Santa's Elves

Jan, Ali, Jane, Jen, Sarah, Michele

White Elephant Party

Between kids and adults, we had over 80 people at our house on Tuesday for a White Elephant Gift Exchange....it was a great holiday party with food, friends, and passionate gift exchanging!

Jones Family Christmas Card 2010

The Picture Says it All

Dad was definitely missed this week after he spent five days away from us at a work conference in Las Vegas.  He got to see friends and colleagues from around the states, but we were glad to see him back home!

Wacky Tacky Day at North Garner Middle School

Abbey's school (and my school) Lake Myra Elementary is a PBS school...Positive Behavior Support....as part of the reward for behavior, students can earn and spend Otter Dollars.  For 600 Otter Dollars, students can buy a turn on the new Potter's Wheel.  Abbey happened to be the first student to buy this since we've only had the potter's wheel for about a month.  In addition to items available for purchase at the Otter Den Store, students can buy 1 hour as assisant principal, play basketball with the principal, help a staff member, play on the Wii (our school has one of those, too, just for the purpose of rewarding positive behavior) and sit at the teacher's desk for the day.   Since has become the student body president of Lake Myra she has taken on the task of trying out all the rewards to see if they're things that kids would really dig...the potter's wheel got a big thumbs up!! And way to go, Abbey, for earning 600 otter coupons!! What a model student!

No More Bullying

Abbey's 5th grade class wrote and created a No More Bullying presentation as part of their social studies unit on building community and discovering similarities and differences among kids.  What they found, all kids have feelings, all kids have emotions, and that kids are a lot alike on the inside and more different on the outside.  Some kids wrote letters to a bully, some kids created a rap, and some kids recited lyrics from popular songs....Abbey recited the lyrics to Taylor Swift's song, "Mean."  Abbey played the teacher in a skit the students wrote and sang in several songs performed by the entire grade level.  I'm so proud of her and all the students for raising awareness about bullying in school.