The End of the Year

Yea!! Only two and a half days left of school. We are all so ready for school to break up for the summer--Well ........ maybe Andrew isn't. He told me he doesn't want school to end. Kindergarten is the best--I know. How can you get over the upbeat teachers, the fun projects, the cool songs , twenty new friends who play with everyone, and being away from mom and dad for the first time in your short life?! On Tuesday he gets to go to two Bar-b-Ques for the morning and afternoon kindergartens. What a way to end the year!! He finally had his name announced over the intercom for his AR (accelerated reading) points--68!! That is over 136 books read in half a year! We have just about covered the entire early reader section of the school library. What a job. He was so excited to be famous for two minutes.

Steven also acheived a little bit of fame this week. The school district set aside $50,000 to give out to teachers as a sort of merit bonus and Steven and his co-teacher, Mrs. Perry, both received a $1,000 of it and a plaque naming them teachers of the year. It was such a nice honor. He has worked so hard getting up at 5:00 each morning and staying at school until 6:00 each day, working through lunch time, creating exciting activities and fun memories for his 6th graders. He also had the extra distinction of having the highest Accelerated Math and Math ISAT scores in the whole district. I am so glad they took notice. He is an awesome teacher.

As for me, I love my silly boys, all 15 of them and the 4 girls that drove them all to distraction. We have been through a lot together---lice and more lice, walking in the rain while they dare eachother to eat worms, sickness, fighting, struggling to read and do math, playing jump rope at recess and lightening---Lots of good memories and shruggings of disbelief. They all come with adult problems and kid know how and yet they always manage to have a smile and a sparkle in their eyes. We all need a break, but it will be sad to see them go.

Yea!! Only a 1.23 weeks left!!!

Yeah!! We are down to our last full week of school. Can I just say what a relief it is to be down to the wire. Friday was something. Our poor little boy with the lice problem was sent home once again with a major infestation. His father was ready to sue the school because he thought everyone had a vendetta against his dear boy--until the counselor actually showed him what a louse looked like--a little like dandruff but with beady little black eyes (or black spots. The dead ones are pure white almost like dandruff but in the shape of a grain of rice. Geez I have learned a lot.) Well he was very cooperative after that and apologetic and probably relieved that school is almost out so his son need not be sent home too many more times this year. I am being sarcastic, but really that poor child has been dealing with this problem for months. If whatever the father is doing isn't working, he should try something else or ask for some help.

In other news, we also had a student kicked off the bus at the end of the day before the bus even left because he was so mad he wasn't allowed to watch for the bus (and this is due to further previous bad behavior). This student threw a terrible temper tantrum and our principle had to sit him down on the grass outside the building while he waited for his family to come get him (the grass was torn up in chunks and heaved at anyone close enough to be a target). I feel so bad for this kid. What a long road he has a head of him.

Andrew discovered dew Saturday morning. We were up early--heaven knows why when we could actually have slept in until 7:00--and we were all sitting on the back porch enjoying the nice morning weather and, well, it was just nice after such a long time of it being not nice. The dew was thick on the grass and the morning sun was making it shine like broken up sunshine. I told Andrew he should run through it in his bare feet, that it would feel so awesome. No, he didn't want to--until his dad told him it would feel like he was running through sunshine. Well, up he gets and dashes out into the grass--and then he lets out a huge scream-- AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhh! "NO it doesn't!!! It feels like water!!!!"
I laughed until my stomach hurt. He is so innocent and believes everything his daddy says. I am sure this will not last very much longer.

I just finished reading "The Host," the latest Stephenie Meyer book. It was awesome!! It took awhile to get into just because you have no background and all at once you jump into a story about alien invasion that already has taken place and the aliens have already won and there is so much to catch up on before you really know what is happening--but then the story grabs you and it doesn't let you go until the last page. Can I just admit without shame that there was sniveling and bawling involved in several places. She just really knows how to write real characters and how to get to the heart of things. I was so sad it was over.

Diary of a Worm

Andrew "Mom, have you ever read the book Diarrhea of a Worm?"

Catching Up

We have had a lot going on, but our computer was down for a week, so I have been unable to post anything. One of the really great things is that Andrew and I finally finished reading The Hobbit. Yes sir, our long journey is finally at an end. Smaug the dragon is defeated; the gold has been recaptured, the goblin and warg hord have been destroyed and driven away, and yes, sadly Thorin has been mourned and buried. Andrew really seemed to love the story. I was a little hesitant about him taking the accelerated reading test because I wondered if he would be able to remember details from three months ago, but he took it and only missed one question. He now has 66.6 AR points. Monday they are going to read his name over the intercom for having achieved over 50 AR points--(he says to write that he is a Reading Machine.) He is only the second kindergartner in the whole school to have this distinguished honor. We are so proud. HUMMMMMMMM :)

On Thursday it was dress as your teacher day. I told him he could wear an apron or something because he has two female teachers, but he did not want to dress like a girl, so he decided to dress as Mr. Cziep. We tried tucking in overlarge shirts and trying on huge ties, but it ended up that he wore his Sunday clothes and we painted big bushy eyebrows on with eyebrow makeup.

One other thing that took place while we were being technologically challenged was Andrew's 1st book piano recital. He was supposed to play 18 songs that he had learned and remembered throughout the whole year. Believe me this was no small feat continually reviewing and reworking so many songs every week for months, but we managed to keep them up. On the night of the recital he was so excited he could hardly stand in one place for three seconds. We had the recital at Rimrock and Mr. Page, Andrew's principal even got out the electric keyboard for him. The moment came and he sat down to play. He got through 2 songs perfect--without once even glancing at the keys--he kind of looked like Stevie Wonder. He kept looking around and had that day dream look on his face. Well, the third song came--which was a new one and still a little challenging. Not two lines into the song, his memory failed him and he looked down at his hands for the first time. He started over a couple of times, but he couldn't remember. We told him he could skip it and go to the next, but these huge crocodile tears started to slide down his face. I tell you, my heart just ached for him. So, his piano teacher steps up and moves him over to the upright piano and tells him not to look at the audience any more. He went right on to play that song perfectly and had no other problems. He was just distracted by all the eyes watching him, I guess. He did such a good job.

Stake Conference

We had a great stake conference today. One of my favorite quotes went something like this,"If you cherish something, then you work towards it." This is in the context of reading scriptures, temple attendance, family prayer, etc. So, of course, I spent the rest of the afternoon re-evaluating all the laziness in my life. It is not a pretty picture. So today I am setting the goal of reading the scriptures once again in three months--that gives me until July 27th to finish up. I really enjoyed when President Hinckley challenged the members of the church to read the scriptures in just a few months. At the time I did feel more spiritual and felt I was more in tune. So, here I go--I've written it down and now I had best just do it.

I was really proud of Andrew today. He sat very patiently through conference and only started to become restless and teasing during the last 15 minutes. Later, Mom, Andrew and I went to visit Grandma Lloyd at the rest home. (We were up visiting in Soda Springs this weekend.) Grandma wasn't doing so great--she wasn't remembering things too well today--I was so relieved she remembered me, so after we had talked and tried to keep things light, Andrew decided he was going to play the piano for her. We wheeled her down the the community TV room and Andrew played a few songs for her and the other residence. It was heartwarming to see all these older people so tickled to see a young boy perform for them. They clapped and called out encouragement to him, and Andrew was the perfect little maestro. I'm glad he isn't afraid of rest homes and residence. I use to feel so frightened of them when I was little. He even gave a little old lady a big hug. She was so smiley after that.

Speaking of kind acts--get this--Steven is making a truck load of banana bread tonight to feed his sixth grade students tomorrow. They have their Math ISAT and usually he takes bananas in their raw form--man are they lucky. I don't think I ever had a teacher voluntarily take anything homemade to share with their class--except for some cardboard sugar cookies once at the end of the year. Truly, I think he is enjoying this teacher business.

Quick note: If you like forgein films try watching "The Promise." It is a Chinese film and has some wonderful photography and a crazy story--great kung fu--lots of action and is just about the most surreal film I have ever seen. You definitely have to suspend any conception of reality and put yourself into the mindset of some ancient Chinese tall tale--but I thought it was fabulous. I really thought I was dreaming the whole thing--it was that unreal and. . . billowy!

Nightly Stories

Andrew and I have been reading the full version of "The Hobbit" for about two months now. Tonight we finally reached the part were Bilbo talks to the dragon, Smaug. It is surprising that he has stuck with me through this long, long book, and in fact, after he saw the cartoon of the Hobbit which they made in the early 80's, he begged me to read it to him. Before that we had only ever read things like "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" and "The Indian In the Cupboard." It has been a lot of fun doing our nightly 20 minutes of reading. I hope he learns to love reading for himself. What is really great is that he actually has over 36 Accelerated Reading Points at school--which means he has read and taken the test on over 72 books!! Each early reading book is only worth .5 of a point. He told me he wants to get 70 points before the year is over, but realistically I am hoping for 50. Here is the site for the new Hobbit movies that are coming out in a couple of years.
http://derhobbit-film.de/indexengl.shtml

Speaking of reading, here is a fun site http://www.goodreads.com/ where you can keep track of the books you have read and also maintain a list of books you want to read in the future. I know a lady who says she has over 1000 books on her to be read list. Poor thing!! With the number of books being published each year, she hasn't a chance. uuh uuh.

Snow, Boy & Cat

The snow is almost all gone!! YEAH!! Here is a funny picture of Andrew. You know children--they can't keep the icicles out of their mouths--no matter how many things you tell them are found inside.

Here Andrew is buried up to his waist in snow. In one hand we find his precious icicle (with various unknown beasties locked in their ice age prison--until they hit a nice warm tongue. Yuck!), and we also find a snow shocked cat--our notorious, naughty cat who thought he was going someplace until he realized how cold all that white stuff was on his paws. Let it be said, he truly did yearn to live a wild life, but realized at the last minute that his cushy existence wasn't as bad as frozen paws.