Kind of an uninspiring blog post title, but I'm playing catch up again!
Farris and I have tried to set up a weekly rotating date night with the kids. So if we started with Farris and Felicity, the next week I would take Caleb and then and so on until we started over again with me taking Felicity. Farris and Seth spent their time building with Lincoln Logs and made this nifty fort. Seth has a whole story about it with Bad Guys and how the Good Guys could trap them.
He was so happy with it!
In our school, the fifth and sixth graders can be in choir, with concerts all year culminating in a huge concert with about twenty schools at the Marriot Center. It's called the Hope of America and each school is given a specific colored t-shirt to wear so when they are all there it looks like the flag. Felicity loved the patriotic songs and has taught them to the boys so when the kids are doing chores they will all be singing, "America rocks!" and doing hand actions.
Where's Wald---I mean Felicity? She's wearing a white shirt, in the top stripe, bottom row, center. I got to practice using my zoom on the camera! Understandably, it takes quite awhile to get the kids in the choirs settled and in the mean time Abby and Seth were getting unsettled, so before too many songs I decided to take the them home and Farris stayed with Caleb and Joseph to see the rest of the concert. They did a great job while I was there, and next year I'll get to see it all and send Farris home with the kids! We figure we'll be going to this concert every year for too many years to count.
For Christmas, Mom got a grandparent pass to Thanksgiving Point, so she came down and we tried it out during the Tulip Festival. Actually, we went the day after the festival was over, so there weren't many people and the tulips were still blooming beautifully. The secret garden is always one of the favorite places. I love that the camera caught the individual drops of water in the picture with Seth!
Abby had been asleep in her stroller, but she woke up enough to enjoy the water spraying everywhere. Abby is absolutely a water baby.
Mom, Dad, Aunt Ellen, and Seth and Abigail on one of the bridges. I love the gardens! All of us at USU wanted an internship there or at the gardens on Temple Square.
The Koi ponds where another favorite. The kids loved watching the fish swarm while they fed them. Abigail wouldn't throw the food, she'd just hold it and watch the fish. She did try to eat it a couple times, but that's our little girl.
Another thing in our school every spring is the Hershey's Track Meet. This year was Caleb's first time. He was so very excited, he has decided he wants to be an Olympic runner. He is fast, we just need to work on the turning around to wave to the crowd action he does in the middle of the race.
He also did the standing long jump. Farris coached him at it, and he did pretty good.
Felicity's best friend Bailey moved to Springville and her mom drove her and her sister back to the school every day to finish out the year. Felicity was very sad but her personality came through when she decided to throw a surprise going away party for Bailey. She called it the Bye-Bye Bailey Party. She invited a bunch of their friends over (I capped the number of invites, she gets a little excited). The signs say "Bye-Bye Bailey! We'll miss you!" The plan was for me to pick up all the other girls while Felicity walked Bailey and her sister to our house where Bailey thought her mom was picking them up. It was a little slow rounding up all the girls and we screeched into the driveway while Felicity delayed them at the corner. So the girls ran and hid in the living room waiting for Bailey to come in the front door...and they came in the back door and surprised us through the kitchen. Heehee. It was still fun and we still surprised Bailey and her sister.
The girls decorated #10 cans and magnets (I borrowed the idea from girls camp) with stickers, paper and modge podge and giggled the whole time.
Then we played a couple games, including Apple Bobbing (in the air instead of the water).
And I got all the girls to pose on the couch and printed up a picture for all of them to keep. Felicity is going to miss Bailey, they were the perfect team. Luckily they are only about ten minutes away so we still can get them together to play.
Then it was the fifth graders turn to do the Hershey's track meet. Felicity is not like Caleb and does not enjoy running, but she gave it a good try.
While we were waiting, Abigail practiced her laps. She has a lot of energy and is always in motion.
But she loves her big sis, too!
Felicity also did the long jump. I'm so glad Farris was able to come and help coach both Caleb and Felicity. Those last few weeks of school, it seems like there is some program or special event that we parents need to be at, and even though it's a busy time at BYU, too, Farris tries to make it to as many as he can.
OK, Abby is almost always in motion. But what you can't tell from this picture is that it's the top bunk in the boy's room. She can climb up there lickety-split and I guess this time she used up the last of her energy. Scares me, that little girl does.
Another end of the year thing. The fifth graders wind up their reports on the states by having a Wax Museum. Each of them picks a famous person from or connected to their state, dresses like that person and then has a short presentation prepared so that people can go around and "push their buttons" to hear them tell about the person they are dressed as. Felicity had the state Arizona and she dressed as a Navajo Woman during the Long Walk. Yes, I found out about this two days before. Thankfully, her teacher emailed all the parents because I know I wasn't the only one surprised about it. I had a length of red velvet that I made into a make shift skirt and then we added a blouse and some of the jewelry we got on the rez. She also wore the Navajo Rug we got while we were living there and we did her hair in the traditional bun kind of thing the women do. Whew. I think it turned out pretty good for having very little time.
Caleb's class presentation was the first out of our kids. I do love these programs, it's so fun to see each of the personalities come out and hear the songs that they have each been singing all year long. Felicity still has most of the songs from 3rd grade memorized so she sang with Caleb quite a lot.
Caleb and his friend. They love to play LEGOs together. It's funny, Farris and I went to USU with his aunt and then we found out through her that we live only a few blocks from each other! Small world.
Caleb and his teacher. She did a great job and he really loved third grade. She always looked relieved when it was us who came through the door at parent teacher conference and couldn't praise him enough. I'm glad we have teachers who love their jobs enough to dedicate so much of their lives to our kids. I think we've been blessed with many good teachers for our kids and I'm grateful because I know I couldn't have done it!
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