Miscellaneous End of School Year Celebrations

Sienna showing off some art work at her school's open house

Braden's Art Work Display

R.J. after his last band concert of the season.  He played the trombone this year and did a great job.

R.J.'s G.A.T.E. class had a 6-week segment where they studied Ancient Greece.  They wore chitons in class every day (like a toga), sat in groups as their assigned Greek city, etc.  Their P.E. class followed along learning all the sports in the Greek Olympics.  At the end, we had an exhibition night where they dressed up and gave presentations.  R.J. and his partner taught us about Ancient Greek weapons.

Conner's 4th Birthday

Birthday Donuts and a CARS light up tracing table

Conner has been so excited for weeks that his birthday was coming up.

Best bed-head ever

Every time I asked Conner what he wanted for his birthday dinner, all he would say he wanted was a giant cupcake.  Thanks to a neighbor with a giant cupcake pan, we made his wish come true!

I know it's a little lopsided.  It was really hard to get that cake out of the pan and it ended up coming out in pieces that I had to put back together.  Thank goodness Conner is not a perfectionist.:o)

Conner's favorite present, you can see in his left hand, a capri sun wallet my sister sent to him.  He was so excited and for days kept stealing everyone's money to put in his wallet.

Starstruck

Sienna and her fellow 3rd-graders waiting for the music to start.

This is the closest she ever got to a smile for the whole performance!

As a P.E. segment, our school has a special dance program where a "professional" comes in and teaches all the grades a different dance.  Then, we have a fun performance.  This year it fell on the same night as the Pinewood Derby, and Braden chose that instead of dance.  So I went to the dance performance to watch Sienna, who was very excited, but never actually smiled while she was dancing. :o)

Braden's 10th Birthday

 Braden invited two friends to go to the Hunger Games movie for his birthday party.  He made his own invitation.  I thought it was cute that he spelled it wrong. :o)

 On the morning of his birthday, he woke up to donuts and presents.  He was very excited to get Legos.  His primary teacher also brought him a present, which was so nice.  Sienna surprised me with a wrapped gift for him.  It was so funny, she took one of my books and wrapped it for him as a gift from her. :o)  She also put together a little book of her own, which was super cute.

 I always let the kids pick their own birthday dinner.  Braden made me laugh that he wanted hamburger helper.  Of course, we added yummy cupcakes.

St. Patrick's Day

 We had Lucky Charms and green milk, but green cake pops for breakfast was the most exciting.

 Conner was very happy with his St. Patrick's Day breakfast!

 We had corned beef and cabbage for dinner.  It was okay, but for some reason I remember it being yummier in past years.  These yummy green crinkle cookies made up for it.

 Another successful holiday celebration! :o)

Mother / Son Dance

We had a fun mother-son dance at the school a bunch of months ago.  It was a schizophrenic theme, "So You think You Can Dance AND Play games" or something like that, plus they told us to dress up from our favorite sports team AND there was something else, but can't remember it right now.  But it was fun, and we got pizza and lots of cookies.  We even got to take pizza home since they ordered about 30 too many!

Blue & Gold

For Blue & Gold, Braden chose a CTR cake.  It had nothing to do with the theme, but he really, really wanted it, so that's what we did!  Braden also received the Faith in God Religious Knot for cub scouting, which is a big deal and a lot of work.  Good job Braden!

Valentine's Day

We found a cute idea for the kids' valentine's this year, we made heart shaped crayons and attached them to cardstock that said something clever, but weirdly, I didn't take pictures of the finished project.  I think it said, "Be my valentine, for crayon out loud!", something like that.

 We have a tradtion of fondue for dessert on Valentine's Day.  It's one of my favorite traditions!

 Loving our cousins on V-Day!

OKAY, why have I never thought of this before?!  CHOCOLATE SUGAR COOKIES!!  Best cookies ever.  I added strawberry cream cheese frosting.  So amazingly delicious.

Letter From Braden's Schoolmate

Well, just when I was starting the process of updating my blog, my computer broke AGAIN! This time it is unfixable, and there are no immediate plans to get a new one. I have the iPad, but can't upload pictures, and weirdly, can't see all my friends' blogs either, so my blog-stallings days are on hold too.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a field trip with Braden's class. The kids assigned to me all wrote cute thank you notes to me. But one note in particular I keep reading again and laughing every time. Here it is:

Dear Mrs. Pinney,

Thank you for chaperoning us. You must be a good mom for the way Braden turns out. Did you know Braden brings Legos to school? Braden almost always gets his clip pulled. He's hard to tame. You should check his pocket or backpack before he goes to school. If anyone can tame him, it's you, the mom of Braden.

From
Philip

Daddy Daughter 50's dance

January 28, 2012 Sienna had a father daughter 50's dance at her school. For months I scoured Pinterest looking for an easy way to make a poodle skirt. I was stressing big time! Then about a week before the dance, Sienna asks if she can wear this skirt already in her closet. Best day of my life! It's not technically a poodle skirt, but it swirls like one and I didn't have to do any sewing. And that's good, because it would have produced a lot of tears and maybe a few bad words in my mind.

January 2012

I've had a broken computer for about a month. Ryan's co-worker's husband fixed it for me and I can catch up on my blog again! So here's some random photos from January...

Conner's Bedtime Prayers

Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for the nice day. Thank you I could play at the playground. Thank you for Braden. Thank you for R.J. Thank you for Sienna. Thank you for the playground. Thank you for monster trucks. Thank you for Heavenly Father. Thank you I could play at the park. Thank you I could go to Luke's. Thank you for noses. Thank you for Daddy and thank you for Mommy. Thank you for Heavenly Father and Jesus. Thank you for chairs. Thank you for the pizza. Name of Jesus Christ, amen!

Best Friends by Braden Pinney

One of the people in my life who was nice to me was Austin. He is also my best friend. That's why Mrs. Roderick had to move us apart. That means we are really good friends. He was nice to me when he came up to me and wanted to be my friend. I think he's awesome. Too bad we're at different sides of the classroom. But I still say he's awesome. He is the best friend ever.

Happy New Year's!!!

On New Year's Eve, Ryan and I had a nice dinner out with friends. Then we went home to be with the kids, and I tried to pretend it was not New Year's and was just going to send them to bed. Too bad they are smart and figured it out in time. We started off the New Year with 9am church, so we celebrated with New York. :o) I didn't think to have my camera ready for the moment, so this video is actually when the madness was dying down. :o) Fair warning, it's loud and annoying....