Kindergarten

Ezra had his end of year play. So cute! Kindergarteners are just SO cute. A lot of work, I'm sure. My hat goes off to all kindergarten teachers, but those kids are adorable!

 

Ezra was Little Babaji in his play. It's super quiet because the kids are just SO quiet but if you turn it up, you might be able to hear him say all his lines. He had a bunch but he memorized them without much effort.

 

 

 

 

After the plays, they sang a few songs.

 

Kindergarten gets out a week before the other kids. Ezra was glad to be done with school but that was ONE LONG WEEK! We sure like Mrs. Gallagher. She was Marisa's teacher too and I think she is great! She's tall too, which makes her even better. :)

I have to say though... I'm so glad to be graduating from half day school. There were many days where I would have rather just kept Ezra with me rather than have to rush home to get him to school in the middle of the day. Or, rush through my errands while he was at school. I have mixed feelings about my kids being gone ALL DAY next year. But for the most part, I'm thrilled to have one solid year where my kids will all go to the same school at the same time. What will I do with that time? Probably sew... But who knows. I'm giving myself at least a year to just enjoy it and figure it out. I REALLY don't want to put myself in a place where I can't be home when my kids are so that mostly leaves continuing to sew, or find a job at one of the schools. Sewing sounds better to me but the school has more long term possibilities. I think I'll just pretend it's not happening some more though.

Payson Temple Openhouse

The family and I went to the Payson Temple open house. So pretty! So big!

 

I really loved the dark woods inside and the color of the outside makes it look like a perfect sand castle. I liked the apple blossom theme too.  (Interior pictures from LDSliving.com)

 

It was a fantastic way to spend the evening.

Spring Ballet Recital 2015

Marisa had her spring dance recital last week.

It has been nice having her be a little older so I don't stay at class with her. And, when I see her perform I haven't seen it one million times.

I really liked her dance this time. They were adorable!

Here's some pics:

And the video. It really is super cute!



She's taking the summer off (yay!) And then I think she will just do another ballet again next year although I think she's feeling less and less attracted to it. She likes it, but I'm not sure she likes the whole dance culture very much (thank goodness, I hate that part too). Good Job Girlfriend!

Pins and Belt Loops

Roman earned so many belt loops and pins this year. He worked on finishing a lot of them with Grandpa and Grandma Betts while he was in Ohio in April. So the next month he got a bag full of bling. He received 18 belt loops and 6 Activity Badge pins at the May Pack Meeting! It was almost embarrassing. But he's proud of all his hard work.

Way to go Roman!

School projects

 

We've had a couple of school projects to do around here. Marisa's was her animal report and her habitat.

When Roman had his in second grade, I don't know if it was because his teacher was inexperienced or if I was, but it was hard work!

I spent hours getting it right. Marisa's experience was much better. They sent me a template that I could just fill in her info and insert pictures with Marisa's help. And she made her animal out of clay at school so we only had to make the rest at home. Marisa did most of her habitat all by herself too. I just helped with some ideas and a little hot gluing.

 

Roman also had a State report and a "float"?!

They did do all of the report without help, (except we stopped him from calling Alaska "the lower 48").

But the float was weird. I had no idea what to do. I guess it was supposed to be like a parade float, but I didn't know if that meant that it needed wheels and glitter? They sent nothing home and Roman told me about it 2 days before it was due so.... well. His lack of desire to make it anything special and my lack of desire to do his work for him resulted in a ...let's just say it was alright.  I think it served it's purpose, but oh boy. Funny thing... Putting the word "Alaska" on it was a last minute idea.  Once I got there I was like... oh duh...yeah.  BTW... That rock is a mountain covered in snow.

I mostly gave Roman some suggestions (told him to take off the penguins), and did the gluing and called it good.

I read this funny blog post the other day..... Sing it sister. I got nothing left! I stopped chewing out Ezra for forgetting to turn in his homework weeks ago. Every morning I PRAY that the kids want school lunch because I can't. make. one. more. turkey. sandwich. I don't know how they can keep eating them.  Had these projects been in February, we would have killed it. KILLED IT!! Well, At least given it our best effort. :)

 

Coming Up for Air

I will admit, that when I sat down to blog today and realized that I haven't taken a picture for two weeks... I was thrilled!

Life is crazy! Two weeks ago Wednesday I was in charge of our camp certification activity and I spent quite a bit of (translation: too much) time getting ready for it.

Then, when six girls showed up and it didn't really turn out how I had imagined I decided that I am doing too much and trying too hard. So... I said "no" to a bunch of requests, asked my secretary to teach my Sunday lesson for me, decided to simply "let go" of a bunch of little "battles" that are dragging me down and for about two days I felt really good. Then I got sick.

It's how it always goes. Without fail. Every year in college I would be sick during Christmas break and the end of April because I would be SUPER stressed during finals....then when it was all over...WHAM! A week of death.

So much for enjoying the freedom I had allowed myself. Actually, I spent most of my moments, catching up on sewing, sweating it out in my bed, working at the school book fair or getting the yard under control. I don't really know how to take it easy. To add to the fun, the entire family got sick too. I'm pretty sure we blew our noses through an acre of trees worth of tissue.

Anyway, today is Shane's birthday. We're having a variety of hostess treats in lieu of cake. Four birthdays in less than two months sure wrecks cake for our family.

We've been looking at cars. I don't like it. We can't decide whether to put a big pile of money into our current car and hope the transmission lasts another 5-10 years or take advantage of it's value now and trade up. I'm at a loss considering there's not much out there that I like as much as I like our car and I sure hate car payments, BUT....I'm really worried about our transmission. After a couple hours of looking and finding well.... nothing maybe it's a sign to just keep babying our ride. Still, with as much driving as I have planned this year alone, I worry.

The end of school year push has started. The projects are due, the recitals are scheduled, the sprinklers have been turned on and I'm starting to worry about having the children home all day every day.

I've been working in the garden. Why is this a constant thing? I love gardening but I feel like I am always wanting change when it comes to our yard. My current project is really a result of our vegetable garden getting too shady with the growing trees so it has to be changed into something else. I'm thinking that I will cover it with weed stop and a good layer of mulch and put the trampoline over it. As well as a little shade bed. It's hard work though since the grass had totally taken over and sod is SO hard to dig up. If we had sprinklers there to keep it alive, I would just let it be grass, but there isn't. And I'm not in the mood to put any in, or mow it for that matter.  I'm also dreaming of a rock or paver patio and a fire pit..... dreams my friends.... dreams. But slowly heading in that direction.

Oh well, time to take a deep breath and dive back in. I should have some pictures to share by next week.... maybe.