The Hanson Crew

If you've read this blog for sometime, you would know that I have to re-cover my dining room chairs at least twice a year.  The joy of having young boys!  Well, this time, I decided to make it a Home Ec lesson for Ashlyn.  She struggled with taking off the old fabric, but did a great job helping cover them.  I wonder what other things I do often I can teach her to help me with?

Monday, Missouri got up to 80 degrees! We couldn't believe it. We played outside most of the evening and finally took down our Christmas lights off the roof. Tuesday is rained all day, was pretty gloomy, and we had tornadoes around our viewing area. Last night it snowed, and this morning it was like a blizzard for a little while. Ashlyn and I took advantage of this strange weather for a morning devotional, hot tea, and fresh donuts from Hyvee. Wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow?

cause we know their bathroom drawer is definitely not!

I forgot to write the other day about our day off from school.  Because Jonathan goes to a different school than the boys, it is very rare that all four kids are home all at the same time. The Maids were supposed to come clean that day and the scheduling of that turned into a small disaster so we decided to leave for the whole day. We began our fun day with lunch and a matinee movie called "Parental Guidance."  It was pretty cute and really funny.  Then, we headed for ice cream and fries down south on our way to a $dollar theatre to see a second movie that Joshua wanted to see.  Because it was a holiday, the prices there were $3 instead per person so we skipped it.  Instead we headed to Donut King for delicious donuts.  Then we ended the night with Chuck E. Cheese, which we never ever do.  That was a lot of fun too.  Here is the only pic I took that day of Joshua on a token ride at dinner. It was a memorable day off from our normal school schedule.

Our family enjoyed a short 4 week video on Missionaries to Columbia this past week and I had to share something funny Joshua said.  The area where these young people were serving was under attack spiritually, but mainly physically by guerrilla military. They spoke alot about hostile guerrilla areas and often spoke of men who were once guerrilla's and how they killed the innocent civillians while they were there. Well on Tues evening, Joshua asked if we could go downstairs and watch the next episode of the video because he was anxious to see what was going to happen.  When I asked why he said, "I wanted to know if the lady and her group are able to get out of the unsafe area before the big and mighty gorilla's come and eat her!" I then went on to explain what the difference between guerrilla and gorilla was.  It was funny!

Jonathan's school has an incentive program that we kinda like.  They are the Line Creek Lions and they can earn a paw for doing different things.  If they use manners, help someone else, share something, etc that is out of the ordinary or someone sees something they do that is worthy of a paw, they receive one.  They collect them throughout the year.  After so many, they can get different prizes.  So Jonathan has got to wear pjs to school for 10 paws, wore a sports hat, even have lunch with his teacher, etc as different rewards.  This week, he reached 100 paws.  So he gets his pic on the big board out front by the office.  Caleb remembered when he got his Golden Paw and it was neat to hear them talk about the kind things they have been doing.  Here are a couple pics of his paw...

And looking forward to the rest of the year still!  He LOVES school!

John was able to be Line Creek Elementary's Watch DOG yesterday all day.  Jonathan was very excited!  This is a great national program that involves dads in their child's school.  The DOGS part of the acronym means "Dads of Great Students."  Here is a website that explains the program. His day began by greeting students at the front door while they came in (with Jonathan too).  Then he rotated to different classrooms and sat out in the hall with 3 or 4 kids each class working on flashcards, games, etc.  He helped in the lunchroom, made copies for the office, helped at recess and helped in Jonathan's class for an hour.  He even got to wear a cool vest.  They took a picture of them together and hung it on the Watch Dogs bulletin board in the hall.  I'll try to get a copy of that and share it soon :)

Caleb stopped Speech Therapy through the NKC School District back in March 2012 because the speech therapist we were seeing said that he had all his age appropriate sounds at that time.  We were a little surprised because we could still hear some errors every now and again, but knew the NKC school district would only provide free speech therapy if it was pretty bad. So we started this school with no scheduled speech therapy and a very happy Caleb.  We didn't pay for any over the summer either, which we have done the past 5 years each summer.  When we had out second grade parent/teacher conference, our favorite second grade teacher at Faith Christian Academy asked us to get him re-tested for Speech.  Her biggest concern was reading because she said he was focusing so much on saying the correct sound in each phonogram that he was completely missing what he was reading or saying.  Therefore, his reading comprehension was so behind. She could hear a lot of speech errors too, which we

Ashlyn was so excited today when her Passport arrived in the mail.  It only took about 3 weeks to come after we applied.  We found out a few months ago that our Maids Franchise was one of the top 15 to get a paid trip to Costa Rica this March and it is our turn to go (we rotate with John's parents when we win each year).  Since John and I are both going to the Las Vegas Maids trip at the beginning of March and because our babysitters who take on week long trips will still be retiring in sunny AZ until April, John and I decided to invite Ashlyn in my place to Costa Rica.  So we have made this trip a Daddy/Daughter trip.  She is excited for the passport, excited to be traveling out of the country for the first time, excited for the beach, and excited to maybe try parasailing!  We love home schooling for reason' like this - we scheduled her Spring Break that week and she gets to try out her Spanish she has been learning all year while she is there.  Meanwhile, the boys and I wil

Well, we all survived the past nine days! Both here in Kansas City and Omaha. The kids somehow completed all their homework, kept the house picked up, and were all fed while I was away. John did a great job juggling more office work and more work at home. I learned all about The Maids system, some policies we want to implement in our franchise, enjoyed cleaning for three straight days, as well as got some great creative ideas for our new building. I made some new good friends and got to know the two from our office better. Here are a few pictures from the week in Omaha.

So it looks like I will be venturing to Omaha tomorrow for a 9 day training opportunity.  It is the training John went to when they first started our Maids training.  He is hoping that I will learn more about the company, how to clean, and other admin functions he hasn't had time to teach me this past year as I have become more involved.  I am a little nervous to be gone from home that long, but excited for the get away.  I have planned out 2 weeks of school for Ashlyn and walked John through some of the things I do at home each day.  He will have to do a little more work at the Maids than normal those 9 days since a couple of mgrs are going up to train with me.  He will be balancing alot those days.  They are coming up to visit Sat through Sun so we can visit some Omaha family and enjoy the pool together.  Please be in prayer for our trip and for our family while I am away.  Pics to come later...

He should be able to see the board from any spot in the classroom now :)  He will probably only where them in the classroom and church, unless he starts to have problems at other times.  It is a very mild prescription, but I think he is excited!