International dinner, last day of school, preschool graduation, TOTShine Time performance, ballet recital

I'm a bit behind and have plenty more recent events to update but before more time passes, time to cover the last month of school events.

International Dinner

One of the fun traditions at the kids' school is the International Dinner held in May. Each class does a performance and then the whole school family joins together to eat a potluck dinner celebrating the cultural heritages represented within our school.

The toddler class:

Daniel's class:

We bought that lederhosen outfit in Munich on our trip in 2008 before we even had imminent plans to start a family. He's worn it every year for his International Dinner and it's gone from too big to just right to now, too small.

My favorite song of their performance-the planet song. Poor Pluto!

Blessing of the students

It's also a tradition of Apostles Day School that on the last day of the fall-spring school year, all the students and their families gather in the sanctuary and Father Tim, the rector of the church, individually says a blessing over each child. The classes went in age order beginning with the toddlers, Rebecca's class.

Then later, Daniel's turn with his class:

After all the kids had been blessed the younger classes returned to their classrooms while the graduating students remained in the sanctuary for their graduation.

Rebecca and her classmates singing a song for me:

Daniel receiving his diploma:

Each graduate also received an award recognizing that child's special gifts. Daniel got the "Thinking Outside the Box" award for his creativity and imagination:

With Penny, one of his best friends from his time at ADS. The two have been inseparable peas in a pod since meeting almost 4 years ago.

TOT Shine Time celebration

Around the same time the kids took part in a demonstration of basketball skills through the Teams of Tomorrow (TOT) program they do at school. They had fun showing off their skills for us and getting to do their TOT routine with their friends.

One thing I was really proud of Daniel for was that at one point in the routine the kids were supposed to pull ribbons from the plastic boxes by their spot and wave them around. For some reason his box was missing its ribbon. Daniel just waved his hands as if he had a ribbon and kept on without missing a beat. (Alas, when I told him afterward how proud I was being reminded of the missing ribbon upset him and he pouted. Oops.)

Ballet recital

This spring I signed Rebecca up for ballet classes (another program offered through their school) and when Daniel heard her talk about how fun it was he wanted to sign up too. They've both enjoyed their classes and we're excited to show off their skills and wear their costumes. They had a great time and Daniel soaked up all the applause for being the only boy dancing that day!

What a busy and eventful few months!

Rebecca-isms

A quick note before I forget on some funny things Rebecca has said lately. 

Most recently, the other night we had some loud thunderstorms which woke her up and made her scared. We told her it was just noise but nothing that would hurt her and that we would be right there as she snuggled in our bed but that didn't satisfy her. "The Lightning is bad because if it hits us it'll make us all dead." Well, there's that.

She also likes to tell us what flavors her hugs and kisses are. If we're lucky she has yummy flavors. But sometimes bad guys will steal all the yummy flavors and all she has are yucky ones. When that happens we rely on the "silly ghost" who followed us home from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion ride to go stop the bad guys and get her yummy flavors back.

But the really funny one was a few weeks ago. She asked to wear a favorite dress to church and on the way there, asked why she doesn't have to wear "pants" (bloomers) under her dresses anymore. I explained that those were for little girls who didn't know how to keep their dress down, but now that she was a big girl she knew not to do that. Or so we thought.

She went to the nursery to play during the service so I went to get her during the peace so she could take Communion. As we were sitting down and the priest began doing the announcements Rebecca noticed the teen girl who babysat for them sitting in the row ahead of us and walked if she could go over to say hi and give her a hug. 

When she reached the sitter though she did more than say hi--she pulled her dress up and loudly declared "look! I have no pants!" The people in all the rows around us cracked up. It was all I could do to keep quiet as I laughed so hard tears were rolling down my face. 

It would seem our discussion in the car was less clear than I had believed. Well, I guess we gave the people around us something to talk about on the way to lunch.

Love our funny, silly girl. She keeps life amusing!