13 for 13

In celebration of Ella's 13th birthday, here are 13 of my favorite pictures of her.  With each photo, I will also include 13 favorite character traits we see in Ella

.

Magnetic.  Even since she was a baby, Ella has always drawn people to her.

Creative.  If you are playing with Ella, expect something special!  Rooms in my house are still often left covered in scraps and messes from the things she's creating or setting up for you!

Funny.  Especially as she matures, Ella is hilarious in a witty, clever, smart person way.

Pure/Innocent.  I love that Ella is deep, but also playful and silly.  She will still play with toys, or dress up and put on performances with her sister and friends.

Adventurous.  This is our child who is up for almost anything.  She shows bravery when exiting her comfort zone and trying new things.

Independent.  We can trust Ella to be responsible and handle things on her own, with little nagging or oversight.

Generous.  She is very giving with everything from empathy to hugs to words of encouragement.  It is one of the many things that makes her such a good friend.

Mulit-talented.  Art, music, academics, leadership, drama, some sports...there is not much this girl can't do and isn't naturally good at!

Servant-Minded.  Ella loves to serve and blesses her teachers and our church with her great attitude about volunteering and being helpful.

Kind.  I have never heard Ella say anything bad about anyone ever.  I remember one dinner conversation this year about our favorite and least favorite teachers.  Ella was uncomfortable and unwilling to name a least favorite.

Grateful.  As she hugged me goodnight last night, on her birthday, she said, "Thank you for raising me so well."  Ella is quick to notice both huge things and details and thank me and others for taking care of them and her.

Intelligent.  Not just in a getting good grades kind of way, but in a critical thinking kind of way too.  Her Sunday School teacher and youth pastor tell me regularly how much insight and good discussion she contributes to what they're trying to accomplish.

Jesus-Loving.  Best of all, Ella loves her Lord and lives a good life, not just because she is an obedient kid, but out of love and gratitude for her salvation.  And she encourages others to do the same.  She has always "gotten it" when it comes to understanding and seeking God.

Summer Vibes!

For one whole week now, it's been summer!  What have we been up to, you wonder?  Not much and it's been fantastic!  

We've already finished several books each.   The girls and I are halfway through the next Harry Potter.  We take a lot of walks with Ivy.  We've gone to 7 of the 9 grad parties we were invited to. And we already kicked off wedding season with one wedding, and have another one next Saturday.

I've been shuttling these girls to friends' houses every other day for sleepovers, pool parties and ice cream shop dates.  

Yesterday we celebrated our NOW TEENAGE Ella!!!  Even though this is a giant milestone, we actually had a very low-key day.  Ella wanted to make her own cupcakes, so she put these cool butterfly creations together.  She also opened some awesome gifts from generous family members.  We have a big vacation coming up later this month, so we've been intentionally keeping Mother's Day, anniversary, and birthday celebrations pretty mild.

So that's it.  These are the things that make up a very typical last week of May: catching up on reading, enjoying the not-too-hot-yet weather, friends, grad parties, weddings, a birthday, and adjusting to a wide open schedule and, as my friend Amy says, "a healthy dose of boredom"! :)

Peace Out 2017/18 School Year!

And just like that, another year is done!  Our school year ended with a few fun events I wanted to share.

 In preschool, one of our last units is the always-popular Farm Week.  We invite families to bring their farm animals and pets into preschool and its pretty much a giant petting zoo all week!  Cuddling baby goats while cute little 4 year olds oooh and aaah over them-- how great is my job?!  I had another one of my best classes ever and left with the familiar bittersweet feelings and choked up voice as I prayed over them for the last time.  

 One of the girls' last weeks was a dress up week.  They could ditch the uniforms and dress as different fun themes each day.  I was especially tickled with their "Career Day" choices and outfits.  Delia is a teacher, Ella is a mom.  LOVE!

Because I finish 2 days before the rest of the school, I actually had the opportunity to help in Delia's class for the first and last time this year.   They have a big field day, BBQ, and awards ceremony.  Her teacher, who is quite creative, had her class all make matching 5A shirts for their field day team.  At the awards ceremony she called each of her kids up to hear some words of encouragement and a character award picked out specially for them.  Mrs. M. said Delia is a kind friend, a special project enthusiast, and has personally been a big blessing to her.  She said she loves to watch Delia love to learn.  She presented her with the Compassion Award, which I could not be more proud of.  Getting my own kids and my students to understand and respect how other people are feeling is something I work on every day.  I love that this particular trait is one my child is known for!

With an amazing teacher, a day full of fun and encouragement, and a sweet treat with friends, Delia ended her days in the elementary.  It couldn't have been a better year for her and we're feeling thankful again.

Seventh grade was a harder year for Ella.  Mostly we're glad it's done.  But she too kept her grades up, grew closer to her great group of friends, blessed her teachers, and tried new things-- excelling at some (like Fine Arts or switching to the bigger tenor saxophone) and accepting with grace when her plans didn't work out (like not winning her Student Council seat back, or a broken finger at the start of basketball season).  We celebrate all the ways she grew this year too!

Red Carpet Night

Our girls' ministry is done for the school year, but had its big grand finale this May also with a spectacular Red Carpet Mother Daughter Night.  We were invited to dress formal, so the girls and I had lots of fun picking out our outfits.  I am actually wearing a bridesmaid dress from 1998!  I guess you can wear these things again!  Might take 20 years, but it is possible! :)

Besides the fancy treats, fellowship, and photo booth, this night is special because each class goes on stage for a special game or presentation.  Ella's class read keepsake posters they had made about their moms.  I kinda liked Ella's answers, especially the one thing she apparently hears me say a lot...

I love being a leader in this ministry.  I love sharing this with my own girls. I love my class of now 6th graders.  I love all the fun things we get to do, like badges, outings and camp.  And I looooove the other ladies on the leadership team.  We laugh a lot and have a great time together!  To be perfectly honest, my experience with other church ministries I've lead has felt obligatory at times.  This one has just been a blessing all around!

Delia's Dance Recital

Once again, our May was highlighted with the BIG Dance Recital Delia works so hard all year to perform in.  Once a week for the entire school year she meets with Miss Bethany, her teacher, and a class of fellow 10 year olds to stretch and learn the choreography for one show-stopping jazz number.  The recital's theme this year was "Rhythm of the Eras", so Delia's group represented the 70's with their dance to "We Go Together".  It was high energy and super fun, full of kicks, flicks, hand jives and even a little solo for Delia.  They sell out the local college's performing arts center with 800 in attendance.  It was Delia's best dance yet and we were delighted to watch the impressive show our little town's dance studio puts on. 

As always, no photography on performance night, so these are all from dress rehearsal...

Afterwards we went out for some celebratory special dessert.  Delia's eyes were bigger than her tummy when she ordered!  Nope, even our sweet-toothed gal couldn't eat all this! :)

Summary of Spring

Besides the play and Fine Arts, (and ortho appointments every other week!), these are a few of the things that have been filling up our spring calendar squares!

Here is a story I just LOVE!  Delia met a new friend named Elle at the girls' camp we went to a few weeks back.  Her family is sort of new to town.  She was at a school that was not going well-- lots of bullying and 5th grade friends who were way too mature for her mom's liking.  Well, after camp and the bond Delia quickly formed, we exchanged info and got to know Elle and her family a little better.  She then transferred to our school!!  On her first day, Delia and her friends were waiting at the gate for her and ran up with a huge hug and lots of helpful advice about how to get around.  Those sweet, friendly girls made Elle's mom cry.  Delia and this new friend have now been inseparable, going to the roller rink and visiting each other's houses.  One of Delia's greatest strengths is her friendliness.  She's been this way forever, befriending all the people at the park or pool and every person she doesn't know at VBS and girls' camp.  I love that Delia's friendliness and care changed the course for Elle and prompted her to get out of a bad school situation.

Our girls group continues to keep us busy!  Here we are working on our counted cross stitch badge with a wonderful church lady who has so much contagious passion and joy for this skill, she passed it along to my class!

 It's kind of a joke at school that the 2 week long Dinosaur unit is the least favorite one to teach.  It just seems to drag on and on (how much can you really say to 3 year olds about creatures that are long extinct?) and it concludes with 2 crazy days where each kid paints their own dinosaur shirt.  But, what kills us is the several hours we teachers must then spend embellishing and personalizing each shirt.  One of  my co-workers attempted to make dreary dino days more fun by creating these cute shirts for us.  It helped, but I'm still glad to have Dinosaurs 2018 behind us!

 One Saturday was dedicated to dance photos.  This is an opportunity to try out the hair and costume that will be worn at the recital.  I looooove this year's costume for Delia-- it can all be worn again!  In about 2 weeks Delia will dance in her recital to the song "We Go Together" from Grease.  It's her cutest, most fun dance yet!

 After a Spring with lots of rain, I have awesome roses this year!

 Ella has been doing a little babysitting.  This was actually a night in the church nursery, but it was fun to see her caring for her former babysitter's baby!  I joked on Instagram that maybe in about 13 years baby Savannah will be Ella's age and caring for her children!

   

 Ivy still gets lots of love and attention every day!

 Another whole Saturday this Spring was taken with my trip up north to an Early Childhood Educators conference.  It's hard to give up a precious weekend day, but always worth it to gain new ideas and inspiration.  This time, I loved attending a workshop about instilling an attitude of praise in my students and classroom...led by our favorite Jana Alayra!  My girls can still sing all her songs, they are so etched on their hearts from their own 3-5 year old days.  Jana was delighted when I told her this.

 Ella tried the Escape Room again with her friends.  They were not as successful as our Super Team of family members over Christmas. :)

 One night the girls and I had an impromptu, after-homework fashion show.  I pulled out my old Homecoming, prom, and wedding dresses and we all played dress up.  Seeing his little girls in these clothes may have freaked out Dave a lil bit!

 Every Spring we get together for a badminton tournament for Jetta's birthday.  Not being much of an athlete, I must confess I go mostly for the good food and laughs.  My team, "Flip Them the Birdie", did not win like last year, but we had fun trying...and posing for goofy pictures.

And yet another Saturday was spent at church for our Ladies Spring Tea.  All different women "hosted" tables and decorated them beautifully with fancy china, fresh flowers, and favors and we were all invited to wear our most special hats.  Delia was in heaven, as you can imagine!  The girls and I were the punch bowl attendants and later Ella and Delia and a few friends sang "Thy Word" as part of the entertainment.  

I actually took a picture of our April calendar, to show how it literally had no blank squares on it.  But, I won't post it because it has too much personal info. :)  I don't mind a busy season when it's all good, productive, God-glorifying stuff.  But, I also don't mind a lazy, open calendar season where we can rest and enjoy a more leisurely pace.  The countdown to summer is definitely on!

Fine Arts Festival

Another fun thing we enjoyed this season was both girls' participation in the Fine Arts Festival.  It is fun to watch both Ella and Delia find and grow their love and abilities in singing, memorizing, speaking, writing, and creating art.   The Fine Arts Festival rotates around a variety of private schools in our state.  This year our host school was in the Bay Area.  When both girls were chosen to represent our school for their performances, we decided to make a small family outing out of it.  I got a sub and Dave had a lighter load this week, so we found a fun hotel and enjoyed an afternoon and evening in the hotel pool and at a nice restaurant.

Our hotel was within walking distance of the mysterious and impressive Apple Park too, so we swung in here to check out the Visitor Center.  It was SO COOL!  The campus offices are set up in a huge circular building called "The Space Ship".  While we couldn't tour it, we could use an iPad rigged with Augmented Reality and aim it at this aluminum model of the campus.  We could then swipe around and see what was happening in each building (except the Research and Development buildings).  We saw people working out in the gym, we saw the underground Steve Jobs theater, and we saw the solar panels on top of each building converting sun rays to energy that runs 100% of the operation with left over energy to share.  And all these things we were seeing were explained by a very friendly Apple Tour Guide, walking us through this virtual tour.  Neat, huh?  Worth a stop if you ever find yourself in Cupertino!  Below shows a pretty lookout spot we enjoyed as the sun set.  The next morning, we slept long and enjoyed a fun breakfast since we didn't have hours of Bay Area traffic to battle!  This bit of quality family time was so refreshing as we feel some end of the year weariness.  Just the taste of summer we needed to recharge and conquer our last few weeks of school.

The next day was the festival and this was great too! Every representative did a wonderful job using their gifts for God's glory.  Delia sang in an ensemble.  They sang a song called "Heroes of the Faith" and Dave and I were so impressed with how legitimately GOOD it sounded.  They nailed the parts and dynamics and got a lot of good feedback from the judges.

Ella had a short story entered and a piece of art.  She also went to sing with an ensemble.  They sang "Cannon of Praise" and it was lovely.  My favorite thing she did was a memorized monologue called "When Life Gets a Bit Testy".  It starts with a line that goes something like this: "Well, it's that time of year again.  The time when your teachers want to find out what you've picked up in their classes, besides a stomach bug and two eye infections..." and goes on to tell silly jokes and stories about studying for and taking exams.  The judges said she was a natural with perfect timing and that she may have a future in stand up comedy!

Our girls don't play sports, so we spend zero hours going to games.  This was a big day, with an overnight in a hotel attached to it.  But, it was so worth it to see our girls shining in areas they have been gifted!  I can't wait to watch how these loves for writing, singing, and performing continue to grow in the future!