The week before this picture, Lauren came in the house, crying, "Rachel popped!" She pretends the balls are her babies... Rachel bounced out of the trampoline, landed on a sharp stick, and POP! Lauren begged me to get another "girl" ball for her.
Sometimes Austin is the dad when they play. Usually Caroline is the "big sister", one of Lauren's children too. Caroline calls the ball babies her brothers and sisters. Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!
Here are the babies' names: Big pink exerscise ball: Taylor Julie
Red/yellow dot: Andrew William B____
Big Blue: William Jacob B____
Big Pink: Jessica Rachel B____
Small Unicorn: Sarah Sienna B____
Small Bee: Adam Jacob B____
Small Red Elephant: Jeremiah Diego B____
Today Lauren was talking about the American Girl dolls (a catalog arrived in the mail yesterday), and said how Mckenna (doll of the year) is a beautiful name. That she just loves it. She said she also loves the doll Julie's name, that she evened named one of the ball babies Taylor Julie.
We had a ton going on the first week of June! It was the last week of school. The morning of June 5 Lauren had her 1st grade, 3rd trimester awards ceremony and performance. The kids sang several patriotic songs and were supposed to wear red, white, and/or blue. Lauren wore red, but
refused to take off her turquoise sweater. I guess it counts as blue. ??? The kids made Yankee Doodle hats (on her desk) and wore those while singing. Cute!
The little boy in the picture is Lauren's friend, Laslo. They've been little buddies this whole school year. Every time I'm in the class, and then take Lauren's picture, he wants a picture with her too. He and his brother do karate at Austin's dojo, and one time when I was watching, Laslo asked, "Does Lauren know I'm here?" Like maybe she would have liked to come, had she known!
May 24, I'd just walked in the door from doing errands. The phone rang, w/ Lauren's teacher calling: "Mrs. B___, there's been an incident today...nothing you have to come to school for...but I thought you should know, Laslo kissed Lauren at lunch." She went on to say how the noon duty talked to him, as she did herself, and that Laslo denied it, but Lauren said it happened. To which their teacher replied, "Usually you know when someone tries to kiss you!" She said Laslo felt bad, like he didn't want to be doing anything wrong.
At home, Lauren told me Laslo kissed her on the lips! Said she was eating lunch on the sidewalk, alone, because she likes privacy. Laslo peeked around the corner, then ran over and kissed her! Lucca and some other kids saw it and told the noon duty lady, who told Ms. N. Lauren's response to all this: "Well, I am a beautiful little girl! Hee hee hee giggle giggle... He really does say he wants to marry me, and he loves me. But I can't marry him...because he doesn't love God...," looking sad about the last part. Another day she told me she can't marry him b/c he burps w/ his mouth open. Oh my!! He's been quite a friendly little boy whenever I've talked to him. ;)
Lauren makes up songs and performs them all the time. She is constantly putting on singing and dancing shows!
The afternoon of June 5, Julia competed in the 5th/6th grade spelling bee. We hardly practiced at all. The word list was the same as last year (where she won the bee!), and she felt pretty confident that she knew it. Not arrogant about it, just confident. Well, she ended up getting out on the second word, "dialogue". Which, she did know how to spell, just slipped up. She was a little disappointed and said we should have practiced more, but was pretty much ok with it. A friend's mom, "Didn't she win the last two years?" LOL They probably all thought it was time someone else won. ;)
Austin also made it to the final 3rd/4th grade spelling bee! Each class has their own bee, and the top 3 spellers go to the final. Austin did not want to practice at ALL!!! Believe you me, he had better things to do!! At least in his opinion. I had him spell every word on his list correctly, out loud, at least once, just so he'd be familiar with them all. I told him the letters might swim around in his mind like alphabet soup when he to spell out loud (no problem for him on paper!). He told me if he didn't win a Barnes and Noble gift card (for the top 3 spellers) after all that practice, that I had to pay him $5 for doing all that work! In this picture he'd armed himself b/c I guess he was afraid of getting a spanking???? for being such a stinker about practicing!! That never was a threat, but this is how he walked around that afternoon, mad about practicing.
Austin's spelling bee was Wednesday afternoon. He spelled "desperate" correctly, then missed the first "i" in electricity. Which, of course, happened to be one of the easier words on the list. He said he thought he just didn't focus enough. Oh well... We told him there's always next year. Julia told him the word list would be the same. LOL And no, we didn't pay him $5! I think all the kids got ice cream though.? What impressed me about Austin and his bee? When he got out, many, many of his classmates extended their hands to give him high (low?) fives as he walked past. Back in May, Austin came home with an invitation to have breakfast with his teacher, and other kids and their teacher, two from each calss. He said each kid in his class had 4 votes and had to vote for the friendliest, best-behaved kids. He ended up getting the most votes!! We are so proud of him.
Lauren also made it into the 1st/2nd grade spelling bee! So, Tuesday morning, June 6, I went to Austin's awards presentation. Then ran off to vote in the primaries. I'd practiced a lot with Lauren too, and she was willing and ready to memorize those words. She has a great memory, and I figured if she could just memorize the list (or at least most of it), she'd have a good chance. They were not easy words for 1st grade! Automobile, magician, hurricane, moccasins, Wednesday were all on the list... really, for 1st graders?! What happened to "dog", "cat", and "run"? LOL Some easier words were sister, rough, squint, and whale. And yes, you had to know both kinds of whale/wail!
Lauren's bee was Tuesday afternoon. She said she'd be nervous; I agreed, and we discussed how she'd never spoken, sang, etc in front of an audience before. The little 1st and 2nd graders were so cute. A lot of them didn't know many of the words, and when they got out, they looked so sad; some cried. :( This was the only age group where I saw that--the older kids looked disappointed, but "got over it" quicker.
Anyway, she spelled "already", "canyon", "different", and "medicine", correctly! And then she missed "accident", spelling it "accacent". She was the 2nd remaining 1st grader up there, and ended up in 5th place! Lauren was sooooo disappointed she wasn't in the final three, and disgusted with herslef, totally discounting her 5th place accomplishment. She was so sad, even at school, and came and sat by me and cried quietly. A little 2nd grade boy in front of us whispered to us, "She did really good. I couldn't spell those words..." But there was no consoling Lauren! At home, she yelled and fussed about her situation for quite awhile! She was washing her dirty feet in the tub after school and we heard yelling from the bathroom, screaming over and over, "I want to win!" and "All that hard work!", more mad at herself than anything!
The next day, Lauren's teacher told her she did really well, and she was so proud of her. Ms. N was won of the judges at the bee, and told Lauren she wanted to have "accadent" be correct, but she had to be fair. ;) On her report card, Ms. N wrote that Lauren is very talented and should be tested for GATE in 3rd grade! Ms. N was a
great teacher for Lauren this year; she really encouraged her, and took time to understand and get to know her. I really noticed Lauren grow more confident and just come into her own this year.
The last week of school, papers, and artwork, and old crayons, and tiny pencils, and used-up workbooks started coming home. This is just part of the pile. I should have taken a picture of it towards the end of the week! It was higher than the toaster.
Austin's collection of teeny tiny pencils. Oh my! Notice how he sharpened both ends of some of the pencils. And how some are shorter than his pinky finger... Julia said kids would get in trouble in her class for sharpening the eraser ends... Oh, Austin...
Thursday afternoon was Julia's last awards ceremony ever, for elementary school! Lots of the girls decided to wear dresses. Julia received a medal for Perfect Attendance all year. She received a gold Presidential Academic Fitness award and letter signed by President Obama for carrying at least a 3.5 GPA every quarter 4th - 6th grade. Wow! (Then there was Brian, saying, "Who signed that award? Bozo?")
I thought it was interesting how many of her class earned this award. A couple years ago, their principal commented how this class was the highest academic achieving class during his time of being principal there.
There was a slide show after the awards, then the 6th graders got to party the rest of the school day! They had a class BBQ then played a Survivor game. All the girls changed out of their pretty dresses for that.
I had a dentist appointment later that afternoon, so Brian came home a little early to watch the kids. Julia can (and does) stay with the younger kids, but the two middle kids fight sometimes! And they don't listen when Julia tells them to stop, so it's best if Brian or me is with them. They'll even tell me, if I leave them all to go to the grocery store for a quick trip, "Can we watch a show so we don't fight?" If they're engrossed in a show, they won't bother each other! Crazy!
After school, the last day!!! The kids had field day all morning. The 6th graders got to run the games. Lauren gave Austin 3 of her tickets, then he wouldn't give them back when she wanted them. Lauren told Julia, and she gave Lauren more tickets (than she even got to use!) from her game booth. Benefit of having an older sister running a game, I guess.
The kids had a half day, so I picked up a Subway sandwich and took them to the park where some of Julia's friends and their moms get together every year on the last day. I wonder what will happen next year?
To celebrate the last day, Brian and I planned a picnic at another park for dinner. We were the only people there for most of the time. A nice family with a friendly dog showed up. Caroline was excited to pet him; Lauren was freaked out. Wouldn't you know, the dog, trying to play, knocked Lauren down, and of course she ran off screaming and crying! Goodness. The dad apologized, but that didn't make Lauren much happier.
I'd bought black bean burgers at Costco to try, and most of us liked them. Though Brian kind of wondered about them. And there were some comments like: "There's corn in my burger!", "These are spicy...", "There's beans in my burger!" Ha ha ha We went to Yogurt Creations for dessert.
Saturday, June 9, we drove up to Paso Robles for the 4-H Chicken-Q. Every year, we have to pay a fee, which covers insurance, and two tickets for the Chicken-Q. Last year we skipped it since we were busy with moving.
Our community leader gave us 4 more tickets, then we found 4 more lying on a brick wall at the fairgrounds. We ate some meals there and took some to go. It was definitely worth the hour or so drive up and back!
Julia could have entered her projects, but we didn't know we were going till the last minute--too late to register them. We looked around at other projects and saw some animals. The kids built toothpick and gumdrop structures at a booth...then proceeded to eat most of the gumdrops while waiting in line to get lunch.
Good brother, Austin. He loves his little sisters; though often pesters the middle one these days. But he always takes good care of the baby.
Everybody takes good care of the baby.
We drove home after lunch. Julia immediately went across the street to her sewing teacher's house to work on the quilt she's been making.
After that, the older three kids and I went to Avila Beach for a beach birthday bash for one of Julia's good friends, and two other classmates. Their moms decided just to have one big group party, so no mutual friends would have to miss a party. It was fun! Though we only got to stay for an hour and a half or so (b/c of sewing).
Then we drove to church where we met Brian (Caroline was in the childcare) for movie night. In May (I think), the church showed
Courageous, then in June, they showed
Soul Surfer. It was fun. The kids in childcare watched Veggie Tales. ;)
One more picture of Caroline, who was cute, cute, cute in her little romper! It was hot in Paso Robles; perfect for this outfit. :)
Whew! What a week!
