Goings on

 Luke has a grand old time no matter what.

Well, it's spring cleaning time over here. I hate it (but then I love when it's done).

 We overhauled the entire garage a couple of Fridays ago. That's always fun.

That was before I was done switching out the winter/summer clothes and sorting through what the kids had outgrown. It was a mess. With that going on and the garage kerfuffle, I had bins all over my house for a week, and piles to donate to DI, a ton of junk to be thrown away, a pile of stuff for storage, the attic, and another pile to give away. I HATE PILES.

 And then Mark and Madelyn repainted her bed with some tough, glossy exterior paint because the original stuff wasn't holding up too well. We also sneakily repainted the white walls in her room while she was at school (she wants the white to be green and yellow instead......) because when I'd tried to touch up her walls last fall, the color I used didn't match and so she had these grayish splotches everywhere. It looks a lot better now. I went with Polar Bear by Behr in satin for the white walls, and the paint for the bed was Behr exterior gloss in Pure White, straight out of the can.

 Madelyn hadn't combed her hair that day, so her flyaways got covered in paint.....

 Which she then tried washing out herself....and then I had to spend 30 minutes scrubbing out. Good times!

 We haven't put the curtains back up yet, I'm not sure if we're going to or not. I sort of like the spare, modern look. Although if you went in there right now, you wouldn't even be able to walk across the floor from all the toys. (The 14 hours of housework we just did notwithstanding.) On my to-do list today is to go through the kids' toys and haul some out to the storage unit. Then I will feel done with my spring cleaning and can move on to the other 50 projects I have.

In other news, Mark and I finally upgraded our phones and both got an iPhone 4. We're with Verizon and it was free to get these phones (well, not including the $120 upgrade fee...). I hadn't even had a chance to look at mine before *YOINK* Madelyn took over and started fiddling with it. Mark had an iPhone back in ABQ and I guess she remembers how fun it was.

 

 Mark has put a few games and apps on his, but I haven't put any on mine because I'd prefer not to have the kids playing on it all day.

Mark has his own little game he plays with his buddies, of course. He has to be constantly entertained.

 

 Madelyn finally finished school and spent the last week doing fun stuff like Field Day and the 2nd grade camp out (on the lawn during the last hour and a half at school). Mark brought one of our tents and set it up for her and then her friends got to hang out and eat snacks and play games. At least that's how it should have gone, but from what I've heard they also spent a large amount of time screaming at the boys who were trying to join them...

 I had her sit for this picture right before she went to the bus for her last day of school on Friday.

Then I went and compared it with the one I took on the first day of school and started bawling. I can't believe how much she changed during second grade!! It was a very challenging year with health issues and struggles with math. I was relieved when she got the official letter saying she passed and would be moving on to third grade next year.

She did extremely well in all her subjects (besides math) and got a special award for reading achievement. Her teacher sent an email to me with Madelyn's reading scores:

DIBELS – Oral Reading Fluency

Beginning of the Year – 63 Words Per Minute

End of the Year – 130 Words Per Minute

RLA – Reading Level Assessment

August – 2.2 (End of 2^nd grade)

May –  4D (End of 4^th grade)

I'm so proud of her!

 

 So far, we haven't had any structured summer activities for her, which is totally fine by me.

 (Who doesn't love a good pair of heels?)

 But starting next week, she'll be taking ballet lessons again every Tuesday! She's been begging me to put her back in lessons, and so she'll be doing that through August and then will start up gymnastics again in September. She is so excited that my old toe shoes (those were my first pair I got when I was 11) almost fit her now.

Well, I'm off to go see what toys I can clear out of here while Luke is napping. Wish me luck....