We hit the ground running into summer break! The first day we had a morning play date with Reagan and family, followed by our first GCA lake day.
Sweet Friends
Left: Amelia, Noah and Makin working on their sand project Top Right: Makin giving Amelia a tow on the boogie board Bottom Right: Alex, Nayeli and Lorelei
The moms and the kiddos! This event just made me so happy! :)
Savannah and Charlie hung out with us Thursday because their parents both work at a Mother's Day Out program that hadn't quite finished up yet. All four kids were elated that they got to spend 6 hours together just playing. I was elated to have my kids having a great time with friends. (I even snuck in a few phone calls from my to-do list!)
After a quiet recoup morning the next day, we headed to Nayeli's Pinata party!
And yes, we have total yard envy! This isn't even all of it!
Saturday morning bubbles.
Sunday we headed to a three-hole course a friend told us about near our church. It is the perfect size for the kids and more affordable than a usual course. Brad ended up doing a lot of coaching, but it was a fun family outing. :) He is thrilled to have two kiddos out enjoying golf!
We had another GCA meet up, moved to the park because of a possible alligator sighting at the lake. No pictures but the kids had a great time! I love seeing them mix with the various ages and kiddos that join us and love getting to chat with the moms!
We ventured to Arbor Hills and spent about an hour hiking before we got too hot and had to head to the stream. It cooled us off perfectly and the kids played another couple of hours. Just love these days.
Swinging like Tarzan and sliding down dirt.
We loved hearing the birds and finding a frog and a bunny along our hike.
Cooling off in the stream.
Heather came for a day over Memorial Weekend. It was great to have her and Lou here for a visit! She and I headed out for a some Ikea and World Market shopping Saturday afternoon. The kids and Brad dog-sat Lou, which was a thrill for the kiddos! Sunday after church we headed to Grimaldi's. This brought back some fun memories from when we went to New York together about 10 years ago and stood outside in the freezing cold to eat from "this pizza place a lady on the plane told me we HAD to go to." :) It was delicious!
We celebrated Rory's birthday. The kids loved heading out to Savannah and Charlie's house and enjoyed a water slide! (This mom didn't read the party info closely and they did not come in swim wear! Thankfully Brittany had some back-up clothes inside!)
We headed to the spray park later that week with GCA friends and had a great time!
How in the world can that be possible!?! Phew. It is here and I'm excited for summer but don't even mention the grades they are going into next school year...
We are so proud of how much the kids have learned this year. Lorelei has improved in all of her subjects, especially in her reading. You would never guess the girl with her nose in a book was in tears at the start of first grade. All her hard work has paid off! :) Makin has done amazing work and we have had some definite push-to-level moments interspersed this year, but Mrs. White and I are already brainstorming how to expand the learning for him next year. I also met a mom of a third grade boy who seems a bit like Makin and I look forward to getting her feedback!
We still plan to work about an hour each weekday morning this summer. Both of them reading and working on math facts, with a little writing thrown in too!
Kindergarten Graduation
I really had no idea what to expect when I wrote this event on the calendar and it was such a great and special way to celebrate this year. We had a bring-your-own picnic (aka fast food cuz May is crazy) and enjoyed some fellowship with the other Kindergarten families. We have gotten to know these families so well this year so it was fun being surrounded by so many friends!
Charlie is so not into smiling for pictures right now...
Then we headed to the front for the awards to be given out. What a sweet moment for each child. Mrs. Harris called them up to sit in her special chair while she told us a small anecdote leading up to their award. What a teacher we have been blessed with and she made each child feel so special!
Makin's Moment:
"A Spirit of Leadership is awarded to Makin Stahl for leading others to make good choices, and showing a great quest for knowledge."
Home-Day Snapshots
Mrs. McCorkle finished up several of her books with a couple weeks to spare so it was quite fun to see the tasks that got assigned in May. Our little artistic one loved putting together this flag, copying the original flag with its 13 stars, and if you think cutting out those itty bitty stars is easy think again. :) Mrs. McCorkle already had all of the supplies (other than cutting stars) prepped and sent home. Soooo nice!
We had science experiments (including Rock Candy which didn't turn out) and plant growing projects. We loved how this celery looked.
We celebrated our last library day!
We plan to keep this in the routine again next year! It was good for all of us. :)
Teachers
What a blessing. One of the many amazing things about our school is the teachers. Both kids loved their teachers this year.
Mrs. Britton has been a phenomenal art teacher. We are heartbroken she has to move this summer and will miss her so much next year! I am always amazed at what the kids come home with. She gives them so much power when they can make these types of art work!
(Picture fail! I thought Mrs. M would be at the park after the last day
but she was packing up her classroom!!!)
Mrs. McCorkle is so the teacher I am not. She is fun and so laid back I can never believe it!
She is genuinely interested to hear what the kids have to say,
so they seem to open up and love chatting with her.
They had many extra-special projects they did throughout the year.
I was thankful Lorelei got to experience this for her 2nd grade year. She had such a fun year!
Lorelei wrote in her card, "My favorite thing about my teacher is...that she is very kind."
Mrs. Harris has a heart of gold. Even though this was her first year teaching K and her first year in a UM school, (can you say two HUGE learning curves!?) we all really enjoyed her and I'm so thankful Makin had her for his Kindergarten teacher! The kids filled out cards for their teachers and I loved two things about Makin's card for Mrs. H. "My favorite thing about my teacher is...she is always so happy." and "My favorite memory is...reading the pigeon books." (She is the one who introduced us to Mo Willems!) Makin's journal said it all, "What I will miss most about Kindergarten is Mrs. Harris."
End-Of-School Photos and Celebration
Had to capture that last walk into Kindergarten.
They have a tradition of the last day of school being a half-day, with any families who want to join coming to the park afterwards. These pictures are from when things settled down quite a bit. I originally took three extra kiddos after school and there were about 20+ kids ranging from age 4-10 on this merry-go-round. I was spending my time counting heads and making sure no one was going to fall off and get trampled. Gradually families left and I could get some shots of the calmer park time. :) At the very end the Kindergartners...I mean going-into-first-graders... (and some siblings) started Duck, Duck, Goose.
We had breakfast and gifts on the patio. It is fun seeing the kids get so excited to do something sweet for me. They planned ahead of time and used old boxes to wrap home-made gifts for me. Brad did his usual gig baking cinnamon rolls, cutting strawberries and making my coffee just right. :)
Lorelei mailed me a card from school as part of a writing assignment! :)
After church we headed out to eat for lunch and then settled on me going to a movie (Gifted) while Brad and the kids hung out at the mall.
So thankful and blessed by my own mom and mother in law. Also blessed to be mom to these two. :)
The spring musical at GCA is always a big deal. :) While our kiddos still aren't to the point of wanting their own speaking parts, it's fun having them involved in the different songs. There is just something about everyone working towards a common goal and it all coming together for the big performance. Grades K-12 perform which is also fun to watch. This musical was my favorite so far and we did much better this year about listening to the CD for months prepping so that they would know the songs. :) (Side note: It was Star Quest and the date was on May 4th..."May the fourth be with you..." not sure who gets the credit for making that happen but it was fun and easy to remember!)
Playing "bus driver" shuttling kiddos to practice at a church about 20-30 min from school.
Several of these moms teach preschool until 2 so I was glad to help them on this half day.
Hoping next year it will be in the new building!
Just a few shots I got the rest of the night.
Amelia, Greycelyn, Makin, Micah, Charlie and Robyn
Two of Makin's best buds: Greycelyn and Charlie
Two of Lorelei's best buds: Reagan and Nayeli
Amelia and Makin are also best buds. :)
My apologies in advance on the video-taping...
I really need to practice when it isn't crunch time with my fancy camera.
The focus gets messed up and it takes a while to get it working well again...it is not your eyes! Sorry!
These are just bits and pieces from several of the different songs.
