Prouda m'boys

Connor's teacher and I started a sticker management chart about a month ago to help him improve some silly behavior that had been making its way into the classroom and causing some disruptions. So each day his teacher sends home a note indicating whether or not he earned a sticker for the day. The deal was: when he earned 10 stickers, he would get a dinner with all his faves: hot dogs, mac n' cheese, grapes, strawberry milk and cupcakes. AND he would get to pick out a new toy. After a sluggish start, things picked up and he made good progress. Yesterday he got his 10th sticker, and therefore was rewarded with the aforementioned dinner; we are going toy shopping later today. So much we have had to learn in kindergarten, I tell ya!

Also proud of Brian. He served on his very first jury this week (a meth trial) and was rewarded with this lovely certificate. Not sure why they feel inclined to give an adult a certificate, but whatever. He is TOTALLY humoring me by posing for this picture-

While he actually enjoyed the jury experience and learned a lot about the enormity of the meth problem, that's not the real reason I'm proud of him. His bigger accomplishment is...

... he was awarded a big Associated Press Sports Editors award, which he says are like the "Oscars of Sports Writing." An explanatory story he did about some injured athlete's back surgery was named one of the top 10 explanatory stories in the country for medium-size papers. His paper has won APSE awards before, but this is his first individual award. He was pleased to be so recognized! He'll find out in April exactly where in the top 10 his story ranked. Good job Brian! Nice to be recognized for your talents.

And last, at Family Night last week Brian instituted a family sticker chart to recognize/reward kind and loving behavior between our family members. For the next 6 days, family members had to earn at least 5 stickers for kind and loving behavior, and in so doing, would receive an ice cream outing. You can see this was all Brian's doing, as he used Major League Baseball team logo stickers for the chart. Each day we would assess everyone's behavior and then he'd have each family member select a team logo. So very Brian. You'll note Lucas and I received 6 stickers while the others received 5.
Wish I would have remembered to bring the camera to our ice-cream outing! For the first time, Lucas received his own instead of having to share with mom or dad. You'll have to use your imagination on that!