JD's Preschool Graduation!

End of the Year Reflections: Me as a Teacher

Karianna's Awards Ceremony

9 Years!

What's the Big Deal?

As we were unpacking from our California trip, Kariana and I were talking about the different types of degrees you can get from college. After I had detailed everything and after she had some processing time, she apparently came to some conclusions about college milestones. Before you read this conversation, you should know that the hotel we stayed at gave Jared a bottle of wine as a graduation gift:

Karianna: So what's the big deal about getting a masters degree?

Rachel: Well, Daddy worked really really hard to earn his masters degree and it's a really big deal to earn a masters degree. It means he learned a lot and spent a lot of time and effort to get that degree. It's a really big deal, I promise.

Karianna: But all he got was a bottle of wine. I don't get it.

California Temples!!!!

Fun at the Beach

Master of the House

Jared's Masters Graduation

I Won't Laugh at You

Easter Egg Hunt

This year we got together at Mom's house to do an Easter Egg hunt for all the little kiddos. As usuall, we had a ton of eggs dropped around the yard....I say "dropped" because there's so many eggs, we literally just litter them aroung the grassy fields in my mom's yard. Makes it easier for the little kids to "find" eggs! We let the younger kids go out first until the oldest kids just couldn't take it any longer and we turned them all loose. They had a blast opening everything and revelling in the stash of candy they found. The great thing about my kids? They ask for a single piece of candy every day (as is the rule) for about 3 days....after that, they completely forgot about it and it just ended up in the garbage. Too funny!

Easter in Our House

Goin' Buggy!

Kariana's class had their spring musicale tonite!  It was called "Goin' Buggy" and it was probably thee cutest presentation I have every seen.  It was all about bugs fighting for their freedom and independence, and convincing the audience that they were more than squash-worthy.  It was wonderfully cute and creative and I am so glad we got to attend!

But cuter than the program itself was my favorite little ant:

Karianna had a speaking part, which she said wonderfully, and she was right in the front row so we could see her singing her heart out and doing the actions with all the gusto she could muster.  The entire event was just fantastic and I love seeing these types of creative endeavors.  Makes me want to do something inventive like this with my 3rd graders!  Both grandmas were able to come and although Aunt Aubrey couldn't come, she sent a vase full of flowers and a ballone with candy for Karianna.  So sweet for my little girl!

Rock Poses...Our Best Effort

The Return of the Splash Pad!

The weather is warm enough to start considering how to stay cool! The pool is still WAY too cool to really consider, but I thought the splash pad at the park might be a good second choice and sure enough, it was open! Out of all the days we picked to go, today actually ended up being somewhat windy and thus, a bit cooler, however, the kids still loved getting wet, especially Sara! I don't think we will renew the zoo membership when it expires in May, so we'll have to really use it up in the next month's time!

Checking out the new orangutan habitat!

Jordan's Ideas about Getting Older

1. Jordan is slightly infatuated with Jared's Deoderant. He goes into our bathroom at least once a week just to pick it up, bring it over to me, and ask me, "I can use this when I am older like Daddy....Mama, I am a big boy, can I use Daddy's deoderant now?" He seems to think aging by a few days qualifies him. I am not so anxious for the horomones that will necessitate deoderant to hit my little boy!


2. I told the kids today that there are 23 days until my birthday. Jordan indignantly exclaimed, "You don't have birthdays-you are too old!" I told him I did have a birthday in 23 days. He said, "But you are bigger-you are not little." As if old people like me ;) can't have birthdays anymore. If I was turning 30 that might sting a bit, but alas, I have a whole year to enjoy the 20's and thus-I just laughed!

JD's Grand Picture

JD used to hate coloring or drawing of any sort. He would turn up his nose at coloring books in favor of fighting some action figures or animals back and forth. It has only been in the last 8 months or so that he has shown a desire to color and draw, which has evolved into an every day request to make some sort of picture or write a stream of letters/words on a piece of notebook paper. He loves to draw on the whiteboard these days, and his picture today was prety fantastic. When Karianna was this age, she was fantastic at making people-lots of details, great clothes, the works. JD doesn't care enough to get all that in. :) But he is great at making the backgrounds of pictures, such as the following:

He told me he drew an island house with a palm tree like the one we cut down in the backyard. He told me he drew a crab and a poinsonous octopus in the water and a boat with 2 guys who were trying to hide in the island house-which does have multiple windows and "ding dongs" (not the little cakes, doorbells.) I loved his picture, everything from the faint clouds in the sky to the 4 claws on his crab! The lone door on his boat was especially great. I had him label a few things just for spelling practice, and I just smiled to see the development-primacy and recency in spelling, ie, HS for HOUSE and OS for OCTOPUS! I helped him with crab, but he got sun and bot on his own, which was great! The arrows he drew-just loved it all. Can you tell I am proud of him? JD has never been as into organized learning as Karianna is, and his nature is so gentle and happy that I didn't want to disrupt that with pushing him at all-its so cool to see the natural development as he gets more and more interested in the world of literacy!

Okay, that's it for today. I love this stuff!

Sara Loves Peaches Apparently

Sara actually grabbed a spoon from I have no idea where and started stacking these containers of peaches in some attempt at the leaning tower of cheese-a (peach-a?). She was so intent on it, she managed to get a 5 tiered tower before her frustration won over and she just wanted to eat it.

Climbing Wall

I managed to get some shots of the kids climbing the wall at our old Phoenix park, as I previously mentioned, I was so tickled at how quickly they all acclimated to climbing, especially Karianna since she is working on her upper body strength (if that sounded funny, I really mean she is trying to master monkey bars but lacks the wiry-body-ness for it as of yet!). JD is all about anything physical, so I knew he would be great, but Jordan! That kiddo climbed straight to the top with no hesitation! It was pretty cool!

Slides!

Sara's favorite thing to do right now is slide. She has gotten very adept at climbing up onto any play structure, sitting herself down at the peak of a slide and pushing herself down-sitting up the whole way and climbing off on her own. Its so fun to see the exhilaration on her face, the wind in her fairy hair, and the pride as she tackles a big kid activity on her own!

It's Spring Break! Oh wait-it's already over.

Here I am, about 10 hours from the official end of spring break and I can't believe it is already over! I am sad to say I really didn't take many pictures of our spring break activities, and we didn't get to do everything on our wish list, but it sure was nice to have a full week of hanging out with the kids without work interferring. This is the first break that I have had from school where I actually feel invigorated, refreshed and overall-okay with going back to work. The reason? There's only 9 weeks left of school. 9. With 27 weeks behind us, 9 sounds kind of piddly. Plus, the next 3 weeks will be full of AIMs prepping and the 4th week with be all AIMS testing. Those 4 weeks are bound to rush by with lightning speed and before we know it, it will be down to five weeks, which I am sure will be filled with end of the year activities, field trips, assemblies-in general all things that make time go by fast. See why spring break is such a great thing? It means I can make it. :) Nice though!

Our spring break was all about bike riding, cleaning, family pictures, scootering, park hopping, pointless car drives, teacher observations, reading, wall climbing, coloring, weed picking, sliding, and haircuts. The low point was probably driving up to Anthen to play in one of our favorite spots from when we lived up there-the Anthem park with their humongous climber, splash pad, and train rides. Unfortuneately, after the anticipation was built, we arrived only to find the entire park closed, bathrooms included. We were pretty disappointed, though we still got to do the train ride and we found another park to play at (though it paled in comparison). The high point was two fold-hanging out so much with the kids in everyway possible, and waking up each morning feeling like it was a summer day. We really enjoyed each other and the relaxed days of spring break. It makes me so excited for summer break, so much so that I already planned out some camping trip dates, swimming lesson dates, and our CA trip for Jared's graduation in May.

So from here on out, Spring Break is going to be my goal-if I can make it to the middle of March with my sanity in tact, it will all be downhill from there. ;) Karianna is counting down the weeks until she "graduates" from 1st grade and JD talks every day about his schedule for kindergarten. We are still undecided if we will have Jordan do preschool with Ms. Kerry next year, but he talks all the time about swimming this summer with no floaties. Sara, dearest girl, is still learning how to control her fits, which have started to include throwing things if she is not satisfied, and going limp if she doesn't want to relinquish her fit yet. And I will miss all of this when Monday rolls around, but it will be a contented miss because I know summer is around the corner-such a lovely thought and with that we prepare to let go of spring break and dive into the last quarter of school. Thanks for the great week guys!