School Play/Concert

Alex participated in a play/concert at school in May. I'm not really sure what to call it. Kindergarten through 2nd grade classes each acted out one of Aesop's Fables and then sang a song related to it. Then the choir and band from the older grades performed also.

Mary sort of got the shaft. You have to be in 4th grade or above to be in band or choir so she couldn't be in those, but they stopped at 2nd grade with the fables so the poor 3rd grade got left out.

Alex's class as you can see did The Tortoise and the Hare. He was a hare obviously, and he was actually the fastest little hare they had. He probably could have won the race.

I didn't have a chance to take his picture at school and the makeup was driving him nuts so I took a picture on the way home before he rubbed it off.

I confess we were evil and snuck out after the kindergarten kids were done instead of sticking around for everyone else. In my defense though, I'd just flown back from Utah that morning and because of laptop issues hadn't been able to do any work on the flight home.

The music teacher was a rookie so I wasn't sure he could pull it off, but he did a really good job with the kids and they put on a pretty good show.

Adam's Birthday

Adam also had a birthday in March. It's really, really official. I no longer have a baby. (We sold all the baby stuff so this is it.) This is Adam enjoying the cold, hard cash from Grandma Beverly. He also got cash from Grandma and Grandpa Bagwell so we got to go shopping a few days later. I don't really remember what he bought. It's been over 3 months, but it may have involved some construction vehicles and Lightning McQueen.

Adam has some issues with opening presents. He wouldn't do it at Christmas, and he wouldn't do it on his birthday. Luckily he has a big brother who LOVES to open presents even if they are not his.

Imagine a whole backpack full of wooden blocks. I bought them right in front of him at the thrift store one day. Fortunately he was distracted by other things, huh? Don't think I'll ever pull that off again. He even took them to bed for ages. Now he builds race tracks out of them.

In honor of my monkey boy (well actually 2 monkey boys) we had some fun monkey cupcakes to celebrate.

Yes, some look a little alienish. (I had some help decorating.) I unfortunately tried a new frosting recipe that wasn't all that sticky, but they turned out pretty cute anyway.

Odyssey of the Mind

Last school year our school started participating in Odyssey of the Mind (similar to Destination Imagination I believe). Anyhoo... basically the kids get in a group and have some sort of project they take on. They have an adult supervisor, but the kids really have to come up with the ideas how to do the project.

We decided to let Mary and Alex give it a whirl... At first it was just an occasional meeting, no big deal.

Then it turned into meetings once a week, then twice a week, and at the end I think 3 times a week...

Alex wasn't exactly a great team player for a lot of the time. He'd daydream or wander around the classroom. His group met in the kindergarten classroom so Adam and I would wait there so Adam could play with the toys. Unfortunately, that made Alex also want to come play with the toys. His team had to do the "Money Maker" project. It was a skit about someone trying to come up with an invention. The first 3 would fail and then the last one would be great. They came up with things like an airplane that would shrink when you took off and get big when it landed, which failed. There was a candy and toy maker, but it got jammed. Then there was some sort of remote control, but I don't remember what it did. Alex and some other excited potential buyer got to break that by fighting over it. The last one was a robot that would do ANYTHING!! Some poor kid had to wear a cardboard box wrapped in foil. Despite all Alex's reluctance to participate, he learned his lines very well and had great stage presence. The judges commented on his enthusiasm, and you certainly didn't have trouble hearing him like some other kids, even middle school kids I saw perform.

Mary's group had to make up a tour. Theirs frankly got out of control because they were touring Disneyland, Bikini Bottom, and a few other places. Mary originally was supposed to be a gingerbread girl, then Cleopatra, and someone else. Fortunately, they did a bit of a rewrite towards the end and she only had to be a gingerbread girl. Costume changes were impossible so I was glad about that. She probably would have preferred to be Cleopatra or something though since being a gingerbread girl just means you get to wear a lot of brown... BORING! Unfortunately, Mary got a horrid case of stage fright and wouldn't say a word.

Each group also had to do some sort of spontaneous project too that the parents and adult leaders couldn't even go into. They were even sworn to secrecy. I thought I'd get the kids to fess up after we got home, but they didn't.

The kindergarten and first grade kids got medals and little rubber ducks. Older gets were not so lucky, although Mary also got a little pink pig for being a sibling of a kindergartener. Adam got something too but promptly lost it.

It was a very long day in a town an hour or so away from here, but it was fun. I'm not sure if the kids want to do it again, but it was a good experience for them.