School Projects

At the end of the year, ALL of the pictures, drawings, etc gets sent home!  We have mounds of projects right now!

At the beginning of the year we were asked to send in a bunch of pictures of Finn’s family because the first “unit” they were doing in school was on family.  This also helped them have pictures of their family hanging nearby to look at if they got sad.  The pictures hung on the wall all year long, today they came home and I hung it in the kitchen.

The most notable thing that Finn came home with were these monthly sheets that show his drawing skills.  At the beginning of the year he would just “scribble scrabble” (as he likes to say) and by the end he could draw a face!

Riley’s teacher sent home a TON of stuff.  She made two little “books” though that were adorable!  They made placemats every month to use for their snack, and she wove them all together with this “Cheerful Yearful” poem.

 

He also made these SUPER cute collages (Garden, Zoo and Ocean)!  I love the concept of this, each day they would make a new item to add to the collage until the unit was complete.  They are HUGE and they are hanging in our kitchen which makes it super cheery!

And with each season he would bring home a new window pane!  The trees are made out of his arm/hand!

The other book was full of all kinds of stuff including pictures of Riley at school with his classmates!  The front of the book is the first picture below.  Inside had a picture of him at the beginning of the year with his height and weight and his height/weight at the end of the year.  He grew 4 inches and gained 5 pounds!

 

And it also included this adorable poem about hand prints and his actual hand prints from the beginning and end of the year!

There was also a really cute questionnaire in there but the picture would not turn out.  When asked what he would like to do with daddy he said “play piano” and when asked what he was going to do when he grew up he said “I’m going to play a big piano when I’m a grownup”.  Mommy is 3 and daddy is 4.  His best friend is Finn!

Lots of amazing things!  I have no idea how I’m going to decide what to keep or how to let some things go!

Trophies

At the end of each soccer season the players are presented with trophies.  Even though Riley had played in the fall, his team didn’t do trophies.  But this season they did and Riley was SO excited to finally have a trophy like Finn.  We leave for Grandma and Papa Camp tomorrow and they wanted to take their trophies to show grandma and papa, so I decided to take a picture of them holding the trophies to show them instead of packing them and traveling with them.  But when it came time to pull out the camera, Finn insisted on ALL of his trophies in the picture.  Even though this wasn’t the sentiment Riley actually had, I think the look on his face is perfect for how I felt about it!  Ha!

And a better one

My How They Have Grown

And I started a new tradition, I gave the boys teachers each a copy of “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” to sign and plan to do this at the end of each year with their teachers and give it to them when they graduate high school.  Their teachers all wrote some amazing things in their books today!

Speaking of teachers, I got a picture of Finn with his teachers today too!  Absolutely love these people and the amazing year we’ve had with them!

 

Finn’s Pre-K Certificate!  Kindergarten, here he comes!!!

School’s Out for Summer!!!

Wahoooo!!!!

And later that day…..

HAIL!

So we’re standing at the splash pad, sweating to death in the blazing sun.  We get in the car and as we pull in the driveway it starts to rain.  And minutes later, it started to HAIL!  How crazy!

Summer Birthday’s

Finn’s school had a Summer Birthday’s Celebration at school this week!  Finn could not have been more excited!  And since he has been asking for a “shark” party for months now, he was super excited for me to bring shark cupcakes for the big day!  There were three boys with summer birthdays, so us moms coordinated and I brought in the cupcakes and another mom brought in ice cream and another brought in a pinata.

First they read the story that they read on everyone’s birthday called “On the Day You Were Born” which is a REALLY neat book (that I will soon be purchasing!)…

Then they sang to the birthday boys

And then it was cupcake time!  “Shark Finn” cupcakes!

And a pinata!

 

With his pinata loot!

Boilers In Tha ‘Hood

Kirkwood had their annual Spring Fling festival this past weekend and along with all the FUN there was also a 5K race.  I really wasn’t planning on running another race again until the issues with my back were resolved, but they sent out a note saying if you signed up for the race that day you got a free beer coupon.

I need this t-shirt

So the night before I was trying to decide what t-shirt to wear, I got a new Cubs and a new Purdue t-shirt for Mother’s Day.  It was unanimous that I was to wear the Purdue shirt.  And then Finn asked what shirts they were wearing (since I had made St Patty’s Day shirts for everyone for the last race I ran).  So in the end, we all wore Purdue shirts!

Who Needs a Mallet?

Kellen got this toy for his birthday and it came with a mallet which is indefinitely in time-out because certain little boys could not stop using it on everything/one.

Until last week though, Kellen hadn’t figured out how to get the ball in without my help.  We would sit together and he would take my hand and make me push it down.  Looks like he finally figured it out!

 

I love his wind-up, like he’s really gotta get some heat on it!  And I LOVE how he catches his breath before he swings.  Listen closely, it is adorable.

Kellen’s New Trick

Kellen has a new trick.

 

In other news, my hair is rapidly turning grey.  oy vey.

Ribbit

I know I’ve mentioned before how much I love Riley’s teachers and the awesome crafts he brings home, but this one absolutely kills me!  And it killed me all day until it broke.

Tiny Rain Boots

eeep!

Yes, those are the cutest littlest fireman rain boots!

 

Dr Seuss’s ABC’s

Finn’s class had a presentation of Dr. Seuss’s ABC’s.  They had been working on it for a very long time and had done a very good job of keeping it a secret.  They did more then just present the book, each child was assigned a letter (some kids were assigned two) and after about 3 letters they would stop and do a little performance and then 3 more letters and then another performance, all the way through!  It was amazing all that they had learned and remembered for this!!

 

They started by singing the ABC’s

 

And then went into the letters.  Finn was assigned the letter F!

 

Rhythm sticks!  This was So cute (and much longer!)!

 

Finn and his bestie Kaj, cracks me up!

 

C is for Cookie! 

 

There were two other performances they did that I videotaped but they are suuuuuper long and will take me a lifetime to upload.

Published Birth Stories Update

I posted back in October about how Kellen’s birth story was going to be published in The Bump’s magazine (or a version of it I should say) and I shared the online version of the story.  Well, it has officially printed and friends of ours saw it before we got our copies!

Pretty FUN little keepsake!  I LOVE the pictures they chose for the magazine so much more then the online version.

I love it when it rains….

because then I get to put adorable rain coats on my boys!

and now Kellen walking around in his too cute and too big for him rain coat kills me!