No Room

This morning I woke up to a very squishy bed!! Armin had crawled into bed with us at 3:00am, his usual time! Emry came in at 8:00am and Calum shortly after!! Thankfully Jared was outside finishing working the fertilizer into the ground so he could get it seeded today, or maybe not so thankfully because I have hardly seen Jared this week with all the extra time he puts in doing farm related work, sleeping in together on Saturday cuddled together sounds like pure heaven to me!!! Dave gave Jared a nice surprise and came out to the farm earlier this morning to help finish up the seeding!! 

I love our kids and how they want to crawl into bed with us!! It is a special time!! Though as you can see in the picture Calum and Emry had their noses glued to the electronics!! But it allowed me to get a few more precious minutes of sleep!!

Champion Charger

Today was the last day of school!!!! The last day is usually a fun day finishing with an awards ceremony. Every year one student from each grade is awarded the Charger Award!! It is an award to honor a student who has stood out!  This year Emry was awarded the award!!! We are so proud of her and are so thankful for the young woman she is becoming!! She is such a huge help to us at home and for the most part she is great to her not so little, little brothers!! Her award really says it all!!! Congratulations Emry!!! We love you sooooooo much!!!! 

The award says: "Emry has worked especially hard this year. She has taken every challenge and ran with it. In Language Arts she has produced some amazing stories, and she is always working hard in math, both at home and at school. Emry sets goals for herself and achieves them, always with a smile on her face. Emry is an active member of the classroom, and she has taken great strides toward being organized, responsible, and most importantly a caring individual. She is a great friend to all that know her, and a caring person to those whom are new to champion, making them feel part of the school right away. Emry has a lot of admirable qualities and is a true Champion Charger!"

Incident Reports

The boys went to daycare on Friday because I had to fill in for the other tech at the pharmacy. When Jared and I picked them up Calum tells us that there's a report!  Oh?!!  As Jared is getting the boys stuff gathered up I start reading the report! Turns out they both had a report written up! 

Armin's said this:

"While playing with the play dough Armin wanted something another child had so he pulled the child's hair which led to that child smashing a wooden rolling pin over Armin's head shattering it to pieces."

Yikes!! I signed the report and went onto Calum's report! Here is what his said, "while playing with play dough another child wanted a toy that Calum had so that child pulled Calum's hair.  To get the child to let go of Calum's hair, Calum hit the child over the head with a wooden rolling pin and shattered it."  Huh?!!

I had to stop reading here just to make sure it was in fact a different report than the one I had just read for Armin.   Yes they definitely were different! The incident happened between brothers!!! I was so totally relieved that other children weren't involved that I laughed right out loud!!  I'm sure the care aide was shocked by my reaction but I just couldn't help it!! The way the two reports were worded and the fact that the incident involved two brothers was priceless!!!  They can be best buddies and worst enemies in the span of mere minutes!!!! 

They are pretty cute, patience testing, grey hair turning little men!!!  I love them to pieces and I know one day their closeness in age will be a blessing!!! Right now however they are just exhausting!!!!

June

I can't believe how fast this month has gone!!! Calum is officially finished kindergarten and he had a blast!! I am worried about his unpredictable behavior at times, hopefully we can get a handle on it this summer and he will be good as new for next year! His grad was last week and it was short and sweet!!! His class sang two songs, they were to the tune of "In Summer" from Frozen about becoming a Grade Oner!! And the other one was to the tune of "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" Also from frozen!!! They all looked so grown up in their black cap and blue gown!!! 

The next day the kindergarten class took a trip to the zoo!! It is so fun to see how some of the Mennonite kids react to the sites and sounds of the city!!! I was able to take Armin and a friend of mine and her one year old boy also came along!! The weather was pretty5 perfect!! Not too hot and just enough cloud cover that we didn't get scorched!!! We all travelled around as a group and had a great time!! 

I have had the opportunity to work again at the Carmangay Colony School and also at the Vulcan Outreach School as a secretary!!! I sooooo enjoy being in the school!!

Spock Days was last weekend so the kids and I ventured into the parade!! It was fun!! We also checked out the bouncy houses and the ponies!!!

Jared and Dave had planned months ago to ride their bicycles through the Kanaskis before the highway was open to vehicles!!! They had a good time and even managed to stay dry!!! When Jared came home that night he google mapped the route they rode and realized at the point where they both had had enough riding uphill they were only 2 km from the top!!!! This was after riding for 40ish km!!! So next year they know they can and will make it to the top!!!

Jared has been busy with cows, as usual!!! But we are hanging in there and looking forward to nice hot-'ish' summer!!! He has been quite busy with work and all the rain we have been getting!! He has to closely monitor the level of the dams so can open gates to ensure the dams won't burst because they are over full!!!! 

Armin and I had a nice quiet day together today!! I has to get my blood tested so together we headed up to Vulcan!! We had lunch together at subway, he was a rather cute lunch date!!!!

My energy levels are feeling rather depleted :( not quite sure why and my house is really suffering!! Maybe it's the gloomy weather?

Our puppy, Fender, is growing like a weed!!! He is great pals with Gibson and often when we look out5 the window we can see the two of them wrestling or playing tug of war with a rope!!! He is such a mild mannered puppy and except for always trying to take Armin down by biting his shirt he is a great puppy!!! 

I have a hard time believing the school year is winding up!! Calum will be in grade one and Emry in grade five!!!!   We really are lucky to live where do and have everything we need!!! I do seem to get down more often than not but I'm trying to change that aspect of my life. 

I look forward to what the summer will bring and the many great memories we will make!!!

Track Meet

I wasn't able to help out this year at the track meet but Armin and I did get a chance to see some of Emry's events and even have lunch with the kindergarten kids! Emry tied the record for highest high jump for grade 4 girls at 1.86m!!! She really did well at this years track meet and had tons of fun with her group! The kindergarten kids even went out and tried a couple of events!! Calum was awesome at long jump and when they measured he jumped as far as the grade two's jumping in the next pit!!! The kids in Calum's class each got a participants ribbon and you would have thought they were each given a trip to Disneyland!!! It was a perfect day for the track meet not too hot with a cool enough breeze to keep the bugs away!!

They Do Clean Up Well!!

Grandpa Glen wanted to take his favourite grand daughters to the movie Maleficent!  So he got it all organized for Saturday afternoon!  He asked that the girls dress up a little more than the standard sweatpants and t-shirts!  So to make things a little easier Lily stayed overnight at our place friday so the girls could get cleaned up with plenty of time to spare before Grandpa Glen came to pick them up!  Arren told me more than asked me that Lily desperately needed to bathe before their big date!  I told her so did Emry so it wouldn't be a big deal!  The girls were up early so they could play outside before they were forced into the tub!  They were out before 7am checking the cows on the quad!  After checking the cows they went in search of Jared who had been out early trying to get the tire fixed for the crazy harrows before he had to leave for Balzac to pick up their newly purchased double discers!  

The girls before their bath:

And of course we forgot the after pictures until way, way after!  After Grandpa Glen dropped them back off that night!  They LOVED Maleficent!  A little scary at times but sooooooo good!  Even Grandpa Glen liked it!!  Before the movie they did a little shopping and then after the movie they had supper at Moxie's!  The girls love their Grandpa Glen and I love how he has these girl's days or boy's days!  It really gives them some one on one time and memories that will not ever be forgotten!

The after, much cleaner, pictures of the girls:

They are holding their hands like this because we put our newly purchased jamberry nails on!  Emry had chosen the Holstein cow design and desperately wanted them on!!  They are pretty cute girls if I do say so myself!!!

Carmangay Colony

Friday morning the boys and I got Emry off to school and my plan was then to CLEAN our house and catch up on laundry!!! Two minutes after the bus drove away Calum brought me the phone and said I had to call a lady! Curious I checked the message and sure enough a lady did call!! She asked if I could sub as a teachers aid at the Carmangay Colony! I called her back to get more details and let her know I might not be able to find a sitter for our boys with such short notice, her only response was "bring them...I'm serious!!!!" She said she was so desperate that she really didn't mind if they just hung out!!

The boys and I got ready, called our neighbor, also the mom of Emry's best friend, to see if Emry could go to golf with them, and we were on our way!!

Once we got there we met Mrs. Montgomery, the "principle" and got the boys settled in her room with Lego and trains!! She teaches the grades 1-3, and I was to go into the other building with Miss Barton and help with the grades 4-9! I have actually never been to a colony before so I wasn't sure what to expect! I know each colony is different but this one was quite laid back!! Friday is a short day so the first part of the morning was spent doing independent reading then Miss Barton read to the class a couple of chapters from a novel they have been reading together as a class. She would stop and ask questions and the kids would get right involved answering her questions. 

Next was recess!! Everyone went outside to play and after a good twenty minutes I wondered just how long recess was! After 30 minutes I asked!! I was told that whenever they felt like blowing the whistle they would!! After a few more minutes the other aid finally asked me if I knew what time it was! I told her and she decided it was time to blow the whistle!!

After recess was Math and I was able to help the grades 4-6 if they had any questions!!! Wow!! Am I ever thankful I had the answer key it would have taken me quite awhile to remember some of the questions they had! 

After Math it was lunchtime!! Fridays the teachers and aids eat with the colony!! Each little kid was assigned a buddy to walk with to the lunch room and as I came out of the big kids building I saw Calum and Armin holding hands with two boys!! Once at the lunchroom the teachers and I walked into a large room with tables and benches but totally empty of people!! The colony members eat earlier then serve us!! The kids eat in a totally different room!! The buns were so yummy!! I could have eaten all of them but I refrained!!! I was given a bag of buns to take home, and I was so grateful!! 

After lunch it was recess again and it went on much like the morning recess!! Once they finally blew the whistle all that was left to do was writing in their agendas and doing their clean up jobs!! Then the big kids would go get the little kids and do buddy reading!! Then it was home time!!!

As we were walking to the van Calum turns back and gives one of the girls a big hug!! She wasn't quite sure what to think of that!!! Once we were in the van and about to back up 4 little girls knocked on our window so I rolled it down and they asked if they could come home with us!! I told them we would be back again!! They liked this idea, and then let us leave!!

The boys had fun and were so good!!! Maybe I need to stop threatening them that if they won't be good they will be going to live on a Hutterite Colony, because they really seemed to like it!!!

I get to go back on June 2nd for a whole day! I'm really looking forward to it!!!