Late night smores

We were invited over to another house in the 'hood for smores after the wiffle ball game. It's the summer, so why should the fact that the party started at 9:00 slow us down?

The boys organized a few synchronized glow stick events:

First Grade Awards

Brady's school had a first grade awards assembly and his teacher followed it with a classroom awards presentation. Brady was the proud recipient of the Citizenship Award for his class. We were amused at the stated requirement for exceptional attendance. I guess his was exceptional, although probably not in the way it was intended!

With the other award recipients:

Receiving his 1st grade completion certificate:

Can you read it? It really does say Certificate of Acheivement. Nice.

His whole class:

His classmates voted him the Best Writer, which is pretty cool. I hope he continues to love to write and think of stories.

He had such a fabulous school year.
The school was beautiful.
The resource teachers were amazing and so enthusiastic.
He was lucky enough to sometimes have THREE adults in his regular classroom. Most people would never know it, but there were several special needs students in his class this year, so most afternoons there he had a special education teacher and her assistant in the room with his regular teacher.
The special education teacher and his regular teacher collaborated beautifully, to the benefit of all of the children. It really makes you realize what a classroom can and should be like!
And his teacher - wow - ! Of course, it helped that she's a neighbor and good friend so I always knew what was going on from her. But even beyond that - she just created a wonderful, warm, loving, accepting, happy place in her classroom.

He left kindergarten a little unsure of himself and his place in the world; he left confident in himself, who he is, and what he can achieve.

Exploring

Rudy and I wandered over to the creek to do some exploring. The kids LOVE it over there; I've even started letting them go by themselves, which is a pretty big step!

Rudy and I found this guy, the biggest crayfish I've ever seen. I wish I had something in the picture to scale it; he was enormous!

After Brady got home from school, we went back again. They can spend hours here, poking around in the water, catching crayfish, and generally being all boy!

End of Preschool

Rudy is now a kindergartner! He's been looking forward to his end-of-year party for a week. Since Brady's musical last week, Rudy has been telling us that his is a musical also.

With one of his girlfriends, Krista:

And Abbie, his best girlfriend. This is the one who he said would be a good girl to marry. Because the funner they are, that's the one he's going to marry. And she's the best one to play with.

The best we could do at getting a class picture:

Wedding

We drove to SC last weekend for my uncle's wedding. It was the first wedding that Rudy has attended and the first that Brady remembers. Both adamantly swore they they wouldn't dance at all. As it turned out, we almost couldn't get them off the dance floor!

Handsome guys, before the ceremony:

The groom and me:

Grandma, Uncle Don, Uncle Bill, and Dad:

The happy couple:

Hanging out after the ceremony:

We had some extra time between the ceremony and the reception so we visited a really good art show. We wished we had more time to see everything! This "kinetic art" was the biggest hit:

The electric slide:

Yes, that is my 90-year old Grandma out there bustin-a-move! :)

My parents, after they won the longest-marriage-dance with 41 happy years. When the DJ asked them what the secret is, Dad said they work on it every day. Mom said, "He's always right." (She confessed later that she really wanted to say "Make him think he's always right!")

Rudy took another one of his dinner catnaps. After waking up, he was ready to boogie!

Arf!

Brady had a starring role in the KG and first grade musical this week. He was really excited about the event and was so honored that all of his grandparents came to watch.

Brady, as Bernie the St. Bernard:

His class full of beagles:

hair cuts

Brady really wanted to wait to get a haircut until this summer, when we would do his buzz cut. I just couldn't handle it anymore! One more Justin Bieber hair flip and I was going to lose it, so I convinced them that we could do the haircuts now.

Look at that shaggy hair!

A little better...we started with a 7 guard on the shaver and decided we'd do more of traditional cut than a buzz...

Before...

And after:

Gymnast

Rudy is wrapping up two years of gymnastics classes this week. He really loves it, and it's amazing to me how strong he is!

Getting ready to push the Easy button, which is their reward for doing something good. (It's the simple things...)