Ben's Kindergarten Graduation

Ben's kindergarten graduation was two months ago at the end of the 2014-15 school year.  

Congratulations to Ben!

We are so proud of him!

It was a fun-filled school year, and he learned a lot of new things.  I feel like it was yesterday that he came home from the first day of school telling us all about the magical gingerbread man his class hunted for all over the school and he was in their classroom all along.

Ben's kindergarten year was a success.  Just like Will's kindergarten year, Ben has grown academically and loved to tell us about things he's learned about at school.  He's also grown socially and made new friends.  We were concerned because Ben's birthday is in June and we knew he'd be young for his class, but that hasn't slowed him down one bit.  He's learned more than we could have hoped for and is ready for first grade!

The graduation ceremony was different than when Will graduated a couple of years ago.  It was outside in the beautiful sunshine.  The students entered the playground area where they would be seated from the school building.  All of the sections of the kindergarten class had dances, songs, and poems to perform.  Ben was a part of the group that recited the "Kindergarten" poem and for each letter in kindergarten there was a special line to recite with a special memory from that school year.  

Ben's line was, "G is for good friends. We made more each day."  After that they received their diplomas and posed for photos. 

Here is our big guy proudly accepting his diploma from the principal.  

He looks so big!

Sweet smile

Ben was loud and clear when it was his turn to say,

"G is for good friends. We made more each day."

Precious kiddos

It's always hectic on the last day of school because Mark and I have responsibilities on our campus but thankfully our co-workers help out so we don't miss the boys' special days.  We had to hurry from Ben's kindergarten graduation to Will's 2nd grade awards ceremony, and I'm thankful we were able to get a photo with Ben in his classroom before we had to leave.

This photo is precious!  

Ben had such a sweet teacher who watched out for him and loved on the class like they were her own.  He learned so much and I'm thankful for all she invested to help him grow in knowledge and as an overall person.  Each year I can't believe we are fortunate enough to get teachers who care about our children as much as they do.  Their good work does not go unnoticed or unappreciated.  I just wish I could do more to show them how thankful we are for caring for our babies and helping them learn.

Even though this blog post is 2 months late! (How is already August?  My goodness!)  I wanted to share this special day and Ben's accomplishment.  My baby is a big boy now!

Will's 2nd Grade Awards Assembly

Will's 2nd grade school year was full of learning and fun.  He loved his teacher and was lucky enough to get in the same class as his best friend.  

This is the end of year awards assembly at the beginning of June.

Will received a 2nd place medal for UIL Chess Puzzle.  He studied and practiced for that competition and was excited to get 2nd place.  He's slightly competitive so when they announced the winner at the meet (which was earlier in the school year) he asked his teacher who got first.  We're still super proud of his accomplishment even if it's not first place!

Will received a participation ribbon for UIL Creative Writing.

This sweet friend will be at a different school next year.  She's been a buddy of Will's since they attended the school's early learning center when they were little bitty.

Will's teacher was kind and sweet and appreciated all of Will's funny interests.  It's almost hard to put into words the gratitude and respect we have for the teachers who are truly educators at heart. Our boys have always had gifted teachers and this year Will lucked into another classroom that helped him thrive.  I have this saying in my classroom, "Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning."  I can honestly say this applies to all of the teachers Will and Ben have had so far.
Isn't that awesome!?!  We are lucky!

One more in Will's classroom with little brother and Will's best friend in the background.

One more thing we are excited about.  Will was one of the top readers in A.R. points for this school year.  He worked really hard and read the entire Little House series, which helped him achieve this goal.  What a good lesson in setting a goal and reaching it.


Once again, it's hard for me to believe that Will is going to be in the 3rd grade!
I might not be ready but he definitely is!

Monday Morning Encouragement: Psalm 51:10

{Monday Morning Encouragement}

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10

Ben's 6th Birthday Party

Ben's 6th Minecraft Birthday Party

Ben and Will love playing Minecraft so when it was time for Ben to choose the theme of his birthday party he picked that over Ninjago, Ninja Turtles, Superheroes, Despicable Me Minions, Planes, and surprisingly even Lego.  Thank goodness for Pinterest!  I found all of the ideas for his party there. 

Here's Ben with the table of Minecraft food.

This is my go-to for parties with little ones.  I get out the picnic blankets and the kids have a place to eat and it doesn't matter if something gets spilled.

The adults were mostly in the other area of our yard in the shade.

The food was all under the blue canopy in the middle of the yard.

Such a sweet group of kids!  They made Ben's party fun!

I love the serious look discussing this Minecraft Lego set.  Ben had been wanting one and he got some great sets and was so happy!

Ben would not put his new Ninjago book down.  Ashley did a good job picking this one out for him.  Notice it in all of the following photos.  

Will wanted in the photos, too.  Ben is still holding his book!

Can't believe Ben is 6! 

My friend Brandi always makes the most amazing cakes for the boys.  She's made almost all of their birthday cakes and they have all been incredible.  They also taste delicious.  We bought the Minecraft characters in the toy section at Target and she decorated it based on that. Ben was adamant that the Minecraft Steve we bought was the one with diamond armor, therefore we have a Diamond Armor Steve on top of the cake.  Let me confess that the last sentence I just typed does not make sense to me at all, but it wasn't my party so I didn't have to understand it.  Also, all of the blocks on top represent something but I didn't pay enough attention to know the difference.  I may not have known what they all were but I think every single kid at the party did.  

Getting ready to sing the birthday song to Ben.  Mia is too cute.  She looks ready to sing.

Make a wish big guy! 

I think he was surprised he blew out all of the candles in one breath. 

The next two photos go together.  I had stepped inside and my friend Jourdan was helping me out by taking photos.  She told me she got some photos of Ben eating the candle wax, and I wasn't sure what she meant until I loaded the photos on the computer and then I knew what she was talking about when I saw his face.  LOL!

I think in this photo everyone knows what he's about to do and they know it's probably not going to be good to eat the wax.

This photo cracks me up!  I love how everyone else is laughing and Ben has that look of surprise and disgust on his face.  I guess candle wax doesn't taste so good after all.  Ha!!!

Ben requested ice cream cones for this party.  I had to buy the ice cream at Braum's since Blue Bell isn't ready to purchase yet.  When we were at Braum's and he saw the ice cream cones he asked for a box and I couldn't tell the birthday boy no.  You can see him with his ice cream cone here and he still has his Ninjago book, too.   

Thanks to Printabelle for the free Minecraft party decorations!

InstaMay 2015

It's June and these are photos from May, but I had to share them even though they are from last month.  

I have so many things to blog about for June already.
Here's the list:
1. Ben's kindergarten graduation
2. Will's 2nd grade awards and end of school
3. Ben's Minecraft birthday party for his 6th birthday
4. First week of summer vacation
5. Farmhouse updates

It rained and rained in May.  It was actually record setting rain.  The abundant amount of rain made the flowers beautiful.  These photos were taken at the land.  The wildflowers are very pretty.  I don't know the names of all of them, but here are some. 

As we spend more time at the land, I notice things I've never seen before.  The red oak trees have tiny snails on them.  There were about the size of my thumbnail and some are even smaller. 

We only had a few days in May dry enough to check out the foundation for the new house.  The boys are "inspecting" it here.  They were picking up big pieces of dirt and Ben was calling it "icing".

Unfortunately all of this rain has made our baseball and tee-ball seasons shorter than normal.  Even though we didn't get to play all of our games, the boys have still had a good time.  It's fun to watch them play.  Mamaw and Papaw never miss a game and are such loyal fans.

Two of my favorite flowers in my front yard are coreopsis and lamb's ear.  This was earlier in the month because my coreopsis are struggling right now because of too much rain. 

Ben playing in the backyard.

Field trips at the end of the year are fun.  This was at The Frisco RoughRiders baseball game with my teacher BFF Kacie.

Mark and I had just gotten the autograph of Joey Gallo.  He's moved up to the Rangers now.

Josh Hamilton is back!  He's back to the Rangers now.

Our good friend Ashley watched the boys and Mark and I had a date to watch Pitch Perfect 2.  It was hilarious!  The first 5 minutes had me in tears.  Seriously funny!

Open House for our school is usually in March but due to bad weather it was rescheduled for May.  Will's teacher has such a cute classroom.  He's loved being a "Super Second Grader"!

Ben's gone on lots of adventures in kindergarten.  He's had a terrific year and learned so much.  Look how big he looks here and so proud!  I can't thank their teachers enough for taking such good care of our boys.  We are blessed to have wonderful, caring and kind teachers who are such gifted educators.

I'm the student government sponsor and we had an end of year dance at the junior high.  The boys attended but stayed in my classroom most of the dance.  I love the look on their faces watching the kids dance, especially Will.  

We can't wait for the Minions movie to come out this summer.

Will is a night owl and stays up late to watch the Rangers.  He and Mark love it!

No particular reason to share other than I love the look and smell of a freshly cleaned bathroom.

Just one more example of the record setting rain.  This was taken at the end of my driveway.  Mark and I have lived in our house almost 13 years and I've never seen the end of our driveway covered in this much water.  

I ate lunch with Ben on the Friday before his birthday.  I had a meeting for academic UIL on his actual birthday and wouldn't be in town so we celebrated early.  He requested Dairy Queen chicken strips and fries.  His teacher and I joked about the early lunch time at 10:45am.  She called it "kindergarten brunch" which was pretty funny and true.