Spring!

Spring is finally here!

Last year I thought I had snapped a picture of these gorgeous trees, but I hadn't.

These trees line the side street next to our house.

The pink, Flowering Plums bloom first for about a week and then the white Crab Apples go. It makes for a good three weeks of gorgeous blossoms outside our kitchen windows.

Another fun sign of Spring was this little guy. The birds are back! And I'm so happy that I can even forgive him two weeks later for eating up the little flowering ground covers I had planted in my front yard....

He kindly obliged while I took several pictures of him through my kitchen window. 

In other news, the school year is winding down. We had a great Walkathon on April 25th, with fun music playing and gatorade for the kids after. It was a fun, easy fundraiser and I'm glad it went smoothly. This coming week is our elementary Spring Choral Concert and Fathers and Sons this weekend. Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week and we are making posters and planning a catered lunch for everyone! Oh, and I got a part time job at a Copy Center. It's about 10 hours a week. It's been fun and a little crazy. 

Hope of America

On April 18th, Will got to participate in Hope of America, where thousands of fifth graders perform Patriotic songs at BYU's Marriott Center. UVSC's Green Man Group performed some awesome percussion numbers. They have tons of energy!

The kids were wearing different colored shirts to make the flag, complete with stars and stripes. They spent the first 30 minutes of pre-show performances filling in gaps. Kids from the outer edges were moved inside and put on different colored shirts to get everything just right. Talk about organized!

 Can you see Will? I didn't think I'd find him, but I thought I recognized his teacher and sure enough found him in the bottom white row, five in from the left, right above the O in Hope! It was so cool to watch him perform! The kids did some awesome songs with great choreography. It was really touching to see so many kids move at the same time, performing sign language and symbolic gestures to each song.

These ladies were hilarious. They are between 50 and 94 years old and they were rockin' out to Gangnam Style and other fun songs. I think they were the biggest hit of the night!

There were a lot of numbers interspersed with the kids Patriotic songs. This was a fun cultural one.

The last song of the night was really beautiful.The kids sang "We Can Be A Light" and it was awesome to see the light sparkle all over every surface in the Marriott Center. It was a really fun night. I'm glad I brought Ella with me. We really enjoyed it!

April Art

Ella drew this cute diagram of panda bears for Parent Teacher Conference. On my trip to San Diego we went to the zoo and I brought home a small stuffed panda for each kid. She must have really liked hers! 

We have quite a lot of Spring and Easter creations now. Ella added some fun animals and Alex has been doing awesome on his weekly spelling tests!

Play-doh Creations

Taking notes from Lauren, we busted out the Play-doh on Conference Weekend. We also printed some really fun bingo cards and used Easter fruit snacks and M & Ms to mark them. Even Kimball and I had to do one. It helped keep the kids occupied for the last two sessions. I was amazed how focused Ella was on her Play-doh creations. She spent 3 hours straight creating different menu items for a Play-doh restaurant! I was still pretty sick, so my hopes to go to Moab for a short vacation fell apart. But it turned into a nice, relaxing weekend, which we all needed.