May Little Things

There are so many fun little things I want to remember about this month.

Olivia was so proud of her Trip to the Principal award.

Perler beads are still huge right now. HUGE. We have sooooo many creations. It's a mess, but the kids love it and I love that they are doing something creative.

We had a crazy, random hail storm one day. The hail was huge! Like the size of marbles.

Owen wrapped up his Safety Patrol responsibilities for the year. Love that kid. He is so responsible and good. I just had to document this. I had so many compliments from Mrs. McRoberts, who is the teacher in charge of Safety Patrol, about how kind and good and hard working our boy is. That sure makes a mother proud, and teary.

Our neighbors, the Burnetts, got bunnies, so we had to stop by and meet them.

2 of our little neighbors and friends, Corbin and Zoey, were baptized on the same day. The kids were able to go up and sing as part of the baptism program.

We participated in Sandy Pride Day by cleaning up our school grounds. We went to pick up trash at the school, and we stopped to play on the playground too of course. Olivia was a little less than thrilled to help.

We had more crazy weather, it snowed in May! Spring in Utah is nuts.

We made Ramadan cards as a part of a service project. We made cards that we sent to NYC and they distributed them to mosques around the US to show religious support and love for them on their important holiday. Owen also taught his class about what Ramadan is and how important it is to those of the Muslim faith. He brought craft supplies and his class made even more cards. I sent a huge box of creative and fun cards to show our love and support.

Jonah went to his friend, Corbin's birthday party and had a great time at Boondocks. Lucky kid! And I just loved this gift bag.

Olivia and I played Mother-Daughter softball with the YW. She did really great!

We played kickball at the school one Saturday and lots of friends came out to join in the fun. Every May our school has a kickball tournament, so it is all the rage right now. Charlotte wasn't really in to kickball so we played on the swings.

Nate snapped this one of Olivia and Charlotte one night.

We have an amazing art teacher at Granite Elementary. Mrs. Carr was able to get 2 professional artists to come in and talk to the kids and teach them different techniques. So cool!

 And Jonah's class was chosen for good behavior in art class, so each of them got an award for a free Create Donut. Oh man did he ever enjoy that!

Charlotte and I went to lunch with friends. These girls are just cute!

Then we stopped by Costco and she wanted a photo with Moana, until she didn't.

And this is not an uncommon occurrence.

We had a landscape architect come and draw up some plans for our yard. We're excited to get started on that.

And our pool opened for the season! Hip Hip Hooray!!

May Art

So much great art this month. I just love it.

Olivia created this little owl for a card for Emily's birthday this year. And this self portrait is my favorite, and I just love how she describes herself.

Owen is such a great, technical artist and I love his work.

  Here are some of the pieces he made when the professional artists came to our school and taught the kids.

 And this was one he drew at church one Sunday.

Jonah is in 1st grade and I love the volume of art that comes home. His art is so neat, I love it. I love that he uses black in his art, and that he loves do create silly things. This little guy was his favorite this month.

Charlotte is in to watercolors right now and I love what she creates. I love that she uses so many colors.

Volunteering in the classrooms

I had the chance to volunteer in Owen, Olivia and Jonah's classrooms this year. It was so much fun to see them at school with all their classmates and friends. They all have such great teachers. I tried to snap a picture with each of them on the last day I volunteered in their classes so I could remember. Here's what I was able to capture.

Starting with kid #1, Owen. I helped with Math groups in Owen's class. It was playing learning games with the kids to help them build their math skills. Mrs. Zisakis is so organized it was always easy and fun to help and great to watch all the kids and see their personalities. Charlotte tagged along with me, and with her iPad and headphones she was all set!

In Olivia's class I did both reading and math groups, depending on what her teacher, Mrs. Hamann needed. It is so fun to see my kids in the context of their classroom with their teacher and friends. It was so fun to volunteer in her class. Charlotte usually played with play-doh while we volunteered in Olivia's classroom. We volunteered for Science one day and had fun launching marshmallows with the catapults the kids made.

On our last day we got to help them with their ice cream party.

In Jonah's classroom we did all sorts of things, helped with reading, helped with wrapping mother's and father's day gifts, filing papers, cutting things out. Charlotte had fun playing with markers and all the fun manipulatives Mrs. Petersen had in her classroom.

Jonah would only stop moving for a nano second for me to take this picture, so I didn't get a great one, but I will take what I can get!