Honor Choir Performs at Disneyland! - May 25

My six kiddos I had all year, plus one of Kaitlyn's friends on the end, Josie.

Eating some lunch before the performance!

Such a cutie!

This is a fairly new stage at Disneyland

Our signage for our performance, we got to keep this and received a plaque!

Girls in front of "It's a Small World"

Driving behind a Crazy Driver!

Waiting and waiting for Thunder Mountain

Eating a bite for dinner

I realized I didn't have a picture of the two of us until the very end of our trip!

Michelle, Mrs. Waas (choir director), Kaitlyn and Bailee

 Kaitlyn was able to go and perform at Disneyland with the Honor Choir!  She has worked so hard to and put so much time and effort into this, it was such a wonderful way to end the school year out, with a trip to Disneyland.  I found out that line parents get to go and chaperone the event.  Which, I will have to be honest, I thought would be pretty stressful.  But, a huge plus is that I didn't have to pay for a ticket to get in!  There was a fee to be in Honor Choir, which part of that fee helps pay for the line parents as well as all the kids.  So, I got up and took Ella, Andrew and Kaitlyn to school Friday morning as usual.  Then Kaitlyn got on a school bus full of kids and I rode in a car with some other moms.  The driver had a season pass so we didn't even have to pay for parking!  And she goes to Disneyland a lot and has a secret parking place that is basically reserved for her, right where the buses park, so we were able to meet up with our assigned students so much faster.  We had a fairly smooth experience.  It didn't start off that way at first, I was nervous, when a boy broke his belt at the first bathroom break, and we had to find some black tape to repair it.  Then the same boy spills his soda all the way down the front of his pants!  Disneyland is very particular about the appearance and uniformity of the performers, so I was sweating bullets as they were eating their tomato soup and cheese sandwiches for lunch in their uniforms!  We met up under the Toon Town bridge and found our Disneyland representative that took us back stage.  The line parents of 5th graders got first priority if they wanted to be one of the 10 to go back stage with the choir.  I went and helped out.  It was neat to see how organized and smoothly they run everything.  Once everyone was lined up tallest to shortest they took a group photo in front of a green screen and then they offer a photo with the castle in the background. (I got one and had the choir director sign it for Kaitlyn).  They performed in front of a lot of people!  There was a small band and piano player to accompany them.  They looked and sounded great!  (Some of the kids' shoes/ankles we had to tape up with black tape because of shoe decoration or lack of black socks).  After the show, they went backstage again where they each got a Disneyland performing arts T-shirt.  Then we escorted them out to meet parents.  I signed out 4 of my 6 children, and I had Kaitlyn and one other girl from my group left and we signed out one of Kaitlyn's friends to hang out with us and then some of their friends tagged along as well.  So I hung out with six girls and we rode on some rides.  It was a super busy day and the lines were really long.  But we managed to go on 5 rides, one of which was Thunder Mountain (which I haven't been on before), before heading back to meet everyone for the buses.  Most of the children were checked out and stayed later with their families.  I carpooled there and decided to ride the bus back with Kaitlyn, that way I didn't have to drive home being so tired.  Kaitlyn curled up in my lap and fell asleep on the bus ride home (one of my favorite parts of the trip, besides seeing her perform).  I drove one of her friends home and made sure the others found their parents and we arrived home shortly before 10pm.  It was a fun day.

Ella's B-day - May 24

Ella turned 9 on May 24th!  I can't believe another year has come and gone!  She requested "watermelon" cupcakes to take to her school class.  I made 2 batches so that we would have some for dessert after dinner too.  As I got out of the car, the edge of the cupcake carrier must have hit the side of the car and I lost all 36 that I was taking to school!  I was stunned, they all fell out all over the parking lot!  My first thought was, I will just go to the store and buy some.  But I knew that Ella really wanted the watermelon ones.  I told her I would make some more and bring them in before lunch time.  SO, I had to run to the store and they were out of strawberry cake mix, so I settled on white cake mix and put food coloring to make it pink.  Then after I got home I realized I didn't have the paper cupcake liners, so I raced back to the store.  I started making them super fast, putting in mini chocolate chips (the seeds of the watermelon), and coloring the frosting green for the peel of the watermelon, and sprinkles of course.  Then I realized that Ella had wanted me to pack her lunch for her for her birthday (so it would be a surprise).  I finished the cupcakes and headed to McDonald's on the way to school with a brand new batch of watermelon cupcakes, firmly holding on to the bottom of the carrier this time.  I came in her class just as they were getting ready for lunch, chicken nuggets, fries and a chocolate shake in hand for Ella's birthday lunch.  I sat in the lunchroom with her as she ate her lunch with her friend, Ava.  After school my friend, Sandy made her a candy necklace.  It had lots of her favorite treats inside.  Then after school, and honor choir practice, we had tacos for dinner and Ella went to karate. They sang "Happy Birthday" to her at the end of class.  She opened her gifts, a Do it Yourself, Diary of a Wimpy Kid Journal, cards, money and gift cards.  We signed her up for soccer so she will be getting a new ball, cleats and shin guards when they have their special package deal at Big 5 next month.  We sang and had watermelon cupcakes and then headed to bed.  It was a busy, busy day!

Spring Choir Concert - May 23

 This is just the Honor Choir and they have a certain uniform for their performances.  Kaitlyn is the second from the left on the front row (the benefits of petite children! :)

 This is a picture of her school choir.

Kaitlyn performed on May 23rd with her school choir as well as the Honor choir in their Spring Concert.  It was fun to see them sing.  They had a Disney inspired theme this year.  Kaitlyn had a little trio which sang part of one of their songs.  It was amazing to see how polished they have become since they started. Honor Choir is only for a select amount of students from 4 elementary schools, who practice 1 1/2 hours a week (on top of regular school choir practices).  I volunteered to be a "line parent" which means I was responsible for 6 of the students, attendance, paperwork and making sure they were staying on task.  I chaperoned their performances, four of them all in the month of May!  It has been fun!

Jolene's Baby Shower - May 19th

I slipped away today to attend a baby shower of a Western U wife.  Her husband just completed his first year of school.  Many of the Western U wives get together once a month for a "book club."  But it's just a front for a support group for all of us, to survive having our husbands in school.  It is good to mingle with girls that are all going through similar things as me. 

Andrew's 1st Book Report - May

Ella discovered that Andrew's book report was posted in the window of their school library.  I had to take a picture of it.  It's so cute!  He isn't much of an illustrator, but he loves to write.  :)

Ella's Ancestor Report - May 18th

Ella had an ancestor report project to do for school.  It's pretty cool.  They get to do a report on someone and then they share a fun/interesting fact on them in front of the class.  If the ancestor can make it, they come to a luncheon, potluck during school.  They bring a family favorite dish to share.  It's really neat.  Ella did her report on my grandma, her great-grandma "Gi-Gi."  She showed a picture of her and told everyone how many kids, grand-kids and great-grand kids she has.  She did a good job. 

Later that night we met up with our friends to have our own baseball practice.  Then we went out for dinner and dessert!  It sure was a fun evening!

Dental Banquet - May 12

The end of the second year of dental school is almost here!  The dental school had a banquet to celebrate another year under our belts.  We went and sat with a bunch of friends and had a blast!  There were photo/videos made of the year that were pretty funny and then dancing.  But the best part was this photo booth where we took funny pictures of ourselves with silly props. We even stayed until just past 10pm!  I guess we can't stay up as late as we used to!  :)

Teddy Bear Picnic - May 11th

 Andrew and his dog.

 Ella and her 2 Book-Buddies.

 Kailtyn and her Book-Buddy.

 Ella's whole class.

 Ella was throwing her monkey up in the air!

The kids all have "book buddies" at school.  It's where the older grades help a younger child with reading, and the younger children are linked up with the upper grades.  They finish off the school year with a teddy bear picnic, where they meet up with their book buddy and share a snack and a book about bears and of course, they get to bring a teddy bear from home.

Essay Contest May 8th / James Dental School May 7th

Kaitlyn was notified last week that she won first place in an essay contest!  Her class had an assignment to write an essay on "why I should stand for the American flag."  Her essay was one of over 300 submitted to a local American Legion that sent them out to be judged.  They had a special night where they recognized all the winners (first, second and third for each grade level).  She even read her essay out loud to the group.  She did a wonderful job!  Her teacher came to support her as well, which was awesome!

May 7th-I found this photo of James on his phone and decided to include it.  He was at school this day obviously another student must have been trying out some procedure on James.  Look at those white teeth!

Regional Track Meet - May 5th

Ella's relay team made it to a regional track meet competition!  There were some pretty hard core schools out there.  The competition was for all first place teams that were from any elementary school in the San Gabriel Valley.  Although Ella's team didn't win this meet, they tried their best and sure had a fun time!  Way to go Ella!

Ella got this little character from Nessa for her birthday last year.  She keeps it on her dresser.  It has her CTR ring in it's bright purple hair!

Barnes and Noble - May 3

Kaitlyn's Honor Choir performed for a book fair fundraiser at Barnes and Noble.  They set up risers and performed right outside of the store.  It was their first performance as just the Honor Choir members.  They did a great job!  They have a few more performances coming up, including one at Disneyland!

Butterflies / Sunday walk - April 29th & 30th

For Easter the kids received a butterfly habitat and 5 butterfly larvae.  They all made chrysalises and then turned into butterflies!  Everyone picked names for them.  It was a fun and educational experience.  Once 4 of them had become butterflies, we took them to school so they could show their friends and teachers.  We decided to release them one evening after I had one of them initially escape outside when I was changing the sugar-water soaked paper towel in their habitat.  Luckily I had chosen to do it outside, just in case that happened.  James got video and pictures on his phone (which I need to figure out how to get on the blog still).  I was super bummed that my camera's batteries had run out and a dozen more batteries I had had were too dead to make the camera turn on!  It was so neat seeing the kids release them, they had the butterflies on their fingers for a bit and then they would just fly away.  We are definitely going to order more larvae and do it again!

April 29th, we went on a Sunday outing to give the kids a chance to get some fresh air and stretch out.  We went over to the Claremont Colleges and walked around.  Fun times!  Nessa and Temperance were visiting that weekend.  We sure had a lot of fun playing!