Frame a Day '12: Week 24: 6/10-16

June 10--Happy Birthday Party, Earnest--We celebrated Earnest's birthday with a party at Build-a-Bear and then cake in the food court. He asked for a cake with 'dancing bears' which is similar to what was on the invitation. Despite the small disaster on the right of the cake, he was pleased with my creation of chocolate cake with a rainbow of gummy bears on both the top and the inside.

 June 11--Flying with the Greatest of Ease--We've switched out the tire for a more traditional swing, and Earnest has taken to riding it more like a trapeze.

 June 12--Where's Waldo?...or Trust?  At least 100 of our town's Girl Scouts posed for this shot on the field, to celebrate 100 years of Girl Scouting.

June 13--Crazy Hair?  Crazy Kids!...As the school year draws to a close, the school has been having fun with Spirit Week.  At you can probably tell, today was crazy hair day.  I think the hairdos brought out the craziness in the kids as well.

 June 14--The Miracle Worker--Unbelievably, today was the last day of kindergarten.  There was an ice cream party during the last hour, and I got this shot of Earnest with his teacher.  It seems so inconceivable to me that Earnest went from just writing his ABCs in September to writing multiple sentenced stories, from not reading at all to reading books.  I truly think that teachers who manage to accomplish so much with five year olds in such a short time are some sort of miracle worker, and at the very least, will have a special place in heaven.

June 15--And Now We are Six--Earnest is six!  One day after completing kindergarten, he reached this milestone.  He had a fun birthday--went to Toys R Us to return one gift and select a replacement (a Hot Wheels Dinosaur set), opened gifts from us, which included a new bicycle, visited to Chuck E Cheese for dinner and fun, and then to Dairy Queen for a birthday ice cream.

June 16--Brothers with Bunnies-- The library had the kickoff to the summer reading program this morning. Although baby animals don't figure much into the theme of "Dream Big--Read!", baby animals were present for the kids to love. Earnest was especially enchanted with the bunnies and wanted to take one home.

Quarterly Top Five Photos

We're just about half way through 2012! Wow, how time flies.

 I like this one a lot of my daughter.  The ironic thing is that it was one of those times that I just grabbed the camera and took a few photos.

Really like the sentiment here. This was Mother's Day, so all the better.

 Happy birthday to my little guy.  He turned four back in May.

At a local children's museum with my older son.

At a local zoo with my youngest, who loves to feed the birds.

Frame A Day '12: Week 23: 6/3-6/9

June 3--Quack, Quack--We went to a local pond for a Family Fishing Festival and wound up spending time with this wildlife, too.

June 4--June Babies--My parents will be leaving for Florida soon, so we took advantage of Earnest's  day off today for the Fall 2012 kindergarteners to check out their new classrooms to have lunch with my parents and sister.  My sister and Earnest both have birthdays that my parents will likely miss, so we celebrated today a little bit early.  The six candles represent 1 year each for Noah and 7 years each for my sister.

June 5--Tonight was the last Brownie meeting of the year, and the girls went to a nursing home to give a concert.  Accompanied by a guitar, they sang a few songs ("Let Me Call You Sweetheart", "This Land is Your Land", "God Bless America", "You are my Sunshine", "Make a Rainbow" and "The Yogi Bear Song"), and each girl played a solo on her recorder.  Trust played "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star".

 June 6--Two Thumbs Up for a Great Year--Today was the long awaited Kindergarten Alphabet Breakfast.  Although our Eggo waffles for the letter E weren't such a big hit, the entertainment was terrific.  The kids sang "What a Wonderful World," "Don't Stop Thinking about Tomorrow", and the new classic "A Tooty Ta".  I had only first heard of this song about six months ago, and I thought it was something that Trust and Earnest had made up...evidently not!  Led by the teacher, everyone busted a move--Earnest even showed us his best air guitar.

 June 7--Dinner Prep--Corn on the cob...yum!  Granted, in the end I had to do most of the shucking, but it was fun to have helpers.

 June 8--Goin' Explorin'--Imp and I went to a library we had never visited today.  It basically looked like an old, one-room school house, but no matter.  There was a little playground, with a big sandbox, a play house, Hoppity Hops and tons of toys.  After the story time and craft, we wiled away about 30 minutes at the playground.

June 9--We Heart Daddy--This is the photo that will be made into a canvas for Chretien's Father's Day present from the kids.  I found the idea on Pinterest (of course) and with the help of the Silhouette cutter, the weather (thankfully, a sunny morning, which is what was needed for this orientation) and, of course, the kids cooperation, we were able to pull it off nicely this morning.  I got the idea from here.  (Scroll down to the end.)

Frame a Day '12: Week 22: 5/27-6/2

May 27--Walking Tall--Trust tried stilts in gym class a few weeks ago and wanted to make her own. She had a design, but Chretien found a better one online and made her a set of her own today. It will definitely take a lot of practice, but she was excited to try them out.

 May 28--Memorial Day Fun--While Earnest and Cretien enjoyed a matinee, I took Trust and Imp to the playground on a beautiful, sunny Memorial Day.

 May 29--Budgie Breakfast...or lunch.  Imp and I went to Franklin Park Zoo today.  While he jumped from exhibit to exhibit for most animals, he loved feeding these budgies.  He is not a stranger to this, as he loved it just as much last summer on our vacation. 

May 30--She Doesn't Look a Day Over 145!!...The third graders have been working on biography projects.  The students had to submit a list of three possible subjects for their reports and were assigned one of the three.  Trust was assigned Laura Ingalls Wilder; her other suggestions were Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Juliette Gordon Lowe...my kid has eclectic interests, no?  For the project, the students had to read a book, write a report, edit it to a more manageable speech, create a Powerpoint slide and the icing on the cake was to dress as their subject and talk to us in the first person.  We learned a lot about such notables as Bill Gates, Squanto, Dr. Seuss, Princess Diana and many more.

 May 31--Spouting Off (About Science)--The scientist was back at the library this afternoon to spout off about science once again.  The topic was "fluids" and here we have Earnest examining the fountain as it springs forth.

 June 1--The One that Didn't Get Away--Imp will ask to go fishing more than you'd anticipate, based on the handful of times he's gone in his life.  Chretien obliged him this morning and he even caught a few.  It's camouflaged in this photo, but if you look closely at his left foot, you might spy one of his captures.

 June 2--The Next Best Thing--The rain might keep you inside on an early summer day, but that doesn't mean you can't still read in the hammock.