End of school

Mason and Cooper have had great years. They have learned a lot, made great friends, and have grown a ton both academically and physically.

 Cooper with his teacher, Mrs. Hammond on the last day of school. (I forgot to get one of Mason with his teacher Mrs. Jordan)

As summer approaches each year, I worry about having enough fun things to do through out the summer to keep them busy. I saw on facebook or somewhere that a crayola crayon can stay lit for about 30 minutes. So I thought we would start summer off with a bang, and maybe a house fire if we are lucky. The boys thought it was pretty cool that you can light a crayon and use it as a candle, and no, we were not lucky in the house fire department.

Shock

Our friends, the Mansfields, have season tickets for the Shock. Brian took his son Aiden, Jeff, and Mason to the game last night. They got home really late. Mason was super tired this morning getting up for 9am church, but I think he wouldn't have traded more sleep for being able to spend time with his dad.

On two wheels

Exciting news on the bike front. Cooper can now ride his bike without training wheels. He worked really hard and got super frustrated at times, but he is over the moon excited about his accomplishment.

Kindergarten Patriotic Concert

All of the kindergartener participated in a patriotic concert last night. They all did so well and look so cute dressed in red, white, and blue.

I can't figure out how to turn the videos, so just turn your head.

Tooth pullin' good time!

The kids all went in a few weeks ago for a dental check up. All are doing great with dental health. No cavities! Yeah!

Our dentist recommended that we have one of Mason's baby teeth pulled though. He has lost three teeth on the bottom and two of the adult teeth have come in. The two adult teeth were beginning to move into the empty space where the other adult tooth has not come in yet. The dentist wanted to pull that fourth baby tooth on the bottom so the two adult teeth will stop moving away from the baby tooth and into the empty space. Also, once those two adult teeth begin to come in, there will be space for them to come into. With pulling this one tooth, the dentist said hopefully the teeth will come in straight and he will not need braces.

Mason was really nervous about having a tooth pulled, but the staff at our dental office are wonderful with kids and were able to calm his nerves and help him through the process.

9 months

Kinley is getting busier and busier everyday. I don't think there is a day that goes by when she is not doing something new.

 Crawling

Standing up to furniture-started that two days ago.

Getting more teeth. She now has two on top and two on bottom.

Now that Kinley is easier to "play" with, the boys are really enjoying her more too.

Kinley's 9 month well child check up stats were:

18.3 lbs. (38%)

28.5 in. (80%)

Science Fest 2013

This year's theme was on planets. Each grade level spent the year learning about a different planet. Mason's grade learned about Mercury and Cooper's grade learned about Neptune. Each child was supposed to bring a model of their planet to display at Science Fest. The students were supposed to make the model themselves, with help from their parents. From the looks of it though, I think some parents did the assignment all by themselves. Oh the competitive nature of some people! 

They had a robot in the gym that was controlled by a video game controller and it shot Frisbees. 

Mother's Day

I love getting homemade gifts from the boys that they have made at school.

Here is what Cooper made for me:

And here is what Mason made for me:

All in all it was a great Mother's day, but like I have said before, I don't need to be totally spoiled on Mother's day because I know 365 days a year that I am appreciated and I would rather have that then only feel appreciated one day out of 365.

Book Worm

This is a precious sight to me! 

Mason has struggled with his reading since kindergarten. He has always been well below his grades reading level and has never seemed to enjoy reading. Last year and this year he has been a part of a special reading group to help him with this. His reading teacher this year has been great, I am sure last year's was great too but I didn't get a chance to get to know her. His reading teacher this year was also his kindergarten teacher, so I think it has helped that he already knew her and was comfortable with her. She explained to me during his fall conference that his comprehension level is right where it should be but that his processing speed is not. So basically, he is able to understand everything he reads, it just takes him longer to work through the tough words, and well, lets be honest, the English language is not the easiest to understand. It's not like you can sound out 90% of the words or anything. 

After the fall conference, I was feeling very defeated as a mom. Mason's everyday teacher kept saying things like: "Mason is a good boy and he does well on his assignments, but I have to read him the directions to everything", or "Again, I have to read it to him" or "Because I have to take the time to read the directions to him", she made me feel like I am doing something wrong as a parent. So I called Mason's reading teacher and discussed the option of getting a tutor for Mason to help with this. She thought a tutor would help, but what he really needed was more practice reading because the more he read the better his processing speed would become. She also said that she has found that kids with problems with their processing speed just get it one day on their own after lots of practice. So, although a tutor would help, she thought we could help too, so we decided to just make more of an effort to read with him and encourage him to read.

Over the past few weeks, it seems the light bulb has been turned on in his head. His processing speeds seems to have improved, he is reading books at higher reading levels, and he now enjoys reading!

Oh Shiloh!

This girl of ours is so FULL of PeRsOnAlItY!

Need I say more?

8 months

Kinley continues to love food! She loves all food except green beans and peas. She began crawling on the 19th of this month. I will try to get pictures of that new accomplishment for next month's post.

Video of Kinley laughing, so cute!

When it is quiet...

Shiloh is bound to be making a mess somewhere.

What a day! morning! Before 9:30am, Shiloh has managed to take all of the clothes out of her and Kinley's dresser drawers, emptied everything out of my night stand drawers, and has pulled all the wet wipes out of their container. I wonder what else is in store for the day?

Mobius

Jeff took yesterday off, so we decided to do something fun with the kids. It can be hard with four to do stuff by myself. The boys want to do "big kid" stuff, Shiloh needs to be watched at all times, and Kinley needs to held at all times. They all seem to want to go off in different directions, and since science has not figured out how to split a person into multiple different people, going out in public can be down right impossible by myself.

 Spinning a wheel to generate enough electricity to turn the light bulbs on.

 Digging with the backhoe.

 Playing in the water.

 The thing the boys enjoyed most was pretending to be crossing guards. They got to "boss" people around in a somewhat polite manner.

After going to Mobius, we stopped at the garbage goat. Shiloh wasn't so sure about the goat. I'm sure to a two and a half year old, a metal goat that sucks up things through it's mouth can be a bit frightening.