Taryn's Kindergarten First Semester

Taryn started her first year of school this year. She had been looking forward to it all summer, and even kept asking when it was going to be Dad's birthday because she knew the first day of school was on Tyler's birthday this year. Here she is on the first day. I got a picture of her with Mrs. Hardwick before they left for the classroom. She was a little sad when I had to leave her, but once she gets to the classroom, she always does fine.

We had a harder transition than I thought we would considering how excited she was to start. But the first couple weeks, if I walked Taryn into the cafeteria in the mornings, she would cry when she had to go to the playground, and she didn't want me to leave. Other mornings, I would send her in with Aubrey and Tessa, and she'd do just fine. Once she got into the habit of the morning routine, she did fine; but there were definitely more tears than I thought there'd be. I've been coming to most of Taryn's Fun Fit Fridays so I can see her during PE. We grabbed this picture at her first one, as we walked outside.

In October, the Kindergarten field trip is to a pumpkin patch. I was able to go and help chaperone, and we had so much fun. 

We had tables under a big tent and we took some pictures of the class before we left to walk around and play.

We were able to ride the wagon pulled by a huge tractor out to the pumpkin fields where we picked our pumpkins. Here's a picture of Taryn with her new friend Gabby, and then a picture of me and Taryn.

This was the perfect pumpkin that Taryn picked.

We saw some goats and other animals too. Taryn's in this picture with Alyssa and Isabella, twins from her class.

They had huge slides where they got to slide down on potato sacks. Taryn is the one on the left sliding down. She loved the slide.

They also had a huge jumping bubble. We were able to go on with almost her entire class. Here's Taryn jumping with some of her classmates.

It's hard to see in the first picture, but Taryn is completely in the air in this one right above the yellow section. And I loved this second picture because you can see their teacher, Mrs. Hardwick, who jumped with them. It was so awesome!

We did some walking around with Taryn's friends, but we also did a little wondering on her own. She took a turn on the tire horse swing, and we got a picture of her at the entrance to the corn maze.

During lunch they enjoyed the shade of the tent. Here's Taryn smiling her apple smile with Isabella, Alyssa, and Gabby.

We got to see a pig race, so while we waited for the pigs to get ready, I grabbed a picture of the entire class with the moms who came to help. As you can see, Taryn's class shirt was bright green.

As we lined up to get back on the buses, we took a picture of Mrs. Hardwick with her entire class by the pumpkin stand. Taryn's class only has 13 kids this year, with two sets of twins. It's been such a fun class.

Taryn was one of the first kids in her class to have a birthday, so we took donuts to her class and I took a picture of her with her special birthday hat that she got to wear all day. She chose a pretty dress for the fall picture day. This was the picture I printed out to keep on our piano with all the other girls' kindergarten pictures. She looks so old in it I think.

I joined Taryn for her Thanksgiving lunch too. She ate with her friends Cort and Teagan. Teagan was being a stinker and didn't want to look up for the picture, so he posed like this on purpose.

The kindergarten through 2nd grade students participated in the career puppet parade and had to make puppets of what they wanted to be when they grew up. Taryn had decided she wanted to be a dentist. So we gave her puppet a face mask, scrubs, and drew a tooth on her shirt, which is too hard to see in this picture, but it's there.

Instead of keeping all the cute things Taryn brings home from school, I decided to take a picture so we could then throw them away. This was her Thanksgiving placemat and her turkey hat, both crafts she made around Thanksgiving time.

At Christmas, they did a polar express adventure like the older grades. I loved how their pictures on the train in the hallway were posed so it looked like they were waving or looking out the window at the passersby. It was so cute, I had to take a picture.

I helped run the Christmas party on their last day before the Christmas break, but that kept me busy that I wasn't able to take very many pictures. They were able to do a lot of crafts including painting candy cane ornaments. 

Mrs. Hardwick made her special holiday drink that had sherbet and ginger ale. Some of the kids liked it, and some of them didn't. They all had a great time playing and crafting though. It was a really fun time.

Taryn finished off her first semester of Kindergarten really strongly. She loves school now and she loves her teacher. She loves learning and helping the other kids in her class. All the other moms say she's the sweetest girl and everyone loves her. She started the year reading a lot of words and can now read all books by herself. We're so proud of her and love to see how grown up she is, even if she'll always be our baby girl.

Aubrey's 3rd Grade First Semester

Aubrey was very excited to start the 3rd grade this year. She got a brand new teacher at Lundy, Mrs. Rader, and she has loved her. Here's her first day of school picture.

Aubrey makes friends so easily. At one of the first Fun Fit Fridays, she wanted me to take a picture with some of her friends. Then I grabbed some pictures while they took turns jumping rope. They sing a song and then start naming the letters of the alphabet to see how far they can go without messing up. Aubrey made it to the letter 'S'. It was so fun to watch her. She was very good.

At the school's Family Picnic, there were people doing face painting. Aubrey showed them a picture of the flower that she had painted on her face this past summer so that the lady could recreate it again. It turned out pretty cute. Aubrey loved it. The theme at their school this year is Stars Wars and every Wednesday they are supposed to wear their spirit shirts. Aubrey and Taryn decided to go completely matchy-matchy by wearing their matching shoes, khaki pants, and purple jackets. I even had to do their hair the same way - a half pony tail. They looked so cute!

Here's Lexi and Aubrey as they lined up for class one morning. They have a really fun class and Aubrey gets along with everyone. She's always a great helper for her teacher too.

Aubrey went to a friend's birthday party down the street from us. They had a sleepover, but Aubrey just stayed for the dinner and craft. The party was for Bailey, and Bailey's mom sent me this picture of all the girls before Aubrey left. She loves all her friends.

Here's Aubrey on picture day. She's still my fancy girl who prefers to wear dresses and accessories. If we had had more time that morning, she would have requested curly hair too. One of her school projects was to disguise a turkey, so Aubrey decided to turn her turkey into a peacock, her favorite animal!

I was able to join Aubrey for their Thanksgiving lunch between helping serve in the kitchen. She loves when we come eat lunch with her.

Here's another visit I had during Fun Fit Friday. The girls showed me some of their gymnastic moves and dances that they had created themselves. The first picture is Wen, Milan, Aubrey, and Lexi. The second picture is Lydia with Aubrey.

One day before the Christmas break, the entire 3rd grade did a polar express adventure and traveled the "world" learning about Christmas in other countries. I helped in Aubrey's classroom which had the country of Brazil. Aubrey's picture on the polar express in their hallway was so cute. She's next to last.

I made a quick stop at Aubrey's classroom during their Christmas party which was held on the last day before the break. They made cookies and played games. I was running Taryn's class party, so I only stayed long enough for a few pictures in Aubrey's class. I luckily got one with Aubrey and her teacher, Mrs. Rader.

We also decided to take the time while I was there to get a picture of the entire class, so that was fun too. Here they all are. Aubrey's doing really well in school, all A's so far. She loves playing with her friends, making up dance numbers, and helping her teachers. She prefers recess and lunch of course because she gets to visit with her friends then, but she says she likes Math and Science the best of all her subjects.

Tessa's 5th Grade First Semester

Tessa started her 5th grade year, 6th and final year at Lundy. She was very excited to be the oldest grade at the school. She wanted to join the Safety Patrol this year and goes early every morning to do that before school. Here's a picture of her first day of school, and also one with her safety patrol belt during the first week of school. Taryn was having a hard time leaving me in the mornings, and Tessa was very helpful by signing up on the safety patrol route that monitored the kindergarten playground so that she could be near Taryn. She's such a great big sister!

At the beginning of the year, Tessa decided to run for a class officer. After hearing what her friends were doing and deciding on what she wanted, Tessa chose to ran for Vice President. These are some pictures that we took to use on her two campaigning posters. 

Tessa was very creative and decided on her own poster designs and created and colored them all by herself. We took some pictures the morning that we put them up. They stayed up in the cafeteria for two weeks until the 5th grade class voted. And Tessa was elected as Vice President. She was so happy. She goes to monthly meetings and helps the Counselor, Mrs. Derrick, with a lot of her projects and programs. Tessa was nervous about the speech she had to give in front of the entire grade, but she did great on that. And now she even does many announcements over the loud speaker for the entire school. Tessa really enjoys it and has come so far from the shy, quiet girl who started Kindergarten here.

In October, Tessa received some free tickets to the El Paso Symphony Orchestra because her orchestra teacher performs with them. We made a night of it by going with Niki Deca and her son, Ethan, who's in class with Tessa. We had a really fun time. 

We sat in the highest balcony, but they saw some of their other classmates there and thought it was pretty cool to be able to see everything from so high up. After the concert, we waited for their teacher, Mrs. Cedillos, so we could get a picture with her. The kids were so excited to give her a hug and tell her she had done a great job. 

Here's Tessa on picture day. Her hair was getting so long. 

The El Paso School Distrist put on an expo at UTEP for schools to come and show off their programs. As Student Body Vice President, Tessa took a turn representing Lundy. She was there with two of her friends, Taryn and Bianca. They talked about the programs available at Lundy like STEAM, art, LION kings, and other programs and gave out candy to those stopping by to visit their booth. 

We took a close up of one of the posters they made because there's a picture of the student body government on there and Tessa's in the picture. We also got to spend some time walking around to see the other schools' booths. One near ours was displaying their fitness program and they had a bike you could ride to see how fast you could burn a certain number of calories. Tessa wanted to give it a try. The bike was a little large for her, so it was hard to keep it going fast, but she gave it her all and had fun trying. 

I joined all the girls for their Thanksgiving Lunch in November. Tessa was able to eat with some of her friends and families when I ate with her. After we took a selfie of the two of us, I took a picture of her with Bianca and Taryn. 

The other girls were having their pictures taken with some of their school projects on this day. Tessa didn't have any projects to have a picture taken with, but I went ahead and took a picture of her anyway since she was packed up and all ready to head off to school. 

Tessa has really loved playing in the orchestra this year, and they had their first concert right before the Christmas break. Tessa plays the violin and had a great seat right on the end of her row. She was very excited to play all the songs that they had been practicing. Her favorite was a Carol of the Bells song.

For their final two numbers, I moved up to the front of the aisle so I could take some close up pictures of her while she played. The best part was during their final song, Jingle Bells, a few select students were able to stand up in front of the orchestra and play a special portion of the song. Tessa was one of those students, but she didn't even tell me, so it was a total surprise when she stood up, walked over, and practically stood right in front of me. It was awesome that I was right there to get this great picture of her while she played. 

This was the best picture I got of her half of the orchestra. It's a very large group and this is just the violin side. 

After the concert, Tessa wanted her picture with Mrs. Cedillos. While we waited our turn for that picture, we got a picture of Tessa with two of the boys from our ward who are good friends with Tessa. Here she is with Reve Andersen and Ethan Deca. And then we got the picture we wanted with Tessa and Mrs. Cedillos. 

Once a month, we are still able to visit our kids during their PE class. They call it Fun Fit Friday. I was able to go to a couple of those this year, but this is the only picture I took with Tessa during one of them. Here she is with her closest friend Bella. I also only took one picture when I stopped by Tessa's class during their Christmas party on the last day before the Christmas break. It was also a picture with just her and Bella.

I'll have to get better pictures of her entire class and with her teachers before the end of the year comes around. She's having a great 5th grade year so far and is really enjoying everything about school. She has straight As in all of her classes and she says she loves Science the most right now. Her teachers are Mrs. Currey and Mr. Martinez and she loves them both. Her 5th grade year is turning out to be the best year yet.