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Saturday, May 09, 2015

School is almost out

It seems that the closer and closer we get to the school year being complete the more busy our life becomes in the evenings.  This past week we had three year end concerts to attend.

We started off with Brayden's Kindergarten Patriotic Program. This wasn't just his class but the entire kindergarten class. These kids with the help of teacher's and many mom's made their patriotic shirt during school a few weeks ago. 


Throughout the school year these kiddo's have been taught 7 songs. Some come with hand action's, some come with a little dance while during the other's they stand tall and sing their best. Despite many, many practices I always think it's funny to watch that "one kid" who goes the opposite direction than everyone else. This year that was my kid! 
Love him!


Brayden loved having his turn in the spotlight!


Two nights later the family went to the school's Spring Fling. Emily performed in her choir group for the very last time for this school year. One of the songs performed was the troll song from Frozen, that's why some were dressed up in costume. 


They also sang Katy Perry's song, Firework.


At the beginning of the school year the choir was for 3rd grade and up. Come December time the choir was in desperate need of some voices and so 2nd grade was invited to participate. Emily was thrilled! She has worked really hard these past few months trying to learn all the songs that were presently being taught but also the ones she missed. At this night's performance they sang every song they learned this year. She did a great job!


Following her performance we went outside and participated in the school's carnival. 


For $3 a piece the kids were given a bracelet worth up to 10 events. 
All chose face paint as their 1st activity. 

Some chose bounce houses.


  There was an Angry Birds sling shot game, a balloon dart game, a bean bag toss and many more.

Although she had to stand in line for 45 minutes before it was her turn,

 Madelyn's favorite was the dunking booth.

So glad they had fun.
The following night Hunter had his last orchestra concert. He was given a special award for earning his black belt. During the year each level the kids were suppose to reach was given a color of belt. The black belt was the very last level. When kids came back to school after Christmas break the teacher quit doing the colored belts because there were so many students who couldn't keep up, they were falling behind and parents were complaining. I thought it was interesting that in the end about 1/3 of her students in both beginning and intermediate orchestra had earned their black belt on their particular level. Hunter wasn't always on level, he fell behind a few times. Hunter rides the bus and the bus (per district policy) won't allow him to take his cello on the bus. CRAZY!!! I can't pick him up and take him to school every day. Because he wasn't getting his practices in he started to fall behind. His counselor and I made arrangements so that during homeroom he could go to the orchestra room to practice. His home room teacher was not pleased with hunter leaving everyday. So she only allowed him to leave once a week. I wanted to go in and talk to the counselor again but Hunter asked me not to. He did not want me to make a "scene". With all the obstacles being thrown at him I told myself I wouldn't make it a big deal if he didn't earn his black belt, after all it was no longer a requirement. The day's he brought his cello home instead of practicing the minimum requirement of 30 min he would practice over an hour and then some. There were many times that he practiced for almost 3 hours spreading it over the afternoon/evening. Choosing to practice and not playing with friends or being outside rollerblading or playing Wii paid off. He did it! It's amazing what our kids can do if they really put forth the effort and work at it. He has some real talent with his cello. I'm excited to see where this will take him. 

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