slinglings, school, and silly pups

My sister-in-law, Bethany, and I purchased some Slinglings (slinglings.com) for when we take care of our niece who will be arriving in February. At least that's our excuse. If we looked a little deeper, it would probably be evident that we are getting quite excited for little ones of our own. In the near future, we will only put Gigi (B's cat) and Annabel (fictional name for Suzanne's baby) in our slinglings I suppose.

I gave a midterm exam on Thursday. I modeled after an exam I had in college, and it seemed to work well. I do feel badly, however, when a student who couldn't care less gets an A, and a student who studied a ton ends up with a D. One girl cried when she saw how poorly she did. I really hate grades. I wish I could just look at a student's performance, effort, and growth and then determine if they mastered what they needed to, could have done better but learned enough to move on, or needed to repeat the course. That would be so much easier than debating between an A- and a B+. This doesn't even begin to express my frustration with students whose main concern is their GPA, instead of learning the most they can.

Roxy and Graham are doing well. They can be frustrating once in a while (and by "they" I mean Roxy), but most of the time they are just bringing more love and joy to our family. Graham is so laid-back. He enjoys sitting on the couch with his front legs on the ground and just laying on his back while holding a bone in his mouth. Graham and I sat in the grass yesterday enjoying the beautiful fall weather. It is quite picturesque until I mention that he started eating grass and then repeatedly choked on it. So the picture ends up looking like me laying in the grass with my head on a big, black dog who is gagging and coughing. He is still cute though. Roxy is adorable and tries to be tough. Unfortunately Roxy just passed the 35lb. mark, so she cannot enjoy the fun that is the slingling.

Blessings...