How many things can we possibly squeeze into one month? May is the month of frantically trying to make it to concerts and recitals and end of the year picnics and banquets and graduation parties . . . It's a little crazy. But it's also full of springtime and lovely weather and the anticipation of summer. Here are some pieces of our May. And if I ever recover from this month, I may go into detail about 1 or 2 of them.
Sean ordered himself some spy glasses on Amazon. They have mirrors on the edges so you can see what's behind you. Nobody can sneak up on him now. :)
Our good friends, the Shepherds, finished building their new dentist office. It's the prettiest building I've seen in ABQ. Seriously, they should consider renting it out for wedding receptions. So excited for them and proud of all their hard work.
Dallin and Daphne's Spring Violin Recital.
It was really fun to hear them play in small groups together.
Scriptures for Cold Stone
We are trying a new scripture reading incentive this year. Every month we have a 100 scripture reading boxes to fill. They can be filled by our family scripture reading, and anybody's personal scripture reading. If everybody read everyday, we'd have more than enough to fill the boxes, so the 100 squares leaves some room for error. But it is still really hard to fill up those boxes!! Despite our seeming failure at getting all our readers reading the scriptures every day, our scripture chart has drastically increased everybody's personal scripture reading and kept our family scripture reading much more consistent. If we fill up all the squares for one month, we get to go do a family activity. In January we did a trampoline park. February we failed. And this was the reward for March. (April was another fail.) But we are on track for earning a May reward if we finish out strong. Maybe next year we'll be good enough to get a reward every month, instead of every other month! Still, I feel like we're making progress, and that is good.
Hayden's Kindergarten "Moving On" Performance
Hayden LOVED being in Miss Phillips' class this year. She is so much fun.
Hope our other kids are lucky enough to get her too!
Hubert Humphrey Basket Night
Hayden with his classmate Ethan, who just moved to Texas. :(
This particular night was a little nuts. We all went to basket night and had dinner together, and then Arthur and Dallin left so Dallin could get to his last orchestra concert of the year, while I stayed at Basket Night with the other kids. And even though we have a pep talk before going to basket night, we still had some tears from the kindergartener who was devastated about not winning a basket this year. Again. I told the kids, If you want to go to Basket Night to have a picnic dinner at school with lots of friends and dancing and other fun activities then we can keep going. If you are going to basket night because you're really hoping you might win a basket, we should just stop going. Not gonna happen. And, despite Hayden and Sean's disappointment, we made it back to the car without making too much of a spectacle of ourselves, I guess. And Dallin's concert was almost 2 hours, so I was really glad we didn't take all the kids to that. Thank goodness for averted disasters. :)
Daphne at the NM State Reflections Open House
Daphne submitted this art piece to our school's Reflections Competition. Since she advanced to state, she got to attend an open house at a hotel where her work was displayed and enjoy some yummy food and get a balloon in the shape of a butterfly, and lots of free bags, water bottles and other things set up by PTA demonstrators.
Sound of Music Auditions
Dallin, Daphne and I all tried out. I may give this one its own post.
My Spring Recital for my Piano and Voice Students
I was too busy putting on a recital to really document it, but these are the symphony bars I gave all the performers. It was A LOT, but that isn't representative of my actual teaching load. I have 7 piano students and 2 voice students. The others performers were from families where the mom teaches her own kids, and therefore needs a recital for her kids to play in, and my own children who I do not teach, also added to the numbers. (I tried it and then decided it would be best for all of us if someone else taught them. So now I trade with another piano teacher mom, and it's been great!)
This is just Bennett.
If I don't clean up breakfast quick enough, he climbs up on the table and makes a mess. Scrambled eggs was pretty mild. The time we had syrup left on the table was much, much worse.
Me and Hayden at his Kindergarten "Mother's Day Tea."
He told me emphatically NOT to come because they were serving tea. But I didn't want him to be the only kid who's mom didn't come, so I told him, I could still come; I would just not drink the tea, :) I thought it was cute that he was so worried that I not be in a position where my tea-drinking standards would be compromised.
Syd and Hayden in Hayden's classroom for the Mother's Day Tea. (It was pajama day at school and that is why Hayden is dressed in his jammies. Figured I'd clarify so you don't think sending my kids to school in jammies is just my way of getting my kids to the bus stop on time.)
Here is the picture Hayden made for me for Mother's Day. Each child had made one and they were hanging all over the classroom and the Moms had to guess which one was them. It didn't take me long to find mine, because Hayden was pretty accurate with his answers! The one where he's supposed to say something I always say is the one that gave it away. I say that every day. Didn't think any of them noticed, actually, so that made me smile.
In case you can't read them, here is what it says:
My mom is 34 years old.
My mom makes the best cookies
My mom's favorite thing to do is rest.
My Mom's favorite color is all of them.
My mom's favorite food is vegetables.
(I think it's funny that he put that because of course my favorite food is not vegetables, but he probably thinks so because I'm always nagging everyone about eating their vegetables! It's definitely the food that gets talked about the most.)
My mom always says, "Welcome Home" when I get home from school.
I love my mom because she is nice to me.
