Tyler - Tennis Sportsmanship Award

In addition to the wonderful news that the team won this Sportsmanship Award, Tyler received the honor of being voted TEAM CAPTAIN for next year!!!  Congratulations, Tyler!

T is for Turtle

 This turtle may be my favorite fun food creation ever.  He's just adorable.  I saw a similar turtle on Pinterest and changed it a little based on what I had on hand.  The original turtle I saw had an apple head, but I think the kiwi actually looks more realistic.

 I gave Kate a cereal box and dot markers.  Later I cut out pieces to make a turtle.

 I hid some turtles in the water beads for her to find.  She really liked this!

I also added turtles to the water table.  Reagan told me a few of the turtles are land turtles - OOPS!

We read Turtle Splash! Countdown at the Pond.  Kate has been taking this book to bed with her all week.

I can't believe we only have six letters left!  This is working very well for Kate.  She enjoys our letter fun, and she recognizes quite a few letters now.  It's fun for me too!

End of School Year Notes

I'm having a little bit of fun leaving special notes for the last few days of school.

So far, the "fro yo" note has been the most exciting one for the kids.  We invited Ellie to join us.

I was so busy helping Kate that I didn't pay attention to Collin.  The three girls had very reasonable cups of yogurt and toppings.  Collin went a bit overboard, and surprisingly he never complained of a stomachache.

Two half days of school left; we are all very ready for summer vacation!

Around Here

 We went to Madison's sixth birthday party last Saturday, and all of the kids had a great time with these Belly Boppers.  

Of course, I couldn't help but think of the time Reagan and I had fun with Belly Boppers at Davis' Mega Maze.

Kate finger painted this week.  This is a HUGE deal because she has never wanted to get her fingers sticky or goopy or anything that goes along with finger painting.  She LOVED it!  As you can see, her messy fingers found her face.

 This silly faced girl insists on carrying a bag full of toys with her when we leave the house.  Sometimes (like when I'm rushing out the door, which sadly is more often than not), this can be difficult for me to deal with, but it's important to her and it is really harmless, so I am trying to let her be who she is and go along with the whole thing.

 We had a picnic outside after school earlier this week.

Collin and Reagan are learning how to play chess.

 Kate loves to hang out and play in boxes.  It's exciting to receive nice big boxes like this one.

 Reagan and Ellie have been playing Cake Wars and Cookie Wars with play dough before school each morning.  The top creation is by Reagan, and the bottom creation is by Ellie.  I have to be the judge, and it is not easy.

Ellie brought me this Edible Arrangement yesterday to say thank you for having her over before school every morning.  We all enjoyed it, and the fruit disappeared quickly.  I get teary eyed when I think about Ellie going off to middle school in the fall.  We are going to miss her tremendously; she is incredibly sweet and she has been a great part of our morning fun.

If you look closely, you may be able to see that Kate is wearing underwear!  Woo hoo!  She has not worn a diaper since Saturday; that's right NO DIAPERS, not even at night!!!!!!  She has been easy to train, and I am so proud of her!

I'll end this post with a video of Kate singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" from Frozen.

For those of you that read this via email, you have to go to the blog to see the video.  Go see it; she's so darn cute.

Invention Convention

 

 The fourth grade end of year program is called The Invention Convention.  Each fourth grader invented something to solve a problem.  We were out to dinner at Fiesta one night a few months ago when Collin came up with the idea for his "nork".  A nork is a combination knife/fork; it looks like a fork, but the corners are serrated.  Since he came up with the idea, I have found myself in many situations when I could use a nork!

I didn't take pictures of the other inventions, but there were so many interesting ideas at the convention! I was very impressed!

I forgot to get a picture of Collin with his teacher, Mrs. Vitullo, but if you look in the background of the picture of Tom and Collin, you can see her holding a bag.  

Collin's invention is very clever, and he did a great job putting together his display board.  Nice job, Collin; we are so proud of your hard work!

The Many Faces of Kate at the Zoo

Kate and I went to the Buttonwood Park Zoo this morning.  She had so much fun, and she was such a joy to be with.  I laughed so much with her today; she is just so funny and so darn cute.

Kate is all about making silly faces for pictures now.  She cracks me up.

 Kate rode the carousel twice.  Her first ride was on the hummingbird, and the second time she chose the zebra.  It was nice that she was able to choose which animal to ride; I love visiting the zoo when it is quiet.

 Lots of silly faces.

 Yes, she has a nasty bruise smack dab in the middle of her forehead.  She tripped over a blanket and hit her head on a chair.

 We also rode the train twice, and she chose the blue car both times.

Kate enjoyed seeing each and every animal, but she was content to take a quick look at the animal and move on to the next one.

When she gave me a chance to read the signs about each animal, I tried to tell her what each animal likes to eat.  The bald eagle likes to eat fish, and when I mentioned this, Kate said, "I love to eat fish".  I responded somewhat surprised with, "You do?", and Kate said, "YES!!!  I love to eat fishy crackers".  She didn't realize she was being funny, or that the "fish" she likes to eat are very different from the fish the bald eagle eats.

She is just so much fun; I love this little girl.

After the zoo, we went to Harve's to buy new shoes for Kate, and then we had lunch with Papa and Grandma at Not Your Average Joe's.  Kate loved playing cards with Grandma and trying on her bracelets.  I wish I had thought to take pictures at lunch!

Kate was exhausted after all of the fun, and she fell asleep on the car ride home.  She told me several times today that she had "so much fun" and that she "loved the zoo", and hearing that from my sweet girl is just about the best thing in the world.

Around Here

June is always a crazy month, but we have so many fun things to do this month that who cares if it's crazy!  Here's a look at what we had going on recently:

Reagan and I recently read Charlotte's Web.  I have read it with all three of my big kids, and it never gets easier, always brings tears to my eyes.  Reagan and I went to see a stage production of Charlotte's Web at the Zeiterion.  The show was cute, but definitely a little too goofy and not heartwarming enough.  I assume they did that to ease the pain of Charlotte's death for this young audience.

After the show, we went to Not Your Average Joe's and Reagan ordered this gigantic pulled pork sandwich.

Reagan and Collin had field day last week.  The weather was beautiful for a day of outdoor fun.

 Play dough has been the before school activity for these four lately.

Who can resist these play dough treats?

I chaperoned Collin's field trip to the Whaling Museum.  Here he is standing in front of a sperm whale skeleton.  The trip was very educational.  I grew up in New Bedford and always had lessons about the whaling industry and whales, and yet I still learned a lot on this trip.  The thing that I don't remember ever learning before is that the whaling industry is the reason why there are so many Portuguese and Cape Verdean people in the area; often, Quaker men would quit when the ships arrived in the Azores or in Cape Verde, and the captains of the ships would hire young men (kids really) from the Azores or Cape Verde to replace the men that quit.  I'm actually a little embarrassed that I didn't know that; how could I have not learned that?

We went to Lou's 40th birthday party on Saturday.  Tom enjoyed being with a bunch of his college friends.  I enjoyed seeing everyone; they are really a great group of people.  Reagan and Collin had a great time with some of the kids their age, and they really enjoyed the pool and hot tub.  Kate liked the pool too.  The member of our family that had the most fun is definitely Boo.  There were three other dogs there and the yard was surrounded by woods.  Boo LOVED every minute.  He played hard, ate lots of dropped food and one stolen hot dog, and just had a blast.

On Sunday, Reagan competed in a gymnastics meet.  She recently moved up from Rookie to Bronze, and this was her first meet as a member of the Bronze team.

Today, Collin had a 4th grade strings field trip.  They went to two elementary schools to play for the students, and they also went to McDonald's for lunch.

So much more to do and enjoy this month!  Two more weeks of school, a few parties, Father's Day, another field trip, a gymnastics show, and I'm sure there is more!