say cheese

It's that time of year again! School pictures. They have been taken and the proofs returned, with mixed results. One loves them, the other one is kind of meh with a titch of "I don't like them" thrown in for good measure. As for me, I like them both just fine and we have all managed to come to an agreement on which pose to purchase, so now it's just what package do we buy?

The package I normally buy runs us about $70ish (for both kids) and it allows us to have an 8x10 for the living room wall and all the grandparents to have a 5x7 and then there are bunch of smaller sizes that barely get used. In fact, if I am being completely honest with you, the 8x10 from last year's pictures never actually made the switch into the frame. Bad Mommy, I know.

The more I looked at the packages the more annoyed I got. There is really no economical way around school pictures. If I was looking for one 8x10 and four 5x7's at the minimum, just that alone would cost me as much as buying the package where I end up with a bunch of unnecessary prints. The waste bothers me as much as the cost in case you're wondering. It's no secret that my kids are enjoying a well documented childhood. I have no less than 3,000 pictures on my phone right now and probably a good 75% of those are of their adorable faces and yet I feel this compulsion to spend a ridiculous amount of money on these pictures that are really just okay.

So I'm not doing it. I know! Bad Mommy, again. I am going to buy the $14 pack of magnets, one for us, the rest for the grandparents. Every Christmas brings them a calendar full of  beautiful pictures of the whole family which is where I'd rather spend my school pictures savings.I'm  moderately certain my kids won't be scarred for life if they reach adulthood without an overflowing envelope of unused school pictures (which I totally have somewhere in my closet).

How do you feel about school pictures?

first day

Well it happened... I am now the Mom of a brand new middle school student. That is just pure and simple craziness, yo! First day paper work came home along with instructions to subscribe to teacher blogs. Yeah I think this is going to be a huge learning experience for both of us. I think we both finished the day a little overwhelmed by all the newness, but otherwise okay.

As for the little one.... well she was highly offended when I asked her if she was nervous about her first day. Obviously not! Why would she be? Geez, Mom. Duh! She's very much a "this is where I belong and these are my people" kind of kid when it comes to school. I hope she holds on to that, because back to school anxiety can suck it!

Really can't wait to see what this school year will bring!

lunch time

Over 12,000 steps yesterday, according to my pedometer... I guess that explains why I was so beat. Exhausted really, but in the very best way. Yesterday was Christmas Lunch day! I really love Christmas Lunch day... here's the highlights.

I am a long time Christmas Lunch helper, but if I knew last year that JB and I were going to be first time Christmas Lunch organizers this year... well I'm sure we both would have paid a lot more attention. Here's the thing though.. .if you're going to organize any kind of big event from large scale canning days to serving turkey dinner to 160 people well JB is a hell of a partner to do it with. I don't just say that because she's one of my best girls... I mean I do, because I'm a good friend like that, but even if we weren't it would still be true. She's my organizer and my list maker which is going to pay off huge next year when Christmas Lunch time rolls back around.

Fifty pounds of potatoes is just enough to serve 160 people. We didn't have a spoonful left at the end. Just in case you were wondering. JB says we cook sixty pounds next year. In case we forget that little tidbit of information... it will be on her list.

I can now proudly go around saying I have been part of a flash mob and don't worry I will be telling everyone because how awesome is that? I definitely didn't have all the steps right, having missed all the rehearsals that took place during nutrition break, but video was shot so I'm sure I'll be able to find out at some point that I looked way worse then I think I did. Abby did try to teach me the moves and by teach me I mean she watched me dance while shaking her head and saying.... you're still doing it wrong. You're still doing it wrong. Mom! Seriously!

Also kindergarten aged kids don't really get what a flash mob is, they just assume it's one giant dance party and hop up to join you. Which was very cute and not just because they didn't know the steps any better than I did.

Turns out as a bonus if you're organizing the event you're off the hook for washing dishes, so that was a nice little Christmas treat for JB and I after countless years of Christmas Lunch dishwashing.

I had the opportunity to speak with Moms (new friends and old!!) and teachers, to share some laughs, shed some tears (happy ones) and gather up as many hugs as I could. I can't think of a better way to have spent the day.

kindness and caring

I have been heard to say many times that if I don't manage to send my girls out into this world to be kind, caring and polite people...... I may as well just hang it up right now. To that end I try to model that behaviour to the best of my ability. I'm far from perfect and it's a constant work in progress, but I do the best I can.

So you can imagine I was busting at the seams on Tuesday when I got a call from the Principal at Abby's school.... I just wanted to let you know that we're going to be recognizing Abby at an assembly tomorrow because she really exemplifies this month's character trait, kindness and caring.

I'm not going to lie to you... it's all smoke and mirrors over here. It may look like I have this Mom thing locked down, but really I'm just winging it and hoping that they're paying attention to the really important stuff. Moments like this call for a little fist pump because... YES! She gets it well enough that other people realize she gets it. That's a parenting win right there!



I wish I could have been there for the assembly, but Mike was able to sneak away from work for a bit to see her get her certificate and text me pictures and for that I am thankful for both our sakes. School has been a bit of a struggle for Abby the last couple of years, but I can honestly say I don't think there is any kind of grade or mark she could bring home from school that would make me any prouder of her than I am right now.

first day

Well it happened... as much as the kids dragged their feet and fought it..... the first day of school. And of course I couldn't call myself a mommy blogger if I didn't document it, right?



I snapped this at the end of the day and I think the big grins say it all. Abby has one of her favourite teachers. Maya has a new to our school teacher, but she seems happy with her so far. Maya talked about recess and eating her lunch. Abby was full of stories about all the jobs she'd signed up for.... bus patroller, lunch monitor etc. Our school only goes to grade six, so she's "king of the heap" this year. Can't wait to see what this year will bring us.

reports

What kind of MommyBlogger would I be if I neglected to blog about my kids' report cards? A piss poor one, that's what. Just to back track for a moment....



This is how we started the year, with two little girls who were looking forward to a year spent in grade one and grade five. Not surprisingly Abby and Maya are two very different kids when it comes to school. They both enjoy it very much but the fundamentals of the learning process are a bit easier for one and a bit more challenging to the other. They are both very hard workers who try their very best, are polite and kind classmates and they both have a very good rapport with the teaching staff at their school. If that was all I had to said I'd call it a win because they can go on and have many jobs and careers in their lives, but if they aren't going to be out in the world being decent and kind people I've failed as a parent. To my way of thinking anyway.



So here we are at the end of June and I have two girls who are looking forward to a summer off before heading into grade six (Can you believe that Miss M?) and grade two. The same from the above paragraph is still all true and their reports reflected that. Maya came home with six A's, the rest B's and I am remarkably proud of her. She is one smart cookie. She's quick to figure things out on her own and there is not much that gets past her. She loves to read and do school work of any kind. I'm actually surprised she hasn't pulled out the at home summer school workbooks yet. She needs very little direction or encourgement when it comes to all things school related if anything Mike and I are the ones asking if we can take a break from the school work for a while.

And then we have Abby who pulled every single mark up (with the exception of one) from her last report card. Additionally her learning skills and work habits are top notch, almost straight E's (excellent). I get the sense that maybe things are starting to click into place for her. She is enjoying reading more then she has in the past, but it's not a major love of hers. Art is one of her big loves at school, but I would have to say French class gives Art a run for it's money. She got off the bus on report card day and said, Mom I'm sorry, but I opened my report card on the bus. I just couldn't wait until I got home to find out what my mark in French was and Mom it's an A-. I got an A-!! It was her only A and in fact the only A she got all year and it's worth more than a million bucks. She was so incredibly proud of herself. I'm so stinkin' proud of her too, but you could tell she didn't need me to be. She knew that she worked hard and tried her best and her marks reflected that. It is up there with my top parenting moments, seeing how proud she was of herself.

I couldn't have asked for a better report card for either one of them. I am thankful for the teaching staff at our little school because they are fantastic. I feel lucky that my kids have the opportunity to go there. I'm looking forward to my summer break from school volunteering, but I won't lie I have ideas already brewing for next year. I love that I have the chance to lend a hand and make a difference in the learning environment for all the students. Happy summer break everyone!

because of course they were

Three mornings a week we get the kids up with us in the morning and drop them off at the sitter's on our way to work. The other two mornings Grandma Sandi comes over to get them on the bus and they get to sleep in. As you can imagine there is much whining and complaining on the sitter mornings. Why do they have to get up? They want to sleep longer. Why can't I just quit work and stay home so they don't have to get up so early. Lather, rinse, repeat three mornings a week.

I booked today off work so I could help out at MI Day at the school. It's a day of fun and new learning experiences for the kids. It was also a day for the kids to sleep in. No early morning wake up calls. No dragging sleepy cranky kids out of their warm beds. I woke up at my regular work time so I could deal with some emails, have a cup of tea and a bite of breakfast before they woke.

Any guesses what happened instead?

I hit the hallway and Abby was just climbing out of her bed and Maya was already up, downstairs and dressed.

What. The. Hell.

instagram monday - broken

Hi, Mr. Revill, we have your daughter here. She hurt herself in gym class, we think she may have broken her thumb.

Not the kind of call you want to get at 3:25 in the afternoon, but we've gotten this call before. It was the end of the school day, from where she was to where we were it made just as much sense for her to come home on the bus. Mike spoke with the secretary Abby seemed okay, had an ice pack and was fine to come home.

We got home within minutes of each other and I checked Abby over..... her thumb was swollen and she was complaining about the pain. I asked her to move it and she either couldn't or wouldn't. I say that only because we've been down this road twice before with Maya and both times we went to the hospital to find that she could, but wouldn't move her hand.... that means not broken. I brushed the end of Abby's thumb only to have her wince at the slightest touch. She needed to go to the hospital. Mike thought maybe we should leave it for a bit and see. Thanks to Maya we are well versed in the rush to the hospital to find out nothing's wrong scenario. So of course I called ML to get her expert opinion, she didn't even bother to come over to look.... take her, she said. You don't want to mess around with the thumb.



Two hours later she came home with this.

I'm still a bit fuzzy on the details of how exactly it happened, but the jist of it is this.... they were doing soccer drills in gym she went after the ball for her group and another kid went after the ball for his group and they collided, foot to thumb. We see the plastic surgeon in a week and we'll go from there. Abby is feeling okay and really stoked about the cast, of course.

I have to say I'm surprised, I had money on Maya being the first one of our children to be sporting a cast.

mini globetrotter

Last week I got a note home from Maya's gym teacher which read.....

Great day in gym today!!! Maya hit 21+ baskets.

So of course the first thing I do is turn to Mike and ask.... Is the WNBA still a thing?

Maya of course was pretty blase about the whole thing. Like, what you mean *you* can't hit over 21 baskets. With an eye roll through in for good measure.

interviews

It's that time of the year again.... parent teacher interviews. They were pretty much exactly what I was expecting. Both girls are hard working, polite, well behaved and progressing along nicely, but one is having a much easier time of it. All the things that Abby has struggled with in school are the exact things that come to Maya with such ease. It can be a fine line to walk as a parent in helping them both reach their potential. Words and actions needs to be chosen with care so there can be no perceived slight against the other.

We talked about what we can do to challenge Maya and what they'll be working on going forward. We talked about what we can do with Abby to strengthen her skills and to keep her from getting frustrated with the work. I left the meetings feeling great and so thankful for our lovely little school and the wonderful teachers we have there.

congrats abbers

I am so proud of my Abby girl. Our school holds one fundraiser per year that we ask the students to fund raise for, the Halloween Dance-a-thon. Our Parent Council offers class and individual prizes for top fundraisers.

This year Abby took charge of her own fundraising efforts and with Grandma Linda by her side for moral support, she talked to pretty much the entire congregation at church and managed to raise $253 for her school. Good enough to be the second highest fundraiser out of all the students.

She came off the bus with the world's biggest smile and a brand new red Nintendo dsi. She is incredibly proud of herself, as are her Dad and I. Who knows, maybe she has a career in the not for profit sector in her future!

school days

Tonight was the Meet the Teacher bbq at the school. Our kids go to a small school and we've met all the teachers a million times over, but it's a nice night to socialize with the other families. We had dinner with some great friends and hopefully talked a parent or two into joining us on council. I delivered a donation cheque, welcomed some teachers back from mat leave, thanked our new teacher rep for coming on board and I even found time to talk to my kids' actual teachers. Phew.



MyPie was so beyond stoked to show me her actual desk and the few pages of school work she's done so far. Her teacher is great, same one The Abster had for grade one, so we're well versed there. She said Maya is off to a great start, which is always nice to hear.



The Abster's teacher couldn't make it this evening, so the French room was the place to be. She is pretty excited to be back, loving her teacher, loving French class.

Can't wait to see what this year shall bring!

back to school blues

Well the first week of school is almost done. Maya has declared every day this week has been awesome! Grade one means her very own desk and she's allowed to have her water bottle with her if she gets thirsty. See..... totally awesome.

Also new this year.... going to school every day. I think it may have caught up with her today. She started crying on her way back home from Papa and Grandma Linda's because she wanted to go back to school, right then at 8:32pm. Had to go back to school. Could not wait until the morning. Had to see her teacher, had to get some school work done. Had to! So she cried and she cried and she cried. I tucked her into bed as she sniffed and snuffled telling her the quicker she went to sleep, the quicker it would be morning, but it was kinda like Christmas Eve up there tonight and sleep did not come easy. Poor little chick.

first day

Well what kind of mommy blogger would I be if I hadn't documented the kids' first day of school? I did have to work today, so I did what I could. Which was to snap some pictures of them as they got off the bus. Still the first day... it all counts.



The Abster, she started grade 5 today. Oh my. Only two years until she's all done at our little school. Hold me, I'm scared already. Abby was excited about going back to school, looking forward to her teacher this year. Gone are the days of kleenex and ziploc bags. This year's supply list includes a memory stick and a french english dictionary.



MyPie, she started grade 1 and was over the moon about having a desk of her very own. She's excited about the group she's in and can't wait for that homework to start coming home. Ahhh my little nerd. She loves her teacher and is beyond thrilled to be a "big kid".



How was the first day of school at your house?

abby's report

Can you believe that Abby just finished up the fourth grade and is headed into the fifth? What?! How the heck did that happen so quick? My very funny, quick witted, sarcastic girl had a lovely report card. It's been so great to see all the pieces come together for her.

I did have a very quick and impromptu meeting with her French teacher just before the end of school. Her plan is to put Abby on an IEP for French next year. Apparently she's doing great with the speaking end of it, but she's struggling a bit with the reading. I cannot say I was surprised to hear that and I said as much to her. I mean reading English has been a struggle, so by that logic a brand new language should be too. The IEP will allow Madam to help her more next year when the reading and writing become more of a focus. Here we go again. Not that I'm complaining at all, I am endlessly thankful for the great teachers we have at our school. They have all done extremely well by my girls. I gotta admit, working on French during At Home Summer School is gonna be tough for this non-French speaking chick, but we'll give it our best go.

Abby's report card, by and large, was in the B range. Very happy and excited for her, although she was hoping for an A. There's always next year.

graduation day

It's official my baby is a kindergarten graduate. She had a very cute "graduation" ceremony at the school earlier this week.




You know everyone tells us that Abby looks just like her Dad... and that may be true (personally I don't see it, but I trust all of you), but on the inside she is all me. The teachers were nice enough to invite the siblings in the school down the hall for the ceremony and Abby was there all of 5 minutes and I could tell she was overwhelmed. My sweet, heart on her sleeve girl was bursting with pride to see her little sister graduate and in a flash we were both weeping and it haven't even gotten started yet.




Our Little MyPie seemed ridiculously grown up standing up there with the other kids. She is so ready to head into grade one, it's not even funny. I don't even think we had made it home yet and she was asking if we were going to have at home summer school again this year. We are, of course. One is super stoked, the other... not so much. I'll let you work out which is which.




Her report card was lovely, she's reading at a grade one level. We were not surprised to hear that at all. She's already gone from borrowing one book, to two books and this week it was three books she brought home from our weekly trip to the library. That didn't surprise me either from the kid who asked for extra reading homework and who read 200 books this past school year.




Today was her official last day in kindergarten, now onto summer vacation and then I am so excited to see what grade one brings us.

tie dye

Friday was a rare treat for me, I booked off work so I could spend the day volunteering at Abby and Maya's school. Once a year council organizes MI Day. A day of fun and learning for the kids. This year we had the reptile man, a story teller, a Cuban percussion ensemble, Mad Science and some of the Moms volunteered to tie dye shirts with the all the kids in the school.




The kids loved it and it was so much fun to see how all the shirts turned out. We ran our tails off. We had 50 minutes with each group of kids, if we were lucky we had one class, but we did double up classes a couple of times. We had a 10 minute break in between each group which just barely gave us enough time to get set up for the next round. Thankfully I had convinced my Mom to come out and help. I'm not sure we would have managed without her. I gave her a 30 second crash course and we were off to the races!

I have tie dyed a few times now and it really is a lot of fun and probably easier than what you would think. A couple of pro-tips for you, free of charge. Wear all black, then it doesn't matter where the dye flies because it will fly. Especially when the little ones are squeezing the bottle. Invest in a kit that comes with squeeze bottles, it's way quicker and easier that way. Oh and bleach will remove most of the dye you will get on yourself. We had it on our arms, hands, legs and feet by the time the day was done.




I am so happy to be a part of this school and I was thrilled I got to be a part of this day and that I got to share it with some of my favourite people!

blergh

We're in the van on the way home from work/school. Mike and I are recapping our day. Maya is in the seat behind me.

Me: So apparently Maya threw up in library today, but she swallowed it because she didn't want to puke on the kid in front of her.
Maya: There was nothing else I could do.

I couldn't help it, I bust out laughing. I think it was the wistful tone in which she said it. bahaha

what

Kindergarten graduation pictures tomorrow. My last baby in kindergarten. She cannot wait to get to grade one. I made sure that I explained to her that it was just pictures tomorrow, she wasn't actually graduating. She still had two more months-ish of kindergarten. Didn't want there to be any confusion this time around.

express yourself

Abby's school recently held an "express yourself" day. It was a twist on the anti-bullying theme where they took a day to celebrate what makes them all different and special. As part of the day the kids were encouraged to dress in a way that, they felt, expressed themselves.




Not surprisingly Abby expressed herself through art. That's the shirt she decorated with help from a couple of her besties. Art rocks. Boy, if I had a nickel for every time I heard her say that. This project was super cute for a lot of reasons, but I think the biggest was that she did it all with very little input from me. My girl JJ was nice enough to let them create away at her place.... big smooches to her for that. Abby had an absolute blast and was very proud of her creation. It was totally her!