Last Day of School & Here Comes Summer!!

Last Day of School Finally Came!!!

 

 Everyone is happy! 

Jane and her teacher:

Here are the class gifts I put to together for Jane & Bruce's teachers: 

Now it's time for lots of swimming, ice cream, and friends:

 Last night we had a "farewell" party for 3 families that are moving.  The cotton candy was a HUGE hit!

More fun times to come..

Kindergarten Author's Tea..

Yesterday we got to go to Kate's Sing Along & Author's Tea.  

She did such a great job singing: 

 

 After the music we went to her classroom to look at all her writing she did over the year:

 Her amazing teacher: Mrs. Kern~

 The girls in the class:

 She was pretty excited about the whole thing:

** Here is her artwork from the year:

Miss Buffalo

On Tuesday I got to go on a boat with Bruce and his class:

 In the Lock:

 

We had a great time- his class is full of such great kids!

The Couch..

12 years ago my very nice brother gave us a couch as a wedding present.  It served us well for 12 years, but it was time.. 

On Tuesday night we took it apart.

The room before: 

 Tipped over, under cover gone and springs gone:

We used lots of tools and here are the bare bones:

 We moved the love seat to the basement and this was delivered yesterday:

Now on to putting more lights in , TV cabinet, fireplace, and carpet... 

Birthdays!

This last Sunday was my birthday.  I absolutely LOVE my birthday and always have a great one.  My children let me sleep in until 8:00 and then sang "Happy Birthday" to me.  I went downstairs with them and opened presents.  Jane drew me a whole notebook of otters.  Bruce gave me a basketball.  Kate and James both gave me a drawing.  We got ready for church and went to church.  My mom sent a package with little snap beads in it and that entertained the kids for the entire sacrament meeting :)  I taught in Relief Society and it felt wonderful to be with all my sisters.  B is out of town. 

    During the afternoon we relaxed (thank you Jan for my flowers and chocolate) and then my friend Jamie invited us for dinner- delicious homemade bread and chicken noodle soup!  For dessert we ate pieces of a Macadamia Nut tart that my friend Karen brought to me earlier. Love! 

I got to talk to a lot of my family and they gave me a bunch of wonderful things as well (although my mom gave me 5 presents and 4 of them were books for the kids.)  My friend Megan also brought me brownies- thank you!  My sister Melissa gave me an Amazon card- excited, thank you! and my sister Joanna gave me this new book:

On Monday the celebration continued when my friend Alison (thank you for the almonds & oils) and I went downtown for a little lunch (Globe) and shopping (Penzeys.)  I received a package from my mom Damstedt and it had new socks- I love new socks!!  

That night at baseball my friend Amy gave me a raspberry cupcake & also earlier my friend Liz brought me a huge peanut butter and chocolate cupcake. Both delicious!

On Tuesday my friend Tara invited us over for lunch and James to swim and when I got there- lots of people were there.  My friend Rachel has a birthday today so we had a little combined party and it was so fun to relax, talk, and eat some very delicious food. I love the necklace from my friend Carolyn so much and will have to find something to wear with it and the chocolate from Amy is always divine.

 

 I got several flowers and made them all into a bouquet:

Today (oh it keeps going..) my friend Jessica brought me a beautiful Gerbera daisy plant- which I promptly planted:

I was telling B- my friends know me so well. They all brought me flowers or something delicious to eat :) 

He gets home this weekend so we'll go out an celebrate then.  

 

So here's to another year and it's starting off pretty great so far. 

(Now I just have to loose this million pounds I gained this week eating so many delicious things ;)

 * * Also Kate got to celebrate her birthday at school since she has a summer birthday.  She's so cute: 

Memorial Day 2013

This weekend was lots of fun and our Memorial Day was beautiful.

We started the day with our tradition of putting flags on the war tombstones.  B and James would say the name on the stone and then put the flag in the ground and say "Thank you William.." 

We enjoy the program they have there at the cemetery too.

 Bruce's buddy came up for the weekend so it was fun for them to be together again.

 For lunch we went with some great friends on a hike down the Niagara Gorge.  It was fun to be together and have a picnic.  James loves to throw rocks in the water.

For dinner we went to some fabulous friends for a BBQ and Smores...

Jane's first smores of the season- I think she made 9 ;)

LOTS and LOTS of School Things...

We'll start off with the Spring Pictures...  Every Spring I let the kids pick whatever they want to wear and pose with whatever they want to pose with. 

Here they are:

Jane's turned out pretty cute: 

Bruce's makes me laugh a lot: 

Kate's smile? ? not sure where it went..                                 It usually looks like this:

Arts Fest West is a really fun night at the school where all the kids art work is displayed.  Here are some great ones: 

This is a compilation of Jane during all her years at school- I thought it was awesome!!

James's Graduation!  Since February James has been attending a little preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Last Thursday was their graduation. 

 On Friday Kate got to say the pledge for the whole school:

Last week I got to go with her and all the Kindergarten to the zoo: 

 

  This is what we made for the teachers for Teacher Appreciation Day: