End of the school year wrap up

I have always heard from friends how crazy the end of the year is with school-aged children.  I never quite understood that until this year.  Whoa!  The last month of school was busy but the last 2 weeks was unlike anything I'd ever experienced.  There was something we had to do on our calendar pretty much every day for the last 2 weeks, if not more than one thing.  It was mentally and physically exhausting.  My mom stayed for an extra week after the rest of my family left and boy was she a lifesaver.  She may never want to spend the last week of school with us again.  I don't know how I would have done it all without her.

To be fair, our crazy schedule wasn't all due to school related stuff.  In the last 3 weeks of school, we had 10 medical/doctor appointments of some kind or another.  Half of them, or more, were mine.  I recently started seeing a pain specialist doctor for my migraines and he had me getting MRI's, starting physical therapy and doing nerve blocks.  That is a story for another day, but the appointments for it all were never ending.  My kids had dentist appointments, well-child checks and Chloe randomly burned her eye with a piece of onion (no joke) that warranted an unplanned trip to the ophthalmologist (and many calls from her school, frantic that she had pink eye).  The only appointment they had available was during my MRI appointment, which I really couldn't reschedule.  My mom had to drop me off at my appointment, then use GPS to find the eye doctor, since she had never been there before.  She took all of the kids with her to Chloe's appointment and did amazing.  She also babysat for us numerous other times throughout the week, including two evenings when we had plans with friends.  She was so, so good to us. We were also in the midst of finishing up baseball practices and games.  The end of the school year brought all sorts of things to attend, send to school, bring home from school, etc, etc.  I'm getting tired just reliving it all.

These 3 sweet girls that I get to spend most of my days with were troopers.  There was so much going on an they rolled with all of it.  This scene is still something I smile about when I see it.  The twins were playing on the iPad and Livy saw them from across the room and quickly crawled over to them and crawled right up on their backs to get a crack at what they were doing.  She knew it was fun and she wanted to be a part of it!

One of the end-of-the-school-year events was the all school BBQ.   This event is normally held outdoors.  Families are invited to come and eat the BBQ meal with their kids.  Hamburgers, hotdogs and lots of sides are served.  The kids and I and my parents (who were in town at the same time) went last year with Chloe to this same event an it was a lot of fun.  We were all planning on going again this year, but it was pouring rain the day of the BBQ.  The other problem I had was that my kids eat lunch at different times and I really wanted to be there with both of them.  Since the BBQ couldn't be held outside as planned, that made things really tricky for me, as I wouldn't be able to just stay the whole hour and just hang out on the grass.  And as much as I love to eat, I couldn't (in good conscience) eat 2 BIG lunches back to back.  And I didn't want to drag Livy around and have her miss her morning nap either.

My parents were both still in town by this point, which ended up being a lifesaver.  Mitch's lunch hour was at 11:00 which is early!  My parents were up to eating quite that early and Livy was still asleep, so my folks stayed home with all the kids an I snuck away to just go and be with Mitchell during his lunch hour.

My kids would eat at school everyday if I let them (once a month, max, is our rule).  They were super excited to get an extra day in June to eat the school lunch.

All the teachers had to improvise.  Mitch's teacher moved all the desks and chairs and the kids sat on the floor and ate.  I have to say, it was pretty gross.  25 kindergarteners eating a very messy lunch on dirty carpet was not very appetizing.  And to sit and watch almost all of them spill something or another right on the carpet was hard (mustard, ketchup, ice cream).  Ahhh.  So glad it wasn't my carpet.

I was glad to be there with my little man though.  He didn't mind at all that I wasn't eating.

After his lunch hour ended, I raced back home to pick everyone else up to race back to the school to eat with Chloe.  Her lunch hour at noon was much more conducive to eating a big lunch.

Her teacher just had everyone eat at their desks.  Me, the twins and my parents just found a spot where we could and ate.  Chloe was so excited to show Livy off.  Her good friend Saylor (above) is a really sweet girl and has helped Chloe have such a positive first year at her new school.

It was so fun having Grandma and Papa there with her!

Father's Day!  What a wonderful father this man is to our children.  Where I lack energy sometimes, he definitely makes up for it.  He is so great about incorporating them into almost everything he is doing.  He will let them help him with all sorts of projects and loves to have them by his side doing yard work, car repairs, trips to the store, etc.  He loves teaching them new skills; he is currently teaching Chloe how to mow the law and she loves it!  He is great about taking them to do outdoor activities whenever he can.  He spent countless hours playing catch with any and all of them all spring long.  He loves taking them fishing and wishes he could take them all camping every weekend.    They know that when something breaks, Dad can fix it!  He's the best handy man around and they are always so excited and proud when he fixes their toys.  What a guy!  Happy Father's Day Benj!

The kids all brought home cute little gifts and papers for him.

From Mitch

From Leah; I LOVE the tiny little magnet cutouts of the twins.  They are hanging on our fridge and are the most adorable things.

From Lexi

From Chloe.  She made the little ceramic fish design all by herself.  We were super impressed.

Miss Oliva turned 9 months old on June 17th, admits our craziness. 

Her monthly pictures are getting a little bit harder to take as she gets more and more active.

At least she is happy this month!  Her 8 month pictures were tears and drama.

9 months brought a good well-child check- no shots!  It was a very pleasant visit.  9 month stats:

Weight: 18 lbs, 10 oz (50%)

Length: 27.5 in (50%)
Head: 43.5 cm ( under 50%)

This girl loves to stand any chance she gets.

She's pretty proud of it too!

The twins had their preschool graduation/party on June 17th.  They had been looking forward to it for weeks.  The party was held at Super Jump, a local bouncy house place.  What a perfect place for a group of energetic preschool kids.

My mom offered to stay home with Olivia so I could fully enjoy being with the twins.  That was such a nice gift and really worked out so nicely.  It was during Olivia's nap time and she wouldn't have been very much fun missing a nap and trying to get into everything that she was too small for anyway. 

The girls an two of their friends.  Leah is crazy, I tell you.  This was probably her cheetah face (her current obsession.  She loves acting like a cheetah).

The girls each brought Miss Cindy a thank you treat and card.  We recently just found out that this is Miss Cindy's last year doing preschool.  She has done it for 16 years.  We are so, so sad that she isn't doing preschool anymore but we were so glad to be in her final group of kids.  She is the most amazing preschool teacher and we are sure going to miss her.

The best treat of all was Ben got to come!  He surprised the girls an they were so excited!

The girls had no fear of the big slides.

Lexi liked it on her tummy!

The morning and afternoon classes with Miss Cindy!

They sang a few songs for the parents and showed us all of the alphabet in sign language.  Adorable.

Each child then got their own graduation certificate.  Miss Cindy also put together a collage of pictures that she took throughout the year that she gave to each child.

Then it was time for pizza and juice!

And cake for dessert!

Such a fun day.  The girls are off to Pre-Kindergarten next year and are thrilled about it!

Thank you Miss Cindy for being a fabulous teacher for all 4 of my big kids!  I am glad that I don't have to think about preschool for Livy for a number of years because I don't know what I'm going to do.  It won't be the same not going to Miss Cindy's Preschool.

Mitch had Kindergarten Graduation the very next day.  He woke up very excited for his big day and informed me that his teacher told him they needed to "look nice."  He took that very seriously and went through 3 outfit changes before resting on the final look.

It was a great choice- he looked so handsome!

His proud sisters and mama!

Glad Grandma got to be there too!

Their program was adorable, of course.  They sang lots of cute songs, one of which is the currently popular "Happy" song by Pharrell Williams.

Mitch had a part in a short little poem reading they did, spelling out the word Kindergarten.  Each letter stood for something and Mitch was the letter K.  He did very well at saying his part.

His teacher, Ms. Blau, is so awesome.  We loved her and she loved Mitch.  She is the ideal kindergarten teacher.  She communicates so well with the parents and is loving and kind to the kids, but firm and patient all rolled into one.  We will miss her!

Mitch and his best buddy from class, Zayden.  He talked non-stop about Zayen all year. 

After the ceremony, we had to stop by and give Ms. Blau one last hug.  Lots of kids did this and she had to stop a few times and run and get tissues from crying so much.  It was so sweet.

She put together a book for each one of the kids with pictures of each child doing different activities throughout the year.  It must have taken her so much time to do each book and make sure that she took pictures of every kid all year long.  It was such a sweet book.

One of the final papers Mitch brought home from school was this gem.  After a missionary, Mitch wants to be a Seahawk when he grows up.  That's my boy!

Whew!  We survived another year of school.  Way to go Team Andros!