Last Week(s) of School

June 2013

The last couple weeks of school were jam-packed with activities! And everything came to an end so quickly it was hard to believe that a whole school year had passed!!

June 7, 2013: Donuts w/ Dad

Sean and Ethan went early for the event and then I met them there so Sean could get to work.
{In May there was "Muffins w/ Mom".}

June 13, 2013: Teacher/Staff Appreciation from the Southworth Fam and one of my last Volunteer days

 For most of the major holidays I brought in treat plates for the staff at the school and I thought the end-of-the-year also called for a little sugar rush!

Triple-chocolate chip cookies, coconut-banana bread w/ lime glaze and lemon crinkles

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I think I worked most of the day as a volunteer because (unfortunately!) Ethan's teacher was moving after school got out and had to pack up her whole classroom! I really enjoyed getting to work in the classroom and spend time with the kids. Ethan had a great class and awesome teacher - we'll miss seeing her in the halls this year!

I also finally got to snap a picture of Ethan and his self-manager badge!!

This was a BIG deal as it took him most of the year to earn it! See, the majority of his class earned theirs toward the beginning of the year. They had to continually have green and blue days on their daily behavior reports {red = bad day/lots of reminders, yellow = ok, needed extra reminders, green = good day, only a couple of reminders and blue = great day, no reminders}. Well, we learned that even though Ethan is a great kid and has pretty good behavior, he is also very social and had a hard time staying on task and/or not chatting with his neighbor. So all year he struggled with this, showing no improvement. A typical week for him was at least one yellow day, often 2 yellow days and sometimes 3 yellow days! We tried a couple of different incentives, but saw no results. Mid-January we started a minimal monetary incentive {15 cents/day for green days and 25 cents/day for blue with a weekly bonus for no yellow days.} Ethan desperately wanted to save up for a $50 Imaginext Eagle castle. He was already half-way with some Christmas money from Grandma, but we wanted the rest to have to be earned slowly. Anyway, it still didn't take off for a couple months and then sometime in April something just clicked. Suddenly Ethan started coming home w/ mostly green days, a couple blue here and there and only a couple yellow days. Fast forward another couple weeks and Ethan was coming home with ALL green and blue days. 

Mid-May Ethan was finally given the self-manager application which included writing 3 reasons why you should get one and having ALL your teachers (library, music, classroom, PE, playground and lunchroom) and parents sign it. Anyway, self-managers wear a special badge and get extra privileges, like eating lunch in the classroom w/ the teacher on Wednesdays, choosing where to sit and the occasional bonus recess.

It would have been totally fine if Ethan hadn't ended up earning his badge, but we were sure proud of the turn-around he had with his behavior. He truly worked really hard to not talk during work time and even had to ignore his friends sometimes or say to them, "I can't talk right now, I'm trying to have a green day." By the end of year, his teacher said he was showing excellent leadership skills. :)

June 17, 2013: Last full day of school and last homemade lunch.

I packed Ethan's lunch every single day, minus a couple when Sean filled in for me when I was sick and the ONE day Ethan wanted to try having hot lunch. This was a pretty typical lunch for him... PB & Honey on wheat sandwich, string cheese, fruit, veggies, a drink, a treat and vitamins {it's easier for me to remember that way}. And whatever he didn't eat at school came home with him and was part of his after-school snack. No wasted food at this house!

June 18, 2013: Last day of school!!

Well, we were LATE on the last day of school! Ha ha!! First time we had to go to the office for an unplanned tardy slip. But I didn't care. It was my fault and it was excused. We were busy getting the last few things for Ethan's teacher's gift...

 

It included a lime cilantro candle {$1 at Walmart}, some chocolate covered coconut almonds {available at Costco and sooo good!} and homemade coconut lime sugar scrub {just coconut oil, white sugar and fresh lime zest}.... Do you see the coconut/lime theme I had going on?? I also threw in a staple remover {as a joke AND needed office supply... I was always having to go borrow one from the copy/work room when I'd come in to volunteer and change wall displays} and a Starbucks gift card.  

Ethan and his Kindergarten teacher.

Pick-up time that day was just a couple hours later, but it was a fun, last day for the kids to be together.  

This almost made me cry.... All the staff and teachers lined up to wave and see off the kids riding the buses! It was so sweet to see them all waving and yelling to each other to have a good summer!

Dozer Days 2013

 May 18th, 2013

This was Ethan and I's 3rd year {2011 and 2012 here} going to Dozer Days... Yep, we're basically pros now!

We did a repeat of last year and did the park-n-ride offered by the city bus. It just makes it so much easier getting there and not having to worry about parking. Plus Ethan gets a free souvenir and loves riding the bus!

First stop was the fire truck... Ethan has been inside and sat up front in quite a few fire trucks, but there's always a thrill to sit in the driver's seat! And then to pretend you're a real firefighter while holding the big, heavy hose.

 Other highlights...

Radio Disney was there and we thought this Perry the Platypus vehicle was pretty cool!

Recycle Truck

There is always talk about being a garbage-man after getting to operate the lift!

Playing in the huge sand-pile is always a favorite!

Now, if you'll recall from previous years, Ethan wanted NOTHING to do with the dump truck. 2011 was full melt-down and 2012 we just avoided it all together. 2013 started out the same... We were just going to avoid the dump truck. But somewhere in the midst of all the construction and fun, Ethan changed his mind! He decided to conquer his fear and we road the dump truck not once, but twice!!

 Our final two stops were the bulldozer...

 And the "remote-control" truck.

 Other than the slight drizzle we had most of the time, it was another great year at Dozer Days!

Piano Recital 2012

The first week of July was the piano recital for all of Sean's piano students. If you'll recall from last year, Sean had 6 students for most of the year, but 5 by the recital. It was a quick recital. This year, he nearly tripled his numbers!! Fourteen students most of the year and thirteen by the recital. Add in Ethan for his first recital and it's back up to fourteen. And, don't forget, Sean also has one vocal student.

Anyway, last year we had the recital at someone's house. This year, with so many new students, there had to be a change in venue. Luckily, you can have musical performances at the church, so we were able to have it there. We had 40+ people, including students, parents, siblings and grandparents show up for a great performance! All the kids did 2 songs each and it was awesome to hear the improvement of the beginners from last year, the newbies from this year and then also the more advanced students that switched over to take lessons from Sean.

Ethan, the youngest and most beginner-est of the group, started it all off... He had a little trouble at first, but (with a little coaching from Daddy) played on...

 Followed by the rest of the beginners, intermediate and more advanced players...

Group shot! The littlest girl in the front (with the binkie) is not one of Sean's students... just to clarify!!

Afterwards there was refreshments, mingling and much praise given to these fine, young musicians!

Dozer Days 2012

If you'll recall from last year's experience at Dozer Days, it was total-meltdown-heck less-than-ideal for a good portion of it. It was the last 1/2 hour or so that made up for all the hair-pulling frustration rest of the day!

This year went significantly better. We were a little bummed that Sean was not able to go with us - he had training for his summer job - so it was just me and Ethan. We bought our tickets early and then opted for the park-n-ride offered by C-Tran. SO GLAD I did that. It made parking and getting there a breeze! Last year we had to park a good 1/2 mile away and hike to the entrance along a busy, dusty road with no sidewalks. This year we parked at the bus station, paid a whopping $2 for me to ride (Ethan was free) and got dropped off just a short distance from the entrance. Win-win. Ethan also got a ticket for a free souvenir drawstring backpack. Win-win-win! It was Ethan's first time on a city bus, as he pointed out to me, and he was super excited to sit in the back with no car seat. Kinda like the first ride of the day at Disneyland is the tram ride to the entrance! Ha ha!!

The absolute, number-one thing that he wanted to do when we got there was this silly sand-digging thing. For some reason it really stuck out in his mind from last year, so it was stop #1!

Stop #2 was another favorite from last year - running the hydraulics on the garbage truck!

Stop #3 I didn't even remember from last year, but Ethan sure did! A "remote-control" dump truck. The kids really do control it, but it can only go so far forward or backward. That didn't matter to Ethan, though, he still loved it!

The rest of the day was also spent with Ethan directing us where to go - other than when we had to track down where to turn in the dang ticket for his souvenir bag. That took a while to find! He operated a big digger and a little digger, played in the sand, went through an obstacle course and climbed on a giant tire jungle gym.

So, while we avoided much of last year's frustrations (thanks to some careful pre-planning) we had just a couple new ones this year... We ran out of time to do everything Ethan wanted to do (some of the lines were killer!) and were booking it trying to catch the bus back to the station where our car was parked. We *barely* made it - but no thanks to Ethan deciding he had to go to the bathroom at the last minute and then thinking he was a foot taller and trying to use the urinal in the port-a-potty!! Agh!! There was a bit of an exchange of words between us - I was standing outside the door, but it wasn't locked and I thought I heard the toilet lid close so I peaked in to find him with pants around his ankles and pee down his leg. He continued to insist he had to use the urinal that he was WAY too short for. I made him sit down on the toilet part after wiping his leg and him telling me he still had to go! Then, the icing on the cake was going to wash our hands with the foot-stomping portable sink thing. Yeah, we both lathered up with soap only to find that the water came in at a trickle!! And after that whole fiasco we had to make a run for the last bus! Needless to say, a bath was the first order of business when we got home.

I didn't mention earlier, but we had also spent most of the morning cleaning and reorganizing Ethan's room. Add that to a busy afternoon at Dozer Days, a nice, warm bath and dinner and this is how I found Ethan - after we had put him to bed and were getting ready for bed ourselves. He told me in the morning he was waiting for the light to turn off because he knew we were still up watching TV! He just doesn't know that his door squeaks and I heard him get up and was actually waiting for him to try to snuggle in with us. We put him back in his own bed. :)