STUDENT OF THE MONTH, May 2008

Keanna was nominated for "Student of the Month" Each teacher nominates one child from their class, then all the teachers for Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade get together and nominate one child as the over-all winner. So, we received a letter in the mail explaining that Keanna had once again been nominated. We were overjoyed when we received another letter shortly thereafter telling us that she had been nominated as the over-all winner. We were also notified that she had been chosen as her class winner in the "Writes of Spring" contest. So, we went to the Student of the Month Assembly to watch Keanna accept her awards. What most of you may not know is that Keanna's teacher this year was Steve's sister. She was Keanna's teacher in Kindergarten and we were really excited when Ms. Kohr moved up to 2nd grade this year. Keanna was so concerned in Kindergarten that she might slip and accidentally call her teacher "Aunt Rhondie" instead of "Teacher" or "Ms. Kohr". Thankfully, this did not happen and Keanna has enjoyed 2 great years with Rhondie as her teacher. Keanna did not know she was winning this award and I was so glad to be able to see her face when they announced her name as over-all Student of the Month for grades K-3. She had already gotten her little basket of goodies for the "Writes of Spring" contest, and she was sitting amongst her friends, all of them digging through the basket of treasure. When she heard her name, the expression on her face went from shock, to horror (thinking she was in trouble for not paying attention to the assembly) to a HUGE smile (when she realized what was going on). She came up to the microphone and stood hugging Ms. Kohr a.k.a Aunt Rhondie listening to the kind words from both her teacher and her classmates. I will post the video clip from her award acceptance if I can make it work. We sure are proud of her. Good Job Baby!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GIRLS

The girls had been begging for a "girls night out" for quite some time, so I decided that it would be fun to have a slumber party/girls night out/spa day. So, I loaded up 5 girls, ages 6-10 and headed to a local motel. We packed in so much food and fun and "pampering" items, it looked like we were planning to stay a week. We started the night off with each girl receiving a "gift bag". Inside were flowers for their hair, craft projects, bracelets, lip gloss, pencils, and assorted other little things that are not that great when your bare feet find them in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar dark motel room. Next, we ate pizza for dinner and waited the required time before heading to the swimming pool. Fun was had by all, and when they were thoroughly worn out, we headed back to the room for strawberry shortcakes, cupcakes and Wendy's Frostys. Apparently, I missed the parenting class where they explained the law of numbers where one adult and five young girls equals one really loud room and the nutrition class where they taught you that massive doses of sugar just before bed time are NOT suggested. But, we made it through (some of them slept, some of us didn't) and we all got up the next morning to manicures, pedicures, facials and some makeovers. The girls all looked lovely and they all felt like "grown-ups" with HUGE smiles. We headed for home, delivering worn out, made up, sugar hyped, tired little girls along the way. The girls have told me multiple times that it was the "BEST NIGHT EVER". Steve was a little disappointed when Kamille promptly informed him he had to stay home because this was for "girls only", but upon hearing about all the "fun" we had, he decided maybe 1 male and 6 females is not an equal mix and he was grateful to stay home with the dogs and his remote rather than tag along with a gang of silly, giggly, pre-teen girls. I hope they enjoyed themselves and I'm pretty confident we made some memories that will remain much longer than the hair-dos, makeup, and sugar-shock.