Valentine's Day Fun and Games

Mommy couldn't, so I spent a lot of time celebrating Valentine's Day in school classrooms yesterday. It was fun. When I spend time in classrooms, without fail I come away thankful for teachers, and grateful that I'm not one any more. Both the girls have been blessed with wonderful teachers ever since they've been in school - yes, public school.

Miss Feisty's teacher this year is a young mom with kids in the same school. She is very soft spoken, kind, and loves Feisty. I attended Feisty's conference last night and she's growing by leaps and bounds in her reading and math abilities.



The room mothers did a terrific job on their Valentine party. They had two fun projects, and good healthy snacks (I know, I know, but it's the way of the world in this school - which is good). They got plenty of the other kind of stuff from each other!

One of the mothers brought these cute mail boxes from Oriental Trading Company for the kids to decorate.

Then they made these adorable headbands, or crowns, if you will.



She has a wonderful mentor who comes in every Monday to spend time with her and love on her. This was her normal time to be there, so it worked out really well - Feisty had lots of help and love.




They made their snacks - fruit cabobs. Miss Feisty concentrated so hard on making hers just right. She doesn't like strawberries, but she used quite a few to make it really pretty.

I went home for a few hours, then back in the afternoon, just before school was out for the day, for a quick party in Care Bear's classroom. Unfortunately CB wasn't feeling her best yesterday (and is home today, much worse - probably should have stayed home yesterday, but didn't want to miss the big doin's). I felt bad for her, because she wasn't herself at all.

This teacher is very young, very energetic, creative, and dearly loved by the kids. She's so petite that it's hard to spot her at times among the kids. They were out for recess when I got to the room. I've been there several times, and each time I am overwhelmed by the amount of stuff she has hanging and pinned up and stacked all over this room. Every square inch is taken up with learning opportunities and fun "stuff." It seems a bit overcrowded, but the kids know exactly what everything is and what it is for. She has a knack for classroom control that is awe inspiring. She talks so fast, but has certain words that just bring them to attention immediately. Impressive.

The bright papers on the bulletin board are compliments written by the kids to each other and posted there.

When I taught school, the teacher's desk was large and was centered in the front of the room. Here's her tiny little space. I love the question.

For some reason, she had no mother helpers this time, so she had everything incredibly well organized and pretty much did it all herself. They were divided into 3 groups - CB's first stop was the snack station - juice, granola bars, and many varieties of goldfish crackers.



They then went to a work station where they ate and chose an activity - CB chose to do a Rebus message. They didn't have much time, so she only got about a third done. Do you think you could finish it??

The second station was a craft project. They had fun with the googly eyes - the teacher was amused.





The third station was passing out their cards to each of their classmates' decorated boxes.





CB received this awesome balloon and candy machine from her mentor.




The last few minutes were spent looking at the Valentine cards they received - much different than the ones of our youth!


Thought she wasn't feeling well, she managed a lovely smile with her teacher, Ms. G.

Six Degrees of Separation

There is so much to catch up on and so many pictures to share - summer is almost over for all intents and purposes. The big girls go back to school in 10 more days. I can't believe it, though it will be a bit of a relief. They've enjoyed 6 Bible schools at that many churches, so that has helped immensely - and they have learned so much, made new friends, and enjoyed each one. I was thrilled to see them just go for it each week. They each went to camp. But now first and third grades await and they are excited. I pray they have as good teachers as they had last year.

"Six degrees of separation (also referred to as the "Human Web") refers to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, I can't "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in six steps or fewer." (Wikipedia) This has not been proven, but is an interesting theory.

I can't vouch for this theory or offer any proof, but I do know that I've been through an amazing experience recently that made me think about it a lot.

A few weeks ago my blog friend, Mary at Needled Mom mentioned that she had been to her 45th high school reunion. I commented that we were the same age, obviously, but that my high school had not planned a big celebration this year for our 45th. She just casually asked me where I would have had to go for a reunion and I mentioned the little town outside of Omaha, where I was privileged to be a student my junior and senior years.

Though I was the "new kid", as I had been several times before, this small class absorbed me into itself and made me feel so welcome. Many of them had gone to school together since kindergarten. Many of them still live there, or at least their parents do. It was a very good two years.

I didn't make it to the 10-year reunion, probably because I had a new baby. I didn't really keep in touch with any of them too much at all, except for meeting up with one friend who had moved up here to Northern Colorado and was teaching just a few miles away. We did connect when our kids were little, but those were busy times and we didn't keep the connection going very well.

But about 25 years ago, one of the girls from the class, Linda, and her husband were moving out here to Colorado and as "chance" would have it, John was to work at the same company as DC. Linda looked me up in the book from the 10th reunion and called me - we're so stable (boring?) that we had the same phone number - still do, for that matter. She wanted to talk about the best places to live around here.

Imagine my amazement when one beautiful afternoon, I saw this car creeping down my cul de sac, and coming into my driveway. It was Linda and they were buying the house next door to us! This was a house where some really rowdy kids were living, whose parents left them alone on week-ends, with disastrous consequences. We didn't even know the house was for sale, but what an answer to a prayer I hadn't exactly prayed yet!

It turned out to be a wonderful 6 years - Linda eventually got a job at the same elementary school where I worked. We had so much fun together, and our kids were friends. One of the really fun things happened when we contacted Carol, the one who lived up here already, and another friend, who now lived in Denver. We began having lunches together for our birthdays. We decided at age 40 that we'd stop celebrating the birthdays, but still get together 4 times a year for lunch!

Soon, though, Linda and John moved back to Nebraska and we lost touch with Pam. But Linda comes out often enough that we still have wonderful lunches together, the 3 of us. These pictures were taken a year ago when we had lunch with Linda at her cabin here in Colorado.






The other day we had one of those lunches and I shared with them the amazing news of my blog friend who went to school with them back in kindergarten through 4th grade. I asked if they remembered her, but had neglected to get her maiden name.

Mary sent me a message with her maiden name and some of her memories. I forwarded it to the other two "girls." This has begun an amazing journey down memory lane. These three have been joined by another Mary, who was my best friend back in those days of high school. Mary in California has added her mom and brother to the mix of memories and it has turned into such fun. I could easily back out and let them "talk" to each other, but I am enjoying their memories so much that I stay in as the conduit.

Life is full of interesting turns, and this has been a joyful one. I have so enjoyed peaking in on the memories of these other three once little girls.

Field Day Fun

The end of the school year is always a fun time for the kids - for instance, last minute field trips and the annual field day. This year the forecast was for another rainy day. Care Bear prayed her heart out for a nice day, and her faith was honored. It was a blue sky all morning - raining later in the day.

I have spent many years going to these special events - I was privileged to be a stay-at-home mom in those days and was able to go for 8 years for the two kids. Fast forward to grandparenthood. I began going for our stepgrandson because Kristen was working those days and I wasn't.

I've attended for Care Bear for the last 3 years, and this year it was both Care Bear and Feisty. Kristen and I spent the morning switching places on the school yard to try to see everything they were each doing.

Back when my kids were in school, Field Day involved competition. There were first, second, and third place ribbons. Others got honorable mention, if I recall. It was good healthy competition. Now it's just a play time, basically, with no winners or losers. The kids aren't learning how to win and lose gracefully. I am sure it has to do with parents complaining about their little darlings not winning. It's sad.

But - the kids have a great time. Care Bear is very athletic and does well at anything she tries. Feisty had her first experience and she had a fabulous time - it was great to watch her enjoying herself.

I didn't catch a lot of Care Bear's games - this one seemed to be organized chaos to me. I guess it was some kind of tag where they had to grab hands when they were tagged. The boys didn't cooperate very well with the holding hands part. (Care Bear is on the end with the green shirt).

Here's another game that I couldn't quite catch on to - another form of tag. They certainly did get their exercise, at least!





This parachute game looks like fun - though I don't think I could take it being under there for very long.

I asked Care Bear what they did under there - she said they played Duck, Duck, Goose.

Feisty and the obstacle course --

Feisty and the wiggling jump rope.




Feisty and the relay race --




She was quite the cheerleader for her classmates --




Both girls had successful tug-of-war matches --










And again the cheerleader --




I stepped away for 5 seconds and Kristen wasn't there yet when she got a nose bonk - I had wondered why she didn't get trampled in this game - she's so tiny. But she got over it quickly and went on with the games --

So at this point I was getting pretty tired and my camera battery was almost dead - good excuse to go home. It was fun, but I turned the baton over to the mommy. I keep thinking of how many more years we'll be doing this - 3 more years for Care Bear, 5 for Feisty, and 6 for the twins - overlapping with 2 of Feisty's - how will we watch 3 at a time??

Have a wonderful week-end!

Monday Musings

The last few pounds are not coming off as quickly as the first many. I'll keep plugging away. The most unbelievable statistic - 39 inches!

This week has been all about Feisty - her spring music and art show at school, and her 6th birthday.

Thursday night was the music and art show - it was only kindergarteners, which was really fun. After the kids all filed in to the risers, the principal made a couple of announcements, telling the kids to locate their families and wave to them, then give their full attention to the director. Feisty was so excited to the point of giddiness that she didn't quite catch that part of the announcement! (She's the last one in on the left front row).

Then she got into it and sang her little heart out.

Care Bear's art show was the previous Thursday when we wandered around and tried to find her projects on the walls and in the library. It was fun, but this was much more intimate with everything displayed in her room.

Self-Portrait

Wednesday was Feisty's 6th birthday - and it snowed. I called her to ask how she liked having snow on her birthday in the middle of May. She said she liked it because now they'd have indoor recess! She took cupcakes to school for her class, she took cupcakes to church that night for her friends there, she went to Chuckie Cheese with her immediate family, and this afternoon we had cake and ice cream at our house for all the aunts and uncles and grandparents, etc. A "pool party" in her back yard with school friends is still in the works, if it ever warms up enough - one celebrated little girl!!

Big sister read the cards to us --

Both girls have had great teachers this year - and they only have one more week of school. I will miss both of these teachers so much. Feisty has really blossomed this year with the first year teacher who adored her - and the feeling was mutual.


I had to shoot some more pictures of the amazing tulips - they seem to have enjoyed the wet weather this year much more than I have! Enjoy!