Heading off to school with her little hairstyle that she created for me to do.

Started off as a nice and calm craft project, painting egg cartons for a mobile.

Shortly after this, Sabs painted herself yellow. Then Sophie painted goggles on her. Then our craft turned into Minion Sabsy with a red belly (because why not). Sophie was so impressed with her creation that she told me she is going to do it again and I should video her so she can make a youtube makeup tutorial for minion making.

The air was a bit different here all weekend. Dry season is upon us. The humidity has lifted and the skies have been bright blue. We spent the weekend at two of our favorite beaches with crystal clear water. Pooks got her goggles back on and spotted some puffer fish with Dada. We all got a little sunburn to welcome in the dry season sun. Sox came over all weekend and took a trip to the beach with us on Sunday. Good times 🙂

And Sunday 🙂

Picking Carambolas (starfruits)

Well this year we decided to ditch the whole TG theme, since 1. we dont eat turkey, and 2. our kids would eat bread and broccoli and that’s about it from a TG spread. So we opted for homemade pizzas and a fruit turkey instead. Everyone ate every single bit and it was fun making it all together too. That’s what it is all about!

This morning as we were dropping off Sophie at school, Will and I were chatting about our fun little TG and i was saying how i feel so blessed that our TG is really nothing out of the norm from our regular day. It got me thinking how our whole life right now is like a holiday. We basically just cooked together (which we typically do), did a craft project (again not out of the norm), watched 2 movies as a family (typical), played an intense game of Head’s Up (typical), listed out things we appreciate and are thankful for to each other (normal), and just hung out. Super thankful that this is our life, and really big thanks to our Dada who continues to kill it at work and manage to have flexible time to spend together.

Also to mention…both girls were running  fever all day yesterday (though no one would know with their crazy energy and good moods). Today they are both fever free and Pooks is back at school with her crew. The movies we watched were Witch Mountain (which was from the 70’s and super good), and Into the Woods (we still have part to finish tonight).

Thankful today. Thankful everyday.

So here was our first go at a fruit turkey

Our pizza

And here is our second go at fruit turkey for Pookie’s school. That’s right, we got all edible arrangements style with a fancy cut out watermelon. I have a feeling we’ll be expanding on this new found talent. The kids at school loved it 🙂

Seen up here

Drinking and banana/spirulina smoothie…no one else liked it. Have a feeling she won’t be drinking that twice.

This little decorating wizard spent at least a half an hour perfecting her cupcake. It was hilarious. She was so into cupcake decorating that I think i may just have to set up a blanket with a bunch of cupcakes/icing/toppings and let her and her sissy just have a blast. Since these cupcakes were intended for the kiddos at school and Sabs creation had a pen cap on it at one point, she was only able to work with one cupcake. So cute we found her new little talent. She kept saying “I still making. I no done. No touch”, Below is her final product 🙂

After many revisions…her final masterpiece.

And here are Momma and Pooks that were sent off to school for Teacher’s Day. My favorite is Sophie’s walrus which she made all by herself 🙂

In 2006, hedge fund manager Sal Khan launched “Khan Academy,” to provide YouTube tutorials for his 12-year-old cousin who needed help with unit conversions. The online school now delivers more than 580 million online lessons in over 36 languages.

Khan Academy’s “world-changing” plan for schools
Last fall Khan expanded his influence by creating his own brick-and-mortar school in California.

“It was my dream to start a school even before Khan Academy started. But now that Khan Academy has had this reach, we’ve working with a bunch of schools trying to push the envelope on mastery-based learning, blended learning, project-based learning. We said, ‘Let’s do it under our offices for real.'”

The Khan Lab School runs differently from traditional schools. There’s no homework or grades, and students – ranging from ages five to 12 – share the same classroom.

“It’s only 150 years that we separated children by age in classrooms,” said Khan. “The idea is you can learn a lot from the students who are a little older than you and if you’re 12 years old you could exercise a lot of leadership being a teacher assistant for the younger students.”

The school also breaks up the students based on their “independence level,” rather than their age.

“Whatever independence level you’re on–whether in math reading and writing – you’re on your own track,” he explained.

Another unique feature of the school is that it runs all day, all-year long. Khan said the current school schedule – that he says was originally designed for a one-income household — is not enough learning time.

“The gap between the U.S. and Shanghai test scores can be purely accounted for by time in the classroom,” Khan explained. “You have the summer learning loss, which is not only time that you’re not learning when you could be, but you’re actively forgetting the things that you learned at the end of last year.”

As Khan Lab School enters its second year, Khan said he hopes to use the reach of the Khan Academy – currently boasting more than 30 million registered users – to send students and teachers information on how to create similar learning experiences in their classrooms.

Yesterday I was leaving the bank while Pooks was at art and I bumped into her Spanish teacher. Selena. from school. She hollered at me to come over and spent the next 10 minutes just raving about how special Sophie is and how she seriously can’t believe the beautiful things that come out of her mouth. I said awww thank so much, and she said no seriously she is just incredible. She then rattled off about 5 hilariously cute stories about little Pook and told me how she met her last year in art class b/c she is friends with Pookie’s art class teacher and just couldn’t get over her since then. She has a little four year old boy who came to Sophie’s school with her on Thursday and Sophie apparently gave him a tour of their entire classroom and told Selena “not to worry that she will entertain him while she is teaching the big kids”. Ooooh she is precious and i am so proud of her :).

Selena also told me that she told Pooks to draw a beautiful picture on the paper and she will tell her the words of what she drew in spanish. Pooks looked at her and said, “you’re a beautiful picture. I’ll draw you on paper”. Selena said she just can’t believe what comes out of her mouth. Hahaha. She said her words are just beautiful. Preciosa.

Pure joy below. Love this little crew 🙂