Class Parties

It's ALMOST the end of the school year, almost.  Today, the kids had their class parties, tropical storm and all.  Madison came home and said she had signed me up for pizzas, and Luke told me I had to bring strawberries.  So, after slicing strawberries and picking up pizzas at Marcos, we floated over to the school (because it was a MONSOON!!).  We visited the classes, dropping off the pizzas first.  Then, we went to Luke's class.

 

 Luke's teacher loves Alex, so he was quickly invited to enjoy pizza with the class.  There were two other siblings there, and they all loved the pizza.  Luke has had a great year in kindergarten, and he's made some nice friends.  Luckily, there were very nice boys in his class, and I was able to get to know a few of the moms.

Luke's Kindergarten Class...very patriotic!  His teacher's husband is a soldier too, so no surprise with the American flags everywhere.  It's such a bright and cheery classroom and school; I love this school!

 

I didn't get any pictures of Madison's class. They were done with the pizza when I arrived.  They downed four pizzas!  16 kids!!!!!  I brought two, and two more were brought it. In addition to that, they had cupcakes, ice cream cups, a veggie tray, and a fruit tray.  This was all after lunch, and yes, my kids did eat lunch too.  Their lunchboxes were empty as well...hungry kids all around!

The Spelling Bee

Madison won her class spelling bee, moving her onto the finals. They were held at school on Wednesday, so we went to watch.  My dad even came over to see her in action.

 

 The finalists, all setup in the media center

 Madison made it through round after round after round.  In fact, they said it was the first time they had ever run out of words from the original lists.  They slowly eliminated people until they started picking some pretty hard words.  Then, all the kids seemed to fall quickly.

 Madison came in third!  She really wanted to win, but she got out in the second to last round on feeble.  She was thinking it was feable.  That was after spelling words like compassionate and my favorite, the first word of the first round, brother.  I knew she DEFINITELY would get that one right!  Way to go, kiddo!!

Madison with Grandpa-Thanks for coming to see her, Grandpa!  He had never visited the school and liked it as much as I do. As a retired teacher, he said it would have been a great place to teach.

The Pool

What to do when your husband is deployed? Oh yeah, setup the pool by yourself.  DONE!

What to do after a full day at school?  Jump in the pool!  Yes, as they flew off the bus today, Madison and Luke asked if the pool was "finally" ready to use (forget that I've been working on this since Saturday evening). All I can hope is that one day when they are grown and understand things, realize how hard I work to make life "normal" while Edward is gone.

Awards Day

The kids had their awards' program at school yesterday.  This week, I feel like I'm living at their school.  Awards-Monday, Volunteer Appreciation Breakfast-Tuesday (that was a good breakfast!), Spelling Bee Final-Wednesday (GO MADISON!!!!), and class parties Friday. I must comment on the parties.  So, Madison came home and said she had volunteered for me to bring in pizzas. Okay, that's funny, but fine.  Then, she said no one wanted to bring in paper products, so she put her hand up and said, "I'll bring those in too. My mom uses a lot of coupons, and she gets that stuff free or almost free all the time. We have plenty of plates, cups, napkins, and silverware to bring."  So funny, yet true  :)  Then, today, Luke brought his party form home and said, "I told my teacher that you LOVE to cut up strawberries (news to me...I just have to do it a lot), so I told her you would go and pick strawberries, cut them up, and bring them in."  So funny. So, yes, Friday, I'll be going to the school to deliver pizzas, paper products, and strawberries.  By the time Alex gets there, maybe I'll just start a catering service.

 

 Here is the kindergarten, six classes of it. Luke was put right in the middle of the group. They sang three songs, including one in Chinese.  I'll hopefully get that uploaded, even though I have no idea what they said.  They sang well, as the Chinese teacher was delighted with their performance.

 Here's Luke getting his end of year awards from his teacher. For the year, he won the bus award (best behavior on bus), PE award, music award, computer award, and art award. One boy and one girl per class wins these, so he's done very well.

 There was an hour between the kindergarten and second grade awards, so I had Alex and Becca at the attached public library for some puzzle time.

 They built this completely by themselves.

 Madison's awards with her teacher-For the year, she won the Chinese award twice, the art award twice, the PE award, the computer award, was Student of the Month, and was the class spelling bee winner.

Here's her class!  They both had a great year with awesome teachers. I know Madison is especially going to miss her teacher.

Madison's Party Pictures-Part 2

These pictures are from my camera.  As I posted before, the girls had so much fun.

 

 

 The girls loved trading these American Girl cutout cards.

 The doll party area...this is where the dolls were to sit during the party (when not getting their hair done).

They had so much fun with the sack race.  Delaney (lives across the street) was the winner.

Madison had a great party, but she said she just really wished her dad could be here.

Madison's American Girl Birthday Party

Madison's birthday is this coming Saturday, June 8. Due to several of her friends having activities/out of town for this coming weekend, she opted to have her party early so the neighborhood girls could come. This year, she wanted an American Girl birthday party. I think it turned out really cute, but most importantly, Madison loved it.

 

Madison told me she wanted a cake like this, and a lady from our church owns a bakery here in town.

 Table décor-I was really happy with how things came together.  None of this came in a kit/set together, but I looked for these colors, and things matched really well.

 When I went into check on Madison the night before the party, I some of her American Girl dolls dressed and ready for the party.  She had them all laid out on the floor in her favorite outfits.  So sweet.

 Here are just a few of the girls with their dolls as the party started.  The girls brought their own dolls, and they had so much fun sitting on the floor, doing their doll's hair, and talking.  It was so nice to have them do something so simple. The salon chair was a HUGE hit too!

 In addition to the dolls, I had printed off a birthday word search. Madison LOVES word searches, and when I told the girls, they were SO excited (definitely a really smart crowd of girls to LOVE a word search).  Love it!

 Here's the crew (minus Hope who was finishing her piano lesson).  Madison asked to have Subway sandwiches, Cheetos, and strawberries. The girls loved it and ate everything I had  :)

The big birthday girl turning 8!!!

 

More pictures to come.