Thursday was Carter’s preschool music program and preK graduation.
Waiting for the music program.
Each of the classes “sings” two songs during the music program. Then the parents of the younger classes leave and the preK class performs a whole bunch more songs.
This “Tooty-Ta” song was hilarious!
Here is an abbreviated version of some of the songs that the Pre-K class sang during the music program and graduation.
After the songs, each child received a graduation certificate.
Pastor Greg gave each of the kids a book.
Carter with Ms. Tricia and Ms. Rae Anne
Here is a video of Carter receiving his diploma — he is such the class-clown!
Carter’s preschool class.
Carter with his “best buddies” Jack and Brody.
Love this big baby!
Below is Carter’s Pre-K assessment and it is spot-on. But first, to put it in context, Ms. Tricia is not your typical lovey-dovey, everybody’s-a-winner sort of preschool teacher. She has high expectations for these kids and tells it like it is. For that reason, her assessment of Carter gave me a lot of confidence that Carter will do great in kindergarten this fall even though he will have just turned five. He is definitely a smart kid; when he sets his mind to something, he accomplishes it fairly quickly.
What a great day! I really love Mother’s Day, maybe even more than my birthday. It’s always a great excuse to take family pictures (a legal form of child abuse, if you ask Carter).
I definitely love all the presents. Especially the handmade ones…
and the chocolate ones…
and the photo ones!
But my favorite part of Mother’s Day is reading the surveys that the kids filled out in primary — they’re always so insightful!
“This is my mom. Her name is Kim, but daddy calls her Kim.
She is 35 years old and she is as pretty as a flower.
My mom is the best at making chocolate chip muffins.
She really loves me and Carter.
If I had a TON of money I would buy her godiva chocolate.
If my mom was an animal, she would be a bee.
When mom was a little girl, she used to watch tv.
My mom is scared of fire.
My mom looks funny when she is confused.
Something my mom always says to me is Hello.
I wouldn’t trade her for all the rocks sadness in the world.
Love Raine”
“This is my mom. Her name is Kim, but daddy calls her Kim.
She is 1 years old and she is as pretty as a flower.
My mom is the best at making pizza.
She really loves yellow and red.
If I had a TON of money I would buy her a dress.
If my mom was an animal, she would be a peacock.
When mom was a little girl, she used to climb trees.
My mom is scared of snakes.
My mom looks funny when she has no make up.
Something my mom always says to me is clean your face.
I wouldn’t trade her for all the chocolate in the world.
Love Carter D.”
Raine is awesome, she really is! She is a first-born in every sense of the word — over-achiever, controlling, rule-follower. She is also creative and passionate. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty . . .
Digging for worms with her neighbor-friend Riley
. . . but she also loves to be a girl.
I find this photo to be unbelievably disturbing. What happened to my baby???
Raine loves to read. She is currently working her way through the Boxcar Children Mysteries. She’s also obsessed with being a spy. She started a “Spy Team” with a bunch of her girlfriends at school and is always working on things for the team. I’m not sure exactly what they do, but she sure loves it.
Raine still loves rescuing animals. In fact, she and Riley built a sanctuary for those “poor worms” that they dug out of the dirt the other day. She also loves to “rescue” roly-poly bugs during Carter’s soccer games. I keep trying to tell her that the bugs are better off in the dirt, but she insists that they need her help. She argues that they could get stepped on in the grass and would be much better off on the side-walk. (Sometimes her logic is so flawed, but she believes it so passionately, that I get exhausted even thinking about trying to change her mind! And so, I just nod.)
Speaking of soccer games, here is Raine’s first corner kick. She really loves soccer. It’s too bad we’ve had so many games and practices cancelled this season because of weather. She has made a lot of progress and is really fun to watch.
Raine asked me to record this video of her riding her bike so that I could post it on the blog. She is riding in a spiral around the cul-de-sac.
And finally, here is a story that Raine wrote at school. (The paper she uses is wider than my scanner so the edges got cut off. I’ll type out the text below). I really love this story because it is sooooo Raine! Almost every line ends with an exclamation point and the jokes don’t really make sense but it has animals and princesses and a little excitement!
* * * * *
The Mean Mean Bat
Long, long ago in a dark haunted cave a flying bat swooped out of the dark looking for food and then frightened a little rat. The Queen grabbed the rat right before the bat ate him! The bat sihed [sighed]. The princess ran over to the queen and then pecky sqwacked [squawked] with alarm! It’s the King! Run! The rat squeaked with alarm! Pecky screeched with alarm again! Then something worse happened! The evil evil witch went after them! Run fast! But . . . the princess and the cat came up with the best plan ever! First, Oh no! The bat ate the rat! Wait never mind. First the princess snuck up on the bat and killed it. Then the cat bit the king and witch! Everyone was happy! The end.
This past Wednesday, Carter’s preschool class took a field trip to the Fort Worth Zoo. They use the zoo-phonics curriculum, and just finished all 26 letters, so they went to see how many of their zoo-phonics friends they could find.
Carter is second from the right.
Daddy went with Carter on the field-trip (it was his first field-trip) and I met them there for lunch.
Carter spent the entire time with his best friend, Jack. They were in the same primary class in our old ward and have become best buddies. As we were walking to the kangaroos they looked at each other and said “let’s hold hands!”
Carter ran his first road race on Saturday, April 11, at the Victory Over Violence kids 1k (it was Raine’s second race). The District Attorney’s office had a team participating in the event so we joined.
After the 1k fun-run, the kids and I took off for soccer games while Daddy ran the 5k.
Raine kept asking if this was a “winner-loser” race or an “everybody’s a winner” race. I told her that the 1k was most likely an “everybody’s a winner” race, but that the 5k was a “winner-loser” race. Then I asked her which she preferred. She said that she prefers an “everybody’s a winner” race because she isn’t fast enough to win. Sound logic!
That conversation made me really wonder what the best approach is when it comes to kids and competition. Should everybody be a winner? Or should kids be allowed to lose? Both approaches have advantages. When kids are little, it’s great to encourage them and build their self-confidence by making them feel like a winner even if they weren’t the best or fastest. But at some point, kids need to learn that sometimes (most of the time) other people are better than they are at certain things. It will drive them to either try harder or find something else that they are better suited for. Kids know when they aren’t the best so why take away the “consequences” and raise them to believe that they are entitled to a prize even when they didn’t earn it?
I’ve never considered myself a competitive person, but I’m all for keeping score at a soccer game… no matter how old they are!
Our second day in Tyler, we swam in the hotel pool and then visited the zoo.
I love watching Carter jump and swim at the pool, he’s such a fish!
The Tyler zoo was was a lot bigger and nicer than I expected. They had lions and tigers, elephants, giraffs, and all the other big animals that large zoos have. The animal enclosures were very natural-looking and the walkways were covered with a canopy of lavender — it was really pretty.
We saw them feed one of the rinos up close and personal!
This is a really deceptive photo of our bird-feeding experience! The kids tried forever to get birds to nibble on their sticks, but this was the only time they could get any takers and the birds all flew off shortly after the photo.
After the zoo we headed to Brookshire’s corporate headquarters where they have a huge playground and wildlife museum. I was too in-awe to take any photos inside the museum — it was full of hundreds of taxidermied animals — but I did get a couple of photos on the playground.
Good Friday I was off work, so everybody else played hooky and we left town! We headed about two hours east to Tyler, home of The Villages Resort and its indoor water park. We had an afternoon of fun in the endless river, wave pool, kids area, and water slides. Here are some photos, the videos will have to come another day.
Carter’s soccer team, the Sharks, with their mascot!
Carter is 2nd from the right.
Raine was team captain at her last soccer game. She has improved significantly over the last week and came within inches of scoring a goal this past Saturday. It’s been fun to watch her get more confident and “aggressive” (if you can use that word with Raine) on the field.
This time of year has the best weather for playing outside.
Carter has been using the warm evenings to work on his bike riding. Pretty soon, we’ll be ready for a family bike ride.
Saturdays this month were full of soccer games, birthday parties, and grocery shopping.
Daddy taught Raine how to play Uno while we were stuck home on a snow day and she was instantly addicted! We have played hundreds of hands of Uno this month.
