Willy Wonka Day

Once again the elementary school did 'One School, One Book'.  This year the book chosen was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  The staff puts on a wonderful assembly with lots of activities for the students to guess what the book is. Every family goes home with a copy of the book to keep. Then for two weeks they have assigned chapters that we are to read as a family every day.  The next morning there are questions and prizes for the winner.  As a bonus this year, because of the book choice, the school also did a chocolate fund raiser and hide 10 golden tickets inside with prizes.  Blake and Leah have been enjoying the book.  Today was the last day.  Yesterday they watched the movie. (Thankfully the old one.  I find the new one very disturbing.) They were asked to dress up as their favorite character from the book.  Blake chose Mike Tevee and Leah wanted to be Violet.  

At the closing assembly staff challenged students.  Each team had to get into these giant balls and try to get 'candy' (big colored balls) to their factory.  The balls looked fun.  I want to look into getting one for the Smith clan get together this summer. This is the third year for this One School, One Book program.  I think it is a neat thing they do.

Leah spent another 2 hours in her room last night.  I kept asking if I could please help her, but she really didn't want me to.  After me asking a couple of times why she told me she thought I was going to throw everything away. It was getting worse every time I walked by.  Leah just kept pulling stuff out and making piles in her room instead of putting the piles away.  I was afraid she was never going to finish.

So I helped anyways.  In 20 minutes we had it done.  She decided what to throw, not me. In the end we packed two boxes, had one big bag of garbage, and one small bag of clothes to donate.  Wow I feel better.  Look she has a floor in there.  When I went to say good-night last night, I was able to walk right up to her bed without fear of injury.  The really crazy thing is she likes it better also.  She just doesn't put things away when they are in her hand so it builds up.

Two days ago I was looking out the window and thinking that our lawn was going to need to be mowed soon.  It was starting to look long and barely greening up.  Then today I shoveled walks again.  I know it is coming tho.  Spring will arrive sometime.