May Blessings
He did it again:
Graduated
Good Lookin' and Nater Mater both went to the same pre-school this year and had a fabulous time.
I think it was good for Good Lookin' to be one of the oldest this year.
I met several other families who put sibling groups into their pre-school and it was neat to see the older siblings take care of and help the younger ones navigate the classroom.
In some ways I worried that Good Lookin' would feel out of place since ALL his little circle of friends went to Kindergarten this past year and he stayed home.
Honestly, he could have cared less and the other 2 older siblings in his pre-school this year were also little boys who turned 6 in the Spring and needed just one more year before heading off to Kindergarten.
He LOVED having them in his class and talked constantly about those 2 other boys as well as about help his little brother learn new thing.
I remember asking several teachers about the wisdom of holding him back a year when he was clearly old enough to attend Kindergarten and he will also be so much taller than most of his classmates when he does go.
EVERY one of them wisely said that they had NEVER met a parent who regretted holding their child back a year but they have had MANY who sent them and down the road wished they had kept them home just a bit longer.
I have very few pictures of Nater Mater because of complete and total meltdown during his cute little ceremony.
He HATED his "dress" and I spent the rest of the morning holding him while taking pictures of Good Lookin'.
He has 2 years left of pre-K though since he was by far one of the youngest (although you'd never know it since he was also the size of most of the 5 and 6 year olds).
Poor kid, the adult teachers had to explain several times that he was just 3 1/2 and not 5 or 6 when he started because the dear high school kids who taught kept thinking he should be able to do more than he could.
He loved it though and has asked several times since Summer started when he could go back.
There was this one dear HS student who Timothy fell in love with. Something about her (most likely very nurturing) drew him to her and after about 4 weeks of pre-school he began bringing home these little stick pictures of him and our family with a girl named Malita included. At first, I thought he had just got my name wrong in the pictures. Nope, it wasn't me. It was this sweet High School student whom he dearly loved.
She walked us to our car after the graduation ceremony and Good Lookin' cried all the way home.
He really is very tender-hearted.
Just a few days later we attended Precious Jewel's Spring Parables Program.
That girl had worked hard on her songs all Spring and it showed!
We had played the CD hundreds of times it seems since January and they boys had most of the songs memorized as well.
She got her groove on up there on the risers...jammin' out the actions to the music.
She was one of the last verse speakers at the end of the musical.
About week later our church hosted their yearly
Spring Picnic out at a Youth Camp near our home.
The kids LOVE this church day ever year and I think it has to be one of my favorite too! : )
Much of the afternoon is spent simply playing ball or (this year) in the creek fishing for minnows and crawdads and catching the dozens of butterflies we saw at the edge of the water.
Nater Mater turned into a surprisingly good little minnow catcher sitting there patiently on the rock before scooping them up into his net.
I think ALL the kids got in on the action. It is a great bonding time for our church families.
Last Day of School:
One of my friends gets to volunteer a lot in the school and has a daughter in Mr. Smiles classroom.
She had so sweetly taken multiple pictures of him throughout the year, since I rarely could attend his school day activities with 4 little boys in tow. (something about the disruption of pre-schoolers?) : )
I have to say I debated sending him.
His last day was a Monday and he had already brought home all his stuff the week before and they had pretty much cleaned up their entire classroom.
The school did an AWESOME job of keeping the kids occupied so teachers could wrap things up.
They had to be open due to State regulations, but who is going to do anything on the last day of school anyway...especially a Monday?!
They watched a movie (above picture). Good Lookin' and his little buddy were obviously cold.
And they had rented big inflatable bouncy houses and slides for the kids.
Pretty cool last day of school I think!
Good Lookin' loved his teacher and class this year.
First Day of Summer:
The kids and I had made a Bucket List and they picked Donut Day for the first day of summer.
I hadn't made donuts since I was younger and still at home and scrambled to find a recipe that I could figure out how to do. I ended up just making biscuits and frying them in olive oil. They were crispy instead of soft, but we all thought they were pretty good anyway!
Later that week, the kids picked
Crazy Hair Day. I had left-over colored hairspray from Halloween and let them have at it. FABULOUS FUN!!
We call him the chicken whisperer since he is the only one who can successfully catch the baby chickens running around the yard.
I have so much to be thankful for and this Blessing Adventure has been an amazing already for my heart this year.
