Arts in the School Night

Jarem and Tessa had their "Arts in the School" Night on April 28th.  Obviously I am slow at posting this, but it was pretty neat.  All the halls are decorated with art work from the kids.  Each grade level was assigned a continent.  It is interesting how creative the teachers and children are.  The halls were all decked out with forests, etc.  They also have a program that night which features the Honor Choir and the 4th grade dancing.  This year, Tessa was part of both.  At the end of the dance portion, each 4th grader got to go pick a family member to dance the Cha Cha Slide with them.  Most of the kids chose a parent, but Tessa chose Jarem. I thought that was sweet of her.  Jarem was very excited, and I was happy NOT to show off my lack of dance skills.  Eric has had the most unlucky on-call nights the past few months.  It seems like they always end up on eventful nights and this was no exception.  Alex also had a game this night, so Jesikah and I were there to support them.

Below, Jarem and Tessa are dancing the Cha Cha Slide.

Below, the vice principal, Mrs. Camp, is dancing with her 4th grader, Clayton, doing the "how low can you go" part.  She was very embarrassed. :)

The next several pictures are of the Honor Choir.  I took a video and wanted to post it, but I couldn't get it to post.  Anyway, they sang 3 songs and they are really quite amazing.  Mr. Tesch does a great job with them.  This is a select group of 4th and 5th graders who are required to try-out at the beginning of the school year.  They go to school one hour early each Friday to rehearse.  Tessa has really enjoyed it this year.

Below are Tessa and Jarem's artwork.  Tessa's whole hallway was decorated like a rain forest.  Tessa painted the toucan on canvas.  We all helped a little, but she did most of it.  Jarem's continent was Australia.

Easter

Easter came really late this year.  It was on April 24, so I am setting this post for a few days after that.  I took the kids shopping the day before and everyone got a new outfit for Easter (except Alex and Eric who just got a tie).  The girls decided they wanted to have matching dresses this year, which we haven't done in a few years.  I really liked the yellow ones that they picked.  Neither of them have had a new dress in quite some time, so they were excited.  Jarem enjoyed picking an outfit too.

They each got a stuffed animal in their Easter basket as well as a movie.  Alex got Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Jesikah got the #7 Harry Potter, Tessa got Tangled, and Jarem chalk and colored bubbles(he was the only one that didn't get a movie).  Note to self: Colored bubbles are VERY messy...do not buy again.  Then they got candy and a couple of other small things.

Easter morning dawned cloudy and rainy.  As we were heading to church there was lightning and thunder as well as a heavy downpour.  I dropped the kids off at the door to run in and went to park.  After I had parked, it was still coming down strong and I had no umbrella.  I knew I would get completely soaked if I went in.  As I was looking around the car to see if I had something to cover my head on the way in, Jesikah came out with an umbrella that she borrowed from someone to rescue me.  She is always very thoughtful and I really appreciated her thinking of me.

As we were sitting in Sacrament Meeting, we could hear the thunder and see the lightning and it got very dark outside.  I couldn't help but think that it must have been a day kind of like that when Christ was killed.  Although I much prefer sunny Easters, it certainly did make me think.  I had the privilege of teaching sharing time to the kids in Primary on the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.  It was very touching for me to teach this, and the children were very receptive.  It was a wonderful Easter.  Unfortunately Eric was on-call, so he had to leave for work right after church and didn't get home until probably 7 or later.  We did have a late dinner together, but it wasn't like our traditional Easter dinner.

Here's some pictures of the kids on that day.  Alex was occupied with something when I was taking pictures of the others, but then was more than willing to pose when I tried to take pictures of him.  (I was surprised since he usually isn't a fan of pictures.)

Jarem couldn't find his Sunday shoes and ended up wearing tennis shoes with his new suit...ugh!

Poor Tessa has had bad allergies lately and her eyes are red and swollen from that.

Jarem loves his Easter ducky

He wanted his picture of just ducky

TCAP Carnival and Easter Egg Hunt

Last Friday, April 22nd, Tessa had her TCAP Carnival. The TCAP is the Tennessee State Assessment test for grades 3-8. The school kids completed the TCAP the week before, and the school rewarded them for working hard all week with a TCAP carnival the following Friday. There was face-painting, carnival games, popcorn, and drinks.  They enjoyed it. 

I headed up the face-painting station (as I did last year).  I enjoy doing face-painting.  This year, however, as the 4th grade was coming in, I left to try and make it to Jarem's Easter egg hunt.  I pointed Tessa in the direction of this man (below) to do her face-painting.  He quickly became the most popular one and could do more detailed designs like Taz.  His wife and teenage son were also face-painting.  I quickly learned that they live in our neighborhood.  Anyway, Tessa was happy with the flower he painted for her, so I got her picture with Mr. Schrump.

After school on Friday, they were both happy.  Jarem had an Easter egg hunt and an ice cream sundae party.  Tessa had her TCAP Carnival and a hot dog party in her class for reaching a certain level in AR.  There is kind of a funny story about that big egg they are holding. 

When Jarem was filling his eggs the night before to take to the Easter egg hunt, he couldn't quite fit the Nerds box in the eggs.  I suggested he find one of the bigger eggs.  He found this one in our egg collection and was able to fit all the varieties of candy in it.  He was very pleased with the big red egg.  The teachers would be collecting the eggs and hiding them.  It occurred to me that if someone else ended up with that big egg, it could make him upset.  Also, I hoped there wouldn't be fighting over the BIG egg.  He assured me that he wouldn't be upset if someone else got it, but he was determined to find it.  I told him, "If you really want it, as soon as everyone goes outside, you look for the big egg first."  He did, and he got the big egg!  I was disappointed that I just missed the egg hunt due to the carnival.  I would have liked to see him go for that egg.  I made it just in time for the ice cream sundaes. 

I spent all day Friday at that school volunteering and having lunch.  When I checked out to go home, I had been there 6 hours and 9 minutes.

Kindergarten Program

Our schedule has been busy lately to say the least.  This particular night (Thursday, April 21st) was Jarem's Kindergarten Program.  They mostly sang songs about nursery rhymes and ABC's.  I went by myself with Jarem.  Eric is helping coach Tessa's soccer team and she had practice at the same time.  Alex had a soccer game, and Jesikah wanted to stay home and read. 

They started with a slideshow.  I took the first picture of Jarem from the slideshow.  The rest were before or during the program.  I was very disappointed that most of my pictures were blurry and didn't turn out well.  Then, I got emailed a link from a photographer who takes pictures at school events and posts them online for parents.  She had tons of pictures of Jarem, so most of these I got from her collection.  I didn't even post all of the ones that had Jarem in them on her site.  There were SO many.  Anyway, I was thankful that I ended up with some good pictures to document this event.

I was sitting next to the lady in the purple shirt to the right in the above picture. There was even a picture of me in there.

Since I was alone, there was a single seat available on the front row, so I took that hoping to get some good pictures.  Like I said, the picture thing didn't work out, but Jarem was happy to have such a good view of me.  He has a fear of being abandoned or lost, so he looked at me and smiled the whole time.  He did a good job, and they were all very cute.