First Grade Review

Here are a few pictures Rachel's teacher took throughout her year in first grade. 

In October they went to the Marana Pumpkin Patch. Grandma Knight went with Rachel as a chaperone. Rachel was happy to have Grandma along.

Rachel and Audrey:

A firefighter came to talk about fire safety to the first graders.

Rachel's class at the holiday concert:

Back row: Megan, Jason, Kylie, Marcus, Noah
4th row: Mackenzie, Brandon, Rachel, Antonio, Sammy, someone from a different class
3rd row: Dominic, Callissa, Riley
2nd row: Alvina, Valani, Angel, someone from a different class
Front row: Aiden, Cameron, Brooklyn, Sylvane

The school sisters:

Rachel and Mackenzie have the same last name so they said they were school sisters and have been good buddies all year.

The class went to a horse farm on a field trip.

Rachel with her table group (Jason, Aiden, Kylie and Rachel)

She had a fabulous year. She started reading at a 3rd grade level and ended the year reading at a 5th grade level. She's did great academically in all areas, and has been a great friend and helper at school as well. One of the best things about Rachel as a student (at least at home) is that she is so self motivated I rarely had to remind her to do her homework. We agreed at the beginning of the year that if everyone had their daily job done, and Rachel had her homework done and piano practiced the kids could watch a 1/2 hour show while I cooked dinner. Either that was good enough motivation, or she just likes homework so much that I didn't have to remind her hardly ever. I hope that continues in years to come. :)
We got Rachel's report card today and she got mostly 4s and a few 3s. 3 is meets the standard, 4 is exceeds the standard. She has gone above and beyond and is a great student and we're proud of her hard work all year.

End of the year

Today Annie had her preschool graduation/year end ceremony. The kids sang several songs and got certificates for a good year in preschool. It was very cute.

We love Mrs. Caffrey. She is a great preschool teacher (and piano teacher, neighbor, friend, etc.). We love that she lives just a street away and lets us invade so often. Ryan is really looking forward to being in her preschool class next year, too. Annie has done a great job this year in preschool and Mrs. Caffrey has told me how she often forgets that Annie is in the younger group rather than the group that will be heading off to kindergarten next year. Annie is socially right up with the 5-year-olds (and is just as tall as most of them), and is beginning to read pretty well. She read Are You My Mother? to me last week all by herself. We took about 10-15 pages a day because she doesn't have the patience to sit and read the whole thing in one sitting (and honestly, neither do I--at the rate of a beginning reader that would take a good hour). But she can read it without help. She knows how to sound out words and has a ton of sight words down. She's also great at counting and addition with small numbers.

So when I stumbled upon a charter school's website on Sunday night that said they take 4-year-olds who turn 5 before the end of December based on a readiness test I thought that might be just what she needs. I can't count how many times I have wished that I could have gotten Rachel into school a year earlier. She was reading chapter books, for crying out loud, before kindergarten even started. So getting into kinder where most of the kids couldn't read a word, and half of them didn't even know all the sounds of the letters, it was a bit (a lot) below her level. It hasn't gotten much better, by way of challenging her. Rachel loves school, however, so it hasn't been a problem yet, with her getting bored from already knowing how to do everything. It hasn't helped her perfectionist tendencies, however. More chances to try something hard and fail at least some of the time (or even just miss a few problems here and there) would do that girl a world of good, to realize it's ok to not be perfect all the time. I am really looking forward to next year because in 2nd grade is when our school district begins doing enrichment programs besides just what the classroom teacher might (or might not) come up with.

Anyway, with Rachel's experience, this chance for Annie to do kindergarten now (before she's reading chapter books) sounds like a great idea. My one turn off is that it is full day rather than half day. Ironically if she waits until she's 5 she will go to half day, though then I would think full day would be great for her, but now when she's 4 I would prefer half day, and her only option is full day for now. I'm sure she'll do okay, but if it turns out to be a problem, we can always just pull her out and have her start next year with her regular age. Of course, at the moment the school is full, but there is a waiting list of 16 kids for kindergarten, so they said it is very likely that they will open up another class for next year. If not, I guess we'll just stick to our original plan of having her go back to preschool for another year.

Rachel has had a great year and is a bright girl and a great reader. She's reading at about a 5th grade level now, so finding books at her reading level that also match her interest level is a challenge. Or maybe it's just her aversion to reading anything I pick out that is the problem. If she picks it out she'll read 2 or 3 books in an afternoon. If I pick it out she won't even look at it most of the time. Unless I leave it out for her to find it and don't tell her I got it for her to read. :) She is really excited to be a 2nd grader. But even more excited for summer break. Yay for no time commitments!

Summer approaches

We've almost survived another school year. As things wind down, here's what's been happening.

While helping to fold and put away the laundry, Rachel got a little goofy and put on my capris and shirt on top of her clothes, along with somehow getting one of Megan's socks to stick on her nose. The kids think she is hilarious most of the time.

 Ryan has given up on naps. I don't even try to make him lay down any more during quiet time because it's a lost cause. The other day, however, he asked me to go get his LeapReader so he could read a book. When I came back I found this:

 We woke him up after a little while, which was a big mistake. That kid knows how to do grumpy. He could win a medal. But it's kind of a lose/lose situation. If I let him sleep too long he's super grumpy, but if I wake him up too early he's super grumpy. The same thing happens on those rare occasions when he falls asleep in the car.

He had been doing better about not having tantrums the last month or two, but the last week he has been back to his old 2-year-old self, throwing long tantrums over the most insignificant of things. I'm not sure what's up, but we're back to Love and Logic full blown to try to knock his tantrums out again.
Speaking of tantrums, let's talk about Megan and buttons. This girl is only 10 months old, but she can throw a mean tantrum. Especially if you take a phone or remote control away from her.

 Or take her away from the stairs. She loves to climb. She has been extra cranky the last week or so because she has a few teeth getting ready to pop out. The pain seems to have subsided the last couple of days, however (though the teeth aren't out yet) since she has stopped biting my shoulder repeatedly (and HARD). She is now mostly weaned to a bottle with just one or two nursing sessions a day and we've let her cry it out when she wakes up in the middle of the night, so last night we finally made it through an entire night where she did not get out of bed (she had been down from 3 times a night to once a night for the last week). She still woke up a couple times last night, but didn't cry for more than a minute each time. If Annie had not woken me up I could have had my first night of not getting out of bed for a long time. Maybe tonight. :)

Rachel's school had spirit week a couple weeks ago and she was happy to participate in crazy hair day.

 Last Friday night was our ward's Father/Sons Campout, so Jacob took Ryan. He was too lazy to set up the tent for just the two of them, so they camped in the back of the van. From what I hear they had a great time, and were glad to be in the car when it started raining in the middle of the night.

In the meantime, with the Celiac Boys gone, we planned our annual girl/gluten party. We got takeout pizza Friday night, and Dunkin' Donuts Saturday morning. It was nice to get to have those things without so much extra effort of making them from scratch at home. Unfortunately now Annie knows what that orange and pink building we pass on the way to Walmart is, and the last two times we've driven past it she has asked "Can we get some donuts?" where before she didn't even know the deliciousness she was missing out on as we drove past. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

In conjunction with our gluten eating, we also invited a bunch of friends over (since many of them also were missing dads and brothers who were camping) to join us for a movie night on our big screen and projector. It was tons of fun. Then Saturday morning while we ate our donuts, I drove around to various yard sales looking for a dresser for Megan. I had no luck locating a dresser, but scored this awesome air hockey table for $5.

We've had a good time playing it and look forward to many air hockey tournaments to come.

Aunt Sharon's visit

Sharon graduated from BYU-I in April (congrats!) so we flew her down to babysit celebrate for a week. It was great hanging out with her. The kids soaked up all the aunt time and were really bummed to see her go. There was lots of "Sharon, come play cars with me!" and "Let's build marshmallow buildings!" and "Let's color!" and "Sharon, come play a game with me!"

 And honestly, it was an added bonus that Sharon was willing to be our babysitter whenever we needed her all week. She got into town and a half hour later we left her to put the kids to bed while we went out to a fancy dinner Jacob's company president was treating some of Jacob's team to for a job well done. The week happened to be Teacher Appreciation Week as well, and since I volunteered to head up the Teacher Appreciation Committee at Rachel's school I had errands to run at her school most days, so it was nice to just leave the kids at home with Sharon and run over for a 20 minutes (or an hour) without having to find shoes for everyone and getting everyone buckled, then unloaded from the car, into the stroller, into the school, back out to the car, etc. She saved me so much time and hassle by just being our resident babysitter all week. And the kids loved it.

We were going to go swimming while she was here, but for May it has been a little too cool and windy for my taste, so we went to the library and dollar store instead. We also squeezed in a trip to the frozen yogurt shop and a movie night on our big screen.

To top off our week we headed to Trail Dust Town. We had never been before, but I'd heard it's like a mini version of Old Tucson Studios, and it's true. There weren't any of the movie sets, but it still had the Old West feel, and a few fun rides that the kids were happy to ride over and over and over again and it was cheaper.

 They even had a stunt show with guns and explosions and such. The kids enjoyed their treat from the candy shop while we watched the funny show.

 It was a fun night and we definitely recommend it and will do it again sometime with visiting cousins, maybe. :)

Sharon's flight left from Mesa at 6 am Sunday morning, so instead of leaving Tucson at 3am we arranged for her to stay with a cousin in Mesa overnight, then they could just leave at 5am from her house. Since they were heading up to Phoenix we decided to tag along part of the way and visit the Ostrich Farm again to feed all the animals.

Donkeys:

 Deer:

 Goats in the sky:

 And goats in the wall:

 Ostiches:

 Baby goats:

 And best of all, the lorikeets. We had several head landings this time.

 And we remembered to get a group shot with all 7 of us in it before Sharon left us.

We sure are glad she could come visit. Congratulations on graduating, Sharon! And we hope you move to Arizona!! But if not, at least come visit again soon.

Camping Trip

We went camping last weekend down at Patagonia Lake. We got there early enough Friday evening, and it was hot enough, so we all went down to the swimming area to play by the water and cool off a bit once we had the tent set up.

 Playing in the sand was a big hit with everyone.

 Rachel made a band of dirt instruments.

 She is playing the drums. In front of the drums are maracas. To the left of the drums is a guitar and a tambourine, I think.

Jacob headed back to start a fire, then we followed to roast hot dogs for dinner. Unfortunately in all my preparations, the packed cooler with our hot dogs remained in our fridge at home. Luckily the little store there had hot dogs that happened to be gluten-free, so we were covered. Also luckily, I over packed on food like I always do, so we had plenty for breakfast even though the boiled eggs and yogurt were also at home in the cooler. :)

 Megan, especially, was a fan of the hot dogs. That girl must have downed close to two full hot dogs. Every time we were sure she must be done, one of us would go to eat our own hot dog and she would reach out for it wanting more.

The sleeping part was a lot less painful than I thought it would be. Megan was so tired because it was almost an hour after her bedtime when we finally got in the tent, so she was asleep really fast and slept better that night than she had the night before at home in her crib. Unfortunately that isn't saying much. She still woke up twice, but after nursing for 5-10 minutes she was asleep in her pack 'n play again for another 3-4 hours. The other kids slept pretty well. I was up several times to check that the kids weren't going to wake up from being too cold after they kicked their covers off. So everyone woke up relatively well rested (as much as you can be when camping) well before 6 am, thanks to the sun.

We got the fire going again and warmed up some water to make hot chocolate.

 Megan thought playing peek-a-boo with my hat was the best game ever.

 While we were packing up after breakfast the kids found a Roly Poly. We all had to stop and pick it up and take turns holding it, since we never see those around our house.

 After we all got dressed we headed off on a hike, figuring that the tent was already getting stuffy with heat, so on my back was probably the best bet for Megan's morning nap. She quickly agreed.

 We got a family picture, though all you can see of Megan is her orange arm, and maybe an ear if you zoom in close.

 On our hike we crossed over this bridge that is pretty darn high over a little inlet of the lake. Ryan and Rachel loved it. Annie is a girl after my own heart and did NOT like how high it was.

 The rickety wood under my feet didn't inspire much confidence either. I happily volunteered to walk the long way back to the tent when Annie didn't want to cross the bridge on the way back.

We got back to camp and took down the tent and packed everything into the car before heading to the beach for a couple more hours. The water was cold, but the day was warming up and the sand was hot. The kids had a lot of fun playing on the waterfront. The girls spent the whole time looking for rocks and shells for their rock collection and Ryan spent the whole time filling his bucket with water, then pouring it on the sand. And occasionally burying his hands and feet in the sand and calling out for me to rescue him.

It was a fun camping trip. We returned home happy to have gone, and happy to know that when we go again next year it'll be even easier. While we were there I kept thinking how much easier camping will be in 2 or 3 years when the youngest is out of diapers and is a decent sleeper (that has to happen sometime, right?) and all the kids have at least some impulse control and can listen and obey about staying away from the fire. Maybe at that point we'll happily head out camping once a month. Or drive farther than an hour to go camping.
We had been contemplating going camping with some friends over Memorial Day Weekend who go to Mt. Graham, which is about 2 1/2 hours away, but then decided to stay a little closer to home for Megan's first camping experience. Megan was happy to confirm that this was a good choice on our drive home by screaming the last half of the drive. She was too tired to sleep, and doesn't sleep well in the car anyway. So she made sure to let us know that driving 2 1/2 hours would have been a bad idea. I'm glad we went where/when we did. It was fabulous!