Joseph’s Kindergarten Graduation

Today was Joseph’s kindergarten graduation!

This year was a bit different from the past years with Benjamin and Emma graduation Kindergarten.  This year our school had 8 Kindergarten classes, the largest it has ever been since opening.  So this year, to keep things short, they only had two classes per ceremony. Joseph’s class was first up!

They started the whole thing off with the “Star Spangled Banner”.  I could watch Joseph sing all day!  It amazes me how much he learns through music. He knew every single word to that song!

I loved hearing the other songs that the others had sung in years past! It’s such a fulfilling thing to experience something like Kindergarten graduation! Although this year felt a little rushed.  Usually the end of the year comes eventually but but this year it seemed to just pop up out of nowhere and throw on the breaks.  I do have to say that I think I’m ready for the end of the school year. We have some fun things planned for the summer and we’re going to try our hand at no schedule what-so-ever.

But anyway, back to graduation!  I had heard Joseph practicing his songs while in the car and everytime I’d hear a little and ask him what he was doing he’d stop, smile, and say he couldn’t tell me and that it was a surprise! They sang “The Kindergarten Class” song that’s sung to the tune of The Adams Family.  He really had fun learning how to snap 🙂

Then they moved onto singing their “First Grade” song.  That’s sung to the tune of “Start Spreading the News”.

Something new that they did this year that they haven’t done in years past is turning the tassels.  Sorry about the video, I’m still learning how to work the video capabilities on my camera.

After the ceremony, Nana and I made our way to his classroom for refreshments and saying our good-byes to friends.  Jared was sick about not being able to make it the graduation but we’re both slowly coming to the conclusion that we won’t make it to every event of all of our children.  At least I was able to make it and Nana was able to come for a little bit before she went to work.  It meant a great deal to me that she came and supported him!

In his classroom he showed us his desk, gave me his awards of accomplishment and then showed me the much anticipated “Student Treasures Book”.  He showed me the pages that he made and I have to say I was very impressed.  Not so much about the hand writing because I’ve seen it at home but more that he had paid attention to what’s been going on around us.  Trissa is at basic training and has been since February.  She’ll come home for a week or two in July and then move to wherever she’ll be stationed.  We talk about her and where she is all the time but all the kids seem to talk about her and write to her as if she’s still down the street.  Every now and then they say something in a prayer or draw something like this to remind me that they are never too young to try and talk to and explain the truth of some situations.

Joseph saying good-bye to his wonderful teacher, Ms. Valez! Even though we only had her half of the year she worked wonders in encouraging him to learn and

My little man is maturing so fast!  I love this boy so much and am so glad for all the progress we have made in his learning, both intellectually and emotionally!  Can hardly wait for first grade and all the new adventures it will bring!!!

Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Day of Love to you all!  Our day started off with a big bang!  Preschool was full of sugar!  I was amazed at how much sugar these little tiny kids can put down.  I know it’s going to happen, even with the older kids, so I’m going to let them have at it today and then whatever is leftover we’re tossing.  It went really well this past Halloween when we bought the kids’ candy from them but I’m not sure if they’ll go for that right now.  They have to have a little fun sometimes but I think I’ll draw the line at today only.

    

The preschool kids had a pretty fun party and at one point swarmed Ms. H and gave her a big group hug!  It was super sweet!

They didn’t do much but the stuff they did do Ms H and Ms. Jamie managed to turn it around and use it as examples of speech and OT.  The big OT thing was having each child take their Valentines and pass them out one at a time into these little heart-shaped envelopes.  The speech part came into play when they repeated the names of the kids they were passing out to and saying their “pleases” and “thank yous”.

Some super fun songs and dances and it was time to take all the goodies home!

     

Joseph had a fun time in his class too!  I love that toothless smile!  He has such a great smile he can pull it off 🙂 .  He reminded me so much of Grandma Combs today.  He was sitting at the table and going through his Valentines and just rattling off names of kids that had given him things and how this kid was a really good jumper or that kid sat next to him and likes to talk and how he has to be courageous and not talk back or he’d get into trouble.  It was the fact that he was rattling off first and last names and some of those names were difficult.  He has such a great personality that he can be friends with anyone and he makes them feel like the most special person in the world.  I hope he never looses that personality trait.  It was such a wonderful trait of Grandma’s and everyone loved her all the more because of it.

     

To kind of top it all off we did Emma’s hair up real festive.  I wasn’t sure if it would stay in after a long day at school but she came home and still looked as beautiful as when she left.  She’s loving that her hair is getting longer because it offers a wider variety of up-dos.  I’d still like another year or so of cutting it shorter to give it time to all come in nice and thick (and she looks ridiculously cute with short hair) but it’s pretty good so far.

 

Such a crazy but fun holiday!

Giant Sucker!

I think every year Joseph has had to do a Valentine it ended up being something that had to do with suckers 🙂 .  This year was no different!  We took a little spin-off of last years.

We started off by taking a picture of Joseph with a roll of white wrapping paper.  If you don’t have white then just take any roll of wrapping paper that you have a wrap it in three or four sheets of blank white copy paper.  I had him hold the tube closer to the top but not too close so that when you insert the sucker it doesn’t cover his face.  I love his face!  He has such an expressive face but with his one missing tooth and then the other one hanging on by a thread it sure made for a memorable photo!

  

I took two of his photos (one looking at the sucker and one looking at his friends) and added a simple graphic on my computer.  I sent them to Sam’s Club to have printed off.  The key is to have your photo not be too big (more like wallet size) so that the sucker is large and in charge.  I printed them of as 4×6 photos and then cut them in half.  It was the perfect size!

All you need to do at this point is cut a little slit or V-shape at the top of the image of the tube.  That’s where you’ll insert your sucker!  Then you just secure it to the back of the picture with a piece of tape and you’re done!  SUPER EASY and SUPER CUTE!!!