Libby Finishes 4th Grade

This was kind of a tough year for Libby.  She had a teacher that we struggled with.  She was very nice (to me).  But there was a lack of rigor and academic intensity that left room for difficult classroom management and lots of yelling.  There were several times I considered pulling her and homeschooling her.  When I look over her list of goals, I just kind of gave up as the year progressed.
She did take matters into her own hands.  She decided to write a play with her friends.  I tried to talk her out of it (and coerce her out of it, and bully her out of it) but she persisted.  They put on the play here for the families of the cast and some friends from church.  It was a great success.
She also made some great friends this year, and kept up with some of her friends from past years.  There was almost no friend drama.  Big improvement over previous years with this class of girls.
Anyway, I have high hopes for 5th grade for this talented lady.

The crowd for the "Snakes' Gazette"

The Queen and her lost (and now found) daughters

The cast takes a bow.

Love this girl's determination, talent, energy & look forward to a new year where she can live up to  her potential.

 

Sarah Finishes Second Grade

Sarah's Smashed her 2nd grade goals.

Finish the 4th Harry Potter.  YES!  She is now on the 7th!

Walk 5 Marathons.  Yes, she finished one just yesterday.

Some treadmill jogging 1x per week.  NO...oops.  Forgot about this one.

Study spelling every week...mostly!

Fill out reading log.  Nope.  Oops.  But she doesn't stop reading.

Remind mom to schedule playdates.  YES!  We did manage a few of these.

Sarah was a stellar student at school and at dance.  She is moving up to Jazz and Ballet 1/2.

Me:  Sarah, hold up the Orca...oops...(as it fell over...)  Maybe not.

Farewell 2nd grade.

3rd Grade...here I come!

Sarah's math teacher, Ms. Anderson

Sarah's classroom teacher, Ms. Uran

At the dance recital.  It was so fun to watch her sparkle on stage.

Ben Finishes Kindergarten

Ben Rocked Kindergarten.

Here were his goals that he set after Christmas break:

Make new friends.  YES!  He was tight with basically his whole class!

Be nice to new kids.  YES!  He was kind to a very difficult new homeless kid that was in his class for a few months.  During that time the student went from really challenging to a pretty functional part of the class.

Finish the picture Book of Mormon.  YES!  He did it!  He even took it to read on vacations so he could finish.  Some nights toward the end he even had to read 9 squares a night.  I think this kid is an "upholder."

Have Fun at Recess.  YES!

Keep Walking Marathons.  YES!  He has finished more than I can count this year. (Partly because sometimes he walks in the afternoon and we maybe forget about him.  Multiple times he has walked for around 3 miles before we remember he is still walking...oops.)  

Learn a new recess game.  Yes! (He told me this, I'm not sure what the game was...but I took his word for it.)

Only one goal we did not rock.  Do 1 homework page a day...my bad.  

Ben was sad on the last day. He will miss his friends and teachers.  But, he always finds fun wherever he goes.

Ben's face painting after a recent birthday party.  He got a dinosaur mouth!  I'm not sure whose idea it was, but it was certainly unique.

Ben with his gymnastics coach, Coach Doug.  Ben didn't love gymnastics, but mostly because the other boys in his class messed around so much.  He actually hit one of them once because what he was doing wasn't safe.  Oops.

Ben's last day poster.  His writing has improved so much.  He wrote all of that, with me "helping" with the spelling.  He got everything right except for his teachers' names.  Spacing is clearly still an issue.  But I am super familiar with Kindergarten issues, and his are completely normal.  :)

Ben's last day of school outfit.  He wore the hat all day until he loaned it to me at the pool.  

Ben with his teachers.  Read the shirts closely.  They are the teacher gifts we gave them.  

Summer starts!

We got a huge packet of Ben's writing on the last day of school.  This was Derek's favorite.  (In case you have trouble with the "Guess and Go spelling" Dad said, "let's put a wrestling mat into the garage." Ben said, "let's do it.")

Ben's big goal is to learn to ride a bike this summer.

My goal is for Ben to not break any more glasses this summer, since he broke his new pair (less than a month old) today.

All Comers Track Meet #1

I titled this post Track Meet #1, because it was so fun, I hope we get to go many Wednesdays this summer.  They take place at the stadium right around the corner from our house.  For $6 a head, kids and grown ups can run, jump and throw.  It was AMAZING to see all the adult and kid talent there.  It was a little intimidating for Libby, but all 3 did most of the events and had a good time.  And the lighting was picture perfect.  I wish I had taken my good camera.

Everyone gets a ribbon for every event.  We are going to get faster around here this summer!  I hope to run the walk/jog mile by the end of the summer.

Times and Seasons...

The last 4 months have shown me a few things. 

1.  I love teaching.  I missed it.  

2.  I can teach elementary school.  It is hard.  But so fun.  So challenging.

3.  I can't train clients and teach school.

4.  It is possible to eat food all week and never really cook (reheat, go out, etc.)

5.  I am not a nice mom when I am too busy.

6.  I love teaching more than I love training and running my own business.

So, I am shutting down the Nortown.  Mostly.  I will still train for trades (piano and swimming) this summer.  Then, I am applying for PART TIME jobs in the fall.

My certificate allows me to teach grades 5-12.  And to do curriculum support I can maybe do younger grades too.  (And in the spring do HiCap kinder again?  A job I can do because it is shorter than a certain number of contact days with students.)

I have to wait until fall to see what is open.  (That is when they hire part time positions usually.)  For the next 2 years, all 3 of my kids will be in the same school.  So I want to be there with them too.

At one point during my kindergarten teaching, Sarah said, "Why can't we just be like a normal family and go home after school?"

But now they are saying things like, "We will miss coming to your classroom after school!"  And, "It'll be sad if you aren't here next year mom!"

So, change is good.  It is like saying goodbye to family to let my clients go off on their own.  But I am confident that I taught them well.  They can still work on being Stronger Every Day.

I have another few sessions over the next couple of weeks.  I am ready for a break.  Some travel, and maybe even a home project this summer.  

Piano Recital 2017

Since I started working at the school, the girls' quality of piano practice time went way down.  It was one of the mom fails that led me to realize that I CAN'T work as much as I did the last 4 months if I want my kids to be successful.  But anyway, I digress.
They managed to pull out a pretty good performance at the piano recital.  Up until the recital Sarah was still playing "Hedwig's Theme" like it was a new piece that she struggled with EVERY SINGLE TIME.  Since it was Libby's piece last year, I didn't expect it to be that hard.  But it was.  "Rise and Shine" she started learning only a month or so before the recital.  And you can tell.
Libby, on the other hand, picked her piece early on, refused to learn 2, and pretty quickly memorized her piece and played it well.  You would think from listening to their recital that Libby practiced more diligently than Sarah.  NOT SO.  Sarah practices basically every day.  She ticks off her songs in her notebook to make sure she plays them all.  Libby plays most days.  And what she plays is hit and miss.  Sometimes she composes, or picks out songs.  Sometimes she actually plays what she is supposed to (but never all 3 times).  Occasionally she even plays her scales. But, this is how this one turned out:

On the way in

The girls with their great teacher

Ben is SIX!!

Okay, so his birthday was over a week ago.  But I wanted to wait until all the festivities were over until I blogged about them.  Then the week ran away with me.  (I finished teaching my kindergarten class!!!)

Anyway I told Ben that he could have 3 friends for his "party."  He requested a transformers party with a treasure hunt.  Easy enough.  I found online and slightly modified a treasure hunt to lead the crew to the Transformers cake and the main gift I made for him, a fort for under his bed.

He was allowed 3 friends for his party because this pack of Transformers was a 3 pack.  One for each kid.  That helped Ben feel better about my NO Presents policy, since he knew he was getting a Transformer from his cake.  It also took the place of the traditional "goody bag" which is something I loathe.  You end up coming home with a bunch of junk that is so cute and party themed, but that you don't really want cluttering up your house.  Anyway, I digress.  After the treasure hunt, the played happily in the fort until the parents came to pick them up.

Birthday party win.
 
On his actual birthday Derek took him to breakfast and Toy's R Us to pick out a gift.  He chose a talking Transformers sword.

Then he had to go to the piano recital for his sisters.  His least favorite part of the day.

McDonald's was his dinner choice.  Then off to bed.

He was really disappointed when he didn't get any more presents on Sunday morning.  (In fact, his birthday turned him into a grump for several days.) But Sunday evening, the Norton's showered him with love & gifts.  Overall it was a great birthday.  He has slept in his fort everynight I would let him since his birthday.

This cake had me up at 5 am to decorate it before I subbed for Ben's teacher that day.  Ugh.  I was so worried about how long it would take.  It was actually really good, a Duff "Tie Dye" cake mix.  The frosting was store bought.  Bleh.  But the best I could do with the time that I had.

Only the best in drinks, ha!  Ben chose grape soda to go with the English Muffin Pizzas.  Note to self, the Multigrain English Muffins are too sweet to be pizza crusts.  But we ate them anyway.  

Party Crew!

In Party Mode.

The FORT!  (This was a pretty spendy project, since I bought myself a new sewing machine to make it.  I bought a pretty cheap one though, so it could have been worse.  I have already used it multiple times since this fort.)

Sock Monkey from Grandma Debbie

Matchy on the Birthday (on our way to Piano Recital).

The girls got him a Panda and a fidget spinner (he already broke one fidget spinner, so we will see how long this one lasts).  

Happy Birthday Benny Boy!  This week Ben also finished the Picture Book of Mormon.  He has been reading a few squares a night, increasing in number so that he could complete his goal of finishing by the end of the school year.  It was sweet to be there with him when he finished.  The first of many many times you will read this great book!

Chess Club Finale

So in addition to being a jock, it turns out Derek was also a chess nerd.  So, of course Sarah wanted to join chess club.  Derek helped chaperone several times.  Sarah's chess coach had the same chess coach that Derek did.  Sarah really enjoyed chess club.  I'm not sure how much she won, but she got to spend time with some of her best friends from her class.  I snapped a couple of pictures during this, the final week.

Big Boy Ben

On Memorial Day we spent some quality time at the pool.  I lounged and read while the kids swam.  Ben begged to be able to swim without his life jacket.  So I swim tested him every which way.  He did just fine, so I gave him the thumbs up to swim without it.  He is in heaven.
Also on Memorial Day, he was playing "push down tag."  "You know Mom, where you don't just tag someone, you try to push them down!"
So, he got new glasses this week.  Luckily the Costco guy let me buy the display frame that fit his lenses and INSTANT new glasses.  Hooray.  I promised him I'd order the Transformer frame he fell in love with next time he needs new glasses.

I took a picture of him in the Transformers frames, so we can remember to get them next time.  

Broken frames, bruised face.  I put "push down tag" on the banned games list.  

Into the 8 foot.  Pure joy!

Happy Birthday Derek

I swear that my favorite podcaster, Gretchen Rubin, can read my mind.  She has done several episodes that are just straight up answers to questions that I have.  Just a few weeks ago the "know yourself better" section of her podcast was about coming to realize how you actually feel about your birthday.  Until this time, I just thought Derek was just being kind of a stinker about his birthday.  But, I guess, according to Gretchen (and my husband) there are people who really don't like to celebrate their birthdays.  So, now I know.  Did this stop me from throwing him a tiny party?  No, it did not.  Would he have rather been sleeping?  Probably.  But Happy Stinking Birthday Anyway Birthday Hater ;)

Derek with his huge pile of presents.  He had to open his big gift before we went to dinner (the fire pit) so that he would know why we had to hurry-ish at dinner so we could come back and roast marshmallows. 

He only had 2 birthday requests.  Dinner at the Sushi Buffet, and that I would make cookies for his co-workers.  He was granted both wishes.  Lucky boy.  

Fire pit about to get started! 

I only invited 2 friends and some family members.  And these friends are practically family.  Brian Alfi.

And Mike.  Who also supplied the wood and tended the fire. 

I can't get enough of this guy . (Literally since he is always working right now.  The Mariners have 17 games in June or something ridiculous like that.)

A Maren Special.  Totally blackened marshmallows.  

Grammy and Grandpa even came.  Sadly it rained just a bit before the fire.  The cement was mossy and slippery and Grammy fell.  Yikes.  The next day she said she was ok.  And on his next morning off, Derek got out the pressure washer to start cleaning the cement.

Before pressure washing up top, the clean cement down below.  It was really dirty and mossy!