we wish you a merry christmas

how is it possible that it is already december 3??
this year is absolutely flying by!!
i guess that's what happens when you are having fun :)

as the calendar year and first half of this school year come to a close we want to take the time to thank you for sharing your family with us
spending our days with all of your kids brings us immense joy
each child has their own personality and brings something different to the dynamic of our classrooms
walking through the building and seeing how much everyone has learned and grown so far is amazing

we hope that you all enjoy this holiday season and your time with your little ones as much as we enjoy having them here!

merry Christmas!!

Hello all!!

The first month of school is officially under our belts and things here at the little red school house couldn't be better!!

We have lots of returning friends and lots of new friends and everyone has settled in quite nicely!

October is one of my personal favorites. I love sitting in the office and listening to all of the talk on both sides of the building about halloween costumes and trick or treat plans. The silly themed songs are the background music to our lives right now and it makes me happy because halloween is such a fun holiday .. I love any excuse for a costume!!

It is so funny to hear what all of the kids want to be

Some are easy to guess .. lots of the little girls are planning to be one of the princesses .. elsa is the most popular choice as of now .. but then there are the ones that surprise you like the little girl who has older brothers and wants to be "a ninja turtle .. but not a nice one .. a mean one" or the little girl who is going to wear a sushi costume

We of course have boys who are excited about being super heroes and pirates and then there is the one who wants to be a raccoon and another who says he is going to be a balloon man

Whether the costume choice is similar to others or something a little different .. they will all be so adorable coming to school all dressed up

Now, if the weather would quit pretending that it is still August and get on board with the fact that it is fall, all will be right in the world :)

Happy Wednesday!!

with love..

nancy

Summer Fun

How is it possible that Summer Fun is already over?!?
It has been such a fun month and has just absolutely flown by!!
We have done some awesome art projects, played fun new games, enjoyed some dancing and singing, and run around outside until we just couldn't take the heat anymore!!

We have loved having your kiddos this summer!!
See you all in September :)

with love..

nancy

martha

this book is a little bit overwhelming .. but a lot AWESOME!!

 

Hello, my name is Audrey, and I wish I was Martha Stewart….

     Except that whole prison, insider trading thing. If you really think about it, Martha gets paid to be a great house keeper and a great mom; although, I have no idea if she is great at either. I would love to get a pay check for making beautiful meals, keeping a beautiful home, tending an amazing garden, and doing crafts with or for my kids. Those are my favorite things to do, if you take out the keeping house part. I LOVE my garden! I think I was born with a black thumb, but I figure if I keep messing it up and learning from those experiences, I can force my black thumb to turn green someday. I am very persistent! I LOVE doing arts and crafts projects, but I wish I could come up with the idea, get it started, and then have someone else finish it for me and clean up, and if I was Martha, that would be true. I also love to cook. When J and I got married, I didn’t know how to cook anything. My mom signed Nancy and me up for a 14 week chef certification class. I learned so much! J gained 30 pounds in 14 weeks; you can’t eat like you are in a restaurant every day and not gain weight. I now love to cook and love to bake. The only other thing is the housekeeping, and I don’t love that. I am not good at it, but God blessed me with a husband who really could not care less.  So you see, I sort-of wish I was Martha Stewart.

Oh well…

Have a good one ..

Audrey



kick kick kick your feet

we have had so much rain here in tx {praise God} that it hasn't really been great lake weather yet
even on the days when it hasn't been raining, the water is still pretty cold and the lake is murky and has lots of debris
so this past weekend was the first time i have actually gotten the littlest down to kick her little feet in the water

i didn't do it exactly right
she had already been down playing on the dock for several hours and was tired and ready to take a nap and i realized she hadn't even touched the water yet
so i took her down and let her kick her feet for a couple of minutes
she really liked it at first but quickly remembered her grumbling tummy and tired eyes so it didn't last very long
but I know she will love the lake just as much as all of her cousins some day very very soon

with love,
nancy

Road Warriors

This is a post for my fellow road warriors headed for Florida this summer!
     It is summer here in Fort Worth, although you might not guess that based on the weather! As soon as summer starts people around here start heading out on vacation and one of the favorite destinations is Watercolor/Seaside, Florida. I know this because I was there last week and saw several of our sweet families!! My husband and I have mapped out a path to get to Florida that involves really great food, and when you are on a road trip food is the thing that makes it all ok.  Pack a lunch in your ice chest so you can have lunch on the road without making yourself sick with a drive thru burger. There is great food in Florida, don't waste the calories on bad road food. Also, pack your swim suits, sunscreen, a few towels, and an old sheet for the beach.
     First, if you leave in the morning and head towards Shreveport, then take 3132 down to I-49 and head south until you get to I-10, and go through Baton Rouge. Now, here is what we have learned... even though it sounds like a good idea to stop in Baton Rouge, actually, it's not. Baton Rouge has too much traffic and too many people, so keep on going through Baton Rouge, stay on I-12, and stop for dinner in Slidell, Louisiana. There is a great Hot Dog Bar with outside seating so the kids can be crazy on the patio without disturbing anyone. It will be a later dinner, but it is worth it! The place is called Bruiser's and the address is 1904 Front Street.

     Bruiser's has several kinds of hot dogs but not such a big menu that it is hard to pick, which is very important when your brain is fried by seeing what feels like a million miles of highway pass around you. After a little out of the car time, get back in the car and keep heading east. We always stop in Daphne, Alabama. We do this for several reasons... #1 FOOD! There is a fantastic breakfast place in Daphne called the East Side Café. Holy moly, great food! Being honest, I ordered 2 breakfasts because I just couldn't decide. I had the stuffed French toast, AMAZING, and Jason and I split the Cottage Sandwich with bacon and sausage. Oh My Goodness, so, so good! The kids were happy too with outside seating and pancakes, what could be better than that?? Even my super picky eater had a few bites of pancake and a piece of bacon.

Now, you are set for a great day! You are only 2 hours from Watercolor or Seaside and you can go ahead and park in the public parking, put on your swim suits and have an extra beach day by getting there Saturday morning instead of waiting for the 3 or 4 o'clock check in. Go have lunch, and then spread your sheet on the beach, there is a public area just west of the watercolor beach, and sand shakes out of a sheet much easier that a towel. let the kids play in the water and get all their pent up wiggles out, and enjoy the beautiful sunshine!

hashtag withoutshoes

one of our cousins works for TOMS and right now they are doing an amazing campaign to raise awareness for children's health and education

we wanted to get involved and so can you 

all you have to do is post a photo to instagram that has your bare feet in it and use the hashtag #withoutshoes

for every picture TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need

it can be whatever kind of picture you want .. close up .. far away .. whole body .. side of your foot .. kids feet .. dogs paws ..anything!!

just as long as you don't have shoes or socks on and you tag #withoutshoes and @toms

the campaign goes through this thursday may twenty first which is the actual day of one day without shoes when people all over the world will be going without shoes the whole day

for more info go to: toms.com/onedaywithoutshoes

Baseball Day

Today was baseball day for our PreK kids and we had a blast!!

We read stories about baseball, made baseball cards, and used our math skills to complete a color by number

We were so glad that the rain held off so that we could go outside for a friendly game of baseball

Boys vs. Girls and they all did great!! It was so fun to watch them all use the skills they have been learning with Ms. Neyle! And we loved it even more that Mr. Ryan and Mr. Jason came to help us out!

After a long hard game they came inside to enjoy hotdogs and chips just like at the ball field!

talk talk talk

confession .. I am a talker
when RT gets home from work the words start falling out of my mouth at an unending rate that sometimes even surprises me
I can't control it
that might not actually be true .. I probably could control it but I have never tried because .. well because I just don't want to

anyway ..
ALL OF THAT to say that the littlest seems to have gotten this trait from me. I absolutely love it!! she has so many things to say (even though she can't actually talk yet) and she likes to say them at the very top of her lungs

this is .. of course .. most noticeable at church
we are first time parents and haven't gotten comfortable enough to leave her in a group setting like the church nursery yet
she sits with us
this used to work out great .. we would bring her in and she would promptly fall asleep and all was well
those days are gone
we now spend the first twenty minutes of the sermon passing her back and forth offering different toys and food items trying to keep her quiet and when we feel like we have annoyed the people around long enough .. I take her to the "mother's room"

it is actually really nice that our church has a "mother's room"
this is a place where moms can nurse their babies or change their babies .. or .. in my case .. let their babies crawl around and make as much noise as they want
but the funny thing is that even the babies in there are quiet

a couple of weeks ago I was in there with five other mothers and their babies and mine was THE ONLY ONE making noise
she was noisy enough that one lady turned up the volume on the TV because she was having a hard time hearing the sermon

let me be clear .. this is not me complaining
the littlest isn't fussing
90% of her noises are happy
she just has so much to say and she likes to say it loud so she knows you hear her

she get it from her momma :)

with love..

nancy

 

getting slime out of carpet

So, I was walking through my living room last night and stepped on something cold. I picked up my foot, expecting for it to be wet, but it was not, and I couldn’t see anything on the carpet. I got down on my hands and knees and cautiously inspected. I could see a trail of quarter size dots of something clear. After looking at it and not being able to figure out what is was, I touched it. Gross, I know! But, this is the kind of thing that happens in my world. I picked a little of the mystery substance up with my fingernail, and upon seeing the greenish tint, it dawned on we what was embedded in my carpet… slime. Now, if that isn’t bad enough, what I thought about next is that my 7 year old son got this slime in a party favor. That party favor was from his birthday party, which means I had just sent green, carpet killing slime into 12 unsuspecting homes! AHHH!! If you are one of the moms who fell victim to this horrible lapse in judgment, I am so very sorry!

So, I found myself googling something that I had never thought about before, how to get slime out of carpet. I read a few posts about it, but I don’t like to use too many chemicals around my house, so I settled on trying vinegar or alcohol. I picked all of the slime off by hand that I could. I have heard from our janitorial service at Reading Friends that you should never soak your carpet, so I started by putting vinegar on a towel, putting the towel over the spot of slime, and waiting for a few minutes.

I went to work after about 5 minutes and was happy with the green that came up, but as you can see, my carpet is dark, so it was hard to tell if all the color came out. I let it dry and was sad to find that it was still sticky. Bummer….

But I still had the alcohol to try, and using the same method as with the vinegar, all the sticky came up and my carpet seems to be as good as it was before the slime melted into it. Just in case you ever find yourself needing to get slime out of carpet (or hair… that could totally happen!) I would say to start with the alcohol and then, if there is color left, try the vinegar. The alcohol may do the trick all on its own and you will have saved yourself a step

 

Have a good one ..

 

Audrey

 

 

 

the fireman came to visit

Wednesday, Ryan the fireman came to visit us at school and it was a blast!! I was weeding through the pictures this morning and after I took out all of the ones that weren't as good as the rest, I still had 54! We wanted to share some of the fun with you all through our pictures.
Ryan the fireman talked with us a lot about fire safety.  If there is a fire at our house, it is important to get outside as quickly as possible and to not go back in no matter what. He told us to decide on a specific meeting place outside so that all of the family ends up in the same location. We learned that the phone number for the fire department is 911 and to never play with any matches or lighters of any kind.
Ryan came in in his plain clothes uniform so that we could see that he is a super nice and regular guy. Then he put his bunker gear on piece by piece and told us what each item was, which part of his body it protected, and why he had to have it. He showed us his air pack that he uses to breathe in a smoky fire. He even talked to us while he had on his mask and air pack so that we would know what a fireman sounds like under all of his gear.
Fire fighters often look intimidating when they have on all of their fire protectant bunker gear, so, it was great for us to be able to talk with him about it all and watch him slowly put everything on.
We loved meeting him!!

with love..

nancy

I Felt Like a Crazy Person!

Have you ever had that moment when you are lying in bed and night and burst into tears because you are completely overwhelmed with your life? Well, I have, in-fact, that was last night. I was getting into bed and just started crying! I had a broken dishwasher and a sink full of dishes. I had not managed to do a single load of laundry in 4 days, so with 6 people you can imagine the laundry pile. I had done a weekend’s worth of homework with my 2 children only hours earlier. My children were 2 HOURS late to bed, which translates to no mommy time. And to top it all off, I had made a cake that was NOT good! My husband had been sitting in a chair all weekend watching a golf tournament which only made things worse. I have to tell you, I have a great husband! He is very helpful, very involved with the kids, and he had told me the week before that this was a big golf weekend and he wanted to watch. He told me this when I was planning on painting his office. He did not think that was a great plan, because he wanted to watch golf, so I had plenty of warning about how my weekend was going to go. But, on Sunday night, that did not make me feel any better! I was tired, I was disorganized, and I felt like a crazy person. What pushed me over the edge was thinking about what time I would have to get up to conquer the dishes before my sweet house keeper showed up. No way was I leaving that mountain of a mess for her to wrestle! Doing the math on how much time was needed to get myself ready (Jason get the kids ready), make breakfast, make lunches, and have time for the dishes… that was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I cried. I cried some more. I prayed a little, but not as much as I should. And then I fell asleep. I woke up this morning feeling much better. I got myself and the kids ready while Jason tackled the dishes. I started the laundry and sorted the rest into piles. I even made lunches for the week! That’s right, now I am ahead! Even though it is raining, my world is feeling pretty sunny! I hope everyone’s Monday is going as well as mine!

Have a good one ..

Audrey



An empty sink and a stack of clean dishes makes the whole world feel better!

 

an introduction to the authors

promises of best picture quality for future posts
sadly, this is the best and most recent (probably 5 years ago) picture we have of just the three of us

 

Hello!
We are excited to debut the new blog for Reading Friends Fort Worth! I {Nancy} have a personal blog and I really enjoy writing it so I convinced Audrey that Reading Friends should have one too!
If you are not familiar with who/what we are here at Reading Friends, please refer to our "About Me" section.
Audrey and I will both be writing the posts and they will be about everything from things going on here at school to things going on in our homes and with our family.
For today, I will start with an introduction ..
I am Nancy .. Audrey is my older sister .. and together we run the office at Reading Friends. Our mom, also Nancy, started the school in 1980 so we both grew up here.
Audrey started teaching 15 years ago and then switched to the office 5 years ago. I started teaching here when I was in college but took several years off to work retail in the fashion industry. While I loved my old job, I made the decision to come back to Reading Friends to have more time at home with my family. I had my first daughter, also Nancy {we keep it simple around here}, in September and I have loved having the time to be at home with her and my husband. Plus I get to spend my mornings getting to know all of the little ones around here which is pretty great!
Audrey has four children. Janey is 9, Deuce is 7 and Tommy and Spencer are 4. You will love hearing the stories that come out of her household! Her kids are hilarious and between the four of them, they keep Audrey and her husband on their toes!
I hope you all enjoy our blog!   

    with love..

nancy