James' Kindergarten Graduation

James had his kindergarten awards ceremony! It was on a Monday afternoon, so Anthony got to come and see it before he went to work. First all the kids did a performance of the song "New York, New York" except they changed the words to "First Grade, First Grade". It was so cute! I couldn't really get a good spot to take pictures or video, so I ended up with a few of the back of James' head.

James receiving his awards from the principal. Every kid got a few different awards based on their interests. James got the Junior Scientist award, Best Behavior Award (!), Future Engineer Award, and the High Achieving Eagle Award (for getting the equivalent of straight A's).

After all the classes get their individual awards, the specials teachers give out one or two awards for their subject. James was so surprised when his Yoga teacher announced his name for the Health & Wellness Award! Look at his shoulders all bunched up to his ears :) He was so surprised to get a special award!

After the awards were handed out, the classes went back to their own classroom for candy superlatives. James got a big bag of smarties for "always having a smart answer". His teacher must have known that those were basically the only candy he likes!

James and his teacher. I seriously can't say enough about how much we love her!! She is amazing!

James and some of his classmates right before I checked him out early to go home. Rett had to get in there and hold up a car since he didn't get a candy :) Moving on to First Grade!

Color Bash 2017

For months there were signs at James school asking for volunteers for "Color Bash". I wasn't exactly sure what Color Bash was, but I wanted to help out! So I got Anthony's parents to watch Rett so I could spend the day helping out. It turns out it is a school wide field day/celebration. All the kids in all the grades (K-8th) were assigned a color group with a teacher and mix of kids from different grades and have been meeting in their groups on certain days throughout the year. They came up with a team song, motto, poster, etc.. James' teacher told me that one of main reasons they do this is because when they first started the school, the little kids were terrified of the older big kids! This way they can get to know the older kids and the older ones can get to know the little ones and be role models.

There were 10 different stations for each team to go to. Sometimes they were on their own and other times they were competing with other teams. At each station, volunteers graded the teams on spirit, sportsmanship, and cooperation (which is what the trophies were awarded for at the end). They do end up with an overall winner but it isn't based on winning each event, it is based on their teamwork and attitude. How cool is that?

This is James' team coming down to the field, he got to hold the banner in the front. They were Team Asparagus and their motto was "Make Asparagus Great Again". Their teacher wore a Donald Trump wig and introduced himself as "Ronald Trump" to everyone and would talk about asparagus nonstop :)

James at my station after going down the water slide. The inflatable water slide was his favorite station!

At the end of the field day portion, the entire school gathers to sing a song (that they have been practicing in music class) and at the end of the song the teachers throw powdered color in the air on everyone. James got upset right as it started because he didn't get to hold a container of powder, so he is pouting behind the pac-man kids in the front for the entire song. 

Then everyone ate picnic lunches and went back to class to change clothes and wait for the awards ceremony. James had so much fun watching Netflix with one of his buddies, Korbin. They shared his towel as a blanket and were so cute leaning on each other and laughing at the Ipad.

At the end of the awards ceremony they sang the song again and this time I got a video of James actually doing the hand motions. That is until he saw me videoing him and he started doing finger guns at me :)

It was a long fun day at school with James, and Rett had a great time playing at home with Papa. Look at these cuddle bugs!

End of May

Rett had his last soccer game of the season and his soccer award party right after it. By the end of the season he was finally getting the idea of what he was supposed to be doing and was actually excited about playing. When it was his turn to sit out he started to get upset because he thought he was in trouble. He wanted to be out there playing! Next season Rett and James will both be playing, but in different age groups so we will have two sets of practices and two games each week. Pray for us!

Ready for pictures to be over!

His team and his two coaches. They were both so patient with him!

Loving his medal and his water bottle present from his coaches!

A train came by and it was the highlight of the soccer party!

We are watching the cousins' pets for the summer so we temporarily have added a rabbit and a hamster to the zoo!

Anthony made a deer feeder and put it up on a tree on the other side of our back fence. We have seen deer eat out of it a few times, but mostly it has been feeding raccoons, turkeys, and squirrels.

We caught a squirrel in the raccoon trap! We haven't been setting the trap recently, but the last time we did we caught this squirrel. I'm not sure what he did our how heavy he was that it sprung the trap, but he was very glad to be released :)

Anthony finally got to go out fishing one night. He and a friend took a few paddleboards out to gig flounder. They both ended up with quite a few to take home for the freezer.

A wildlife guy came to James' school and the kids got to pet an alligator, see some snakes, and hold a tarantula. James was so excited about holding the spider! He talked about it for days. These are a few of the pictures his teacher posted. Look at their expressions!

I love James' faces in these! He is holding the spider in the bottom picture and is sitting next to the boy holding it in the far right picture. You can just see the excitement! 

James randomly asked if he could wear some of my high heels so he got some from the closet and tried walking around in them. Then he told me that they are the shoes "the ladies at church wear", not the shoes I wear. I guess I wear flats way too much!

Of course, Rett wanted to do it too. You know the saying, "If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" Well, I'm pretty sure if James jumped off a bridge Rett would only be two seconds behind him.

Our ward had a really neat International night ward activity. It was so much fun! Rett feel asleep right before it was time to go and Anthony had some house projects to work on so James and I went by ourselves.

This was the Switzerland room. They had famous classical music by swiss composers playing, swiss cheese and chocolates to sample, and the sister in charge told us the history of the guy who had to shoot an apple off of his son's head with a bow and arrow (which apparently happened in Switzerland). Then we got to act it out!

Antarctica was James' favorite country to visit. The family in charge rented a freezer truck and backed it up to the back door of the church so you could walk out the door and right into it. After you went inside and threw snowballs into the holes you earned a snow cone on your way out!

The country of Wales room had this awesome bearded dragon (the Welsh flag has a dragon on it). Someone asked me if we had one of those and I said, "Not yet!"

Making maracas in the Mexico room:

The cultural hall was decorated as a the dining hall of a restaurant and when you walked it you choose a meal ticket for one of three different "restaurants" that had different kinds of food. The centerpieces were these awesome hot air balloon decorations:

We brought our snakes as a part of the Australia room. Although they aren't really native to Australia, it is a country known for its snakes and wildlife. James was happy to sit next to his snakes and give everyone a little lesson about them when they walked by.

For half a second I finally had all the chickens/chicks/quail out of the house and in their pens! We moved the quail to the temporary cage inside the big chicken coop and it looked like it was going to work great. But then a few days later I came out to find that the big chickens were going underneath the cage and pecking the quail and eating them! They ended up getting three of them before we realized what was happening.

The culprits:

So we quickly put some finishing touches on the big permanent quail cage and moved them in.

Rett only takes naps every once in awhile now but sometimes he just gets so cranky that I force him to lay down in his room. This particular day, he decided that he absolutely didn't need a nap and that he was going to protest by coming out of his room with his blanket and pillow. And then he fell asleep. Mommy 1, Rett 0!