Memorial Day Weekend

We started out with a Birthday party for Gracie (Leah's BFF) at the roller skating rink. Leah was THRILLED to get to go and had a blast skating and hanging with her cute friends.

I even jumped in and skated with her because she was begging me to get on the rink with her. I think she was quite surprised that I could even skate. Not that I'm great, but I can still make it around the rink without falling. Woohoo for me!

Callie sent me a picture from when she was here for Marci's homecoming talk. So I had to post it. It's too cute. That Carter loves his Callie.

On Memorial Day, we headed to the park with the Osmond's for a picnic, some badmitton and a quite rousing game of kickball. We decided to stop when 3 out of 4 of Becky's kids were either hurt or bleeding and 1 of mine had peed his pants because he was having too much fun to stop and go to the potty. It was super fun though and we're gonna have to go do it again. 

After that, we got our swim gear on and headed to the pool to swim and BBQ hotdogs. The kids had a blast and even though it was a bit chilly, they didn't let that stop them from getting in the pool.

Another field trip

I had to be goofy to get Dalia to smile so that made for a blurry picture, but she was refusing to smile for me. How the class president and super outgoing girl is bff's with my shy quiet sweetheart, I DO NOT KNOW?! But they are so cute together and hang out nonstop. 

Ashlyn's class has gone on so many field trips this year that I have literally lost count. These lucky 6th graders. There are only 3 weeks left of school and she still has three more field trips. One to the LACMA, one to the Aquatic Center and then one more walking field trip for lunch. I caught up with the class on this one today and met them outside of our complex (so I didn't have to carry Carter up the Green Mountain hill since I know he would not have made it on his own). It worked out perfect since they were walking right past our house on the way to Chipotle anyway. The weather has been so nice so we weren't sweating to death on the rest of the walk. Lunch was fun and her class is so well behaved. Guess their teacher told them at the beginning of the year that if they don't behave the Principal will come pick them up for representing their school poorly. Apparently it has happened once (not with this years class, but in the past). That's enough to make the kids really behave. Who would want to take a personal car ride back to school with the principal who is an ex cop. NOT ME!!! haha...

Open House

I love Open House. Mostly because my kids are SO excited to show me and Paul everything around their classrooms. Brandon had a scavengar hunt list to follow and goodness were we in trouble if we detracted from the correct path. So cute how serious they take it all. 

First up, Leah's class and darn it, I always get pictures of the kids with their teachers at Open House and I totally spaced it this year. I'll have to do it on the last day now. Oh well!

Leah's bubble gum math facts. She passed all her timed multiplication tests and is well into her division tests. Woohoo!

Now to Brandon's class. The poor butterflies have not hatched yet. Hopefully soon. His teacher told me Brandon watches these like a hawk constantly asking to check on them (by himself with no other kids around he says). Haha…

This picture cracks me up! Love his cute face he drew. 

And his snake fangs. I was dying. At least he didn't put blood dripping down.

His book report charactors. Bird and Squirrel.

On to Ashlyn's class. Definitely quite different from the other two classrooms. Most of the things Ashlyn showed me was on her IPad. They've been so fortunate to have one on one IPad's this year in class. She's learned so much and has made at least 4-5 presentations using Google slides, powerpoint, keynote, Imovie and other apps I've never even heard of.  

I love that her teacher cut up her door poster and kept it up for Open House. That one took me the LONGEST!

Can you find Ms. Ellingson's name? I tried to make it super tricky.

They've spent the last portion of the year learning all about Ancient Eygpt. 

And there are so many technology and engineering type projects now with Common Core. It's pretty cool though. It's their future. They might as well learn it young.

This was super cute too. I'm sad to see Ashlyn leave Elementary school, and I know I say this all the time, but I'm so proud of her and how hard she has worked. I definitely don't understand everything about the new Common Core curriculum, but what I do know is that it has forced Ashlyn to interact more and work in a group setting better. She'll be better off for it. 

It's fun to know I have many more years of elementary with my three other kids and I hope to have some of the teachers Ashlyn has had. Love teachers that do it simply for the love of the kids and teaching. We may not have the newest or prettiest school (well until the new addition is done) or the best demographics, but we've had a pretty great school experience so far. I can't complain.

Quick visit from Callie

Callie came home for basically 24 hours to see Marci's missionary homecoming talk. We didn't get to see her a ton but we enjoyed every minute we did. She's doing great at school this summer and living it up as a college student. Doesn't she look beautiful? Leah wouldn't let her go. 

Father/Son's campout means girls weekend at home

Side note picture of my garden because it's grown so much in a short time and I'm super excited about it. Even my little carrot heads have sprouted. And I planted a garlic so I'm hoping that sprouts soon too.

Worms for the campout. Paul doesn't really like fishing so I sent him a picture of the worms for his hook to get him all "excited".  I'm nice huh!

All ready to go. He didn't send me any pictures of the campout. Just of the boys fishing the next day. But at least I got that. He's not much a picture taker. 

So while the boys roasted hot dogs and slept in a cold windy tent, us girls partied it up at The Cheescake Factory. Fried Mac and cheese, hamburgers, chicken parm and pizza. Yum… Leah was dying over the bread. She ate too much and then was too full for her dinner. We took our cheesecake home, got all snuggly on the couch and vegged out with our dessert and watched "Newsies". 

Ashlyn bunked with me in my bed but Leah decided she wanted to sleep in her own bed, so she ditched us. 

The next morning we ran a few errands. Got Leah a new lamp (since hers "mysteriously" broke) and then got home just after the boys had showered and cleaned up. Good timing for sure!