Busy couple of weeks...

but aren't they always?

The AP classes made their annual trek to the 6th Floor Museum.

This is the first time in the eight years that I've been going that it was ridiculously cold.  They're huddling for warmth before the traditional grassy knoll photo.

The chill seemed to take some of their high-spirits away.

This was the closest we got to having any of them run out to have their picture taken standing on one of the X's that mark the spots where JFK was hit.  They usually don't grasp that this is a busy road in a busy city.  And we didn't have to push anyone out the way of a DART train this year--all around a successful trip.

Lunch at Spaghetti Warehouse is always enjoyed greatly.

It's a little bit harder to get most of them excited about art museum, however.  Except for those who wander into the African tribal art rooms--they're always struck by carvings with the exaggerated male...ahem.  They're not all like Ma and Pa Kettle's Kids Go To The Big City Museum...just most of them.

In other exciting news of the last two weeks, Molly finally proved she's a genius.

Little Miss and Loverboy made pizza.

MMMmmmm.

And all the Nockinbirds enjoyed art night using the 3D graph paper for drawing and the hypotrochoid kit (like a spirograph--which you can no longer find!) that I picked up at the museum shop. 

We had a Christian Round Up Spaghetti Dinner (Christians, cowboys, spaghetti--of course!) to keep our Friday night lively last week.  Little Miss is belting out a tune next to the girl in the pink hat.  Molly won the class project in the silent auction--a bird house.  Given what she paid for it, we will be displaying that treasure inside.

Last Saturday we started the long process of rehabing the yard.  I found a serpent in our garden and when I yelled "snake!!!!!!" (when I finally realized it wasn't an overly large worm as I first thought) my mother came to my rescue armed with...a stick she had just trimmed.  The serpent has obviously lived to see another day.  But, we also found a horned toad!  I think he was a little dazed having just been raked out of a flower bed along with a bunch of ugly red mulch.

Last Sunday I tried out and adjusted a recipe for vegan (!?) maple oatmeal raisin cookies.  Serious yum.  Everybody loved them.

Tooth #5 (on the bottom) vacated the property Friday at school.  Little Miss was very proud that she pulled it herself.  She just counted 1-2-3 and pulled straight up to her nose.  Followed by lots of blood.  I wonder if Miss Stanley knew what she was getting herself into when decided to become a kindergarten teacher.

The same Miss Stanley who came to Little Miss's bday party and who we saw last night at another classmate's bday party.  Isn't that sweet?  If I went to my student's birthday parties...well, I'd be the only one who wouldn't get a "minor in possession" ticket.  We've had some serious scandals going on with a large number of students this week.  Alas.  But this party was seriously cute!  It was at a costume jewelry/beading store and they all got to make a necklace, which Little Miss is modeling above.

I spent the top half of my day giving the ACT.  FUN.  NOT.  Totally took the desire to snap photos out of me.  I think tomorrow's going to be another yard day--tune back in for some landscape love pics.