Happy New Years!

Happy New Year!

Last night, on New Year's Eve, we carried on our tradition (begun last year) of interviewing the kids about the past year.  They were so distracted by being at Nana and Bapa's house that it was tough to keep their attention, but it was still fun and funny!

Eliza sings Rudolph...

Eliza at the preschool program

 Eliza got the special part of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in her preschool Christmas program, and she has been singing the song at every opportunity since Thanksgiving.  Last night, on New Year's Eve, I finally remember to pin her down and get her to sing it on camera.  It's just so... Eliza.

Sam at La Fiesta

Sam has loved his first year in Spanish Immersion, which was capped off by the very fun "La Fiesta" program.  All the grades either sang or danced, and they did such a great job.


Here are some pictures of Sam in action:

But the best part, hands down, was what Sam did at the end of the show.  Here's what I wrote about it on my "No Such Thing as Perfect" blog:




 




As part of the grand finale, all the student did the macarena. A few seconds into it we noticed Sam was not even close to the same moves as the other kids. At first we thought he just didn't get how to do the dance -- he is my son, after all -- but then we realized he was totally doing his own thing -- one kid doing a very serious robot dance in a sea of macarena. I asked him afterward why, and he said the macarena was weird and stupid.

That had to take guts.  8 years old, first year in Spanish Immersion, surrounded by his friends, classmates, teachers, and tons of older kids he looks up to, to say nothing of the thousand plus people in the audience, and he was brave enough to decide the macarena was going to be his line in the sand.  I can tell you right now that when I was 8... or 18... or probably even now, I would not have had the guts.  In fact, I can point to a lot of situations in my life where I felt uncomfortable with something, but I kind of went along so I wouldn't stand out from the crowd, or look as weird as I always felt.  Who knew a second grader doing the robot could teach me a profound lesson on being true to yourself no matter what?

Sam is on the second row up, third from the right of kids who are in the light. I wish this video was better -- I just pulled out my iphone as soon as I realized what he was doing. You'll also have to excuse Dan and I giggling like crazy in the background, but it was pretty much the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Sam and Senora Duran

Sam with Reuben and Amy -- thanks for coming and being such awesome supporters of our kids!

And a big fat thank you as well to the Borens, who watched Eliza for us for both Sam's and Josh's school programs.  She had just gotten her tonsils out (more on that next time!) and was not fit to go anywhere or have a normal babysitter, and Kelli and Ted watched her and took care of her so we could both support the boys.  It was a huge help!  We love you, Borens!

Josh's Kindergarten Program

My goal for the coming weeks is to get share about a gazillion different family happenings here on the blog. :)  We'll see how much of that actually happens, but I'm going to give it a good try, starting with all the kids' end of the school year programs.  There's a whole lot of fun and funny going on here!

First was Joshy's kindergarten program.  The kids sang cute little songs from every month of the school year and all had little speaking parts telling about what they did during the school year.  It was so fun to watch our Josh getting into the music, singing the songs with so much animation.

Here are just a few of his funny faces:

He did a great job with his part, too:

Josh's part, which he practiced about twelve thousand times before the program, was: "We also learned our school songs."  We have some video -- hopefully I can get it on here someday! :)

And of course Josh was so happy Aunt Amy came to see him.

Josh and his much loved teacher Mrs. Baird

We love our Joshy boy!

Josh's 100th Day Masterpiece

For Josh's 100th Day of School Party (a really big deal in kindergarten), he was assigned to wear a shirt with 100 things on it.  We batted a few ideas back and forth, and I suggested that he could make 100 fingerprints with fabric paint, and then add arms and legs to make them into monsters.  He took that idea and made it about  a million times cooler.  First, he insisted on doing the fingerprint painting entirely by himself, including opening the bottles and squeezing out the paint.  I was a little worried that it would turn into one giant painty mess, but he was all over it.  We counted out the colors of paint that we had and figured out how many of each he'd need to make 100, and he meticulously placed each one.  After the paint dried, I turned him loose with a very fine tip sharpie.  Instead of just adding arms and legs, he turned each one into a unique creature with all sorts of personality.  It took him a few different sessions, because it was a very big job, but eventually he decorated about 75 of the 100 fingerprints.  Not bad for doing it with zero grown-up guidance!  The finished product was so unique and imaginative that I had to get close-up photos to share.  You will probably need to click on them and see the large image to get the full effect.

They're just so perfectly Josh!  He worked so hard and was so proud of the result.  He's come a long way from the kid who tore up every art project because he never thought it was as good as Sam's.  Hooray for Josh!

Jokes from the road...

We're on our way home from baby Elliot's blessing in Idaho, and Sam has been entertaining us with some awesome jokes of his own invention: Q: Where does a crazy caterpillar sleep? A: A CUCKOO-n! Q: What do you call a giant mushroom? A: Hufungus! His sense of humor has definitely reached the next stage of evolution.

Happy New Year's! (a little late...)

Hello, family and friends!  I am solemnly resolving to post more on our family blog this year (probably the same as I did last year, but what can you do), so to start off I am posting videos the interviews we did with Sam, Josh, and Eliza on New Year's Eve.  We thought it would be a very fun new tradition to start, so we can see how they change from year to year.  And since none of them are particularly camera shy, there was fun to be had all around.  Please pardon my annoyed whispering at Eliza throughout...

First up, here's Sam:



And now, Josh:



And finally, Eliza, who didn't even want to wait for Dan to start asking questions before she jumped in. :)  I'm not sure if others can understand her very well yet, so let me know if I need to add subtitles.  Dan did a great job of repeating everything she said, though.



These kids crack us up!  Hope you all are having a great start to your new year -- we love you!