Quinton's Birthday

Who said my baby could turn three?!?!?  I want their heads!!!  I don't want him to grow up so fast!

That is one cute three year old, if I do say so myself.

He had a great birthday, I think.  He opened his presents in the morning. 

While his brothers and sisters were at school, his friend, Easton came to play.  In this picture, he's chatting on the phone with Grandma Smith while Easton plays with his new Lego blocks.

When Bronson came home from kindergarten, we went to McDonald's for lunch.  

Quin had a blast playing in the playground there.

That's him at the bottom of the slide.

I made him a dragon birthday cake.  

I even made it red on the inside (ewww!)

Quinton loved it!

After dinner, Grandma and Grandpa Smith came over with another present for the birthday boy.

Then we ate the dragon cake.  Afterwards, the grandparents went to see Alison 's play and the birthday boy went to bed.    

Alison's Play

Our dear sweet little Alison stepped way out of her comfort zone this year and tried out for her school musical.  The play they were performing was "Narnia."  She worked long, hard hours and for us parents, it seemed a bit too much.  She was stressed and cranky and struggling to keep up with the rest of her school work/YW calling/piano lessons, etc.  But she loved it.  She really truly loved it.

I swear she wears this Aslan sweatshirt every single day!!! I have to sneak it away from her to wash it occasionally!

I think it's borderline sacrilegious, but everyone knows that Narnia is based on the story of the plan of salvation, right?

For the first half of the play, Alsion was a tree nymph.  She literally stood like that the whole time.  It was thrilling!  (Hee hee)  She looked strikingly beautiful on the stage, though.  

Durring intermission, they asked us not to take pictures, so I had to wait until the play was over to catch her in her Act 2 costume.  She was one of the White Witch's crone's.  Let me say this: she was REALLY good!  Like, I am her mother and I had a hard time telling that it was her.  She got REALLY into her part.  I was a little uncomfortable sleeping under the same roof as her for a few days...

Grandma and Grandpa Smith came to watch one night.

On the last night of the show, Alison wept like a baby.  She was crushed that it was over (I was thrilled to have my daughter back!).  It was like her first break up - her heart was broken.  She's already looking forward to next year's play.  I hope I forget what a pain it was so that I can be excited about it too.  

Valentines Day

I can't really remember much about Valentine's Day.  I'm sure it was fabulous...right???  I didn't take a picture the entire day, so I can't show you the little balloons and treats we gave our children, or the non-candy valentines the boys got from their school (there is a no food rule at their school - no birthday treats, valentines, NOTHING!!!)  I can't show you a picture of my dinner date with David or the field full of floating lanterns that looked just like the movie Tangled which we saw on our way home.

 But I can show you a couple of pictures of the kids decorating heart shaped sugar cookies a few days before the holiday.

You're welcome.

Josh's Job Fair

The boys' school puts on quite a little program in each grade.  Bronson's was the Christmas program.  The second graders work on a job fair.  I was so impressed by how they did it and how much the kids learned!

First, each child had to fill out a little questionnaire about what jobs they would be interested in reporting on.  They had a huge list from which they had to choose three jobs that they would like to learn about.  Then, they were assigned a "job." (Hence the three choices - in case someone already took one of the jobs they were interested in.)  They had to conduct a formal interview with someone in that line of work, then write a report on the job, create some sort of 3-D art object about it, dress up like a worker from the field, make a business card/advertisement poster, and give an oral report in front of the class.

Josh was assigned to be a dog trainer!  I had a hard time finding a dog trainer to interview, but finally had success.  She happened to train professional sheepdogs, so Joshua's report morphed into a sheepdog trainer.  It was pretty fascinating.  We had a good time working together.  Parents were strongly encouraged to work side-by-side with their kids on parts of the project.  That wouldn't have worked at his school last year, but here at NDPA the parents are all pretty involved.

After all this work, the second grade puts on a job fair.  Each person sets up their display on their desks, lined up throughout the halls of the school.  During the day, they allowed the whole school to go through and in the evening the parents come and browse through the job fair.  The children answer any questions you might have about their line of work.  It really was impressive!  After the job fair portion, they put on a 20 minute song-and-dance show about different career choices, community helpers, etc.  Many of the songs were in Spanish.  Even Alison, who has been vocally anti-charter-school because she thinks it will turn her brothers into snobs, was duly impressed by everything she saw.

Our little Sheep Dog Trainer, holding a crook. It's a little busy behind him because of all the reports that are hung up on the walls in the hallway from another class (Those reports were impressive too,by the way.  Alison had a great time reading many of those).

If you ever need help training your sheepdogs, we'll give you the friend and family discount!

His 3-D art object was a mobile with a trainer on top, some dogs in the middle, and some sheep at the bottom.  Again, hard to see in this picture.  

Getting ready to sing for us.