So much news!

The best of the news being that Loverboy has solved what ever computer problems we have been having--so I'm back, baby!

Oh, the excitement has been immense over the last couple of days.  What has so ruffled the Nockinbirds you ask?  Thanks to super Aunt Sunny, a certain Little Miss and Lolly got to go see iCarly herself, Miranda Cosgrove, in person, in concert!!  A young lady in Plano won a Quaker Oats contest,  and Miranda Cosgrove came to give a concert for her and 300 of her closest friends.  I guess she fell a few shy, so tickets went to those at Aunt Sunny's marketing company who had kiddos.  Aunt Sunny said it was concert-loud, both girls said their ears were ringing, but after a couple of songs they were both rockin' out.  And they came back seriously wound up.

We met at the mall before and after the concert.

Sporting the t-shirt that was handed out by the sponsor.  I think Little Miss was disappointed there was not any iCarly/Miranda swag to purchase at the concert.  Loves her some shopping, she does.

Molly and I had done a little shopping while they were rockin' out.

Molly and I also spent some time sitting on the swing display (a really sweet buy, fyi--$169, down from $260, if you need a covered swing and are near a JCPenny).

Out in the mall,  this was quickly spied by eagle-eye Miss. 

Looks like some sort of torture device, drawing and quartering, something along those lines--but it's little kid Nirvana for $7 a pop.

My baby!  We bought season tickets to Six Flags--I shudder to think of the amount of time we'll be spending there this summer.  Where the dare-devil came from, I don't know.  Miranda Cosgrove concert, jumpy thing, dinner at Cracker Barrel--a trifecta for Little Miss.

Lolly enjoyed a train ride and Icee--much more my speed, this one.

Big news this week at school.  We met our new principal, briefly.  Good first impression.  And about 10 minutes into 1st period today, we were all called to an emergency assembly in the auditorium.  My first thought was that the nuclear plant had blown up and they wanted us in one place to make body recovery more convenient.  But no, our TAKS scores were back.  Although subject to change a few points here and there, it looks like we will go from unacceptable (because of bad "leaver" coding last year, not academics) to recognized!  Which will undoubtably lead to a TEA investigation, but still...what a monkey off our collective back.  And, I assume, a sense of vindication for our ousted principal.  Everybody wins--can't get much better than that!

Also today, Little Miss's new bed came!  Four generations of Loverboy's family slept at one time or another on the old one.  Given her allergies, that seems a little too close to child abuse, really.

We had some clean up around here this week.

Some studying.  She's determined to be able to read on her own!

We've been playing with refrigerator magnet letters, making and reading words.  I put "up" up there, and then we added a "c", then a "p", then she was experimenting on her own.  With her rather intense Texas twang and drawl, this, she decided, was how to spell "yeap" ( as in affirmative).

Before our shopping for the week (last weekend), we hit Whataburger at Little Miss's suggestion.  As I was going to add to the list Loverboy had given me (with his humorous spellings), I noticed an item in a different style of  penmanship. 

So subtle, just slipped that right in there.