Graduation Day

I held it together pretty well today. I was just a proud Mommy. I won't say no tears were shed, but it was more a trickle than a waterfall:) Christian did so good with all his songs and the audience was full of proud Mommies, Daddies, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and of course grandparents!!!

singing their little hearts out

Tim, Kate M's dad, read Oh the places you'll go to the kids. He even used Christian's name (and several other kids) in the story:)

Christian gave his teacher some pretty flowers to say Thank You for such a great year.

Our best attempt at a family picture...Baylor refused to even look at the camera, much less smile

Best Buddies...Patrick and Christian

KayKay, Tex, Daddy, Papa, Nana, Uncle Jeremy, Christian, Baylor, Mommy and Mim (she surprised all of us by showing up last night. It made Christian very happy)

The proud graduate with his diploma and new Bible

Each child painted a picture of what they thought Love meant

PRESENTS!!! Mim and Travis got him a cool Star Wars pop up book, KayKay and Tex bought Snarl (a dinosaur Transformer) and Nana, Papa and Uncle Jeremy gave him a cool 3-in-1 book full of stickers, paints and coloring pages

Washing chairs and Popsicle party

It is a tradition for each class to scrub their chairs for the future class. All the kids had fun with the shaving cream and of course getting wet after!!!
I love this "oh no here it comes" look on his face
Mrs. Melissa spraying everybody
The class made these cute shirts...everyone signed their name on the other side
Mrs. Melissa's 2008-2009 Kindergarten class
Baylor had her last day on Wednesday. The Pre-school kids always have a Popsicle party. Above you see her class giving Julie and Jacquie big hugs for the last time :(
this is her favorite way to swing at school
Yummy...grape
Gracie, Baylor and Caroline

End of the year already?

Christian's class had their end of the year party today...I feel like he just started!!! How can my baby be graduating from Kindergarten and be turning 6?!?! You never believe all those people that tell you "enjoy them now b/c they grow up so fast" and here I am 6 years later wondering how he grew up?

Above you see Christian's best friend Patrick. Today I asked Christian what his very favorite memory of Kindergarten was (I told him to think @ it for a minute before he answered) and he said the very first day. When I asked him why he said b/c he made some new friends...that was the day he met Patrick and I am so thankful these two have had each other this year. Below you see our other big blessing: Mrs. Melissa has been so good for our boy!! She has pushed him in ways we can't and been so patient. He has learned to read, do simple math and countless other things this year. Most of all he has learned to love God more...Melissa has taught him that God dwells in his heart and wants him to do good things. I pray he remembers these special truths as he moves onto public school next year.
Everyone giving Mrs. Melissa a group hug that literally almost pushed her to the ground
Noah, Christian and Tucker
Everyone had a turn at the Pinata, but Braden is the one that finally broke it
everyone diving for the candy

My little graduate

All those silly boys...14 out of 19 kids were boys!!!
I didn't get a picture of the girls, but only 4 out of the 5 were there anyway

Christian's last OC Christmas Program

The Kindergarten did their own program on Friday and it was Christian's last:(

They all looked cute and sounded even cuter:) They sang "Rudolph", "Must be Santa", "Up on the house top" and "Follow the Star"

Afterwards they had their party and gift exchange

Craziness of opening 18 presents at once

Christian received a Solar System puzzle that is over 4 feet long!!

Santa stopped by and we made sure he knew exactly what we wanted

Silly reindeer:)

Kindergarten Thanksgiving

As long as we have been at Otter Creek we have heard about the Thanksgiving lunch the Kindergartners put on for their parents. This was our year to finally participate. They worked so hard on the food, songs and decorations for this day. It was all we heard about for weeks...then three days before it was to happen Christian gets VERY sick. Turns out he had pneumonia and we had to have x-rays, shots and an oral antibiotic. The shots did their job and he was well enough to participate. Above you see Christian with his very favorite friend Patrick and below Fast Fish (that was the Indian name he picked out) is posing with Mrs. Melissa

They sang songs about turkeys, Pilgrims and Indians. They used sign language in several songs and we were all so impressed at how well they did.

After the program the parents are invited to a special meal that the children and teachers (every OC teacher help with this event) prepared. It was all so yummy and we enjoyed trying it. It was a great day and I look forward to doing it with Baylor someday.

I was able to watch Christian's class during some of their everyday activities a few weeks ago. Pledge of Allegiance is first (C can now say it almost word for word). Every day they go though their calendar to see what day it is today, what was yesterday and what is tomorrow. Then they check out the weather and put the right words up on their board. They are also counting the # of days they have been in school: this day was 53. When they reach 100 they'll do something special.


Mrs. Melissa is very creative and adds all sorts of subjects into this time. She even speaks Spanish to them on occasion. My favorite part was prayer time. I snapped the above picture and love it:) Hearing 5 year old prayers is a sweet thing.

C's Party

I was a party mom for Christian's party...this year I WAS NOT IN CHARGE so it was a lot easier (unfortunately I AM IN CHARGE of B's Christmas party, but that's another story) The kids always parade around the school in their costumes and 'trick-r-treat' at Ms. Pat's door. Each child got to make their own 'dirt cup' full of pumpkins and worms...Christian thought it was really yummy

I helped with the bat craft...they made cute little clothes pin bats

The whole class...full of Super Heroes, Star Wars characters, Princess' and astronauts

All the chaos of Kindergarten