Ellie's Dance Recital

On Saturday, Ellie had her last recital for dance.  She took classes in jazz, tap and ballet, and in the recital, she got to do dances for all three.  She also got to have three different costumes.

 

This was ballet:  It was my favorite of the dances, the girls seemed so graceful on the stage.  Ellie did great, she knew her moves and had a great smile on her face the whole time.

 

 This was tap:

 And this was jazz.  When I asked her what she liked best she wavered between jazz and ballet.  She got a little tired of dance, and with gymnastics picking up, she is not going to do dance in the fall.  We may find in a few years she want to do it again, and if so we will happily do it then.

 This is the only picture during the recital that even looked halfway good:

I love that she got to dance, and that she got so many cute costumes!

Adam's 5th Grade

In our area, the elementary school goes K-4 and then grades 5-6 go to an intermediate school.  Adam got to go to the intermediate school this year.  At the intermediate school, the kids have all different teachers, they have lockers and learn instruments.   Adam chose to play the trumpet.  I told him he was allowed to play the trumpet, but he wouldn't be allowed to quit piano.  He did it faithfully, although in the middle I think he was a little tired of practicing two things in one day.  I was really impressed with how much the kids learned to play in their first year.  By the end of the year, at the concert, the kids sounded really good. 

 Adam also had to do a big GT envision project this year.  It was very stressful for him. He got time in class for a couple of months to work on his project, but as the end drew near, he still had a lot of work that he had to do at home.

There are 2 1/2 elementary schools that feed into the intermediate school and so there are a lot of kids at the intermediate school (probably about 400 in each grade).  It was a big adjustment for Adam, but he was able to make friends.  At the awards ceremony he did really well- he got straight A's and E's all year, an award for reading 250 points worth of AR books, and he got the principal's award for his class.  Each class the teacher pick one boy and one girl to get the principal's award, and Adam was picked for his class.

 He was so embarrassed when I tried to take his picture. 

We really feel like Adam has grown a ton this year, and it is amazing to see how much more mature he is getting (and how many teenager like qualities he is picking up).  Its great to see him growing up!

Michael's 3rd Grade

Michael had a great 3rd grade year, mostly because he had a fantastic 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Dunbar.  He still says he hates school every day, but I am not sure that he was bored, just that he tries to pretend that he hates everything.

 

He had a big GT envision science project he had to work on this year.  He came up with the idea to see if oil changes the density of water.  Of course, those of us who have dealt with oil and water know how that turned out, but he got to do the experiment and figure it out himself.  (I dared him to put goggles on for the picture, and he didn't even flinch, but quickly put them on).

 This is his completed project:

 At about the same time this was due, they had two or three other projects due.  I was so tired of helping him with projects that one of them I told him he had to do it all by himself, with no help from me.  He did it- including typing it all himself.  He finished it the night before at about 9 pm, but he did do it, and I think it was a good turning point for him.

At the end of the year, they had a party in their classroom with breakfast foods where they handed out the awards.

 Michael got straight A's all year and all E's. 

 This was the first year that the students had to take a standardized test to see their advancement.  Their teacher told them that if the whole class passed the test he would let one boy and one girl throw a pie in his face.  They did all pass, so right after the class party, Mr. Dunbar wend outside to let the kids throw a pie at him.  He chose the two kids with the highest grades to do it, and Michael was one of them (he got a 100!).  He sure enjoyed that.

We really were lucky to have such a good teacher, I hope he gets another good teacher next year.

Ellie's 1st grade

Ellie just finished first grade.  She loved it.  She decided at the beginning of this year that she wanted to be called Elisabeth at school, so she had the teacher and all of the kids call her Elisabeth.  There was even another Elisabeth in her class, so she was known as Elisabeth F. I just think of her as Ellie, so when we were at the school and the teachers and friends called her Elisabeth, it always took me a second to realize it was my daughter they were talking about. 

 

In May, they had a class play.  It was all about bugs.  Ellie was a firefly, and they had a special dance they did on the stage.

She did well in school, she got straight A's and E's all year.  Frankly, I think she might have been a little bored in her class, but her teacher did try really hard to challenge her. 

Ellie and Mrs. Coogler.

This was Ellie's favorite friend in her class, Joey.  She found that she often played at her grandma's house around the corner, so she went over there to play a lot this year.  It was nice to have a friend who lived so close.

It was great year, I am hopeful she will have another great year next year!

Happy Father's Day

We are so lucky to have such a great dad in our family!  He is really good and talking to the kids and listening to their needs.  He is the calming influence in our family, when I get overwhelmed with the craziness of day to day, he calmly will talk to the kids or tell me to chill.

 

We asked at dinner what everyone's favorite things about daddy are:

 

Ellie: He is really fun. 

Nate:  He likes to fight with daddy (wrestle). 

Adam: Fishing with daddy.

Michael:  He gives us candy when we go to the land.

 

Me:  I love that he will stay up with the kids at bedtime and tell them stories about when he was little, or on a mission.

 

We love you daddy!

My baby is 5!

 

Nate turned 5, can you believe it?  That means in the fall he will be starting kindergarten.

 This past year he has grown a lot.  I have been working with him on reading and he has learned to read most 3 letter words, and is now working on words with blends.  It was interesting to teach him to read, he learns different than Michael and Ellie.  At first when he was sounding out words, even if he sounded it out correctly, he would not be able to say the word unless he had heard the word before and knew what it meant.  He has finally learned to get past that.  He is really good at math though- the other day he was doing a simple multiplication problem (without knowing it was multiplication).  I guess he just has a math mind. 

He is our loudest child.  He is obnoxious and in your face and loud.  I think that is how most boys are, but our other two were not like that so it is different for us.  He also is constantly moving and talking.  In the car there is a constant monologue going from his seat.  Problem is that he has a ton of questions and asks them all the time, and if you are in the middle of traffic, it is hard to concentrate on what he is saying and what the answer should be.  He doesn't like it if I have the music on too loud (probably because it drowns out his loudness).  He does love to laugh. He has a great sense of humor and can see the humor in a lot of things.  If you get him laughing he will laugh for a long time, and his smile and laugh just melt your heart.  Overall he is quite a happy child. 
He loves to wrestle and fight.  His favorite thing to do is attack Adam. He usually is a little too tough about it and hurts Adam, then Adam hurts him back.  I can't get Adam in trouble because Nate is the instigator.  Unfortunately, he doesn't learn, in just a few minutes, he is right back at it- attacking Adam again.  He rarely attacks Michael or Ellie, they must not engage him enough.

 

 

 He loves his electronics.  He loves to play on the computer, his favorite game is Minecraft.  He loves Team UmiZoomi and Phineas and Ferb on the TV.  His favorite color is still orange.  His favorite food is pickles and olives.  He still prefers adult food to kid food, this has been great because we have spent a lot of days in the past few months going to lunch, him and I. 

On his birthday, everyone got up early and opened his presents.  He got some random presents, but his favorite was Skylanders Giants game for the Wii.

 Then he went to school.  It was his last day of preschool.  After school, he had a friend party at our house.  He had about 11 friends come and play water games with him. They jumped on the trampoline with a sprinkler under it.

 They tried popping balloons in the water on the trampoline.

 They also had water relays, a slip and slide and water balloons.

We love our Nate!