Fathers

Happy Father's Day to some true family men.... we're talking the real deal right here

 

 So glad to have all of them in my life:)

Track & Field Day

The Primary grades at Deming-Miller held their annual Track Meet the last week of school.  It is more of a Field Day...but either way, Emm had a blast.  It was held over at Miller (Kars' building) because Deming (Emm's building) doesn't have a field.  The 6th grade got to run the stations and Karsyn made sure she got paired with Emmrey's group. The kids got their instructions and then the games began. Look at Kars all official with her clipboard...her job was to be the group leader and rotate around with the kids and keep track of where and when they were supposed to go.

 

They competed old school style with Moon Bouncers

 There was a lot of running....

Mark stopped by and jumped in on this one.  The kids just love him....he seems to have that affect:)

 

The kids did their own version of the high jump...Emm just kinda climbed over it:)

There were hurdles to jump..

 The last station the 1st graders were spent.  They all just kinda wanted to sit on the grass.  Kars jumped in and raced Emm (multiple times) ...entertainment for all;)

 

And of course ice-cream and ribbons to be enjoyed at the end.  So much fun watching my little Grizzlies!

Birthday weekend fit for a 12 year old

Amidst all the craziness this past couple of weeks....someone had a birthday.  Karsy turned 12 !! Honestly, these landmark birthday's are hard for me. She will enter Middle School next year, she advances from Primary into Young Women's at church, and 12 just puts her a little closer to teen years.  I don't like it.  I want my babies to stay babies in so many ways, but I must admit I love watching them grow into the people they are supposed to become.  Inside this emerging young lady.....

 Is still this funny little girl who has always been so full of spunk:)

 

I love the way those brown eyes of hers can be full of intensity one minute and mischief the next.

As luck would have it, her birthday came the day before we had to have everything out of our rental...(feels like deja vu of last year)Due to the craziness of the entire week...her loving mom did not get to make a very sophisticated plan for celebrating.  We can blame it on poor planning, or guilt for not planning, but whatever it was, the birthday stretched out over 3 days.  Her birthday celebration migrated from our rental in Cheyenne to our new house in Wellington.  On her REAL birthday she got her breakfast of French Toast and Raspberries in bed (her pic last year looks oddly familiar...breakfast on some sort of makeshift bed)

We took her to dinner of her choosing, which was Olive Garden.  They brought her a yummy dessert to help celebrate:)

Karsyn has asked us for months if we would be in our new house on her birthday.  She got her wish about as close as you can cut it. I don't know exactly where my head was, but I actually thought that on Friday (the day we officially moved out), we could get to the house (after 6:00) and we would all be up for throwing a party ...with complete chaos around us;)  So that did not happen and instead we picked up Jimmy Johns and ate in a mess.

 I felt a little bad that we had not done more to celebrate. So although there was so so much to do, the next morning we drove into Fort Collins to play at Fort Fun.  Karsyn chose to mini golf and ride bumper cars (which I thought were a waste of $).  They were in line for the Go Karts when it started to thunder and rain.  They closed the track and we decided to head home.

 We had planned to have a BBQ on the deck.  Karsyn was super excited about that, but the stormy weather continued on and so again our plan was foiled.  We still had a BBQ but had to eat inside.  We did get to see this beautiful view after the storm passed....thinkin' positive. Coincidentally, on her "birth day" in 2002, the weather pattern was very similar.  The day she was born it was warm with a thunderstorm rolling in that afternoon. The same was true on this May 29th (and all weekend).  Ironically, Kars is TERRIFIED of thunderstorms to this day...I mean no joking around kind of fear:(

 Kars had 2 things on her birthday wish list.  A puppy (a recurring request) and a trampoline.  It took some convincing (possible trampoline injury makes me freak out a little), but we decided that it would be a gift that could be enjoyed for years and by all the girls (Kars is our best at sharing).  I think it's safe to say.....SHE LOVED IT!!

Karsy asked for a gourmet cupcake for her birthday treat.  So we all enjoyed a yummy cupcake from Butter Cream Cupcakery.  (She was totally dramatizing this for me;)

What a celebration ...and what a girl!!  What would our life be like if this unique girl hadn't entered it?  She manages to be predictable and keep us guessing all at the same time:)  Our Eva Lu has given us 12 years of joy and so many fun memories that we cherish.  The girl is priceless I tell ya!!

 We love you the most Beans!!

Major Award

The Monday before school got out I got a call from Karsyn's Principal, Mr. C.  He informed me that she would be receiving a pretty special award at the Honor Assembly the end of the week...he figured we would want to be there.  He also said that she knew nothing of the award and asked that we keep it quiet.  I'm pretty sure Kars knew that she was getting recognized for Honor Roll, so she wasn't overly surprised to see us there at the school.  The program looked like this...

 When all was said and done, she was recognized in seven different categories.  Among them, were awards for Gold Honor Roll and President's Education Award.  The final award was the Roger Bengston Citizenship Award.  This award is awarded to one girl and one boy who exhibit Outstanding Performance in Citizenship.  The recipients are selected based on nominations from Principal and staff members. It is the most prestigious awards they give out and although Kars takes it all in stride, we could not have been more proud. For a girl who doesn't like to be the center of attention for an audience, being up in front as much as she was, may have been a little painful for her ;/

We know what a fantastic kid she is, but it is so nice to know that others see that as well.  Yes...being recognized for academics or sports is awesome, but having your child noticed for being an all around good person who demonstrates exemplary citizenship in the way they interact with others is absolutely amazing!! Isn't that what all parents want....to raise kids who do good things and are good to those around them?

So so proud of our girlie:)

Poets

Both Karsyn and Emmrey had Poetry Celebrations in the last weeks of school.  They had been writing poetry in class and this was their way of sharing it with parents and other classes. The kids got to choose one of their poems to read for the celebration. Emmrey read hers and also read one with her little buddy Emilia, who was afraid to do it by herself:)

The one she chose is titled Pickles...so cute

After all the kids had read for the parents, they spread around the gym to share the rest of their poetry books with parents.  We had her classmate, Mylee join us since she did not have a parent that could attend.  It was so fun to listen to them read all their cute poems.  They were so so proud of their work!!

 Of course the best part for the 1st graders, was the snacks that were served after.

Emmrey and Emilia

 The following week was the 6th grades turn.  This time the kids could read more than one poem if they wanted.  I was not a bit surprised that Kars only read one....she does not like being on display in front of a crowd.  When she told us that her poem was about "a fat lad", I was a little anxious inside.  We have tried raise our girls to be sensitive to differences in bodies and I was worried that our sweet girl was going to read a poem that poked fun at someone that was "larger".  Well....I had no need to worry.  It was a catchy little Limerick that was not mean in nature (at least I don't think so)

This was the extent of sharing of their poetry books.  They were lined up along the back table for parents to browse through for a few minutes.  Unlike Emm, Kars was not all that excited about us looking through hers.  I also couldn't help but notice the difference between the book presentation of 1st grade and 6th grade (or maybe it has more to do with the teachers).  This was the cover for Karsyn's book (no frills here;)

We had a hard time getting a close enough shot of her during her reading, so we grabbed her after for a quick pic (which she was thrilled about).  Her classmate Nick (on far left) is a hoot! He wears that tux every time they have a special program at school...love it.

 It was so fun listening to my little Poets and hearing their personality come out through their poems...that's what is so great about Poetry.