byufan.net

Today Diana presented her book report on Princess Jeweliana and the Sparkling Rainbow Ball, by Allia Zobel to her class.   She took one of her princess costumes and fairy wings so she could tell the class all about her book as if she was the main character.  She did it all on her own and did not even have a cheat sheet to read off of.  I forgot to take a picture while she was giving her report so I had to take the following pictures while she watched the other kids give their reports.  It was a lot of fun.

I am sure glad that I took care of the tomatoes yesterday because this is what my garden looked like today.

A couple of days ago we had some snow, but not enough for the kids to play in. Luckily last nights storm brought in enough for the kids to enjoy!

This year Caroline and Diana were the only kids who wanted to play soccer. Diana was improved from last year. She finally ran with the hordes of kids to get to the ball instead of just standing there looking at it. Caroline’s team was really good and only lost one game. Caroline’s best position on the team is defense, she is good at kicking the ball out of the way so the other team can’t get a goal. I am proud of them for doing a good job this year.

Diana’s favorite time in soccer

Caroline posing for a picture

Diana amongst the horde

This year Caroline and Sam started swimming lessons at level 3. They can now swim well enough that I don’t have to keep a constant eye on them when they are at our community pool. Diana couldn’t take lessons at the beginning because she had a rash that took a long time to get better. By the second session of swimming lessons Diana’s rash was better so she could start at level 1. Caroline was able to pass level 3 after the first session, but Sam had to take it again until he finally passed. The kids love to go to the indoor pool here and they are looking forward to taking more swimming lessons when they go off track from school.

It finally happened about a month ago, Diana taught herself to ride a bike without training wheels. I am so glad she was not like Anne or Caroline who fussed and fretted about riding without training wheels. All of Diana’s friends on the street learned how to ride a bike last year so Diana decided that it was her turn. She got on our littlest bike and kept on trying to ride it until she was successful. Here are the pictures to prove it:

Down the road a ways the city built a new park. It is not that great, but since it is a change from the old on they have been going to it is like hitting the jackpot for the kids. One day I decided to take their pictures just for fun.

For mother’s day this year all the kindergarten classes got together to do a program for their mothers. We were off track at the time so I had to drive Diana to school instead of sending her on the bus. Diana has been excited the past month or so because they have been practicing the songs they were going to sing. Some of the songs she would sing at home while she watched TV or played with her barbies. She did a very good job singing although one of the songs she didn’t sing. I asked her when we go home why she didn’t sing the one song and she told me, “I didn’t like that song mom!” Boy was I not smart to know that!

Diana’s elementary school is going to have a Chinese Immersion Program next year for select 1st graders. What? An elementary school in Utah with a Chinese language immersion program for 1st graders? Pretty amazing if you ask me. I agree that it’s important to speak a 2nd language and you can’t really argue with the selection of Mandarin Chinese seeing how it is the most spoken language in the world. That being said, it just seems a little odd having 1st graders in a Chinese language immersion program.

I took Spanish in 7th and 8th grades and, while rusty, I’m good enough to get the gist of what people are saying if I concentrate hard. Anne is taking Spanish next year and it will be fun to work with her on it. My Chinese is only good enough to get a taxi back to my hotel or to order one or two simple street dishes that I learned about while spending time in Tawain during my days in the semiconductor industry. Still, it would be fun to throw some words around with Diana and see how she is doing. Of course, Grandpa Kent speaks Chinese pretty well and he could evaluate if Diana’s progress in the program is legit.

So, what do you think? Should we sign Diana up for it?

I took these pictures a long time ago but am barely writing about them. This year my youngest started kindergarten. She has been excitedly looking forward to the day when she could get on the school bus with her older siblings and finally the day was here. Usually on the first day I like to take my kindergartener to school myself and take pictures there, but Diana wouldn’t have it she wanted to take the bus. So here are the pictures of my three little elementary school kids on their first day of school.

We decided to have Luppin’s birthday party in May because we were gone on vacation on her official day. Actually on her birthday we were visiting the Capitol building in Washington D.C. and being led around by Representative Chaffetz’s staffers. This year she got to have a friend party so she was really excited. We invited seven girls and all but one showed up.

At the party we started off by putting stickers on our princess crowns. Then we got the party going by playing the candy bar matching game. If they matched two of the same candy bar pictures, they got the actual candy bar. After that game we played pin the tail on the donkey. They had a hoot seeing the funny places the tail got stuck to. After that we had cake and ice cream. It is funny because when I was a kid I remember the cake and ice cream were the best part, but the girls were more interested in jabbering than eating either cake or ice cream. I think I threw the bulk of it away in the garbage can. After the cake came the presents. I think this was very fun. I had each of the girls one at a time bring up the present she got for Luppin and then each of their presents got spotlighted and I could write down who brought what. After the all the presents were opened and before they could tear into them and get Barbie/Polly pocket stuff everywhere, we went to the basement to do the pinata. Because we have an unfinished basement it was easy to tie the rope up on the ceiling and have the girls whack away at it. I think they liked this game the best of all. Luppin did want to play musical chairs, but we ran out of time. All in all a very good party.