Instagram v.40

1. Someone forgot to pack clothes (or rather they were packed and he unpacked them to fit in all the toys he wanted to bring) so he got to wear these shorts all reunion weekend. Including to church.
2. Purdue grad student on vacation and reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid
3. She's a fan of corn
4. Just took the right incentive to get Bentley to tie his shoes. New shoes and not being allowed to wear them until he could tie them was all it took.
5. Rough group.
6-7. We visited every bull on Main Street in downtown. The boys loved it.
8. First Day of Second grade and the beginning of dual immersion.
9. Big check mark next to my visiting teaching.

Bentley's 1st Day of 2nd Grade

 Today Bentley started 2nd grade, and Portuguese Dual Immersion.

He is kind of excited about it.

Last Day of the 1st Grade

Most of our ward funnels onto our street to get to school (there's just 1 block that doesn't) so I threw together a last day of school breakfast in our yard. The kids hurried and ate and headed to schools and the mom's hung around and talked.

Both Bentley and Lincoln hung out inside the house for most of the party, saying they were nervous. So strange. They were both in grumpy moods. Especially my 1st grader.

I made him this shirt to wear on the last day and have kids sign. He didn't want to wear it and was such a stinker about the whole thing. I thought about backing off, but didn't. I really thought he would like it once the year book signing started. (Since Sept. he has insisted he didn't want a year book, until Thursday night when he was so excited for his year book. Bad timing dude.)

So when he walked in the door after school with the front and back covered in signatures and said, "Mom, will you make me a Last Day of 2nd Grade shirt?!" I knew had won!

He's so excited that he passed 1st grade and is pretty excited to be a 2nd grader. Since he's doing Portuguese dual-immersion next year he gets to go to 2 weeks of summer school. One of the weeks is all about Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest and I think he's going to love it. And he is super stoked about his English teacher next year. Apparently she's who he has always wanted.

Tri School Trot

Smithfield has 3 elementary schools, and every year they have a Tri-School Trot fundraiser. The kids set a goal of how many laps they will do and then collect pledges. It was Bentley's first year participating and when we asked him how many laps he wanted to do he said 3, cause 4 would make him too tired. Chod thought that was pretty weak and insisted he could do 10. So he bumped his goal up to 10 and hit the grandparents up for pledges.

The morning of the Trot, as we were coordinating plans for the day, Chod realized they would be running laps around the high school track. And not inside the elementary gym like he had thought. All of a sudden the 10 laps he was sure Bentley could do got much, much longer. Bentley was so excited to run his first "race".

He started out strong and did his 4 laps. Whitney and Katelin came to cheer him on and Katelin did a fantastic job of making sure he got a drink with every lap.

After lap 4, Chod joined him. With a little support and encouragement from Dad Bentley finished all 10 laps or 2.5 miles! Chod's not really dragging him like it looks like, Bentley was just heading over to his hydration station. It was fun for the whole family and there's already talk of 12 laps for next year.

Trip to the Principal's

On the 2nd day of the first grade, I got a phone call from the secretary saying Bentley was in the principal's office and needed to be picked up.

Not the Bentley you thought you knew?

Here's the story. He rode his bike to school that morning and that afternoon I was outside waiting for him to come home. Kids in the ward and some moms passed by. I asked if they had seen my Bentley and only Kason, the neighbor boy, had seen him "he was talking to some girl after school."

So I waited and finally saw an orange bike rider heading our direction. Only it wasn't Bentley. So about 20 minutes after school had gotten out I loaded the other 2 in the car and drove down to the school and found Bentley's bike still there.

A teacher told me to check the front office cause there were some kids in there waiting to be picked up. My Bentley was the only one still there and he looked relieved when he saw me, until I asked if he had forgotten his bike? Before we made it to the hall he was in tears and saying it was all his teachers fault.

Not a good way to end the 2nd day of school.

His teacher came out and talked to me. She said it was so early in the year she didn't know who walked and who got picked up, or even which direction kids lived and that when she had asked him he said I was picking him up. So she made him stay even though all the other neighbor kids had asked him to go home with them. He was mad, but I thanked his teacher and told him that all that really matters is that he's safe. And really that's the most important thing.

The message from the secretary was on my phone when I got home.

On the 1st Day of the 1st Grade

Bentley is a 1st Grader!

Bear Lake Tornado

It's an annual thing for the Sunrise kindergarteners to write and perform an opera. Bentley's class worked all year on The Bear Lake Tornado. A CD was sent home months ago with the music on it and Lincoln has insisted we listen to it on repeat--so the whole family has the opera memorized. It's a really neat thing the teachers do, as the kids write the opera and a volunteer puts it to music, and the kids even paint the scenery. Definitely not something that is required of the teachers, but a really neat thing they let the kids experience.

 

 Bentley was really excited to be a parrot...until he saw the costume. He came home one day and said it looked like a chicken, not a parrot. I thought he was being a little dramatic until I saw it. And well, it is a chicken. He was really down on the chicken costume, as I'm pretty sure he had other ideas of what the parrot costumes would look like. He even told Chod he was going to sing "We are the flying chickens.." instead of "We are the flying parrots.." But he didn't.

Should Have Stayed in Bed

I was bound and determined that this whole time change thing would not be a big deal and that we could handle it.

Yesterday, I realized Chod was still in bed at 6:30. He teaches a 7:30 class so he's usually out of the house by 6:30.

"CHOD! It's 6:30."

"I know, but it's spring break." he mumbled.

"Oh."

So he stayed in bed a few minutes longer, basking in his spring vacation leisure. 

Then I started breakfast and he went to wake Bentley. Instead of coming upstairs with one boy, there were two groggy kids following.

We ate breakfast, all the while I was nagging Bentley to hurry. I continued after him all morning. Move faster. Put your shoes on. Find your coat. We're going to be late. Hurry!

Finally we made it out the door and started our walk to the school. About half way there I noticed the street was unusually quiet. There were no other kids on their way to school. No mini vans headed down the road. And most of all, no orange cones in the intersections.

"Do you have school today?" I asked Bentley.

He told me he didn't know and asked if I had checked the 'chart' that morning.

I knew it wasn't their spring break but couldn't figure out what was going on, so we turned around and headed home. Sure enough the school calender had a big red N on it for No School.

Are you kidding me!

I'm not really sure who won yesterday. Cause as hard as I tried, I think Daylight Savings Time got the last laugh.

Kindergarten Program 2011

Oh kindergartners! Bentley had his first school program and was pretty insistent his dad take the day off of work so he would be sure to make it. His insistence paid off and Chod was there (although he didn't take the whole day off).

I got to help make their reindeer shirts. Pretty sure I got the worst job there--painting 30 little kindergartner feet and then washing each one off.

Bentley got put on the front row, and did great. I was surprised he knew the songs because he never sang them at home.

The proud dad and little brother.

1st Day of Kindergarten

We're so happy Bentley was excited to start kindergarten. It took a little convincing, but in 2 weeks he went from tears when we'd talk about school to total excitement. The back to school night, meeting with his teacher, and a walk to the school to play on the playground turned his fear into absolute excitement. Plus, he is confident he knows how to get to and from school on his own now, which did a ton to help as well.

Our big boy Bent-a-ley on his first day.

Lincoln was so excited for kindergarten to start too. Until he found out he didn't get to go to school with Bentley.

Walking to school.

Two thumbs up!

He found his backpack hook.

And took a seat.

And Lincoln and I walked back home. There was a neighbor working in her yard (I don't remember her name) that asked how I was handling it. And I was fine--mainly relieved that we had reached the point of excitement and there were no tears when we dropped him off.

These too love each other so much. Bentley has bee-lined right to Lincoln and given him a hug every day after school, and Lincoln always responds with "I missed you Bentley, did you miss me?"

He came home to awesome good mail that day too! A fun letter from Aunt Died, and a card with bookmarks from Aunt Keese, Hudson, and Dalanie, and the night before school started Aunt Tameka brought him Fannie the Flamingo as a good luck at school gift.  We love our Bentley!

Kindergarten Bound

Tomorrow Bentley starts kindergarten. It's the lastest school start date I've heard of and we've needed every single day to get settled before a routine kicks us in the face. I've worried about what school we would send him to for a really long time. We tried the Edith Bowen lottery, considered Thomas Edison, talk to other moms about switching to schools both in and out of the district and hemmed and hawed about what to do. And now I think we've found where we are supposed to be. And he has decided this kindergarten stuff will be okay and is super excited. Which he hasn't always been.

When we went a couple weeks ago to register him, he refused to leave the car and go into the school.

Last week at the back to school night, he had both arms wrapped around my leg as I drug him into his classroom.

The next day, when we went for his assessment and to meet the teacher, I had to remove his little fingers from my hand so he could seperate with his teacher.

And yesterday he told me that he knows how to get to his school and doesn't need me to walk with him. He can do it by himself.

Where did this kid come from?

He's consented to let me walk him on the first day and then he'll let me know if I can walk him after that. He is so excited and wears his backpack around the house.

What changed?

His teacher let him pick out his "person" or bathroom pass, and he picked the blue one. Apparently a bathroom pass can make all the difference in the world.

(Oh, and she repeatedly told him how smart he was during his assessment--which didn't hurt either.)

One Semester Down

When Chod decided to go back to school, he jumped in with both feet, taking 18 credits and still working full time. I told him he was crazy and even tried to convince him to not take as many credits, but he would hear none of it. And while there was some complaining, I really tried to support the crazy hours he kept. To fit everything in he needed to, his schedule looked like: leave for work at 6 am. come home at 5:30 pm. eat dinner. put the boys to bed. do church calling and head back to the school until all hours of the night. Most days he put in between 15-17 hours on campus Mon-Fri. and some on Saturdays too. Sundays were for church and catching up on sleep.

And I guess his hard work paid off because he pulled a 4.0 this semester! Way to go Choddie!