Four Eyes are Better Than Two

Sareny finally had her dream come true and got glasses in August. I don't think I have ever seen someone so excited in my life.

The day her glasses came in, I picked the kids up from school instead of having them ride the bus so that we would have time to go to the store and get the glasses fitted. I knew she would want them immediatly so that she could wear them to school the following day. I didn't tell her that her glasses had come in early until we got to the store. She was seriously thrilled.

And the title of this post is in homage to Lexi, who came up with that clever comeback in gradeschool when some jick-jackle called her four eyes. :)

Stake Acheivement Day

We had originally planned on staying overnight at Grammy Jo's house on our way home from Utah, even though they wouldn't be there. Halfway through our trip, however, Sareny mentioned how excited she was for the stake acheivement day activity and asked when it was...that's when we realized it was in the morning of the day we planned to get home from our trip--which meant we would miss it. So instead of sleeping at Grammy's, we drove all night and got home in time for the special mother and daughter achievement day.

It was such a fun time! We made hair accessories, learned a new type of braid, and tied quilts together. So glad we got to have this special time together.

Skate Party

Sareny had a best friend in kindergarten named Lisa. They were so cute together and had so much fun together. Then we moved. I wish I would have tried to stay in touch with them, but I didn't. The last week of school, out of nowhere, Lisa's mom called me up and invited Sareny to Lisa's birthday party. We hadn't seen them in almost three years, and they had gotten our phone number from the Slinker's. Sareny was so excited to see Lisa again! We were wondering what she would look like now, and if we would recognize her. Lisa's dad told us that Lisa was wondering the same thing. The party was at Great Skate, and I had to take all the kids there by myself since Keith was in San Francisco for work. The girls were so excited to see each other and were able to pick right up where they left off.

The skating place rented these things that were like walkers on wheels, and they were a big help to the younger kids.

I parked KeeKee on the side of the rink and helped Fin and Isaac around one time--and they really needed help! Their legs were moving, but they just weren't going anywhere.

We took a break for pizza, cake, and presents. This little girl wanted out of her stroller.

And then everything seemed to click for Finley and Isaac. I was amazed as I watched them racing around.

It was fun to see how much better they got!

Sareny with Lisa's neighbor and Lisa.

The girls were cute and had a fun time together skating around and holding hands. Although Sareny said it is a lot harder to skate and hold hands.

I was surprised at how well Isaac did, and how much he enjoyed it. As we drove away, he asked if we could go back the next day. We need to go back soon, because he keeps asking about it!

Finley was adorable racing around! I really couldn't believe how fast she got.

Whoever invented those wheelie things was a genius! There is no way Isaac and Finley could have skated at all without them, especially since I had to take care of Keeley most of the time. So yay for those things! Anyway, it was fun catching up with such a nice family and I'm glad they thought of inviting us. We have since had them over for swimming at Starpointe and dinner, and look forward to continuing our friendship.

Last Day of School

The last day of school came all too quickly. The kids, especially Isaac, were sad to have the school year over. Isaac actually begged me to put him in summer school. Much as I was looking forward to long days with all my kids home, no alarm clocks going off at 6:00, no frenetic schedules and lunch packing and getting everybody where they needed to go--it was still a little sad to see such a fun year come to an end.

Normally the kids wear uniforms to school, but on the last day they were allowed to wear whatever they wanted.

Admittedly, it is more fun and cute to wear outfits of your own choosing, but I have become a fan of the uniform. I like:
1) Not having to select/battle over what to wear every day--it makes getting ready in the mornings sooo easy.
2) Not having the pressure of getting my kids expensive, cool, name brand clothes so they can fit in or be "popular."
3) When I saw what some kids wore on the last day, I was reminded how nice it is not to be distracted by someone's booty hanging out of their too-short shorts.
But it was fun for a day!

 My little Isaac, waiting for his ride to come and pick him up.

 Sarenyanna decided not to take her backpack the last day and just brought this over the shoulder bag.

 KeeKee was attempting to run down the street, so Isaac tried to help me by grabbing her. She just wants to RUN!

Right after the kids left with their ride, I went in and saw Isaac's brand new white shirt I had bought for him sitting on the couch. The kids could take a shirt to have their friends sign. I pictured him sad and disappointed when he realized he left his at home, so I loaded up Finley and Keeley and we drove it down to him. His teacher said he didn't seem to care about the missing shirt. But he was glad to see us and was quick to have his friends sign his shirt.

 While we were there, I snapped a final picture with Ms. Isaacson.

 And one with "Mrs. Mina", the classroom aide. For more than half the year, I thought her last name was Hermina and that she was hispanic. Isaac always called her Mrs. Mina, but I figured out that he was dropping the first part of her name. Well, I was surprised to learn that she came from Poland as a young girl and that her first name is Ermina. One day during the year, Isaac asked me if I thought Mrs. Mina was nice or mean. I guessed mean. He said, "Nope! Nice. But her name sounds mean!"

 I snuck into Sareny's room for a couple pictures. They were playing some game with shoes.

She smiled at me. Her teacher was named Ms. McCord for the first part of the year, and Mrs. Troyer after spring break, when she got married. She was a good teacher and Sareny really liked her.

 And a last shot with her friends Aricelli and Christella.

Farewell to a fun year!

Me and my Sareny Agnes

 I wanted some pictures with my oldest baby girl, of course, so we took a few.

 She is growing into such a sweet, kind, beautiful young lady.

 I think the next picture might be my favorite one.

 What can I say? Two teen mods. ;)

I like having these special photos with each kid so much, I might try to do this annually or something. Although I will probably actually style my hair next time.

 

The kids all gave me a kiss.

 

 I think we got some really precious photos.

 I love my little Sareny girl.

Forever Friends, Forever You and Me

These little kindergartners were the cutest ever! For their end of the year concert, they had a Disney theme. They sang Be Our Guest, Mickey Mouseclub, Zippa-dee-doo-dah, Under the Sea, and then ended with a cute song called Forever Friends.

Isaac had such a great kindergarten year, and it was so fun to see the kindergartners looking so cute and proud on their big day.

I picked him up in his class afterwards, and snapped a picture with a few friends--Landon, Jack, Isaac, and Lucas.

Sareny had her concert that same evening. They played a medley on their recorders and then sang a couple of songs, including Let's go fly a kite.

 She looked so pretty and grown up. She is on the front row, the third from the right.

Lexi, Scott, and Elise came to support them, and we had a lot of fun watching them. I'm always a little bit jealous of the people who's grandparents get to come and watch their special things--that would be so fun, but it's been really nice to have some more family around now.

Astronomy Project

I mentioned in an earlier post that Sareny finished up the year with a pretty big astronomy project. Part of it was the 3-d model of Saturn she made. She also had to make a poster about Saturn, write a paper on Saturn, and create a board game with at least 5 facts each about the earth, moon, and sun. She was really responsible with this project and worked really hard, but let's be honest here. She didn't do it alone, folks. Except for the paper--she worked on that at school and I never even saw it.

This is the poster she created. The silhouette machine really came in handy on both of these projects. We cut Saturn out of sparkly gold vinyl, and the miniature stars are cut from some glittery white paper. She was required to draw at least one of the pictures for her poster, and she decided to water colored the picture in the middle. Over all, it turned out really nice.

The real masterpiece of her collection, however, had to be her board game. This thing looks so good, you practically could have bought it at a game store. I thought we were supposed to go all out on this project, then I found out that some of her classmates were just working on their gameboards entirely at school, and I realized we had taken the board game to a whole new level. Most of the other kids did Candyland style games, but I thought we could think of something more fun to play than that and had the "brilliant" idea to style the game after the Settlers of Catan with simplified rules. The facts were all printed on the appropriately colored hexagon tile, which made it look really nice. If you look at all the detail and work this board game entailed, you can see why I later questioned the "brilliance" of the idea...

You can't see the sparkliness in the pictures, but the title, moon, stars, and her name are all cut from glittery paper. She selected pictures of the moon for the background that looked kind of like people building a settlement there.

We used round tokens for the production cards and printed off building costs cards for each player. We also took the game board and cards to get laminated so it would hold up with kids playing it.

Keith and Sareny measured, cut, and sanded all these little road and house pieces, and then Sareny and I painted them the colors she selected.

It was only after the three of us had spent most of a weekend working on these projects that Sareny mentioned her teacher had said she wanted them to look like a third grader did them, not a high schooler. That's when I said, "Uh-oh Sareny, because these look like a college student did them..." Part of the reason Sareny wanted her game to look good was because her teacher was going to keep the best couple of them for her students to play next year, and she wanted hers to be picked. After she worked so hard on it, however, she had second thoughts. Apparently her teacher recognized how much work Sareny had put into this project, because she told Sareny that it was up to her whether the teacher kept it or not. Well, we brought it home with us the last day of school, so if you're up for a game of Settlers of the Moon, stop on by. :)

It actually is really fun to play. Now we're just kind of dreading when Isaac gets this assignment in third grade, because he is already planning his game out...