Mother's Day Lunch

Friday Carter's school had a Mother's Day lunch. Once again, I took my mom and we "enjoyed" lunch with Carter. The food was...interesting. They tried to make some fancy cafeteria food but it didn't really translate on a large scale. We still had fun seeing him with his classmates and having lunch together.

With my mom:

With some friends:

Space Center Field Trip

I've been a total blogging slacker - again. I've been super busy and am sick on top of it all. Going on a month of being sick with a horrible sinus infection. I've put off going to the doctor because I thought maybe it was allergies (it isn't) and then I started to feel better but went back downhill last week. Anyway...

Last week I was able to chaperone Carter's class on a field trip to the Challenger Space Center. I KNEW he would love it and I jump at any chance I can get to spend time with his school class. It was a really cool place. Kind of a museum but combined with lots of hands on activities.

His entire class:In front of one of the space shuttle replicas:This was really cool and had tons of working parts. I actually learned a ton about the space program while we were there.

Carter with his friends RJ and Allen. Coloring their space helmets:

In front of the "space station" that the worked in teams to build and then were able to crawl through and play in:His favorite part of the day though was building the rockets that were fueled by Alka Seltzer tablets. It was really fun to watch how far in the air the rockets with go with a little water/Alka Seltzer mixture.

Fun day! I'm reminded how little one-on-one time I get with Carter so this was a huge treat for us both!

I'll be back soon with a 4th birthday recap!

More on the School Drama!

I'm back with another update on Carter's schooling situation. I can't even begin to explain what a stressful situation this has been. It's so crazy that you make decisions as a parent and have no idea if what you're doing is right!

We 've thought so much about Carter going in to first grade this year and just haven't felt completely comfortable with it. The school really got us with the surprise factor and that's probably what has bothered me the most. We were never consulted to see if it's what we wanted for him. We also want to make sure he's challenged but not overwhelmed. On Wednesday after BTSN, I made a ton of phone calls to friends who have had their kids in the school, to the teacher and to the curriculum/placement counselor. I got about a 50/50 response. 50% of people thought he'd do great, 50% thought it was a bad idea to move him up. I did find out that he was the only boy out of the 4 kids that were moving up to 1st grade. That bothered me quite a bit as boys have a tendency to be more immature than girls, anyway. I'm pretty confident that he could handle it academically so my main concern has been the social aspect. It has also been so strange trying to figure out if this is right for him for the future - like high school future. Did we want him to always be the youngest kid in his class, would we hold him back in the future, etc.

By Wed. afternoon I had decided that I would prefer to have him in Kindergarten with his peers. There are 8 Kindy classes at the school and they still separate the kids out by ability so I knew he could still be in the class with the more advanced Kindergartners. I called the school and found out that they didn't have a single spot open in the entire Kindy program. At that point I had no choice but to leave it in the Lord's hands and we prayed that a spot would open for him if it was right. We went ahead and prepared for the 1st grade class.

Well, finally this morning, the school called to tell me that had a spot open up for him in Kindy. I am so relieved and FINALLY FINALLY feel at peace with this situation. This entire process has been such a huge roller coaster. We feel really blessed that it's worked out for us! We're off to the school this afternoon to meet his new teacher.

Whew! I promise I have lots more ideas that I hope I can share this weekend! Thanks for all your support and encouraging words!

Spring Concert & Art Show

Last night was the spring concert and art show at Carter's school. It was a hoot watching the littlest kids singing. His class did 6 songs, 3 of which included sign language. They really did great. Here's a video of one of the songs. Carter got a bit distracted but it was still funny.

The cheering section:

Carter with some of his art and his award:
The crew:

Oh, and for the record, when they announced the future class of 2021, I started to cry. Sheesh.

I'm so behind on blogs so I promise to catch up next week. We're off for a fun weekend away for our anniversary! Hooray!!

First day of School!!

I can hardly believe it is back to school time once again. It certainly doesn't feel like back to school (115 degrees today). Carter started the Pre-K program today at one of the local elementary schools. He will be attending 5 days a week from 1:00-3:30 p.m. Kindergarten in AZ just went to mandatory full days so we thought we would ease the adjustment by having him attend every day this year. He was really excited to get back into the classroom. We're anxious to see how he grows and develops this year. He suddenly seems so grown up. Sob!!

Before leaving for school:

In his new classroom in front of his cubby:After school with his first day of school treat (an idea I stole from my friend Kayla):