Noah's Graduating from Preschool, Having a Birthday, and More

And the fun end-of school stuff continued! I'm going to try to catch up on a bunch of posts while I'm laid up in bed post-operation yesterday, but who knows how much sense I will make when I can't breathe? How much sense do I usually make? Yeah, don't answer. (FYI: The date on the post is when it happened, don't get confused that the surgery was a few weeks later.)

Andrew found some supplies and made himself this get-up.  Iron  man? I don't remember, but I  know the tape made him extra-good at punching.

We had preschool at my house for the very last week, and the kids were very excited. Josh said, "Mom, everything you do at preschool, save it for me when I get home." I made this lesson plan, and we had  great fun.

I took pictures for the kids' end of school memorabilia, and here is Noah's. He's grown like a weed this year!

So, turns out Sister Bear likes to play mega blocks. She loved it the  whole time. She also decided to try to be a preschooler this time and sit with the kids instead of just terrorize. Very adorable.

The alphabet soup activity was a hit.

Noah was a silly boy and actually sipped the water from his alphabet soup.

It's bubble art time! Noah was pretty proud of these huge bubbles.

The kids and I helped clean up field day at the elementary school on Tuesday. It was fun because while I cleaned Noah and Andrew got a chance on the giant bouncy slides and then we all played on the playground forever. Noah made up a thing  he called his "marathon," which involved doing slides and monkey bars all around the playground over and over. I honestly can't fathom where he gets the energy. Josh was writing  all over the black top with chalk, and when I read it I had to chuckle.  "BYU rocks, Utah Utes do not rock." Haha, he is maybe internalizing my "we don't say sucks" idea?

Mr. Andrew is now singing all the time, everywhere he goes. In the car, while playing, at dinner . . . He does kid songs, radio songs, primary songs. While playing cars last night I heard him sing, " . . . you feel like falling down, I'll carry you home tonight . . ." It's pretty adorable. It was cracking Gary up how he could sing along with the radio in the car.

Josh had his last baseball game. Here he is at 2nd base. I really wanted to get a picture of how much attention he pays to the game at all times. He's always ready to get in the play. He actually played  pitcher for a while, and made a few outs. He was proud and so was I.

He's up to bat. . . Josh has a lot to learn about baseball, but he really swings for the fences!

The final preschool party/graduation was at  our house on Thursday. My neighbor was in charge of it with me, and she made some super adorable gradation hats and brought a banner. We practiced our program, played  all sorts of things, and then "graduated." We sang a few songs to the parents, then each child received his or her diploma while Pomp and Circumstance played. I really wish I had a video, it was too funny, but alas, I was the director so I got no photos. I  have begged for some, so if/when I get them from others, they will go here. There are a few more pictures of everybody playing at the preschool party here.

Ephraim and Noah having fun with magnets.

In the water table - aquarium rocks, dinosaurs, and of course, water. A hit.

Painting was popular, too, as was stamping. I was really impressed with how far Noah has come with  trying to make a real picture when he does art.

I've spent a lot of time explaining what we did, but not much mention of my kiddos' reaction to it. Noah was just bursting with joy this week. He went to his kindergarten assessment on Wednesday SO proud to finally be making his big move. He wore his 5T jeans, because he said that's what would make him look like a "kindergarten dude." Then, as I was combing his hair in the garage he said, "My shadow looks sooo good!" On the day of his preschool graduation he was very proud to be moving on. I gave him the award for "Mr. Curious" because he is always wondering why things are the way they are and how things work. He did a great job singing the songs in the program, even though he got embarrassed when it was time to point to your mom and say, "I love you, yes I do." Later I asked them about it and he said, "I was pointing at you, mom, just not for everybody to see." He's really sweet. He was embarrassed when he got this photo taken, so I was kind of propping him up, but I'm grateful my friend snapped one because at this point, it's all I've got!

After all of the kids had graduated, the audience members started saying, "Um, Emily . . ." I looked on the stairs, and there was Andrew, head thrown back and tears in his eyes. When I went up to him he said, "You forgot me, mom!" It was because he wasn't really in preschool, but luckily my neighbor had an extra hat, so I hurried and gave him the award for "Most Fun." I felt super bad for him, and he's feeling pretty sad in this picture, but he quickly got over it as we talked about how he gets to be in preschool next year with his friend Jace.

This is what happens to a grilled cheese when your downstairs phone is broken and  your friend calls to talk about teachers for next year. It's a big topic. Thought I should record my successes.

Our party pack came for our neighborhood block party in June! 12 bags of Cheetos get kids pretty pumped.

Noah thought these guys were cute, so he took the picture.

Gary and I were feeling fried after our crazy May - you know what, everybody in America was, I think. All of my neighbors were feeling it, and every blog I read expressed the craziness that it is. The end of school, good shnikies! Anyway, so, we went out. Babysitter and City Creek. Yummy food, bought a few cheap shirts, had fun being together. Yep, being with Gary is gooood medicine.

Our last soccer game of the season ended up on Memorial Day weekend, so the other team didn't even have enough players to have a game - and they only needed 3. So, Gary asked who on our team would switch teams for the day. Guess who was the only one willing? Yeah, Andrew, who played for the first time in weeks. He actually got in there and drove the ball down the field several times! Noah scored a whole bunch as per usual, and at the end we sang him Happy Birthday and had doughnuts and chocolate milk with the team. Perfect morning for all.

Andrew really got in there, and I love the look on his face.

It's Noah in white and Andrew in blue - brother against brother for the day.

Not only can he play soccer, he is excellent on the monkey bars.

Someone is pretty proud of himself.

Someone else only wanted to swing the whole time.

Someone else spent his morning climbing trees.

This is Lissy's favorite place to sit. Any time the fridge is open she scrambles to get there, and cries when you pull her out.

Noah's birthday fell on a Sunday this year, so he wanted to make sure he looked really mature and 5 when he got dressed. 

And then the big Noah's birthday celebration/Lissy-fiasco. Okay, back up. Sunday was busy, busy. Gary was subbing Josh's primary class, I was supposed to sit in there with him, I also had Sunday School to teach and a little pre-prepared comment share to do in Relief Society. Also, Gary had to be in charge of choir practice after church . . . and it was Noah's birthday, and he had picked cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast, and we had a cake to make. My sister had a baby on Friday night, so my mom called and asked if we would like to meet the baby and have dinner and a little celebration for Noah on Sunday night. Of course we would! But . . . we couldn't be there until 7 due to church stuff. So, we did our church thing. I'll just say that I had a very, very difficult week due to various things. I felt like the World's Most Horrible Person all week, and really didn't want to teach Sunday School. I wanted to find a sub so I didn't have to get up there and pretend like I know anything about anything when clearly I don't. Then I got asked to say a blip in Relief Society, too. Yeah, so two getting-up-in-front opportunities for someone who wanted to hide in a hole. But . . . both things went really well, and I really felt the Spirit and felt like a decent human, so at least to me it was a blessing. Hooray for that.

I was in turbo mode after church, trying to hurry to get up to Idaho when Gary got done with choir. It had been a crazy day, and our kitchen was trashed, but we were going to make it. Lissy had been totally fine all day, so when she had a teensy cough around 4:30, I didn't think anything of it. I gave her some albuterol just to be sure, but it seemed like no big deal. When we finally got on the road, Lissy started coughing a bit more. Then, more . . . until she gagged and threw up. So, we stopped to clean her up, more albuterol, a slushie to calm her down. Josh said he's not ever having kids because he's allergic to throw-up. Lissy has reactive airway, so an out of control cough is sad, but not totally unexpected once a cough starts up, so we carried on. Then it happened again. . . and we had to stop again. This time I had to bathe her in a gas-station sink, along with my puke-covered arms. At least she was in a good mood. At this point I thought about going home, but Noah was SO excited to see his cousins for his birthday, and we didn't have any dinner at all at home. We were past half-way anyway, so we carried on without incident, and got there past 8 p.m. Late. The kids didn't care, though, they had a blast. Baby Keaton is sooo adorable it made me want to cry. Dinner was good . . . then people started saying that Lissy had a fever. Oh, my. We couldn't stay with the new baby around, so after the festivities we had to turn home. We got home at 2:15 a.m. to our trashed house. Memorial Day turned into "Remember a time when you were once awake" day. However, Noah said his birthday was the "best day ever," and seeing that baby was a treat, so all's well.

The cousins were all excited for a birthday celebration! They partied hard from the second they got together until the second we left.

This is the look on Noah's face when his cake was first carried into the room. You think he likes it?

Just a view of what it looked like. I abandoned cake decorating for toys on top a few years ago in a pinch, and the kids love it so much, why go back? Sorry, Wilton skills, you will have to wait. Here we have a fantastic Ninjago creation, lovingly put together by cousin Braden. He took his mission I gave him to complete it seriously, and his little cousin LOVED it! The cake was amazing, by the way. We brainwashed him into thinking he needs carrot cakes for his birthday, and that turns out to be a very good move.

Noah got a ball from Gary's mom for his birthday, and I took this picture just as he was dropping it. Too funny. He loves it.

He also loves this bike license plate and can't wait until his parents put it on.

Here's his archery-with-balls set he got from us. Strange, but perfect for him.

See how adorable baby Keaton is? Well guess what, in real life he is even WAY MORE adorable. Pictures for newborns never do justice.

Andrew and Noah weren't able to touch the baby because of germs in the fam, but they loved him and now always talk about how cute and tiny he is. Noah keeps reminding me Cindy said they could touch next time.