Tessa Completes 2nd Grade

Tessa had a great school year. We requested Mrs. Garcia as her teacher because Tessa had her in Kindergarten and she moved to the 2nd grade last year. Once we heard that she was staying with 2nd grade again, Tessa knew she wanted to have her as her teacher again. We love her and it made for another successful year for Tessa. Most of her performances and events happened during the second half of the year, so the first thing we have is her 2nd grade performance in February. They sang patriotic songs. Tessa is the second one over from the right in the front row. 

They danced during a few numbers and used cowboy hats. It was a really cute performance. They sang the 50 states song and Tessa was Alabama and Tennessee. She held up pictures of those states when they called out the names alphabetically. This was the night we left for our trip to California. Tessa couldn't miss her performance, so we had the car packed and left immediately after it was over and drove all the way to Yuma, AZ that night.

In March was the Fine Arts night that included the talent show. I posted about this picture and event in Abby's school post, but I wanted to include the picture in Tessa's post since it was a school event to remember from her 2nd grade year. 

I was able to chaperone Tessa's field trip to the zoo this year. It was a lot of fun. I met them at the school as they got ready to load the bus. The kids were so excited! Here's Tessa smiling with Maddy and Adrianna. Maddy was one of Tessa's closest friends from class, but she moved to San Antonio at the end of the school year.

Here's Tessa, Romni, Adrianna, and Adrian in the famous prairie dog display where we always take pictures. I was in charge of watching Tessa and Adrianna for the day. Here they are with Santiago and Daniel in front of the giraffes. Santiago moved two houses down from us the beginning of this school year. They had a lot of fun playing outside after school many days. We love our cul-de-sac and all the kids have a blast playing together.

Audrey Kasallis came to the zoo for fun (she doesn't have a 2nd grader) so she could watch Taryn for me. Siblings aren't allowed to come with chaperones for field trips, but what 3 year old wants to miss going to the zoo? So Audrey came with us, but she was in charge of Taryn and her 3 year old Teagan. The 2nd graders of course loved having little tag alongs, and Taryn and Teagan enjoyed the extra attention. 

Here are some of Tessa's classmates where we kept our coolers for lunch. They were all so happy and loved getting in the picture for me. I couldn't ever get the entire class with Mrs. Garcia, but I at least got some of the kids together to grab one picture that included her.

A week after the field trip, it was May and Field Day at the school. Tessa is still our goofball monkey. Here she is doing a silly pose using Sofia and Adrianna to hoist herself up. 

Like I mentioned before, I was at the sponge race station, so I grabbed this picture of Tessa as she raced back after filling up the bucket with water from her sponge. One of the stations was playing on the playground. There were enough volunteer moms from Tessa's class that we made the entire class get together for a group photo. 

I ran across the field to catch a picture of Tessa during the hurdles race. She had so much fun being outside all day. 

Tessa is in Enrichment which is the school's GT program. This year their project was making a diorama of a dinosaur of their choosing. Tessa picked the Tyrannosaurus Rex. She found out during their research that when the baby T-rexes were born they may have had feathers. That was what she wanted to portray in her diorama. We borrowed dinosaurs from the Kasallis's and then found egg-shaped rocks from our own front yard. She did the design herself and found all the research online to write her report. We took a picture at home before she turned it in and then we took a picture at the school's GT Fair when it was on display for everyone to see.  

Near the end of the year, I decided to volunteer to chair the Book Fair next year for PTA. They had a book fair the next to last week of school this year, so I shadowed the lady who was in charge of it to learn the ropes. I was there every morning and afternoon during the 3 day fair. Luckily the girls were mostly good when they had to wait on me. One day, they found enough books for them to have their own and they sat down and read them together. It was pretty cute so I had to get a picture. We'll see how next year goes, but with three kids at the same school, I decided I needed to be involved and the book fair sounded like a fun way to do that.

Here's Tessa on the last day of school. I'd call her year a success. She made all As again this year, and high As at that. She's super smart and loves to help the other kids in her class. Those are always the comments I get from her teacher. There was some drama with the girls in her class this year, but I always heard about it from the other moms and when I'd ask Tessa about it, none of it really bothered her like it did the other kids. She was friends with everyone and ended up being paired a lot with the ones other complained about because she could get along with everyone without anything phasing her. I seriously couldn't believe how much drama there was going on in a 2nd grade class which makes me scared for the middle school years, but I was proud of how Tessa handled it by not letting it bother her and by standing up for her friends when she needed to.

A couple weeks after school, Tessa and Abby participated in a week long science camp at UTEP that was put on by NASA and SEMA. They built rockets, played with robots, and learned about machines and other rocket stuff. I only took this one picture, but they had so much fun. They look a little wet in the picture because they had just been shooting off water bottle rockets which shot up so high but sprayed water on everyone around the launch base. They loved it and had a great time. It was a free camp for those going into 3rd grade through 8th grade so Tessa was barely old enough to participate. We registered with Logan and AJ Kasallis and they all had fun doing the activities and experiments together. 

Abby Finishes the 4th Grade

To finish out the school years, I'm starting with Abby. I included her first semester school activities with her birthday post in December, so here's the second half of her 4th grade year. I tried going to the school's Fitness Friday days, but only made it to a couple this year. It's when parents can come join their child for her PE class. Taryn loves going and playing on the playground and hanging out with her sisters. I actually took pictures at the one we went to in February. March 2nd was Dr. Seuss day at school, so Abby dressed up like Cindy Lou-Who. Lots of people complimented her on her awesome hairstyle.

March 5, 2015 was the Fine Arts night at school. The girls decided they wanted to perform in the school talent show this year. They picked a song with their friends Kylie and Sadie Cain and practiced multiple times a week leading up to the performance. The Cains are the family that moved to Hawaii a couple weeks after this performance, so it was fun for them to do this last activity together, but it was hard for Tovi and me to see it and know that it was a last. They sang Titanium and did really well. I was especially proud of Tessa who is our shyest girl when it comes to performing in front of other people, but she did great. 

Funny story about this event: the Fine Arts night was scheduled the same night as a Relief Society activity for me at church. I'm in charge of those activities so I had told the girls that I would be missing their performance. But when the night finally came, the program portion of the church activity finished with enough time for me to race over to the school to see if I could catch their performance. When I ran into the school, I saw that the girls were standing on the stage. I tried to go in but the high school kid who was the usher said we weren't allowed in unless it was between performances. Frustratingly, I told her that it was "my kids" who were up on the stage right that minute so she let me slip in. They had just started singing the song, so I got to hear their performance and take one picture to prove that I had been there. I don't think Tessa even saw me because she was facing the opposite way while they performed. As soon as they were finished, I raced back to the church to finish the activity and help clean up. The best part of the story is how I found out after the fact that the girls had been standing on the stage forever before they began. Apparently, our friend Kirsten who accompanied the girls on the piano had a really hard time with her music on the piano stand. They spent some time trying to figure out how to keep her music from blowing off and finally ended up having two other people hold the music for her. Everybody who saw me come in figured it was meant to be so that I could make it in time for the performance. I was so happy I got to hear them sing and that it all worked out so I didn't miss it. It was great.

The beginning of May brought Field Day for the entire school and I was able to volunteer this year. They divided the grades throughout the day but since I had a 4th, 2nd and kinder, I had to stay all day to help out with each of my kids. I stayed with one station all day, the water sponge race, but I grabbed some pictures as Abby was at the stations near me. Here she is with her classmate Grace during the three-legged race. She's finishing a race in this second picture. I think they had to do cartwheels for the race and I tried to get one of her actual cartwheels, but this was all my camera could get since she was moving so fast.

The hippity hop station was right next to my station, so I was able to catch Abby bouncing her way to the finish line. And finally, a closeup of Abby as she passed off the sponge to her teammate as they raced to fill up a bucket with water from their sponge.

Abby did have one final choir performance in May. It was the week after Aubrey had her kinder performance, but it was after we had joined the YMCA so the girls had ballet class the same time as their performances. I went to Aubrey's performance while Tyler kept Tessa at ballet, so the following week I was with the girls at ballet while Tyler went to Abby's choir performance. Once ballet was over, we raced to the school to catch the end of her performance, but as we walked into the cafeteria everyone was clapping. I thought it was just the end of a number, but it was the end of the entire concert. It was only 30 minutes long and I had missed the entire thing. I was so sad and Abby was mad. She didn't even acknowledge my apology at first because she thought I should've been there. After she heard me telling our friends how hurt it made me, she gave me a hug and we made up. I was really bummed about missing this particular performance too because it was their rock concert and they sang a bunch of popular songs from our Rock Band game on the wii. Songs like Livin' on a Prayer, and Eye of the Tiger. Tyler videoed the performance on his phone so I can include it in our home videos, but he didn't take any pictures to include here in the blog.

 Less than a month later was their last day of school - June 9th. We ended up taking the girls out early that day to start our trip to California for Tyler's work conference. They just had parties all day so they didn't miss much, although the girls were sad to miss the fun stuff. They at least made an appearance so they basically just missed eating fun lunches in their classrooms. Abby's class party was a luau theme. They brought home their class awards and paperwork too. Abby made the A Honor Roll again this year, so she was super proud of herself for that. All three of her teachers loved her, so I was happy about that. She's always a great helper at school and loves going. It was definitely a successful 4th grade year.

She's excited to now be done with 4th grade and is ready for 5th grade which rules the school at her elementary. She's planning on playing the bass in orchestra next year and will probably run for a student officer position again. It's crazy to think that Abby will be starting her final year of elementary school in the fall. She's getting so grown up and we're so proud of all she has accomplished in school.