Church stuff, money stuff, homework, but there is nothing sending red flags that our memories are being lost. I have spent the last few days busy driving, running errands, and cleaning. I was determined today to dedicate the day to the computer and mostly my kids pictures. This post are my meager results. My baby has been crying all day, my sister is in Japan in the middle of the earthquake, our credit card has been stolen… These are only adding to my list of fun things that happened yesterday and I never want to repeat the 24 hours before that.

Sometimes I think in Facebook mode- like "this would be a good status post…" but I rarely ever post because I don’t really want that much information public or but the time I think about posting 3 days later the moment is gone. In January I tried writing status posts in my journal. I really liked it, something to show for that day instead of a year of naps. I had to catch up every few days, but I kept it up. Then February happened, my status list is now on my fridge with short word reminders but if I don’t write down my thoughts soon those shorthand notes will mean nothing and the memories will be lost again.

So send me to the memory collection agency please. I need a few deadlines to put the journal writing, scrapbooking, blog posting, back on my priority list. I also think a daily dose of caffeine would help around lunch time, but for now we will just try a dose of motivation to not lose any more pictures.



Click Here for more pictures of Nathan's Blessing Day. Today was one step in the right direction, however I have stayed up way too late which means I am going to need a nap tomorrow.