Aubrey is No Longer a Kindergartner

Aubrey is the first one to tell you that she is no longer a kindergartner. As soon as school was over, she started telling everyone that she is now a 1st grader. So here's a look back at when she was still officially in kindergarten. Most of her big school events were near the end of the school year, so we begin in May with Field Day. I was a chaperone for her class, so instead of staying at one station, I got to rotate with her class and stay with them the entire time. They were excited to line up and spend the morning outside. This is the one picture I got of her entire kindergarten class once we were all outside.

Here are a few of their games. They had a "ring toss" game and a balance race where they had to keep the soccer ball balanced on the plunger.

The Hippity Hop race was one of the kids' favorites as was the snack station where they got popsicles. Eating popsicles with Aubrey was Wen and Reagan.

This was the best station for me to get pictures. Until the last week of school, this was the only picture I had of Aubrey's teacher, Mrs. Hardwick, who we love. She got teacher of the year this year and we were so happy to be in her class. She really is one of the best teachers ever.

Mrs. Hardwick took a picture of me with Aubrey as they were heading back inside for class. I loved being able to spend this time with Aubrey and her classmates.

Near the end of May, Aubrey had her kindergarten performance. Their performance was titled Love makes the world go round. They sang really cute songs and had videos where each kid answered some question like "I love my mom because..." Aubrey's class video was about Dads and Aubrey's answer about why she loves her dad was because he tickles her and snuggles with her. It was a really cute performance.

 Aubrey's class is in green and she is the second one over on the second row. On her left is Katy, one of her closest friends from school. Katy moved to San Antonio at the end of the school year which made Aubrey really sad, but they had a fun year together. They included dance moves in some of the numbers and even sang a few in spanish. It was a lengthy program, but we enjoyed it.

 This next picture isn't from school, but I wanted to include it because I love it so much. This is from a family night when Aubrey was in charge of the lesson. We use lessons from the Friend magazine and Aubrey picked out the one she wanted to read and Tessa stood up there and helped her read it. Tessa was whispering the phrases to Aubrey who then repeated them out loud. They planned all this without my help and as I sat there listening to them that night, I was overcome with how happy I was as a mom. They were so cute and it made me tear up a little as I saw big sister helping little sister and how well they were working together. I was so proud of them. Aubrey has developed her reading a lot this year and is doing great at reading on her own which is another reason I wanted to include this picture since it incorporates all that Aubrey has learned in school this year.

Aubrey tested for GT during the school year and passed the test. After we got the results, I asked her if she for sure wanted to be in GT and at first she said no. I asked her why and she said because it was so boring because she was thinking about taking the test and how she thought that wasn't fun at all. Once I explained to her that the actual GT time would be fun and doing extra projects, she decided she did want to do it. They learned about artists and at the GT fair, this was Aubrey's artwork display complete with reports on the different types of artwork. She said she liked being in there and plans to continue on the GT path. 

The last week of school was busy with class parties and award ceremonies. Aubrey's award ceremony was complete with candy awards, class bridges, a class video, and ice cream. Jeremy was Aubrey's bridge partner until it was her turn to run through.

Aubrey got the sweet tarts award for being so sweet and friendly and helpful during her kindergarten year. Her teacher, Mrs. Hardwick, said such nice things about Aubrey. It was really sweet. And I finally got a picture with just her and her teacher, Mrs. Hardwick.

I grabbed a couple pictures of Aubrey with her classmates while they enjoyed their ice cream treat. Sitting with her here starting at the left is Chloe, Daisy, Taryn, Aubrey, and Shaelyn.

And then it was the last day of school.

On that final day, the kindergartners got to have a year-end celebration. It was similar to field day with outdoor activities, just not all fitness related. They had stations like chalk drawing and bubbles along with ones like relay races and the hippity hop.

They of course had the playground and snack stations which are probably the kids' favorite ones. Here are some of Aubrey's classmates enjoying their popsicles. From the left, it's Brayden, Katy, Aubrey, Daisy, and Elise. 

I was able to help out again and stay with their class during each rotation. I remember helping with Tessa's kindergarten celebration and the picture of Tessa under the huge parachute was one of my favorites, so I knew I wanted to try and get one with Aubrey. Hers turned out really cute too. I love all the colors from the parachute. 

One of the other moms took a picture of the two of us for me. I love how it turned out. I'm so proud of Aubrey and how well she did this year in school.

The final station was a photo booth. It was decorated so well, and they had props to hold. Here's half of Aubrey's class. We left right after this to get the other girls and leave for California, so she had to say her goodbyes here and miss the rest of the day. I was just happy they had the celebration in the morning and the award ceremony the day before so that she didn't miss either of those. 

They even had the 2015 sign which I loved so we could always remember Aubrey's kindergarten year. She couldn't decide between the bow prop or the glasses prop so we had to have one of each. 

Happy Kindergarten Graduation Aubrey!!

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.

Annual Memorial Day Weekend Trip to San Antonio

For the third year in a row, we traveled to San Antonio for the Memorial Day weekend. We stayed with Scott and Nevla and had a great time. The best part for me was that for the third year in a row, my birthday has been during that weekend, so it's like a vacation trip to help me celebrate! It was a blast. It always seems to rain the times we travel down there, and this year was no exception, but it didn't keep us from having fun. We're big board game players anyway, so we would have been fine holed up in the house all weekend, but we did venture out and the rain subsided enough for us to do a few new fun things. Scott and Nevla had been telling us about this sanctuary on base called the Quadrangle where you can feed peacocks and deer. We finally made it there this trip. This is where I took all my pictures for the weekend. The peacocks were awesome.

Being on base, there were a couple amazing photo spots where the girls had to have pictures taken like by the tank and helicopter that were right outside the Quadrangle. 

I just loved the peacocks. There were so many just walking around and many of the male peacocks kept spreading their feathers trying to impress the females. We'd just wait until they turned toward us to take a picture. Sometimes they were not very cooperative, but it was entertaining. 

Aubrey and I couldn't ever quite get the right angle. Here's a picture with the peacocks behind. Aubrey was not very happy with this picture. Trying to take a selfie with the peacock behind you in the daylight when it's very hard to see the picture being taken was very hard. This was the best I could get with Tyler and Taryn too. 

My favorite were these white peacocks. They were roaming everywhere too, but it wasn't until we were about to leave that one of those peacocks finally fanned out its feathers. They were so pretty!

We had a ton of vegetables to feed the deer. They were very tame and came right up to you to eat the food out of your hands. There was one that was the most aggressive and would take food from you whether you wanted it to or not. That deer Nevla recognized from her previous visits because of it's funny-shaped teeth. She had already named it "Buck Tooth." It became the deer that all the kids talked about after we left.

There also was a pond with some huge koi fish. This was Taryn's favorite spot. She loved pointing out and following that huge multi-colored fish that you can see in her picture. Of course, the girls loved spending time with Chloe. We love when we get together with family!

We ate lunch for my birthday at a Mexican restaurant that was yummy. Luckily we were in the restaurant the one time the rain poured. The rest of the rain and storms happened while we were at home playing games or hanging out. Scott made me a cheesecake from scratch for my birthday cake. It was delicious! I love cheesecake and hadn't had any in a really long time. Yummy!

I opened up a few gifts which included new dishes, a wheat grinder, an Amazon gift card, and some new board games. It was a great birthday weekend, and we loved spending it with family.