last day of school

Zachary and Savannah finished the school year today.

Zach brought home an award that says: "Zach is always kind and thoughtful. His friends think he is nice and funny. They know that he has a passion for cereal!" He is definitely funny. After his band concert last week, he told me that me messed up one of his parts. Zach always forgets to look at the band director, and when he messed up, the kids said that the band director was staring him down and looking like he was going to bust if Zach didn't look up. After sharing this, Zach told me that if he got eaten at school the next day, he just wanted me to know why.

Savannah brought home the following awards: Outstanding Academics, All "A" Honor roll, presidental award with President Obama's stamp and a pin, Mathematics Award, and the Dorcas Award for putting others first.

Savannah was upset that she didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Emma. Oh we are definitely having Emma over this summer.

Wyatt had field day today as he has three days left of school next week. He really liked "tag of war."

Until next time...

5th grade celebration

Today was the big day! Savannah celebrated the end of fifth grade. We got everyone off to school and then raced back to the girls' school to try and catch Julia's birthday celebration with her class. I have sent desserts in with my children to celebrate their birthdays almost every year since preschool, and today Julia took a cookie cake to share with her class as her birthday is next week. I have never actually witnessed a single child enjoying this treat with a class, so I decided to try and do that today, but we were just a bit too late. However, we exchanged some hugs, and "I love yous." Julia seemed happy that we were there if even for a brief few moments.

We had a lot of time to spare after that and were planning to leave, but we got to talking with Savannah's teacher and ended up staying until her ceremony started. The highlight of the celebration is the video put together by a parent, and my friend Lynn did an outstanding job on the video. Each of the students recited and briefly discussed their favorite memory verse from the New Testament (remember they are celebrating the fact that they have read the entire New Testament this year). They each had two individual pictures and then the video included tons of pictures of them over the last six years. Those students who have been at the school since kindergarten received special awards, and everyone received a certificate for reading the New Testament.

Andy and I received some special gifts too. Savannah wrote us a letter thanking us for the sacrifices we make to send her to a Christian school. One of Savannah's school friends is Korean, and she stays with relatives to attend school here. Her mother was here for the ceremony, and she gave us a beautiful, traditional Korean fan. She is a beautiful lady, and I wish I had more time to get to know her. I don't know how good her English is as she spoke very little. Of course, my Korean is non-existent.

It was a great ceremony, and then we partied. We headed to the home of the Trans for some water fun. I do believe that the only adult to join the kids in the pool was the only "fifth grader" who did not graduate today. Yes, it was Savannah's teacher. He is a great teacher and a big kid. Savannah had Mom and Dad all to herself today - not that it mattered since I think she only spoke about three sentences to us during the party. However, we did have lots of fun chatting and teasing each other on the way home. Enjoy the pictures!




Savannah's favorite memory was posted on the screen when she was called to receive her award, and yes, I did get a picture of her by herself.

Savannah and Emma -- Emma and Savannah will not be attending the same middle school, and this is very upsetting to Savannah.

Savannah and Emmalee -- I just had to include the picture of them together in first grade. I distinctly remember taking this picture because it was the first time I met Emmalee. Savannah wanted this picture included in the video as one of her two pictures of herself.

Oh and did I mention that she had straight "A"s all year?

rites of passage

Today, I walked Savannah out of elementary school for the last normal school day she will have there. Tomorrow, she will leave early after the fifth graders gather to celebrate having read the entire New Testament this year. They have prepared a video for the parents with memories of their elementary years and their favorite scripture. After the ceremony, we will gather at the home of friends and let most of the kids continue the celebration. My camera battery will be fully charged for the day, and I may even get the rare photo of Savannah by herself. Today, however, it hit me that I was picking her up for our last normal school day. She gets out at noon on Friday, and my mom will pick her up for me. I am grateful that despite the weather adjustment to the school calendar, I still get to take the whole day off with her. I am not allowed to take a day off any of my last five work days for the school year, and as a result, I could not spend the day with Savannah when she graduated from kindergarten. This year the schedule was perfect as the kids were supposed to go a week longer than I. However, they made up their bad weather days by adding extra minutes on to the school day and having some of them excused. No such luck for me, I have to make every one of them up, and now I go a week later than them. I am already praying about the schedule for next year as I get off of work only a day before my kids, and I will have a kindergarten graduation and an eighth grade celebration to attend. Both of these take place during the school day. Working makes me miss so much. Yet, if I didn't work, I would not have Wyatt and Julia, so the blessings outweigh the hurdles even those that really stink for a mom.

So, why the lamenting? Leaving fifth grade saddens Savannah. One of her best buddies will not continue on to middle school with her. She has had a terrific year. I don't remember being sad like this when Zachary left fifth grade. It was a hard year for him, and I only felt relief that it was over and that he would be getting a new beginning. Savannah is ready for middle school, and I will still be picking a little one up at the same school next year, so enough nostalgia for now.

wrapping up the school year

We have come to the point in the year when
things get very busy as we face end of the year wrap-ups. I recall the days when Zachary's swim team would wrap up practices (3 or 4 days a week) in early March, and I would think that the rest of the year would be so much easier-ha! That never happened. Instead, we seemed busier. This week we had a last band concert, a preschool celebration, and an AHG Court of Awards ceremony. The band concert and preschool celebration fell on the same night, and Andy had another obligation. Yep, that ended up being one of those rare occasions where we got fast food.


In the above picture, Julia is with Miss Sherry, and to the left she is with Miss Kris. Her preschool celebration included a small kindergarten orientation. Miss Kris says that Julia is ready to bust she is so anxious for kindergarten. Julia received her summer reading folder for the library program at school, and she can't wait to get started. I am, however, a bit sad about this milestone being reached. Preschool is my favorite stage, and I want to slow this down a bit.

Zach is pictured right after the concert. I couldn't get good concert shots.
At the end of the week, we had a most idyllic day. Since it is Memorial Day weekend, there was really not much scheduled this weekend. On Saturday, we cleaned house which was a bit stressful because there was some considerable lack of cooperation. However, we then went as a family to the pool which opened this weekend. We only stayed an hour, but I think everyone enjoyed that time. I, of course, did not get into the pool as it is my rule to stay out until July (too cold). We then came home, and the girls played in the sprinkler while Andy grilled a delicious supper which we topped off with banana splits. It was so nice to just enjoy being together for the day. I want many more days like this, and we had planned more of the same today, but I took a long nap and then Andy and I shopped for Julia's birthday. We came up with nothing as is usual on our first trip out to shop for a birthday or Christmas.

During the family time of grilling, I tried to get a family life picture for a contest where Chinese children adopted into American families submit photos depicting either their reaction to school or family life. I don't plan to use this photo and doubt that I will come up with a good one to submit.

Always the ham, Julia wanted some photos of her spinning talent which she does with chipmunk cheeks. I do hope for a trip to the zoo or to the pool tomorrow. Zachary has wrestling, and it is my turn to drive, so I will have a long afternoon ahead as that is a four hour committment.

Let me just add that had we not had 2 weeks off of school because of weather this year, we would be finished with school right now, but alas, such is not the case. Everyone except for Wyatt and I finish this coming Friday. Wyatt finishes on the 3rd, and I finish on the 5th. Julia is going to go an extra week since I am not yet finished, but it is more like summer camp than school that week. We are in the final stretch and striving to finish strong!

Have you seen The Karate Kid?

Meet Mr. Miyagi

"his" surgery

so far, so good for Dad. His surgery went well, and he is starting the recovery process. He will be home from the hospital tomorrow.

His and Hers

A few years ago my parents had "his" and "hers" kidney stones. Yes, most people get towels, but they journeyed through painful kidney stones together and did so with a sense of humor as the "his and hers" joke originated with them. They are about to do another "his and hers" recovery together. This time they are both having surgery and hoping for full recovery before my brother's July 12th wedding. Dad has surgery scheduled this Wednesday (the 20th) to have an internal defibrillator implanted (I've been saying installed, but that makes him sound like a computer). Mom will follow with surgery on her lower back for spinal stenosis on June 1st. Both will face rather lengthy recoveries, so please pray for them. You might also want to pray a little extra for Dad's nurses as he is easily bored, can't stand to be still and is generally an impatient patient.

need I say more?

This is the girl who gets ready for church, walks to the top of the steps, flips her hair, sticks her hip out and puts her hand on it and asks in true Sharpay (High School Musical) fashion, "how do I look?"
If you should click on the picture to blow it up, you will notice that Julia has a tear on her eye. That is because this was taken right before Andy left, and Julia cried and cried and cried over the fact that he was going out of town.

babies, boats, travel

We have to go back a week to start this post. On Saturday May 9th, we had quite the busy day going here at the Page household. Savannah and I started the day by participating in a 5K, and that was fun. However, I seem to have a strange injury on my left foot that is especially trying on stairs - fun in heels at church today. Right after the race, Julia and Wyatt were picked up by my sister to attend an event at church where I understand Wyatt was quite the character. Meanwhile, I was cleaning and cleaning to prepare for a baby shower. Before Wyatt and Julia even made it home, Savannah and I were off to a field hockey game. Andy and Julia headed out for a birthday party for one of Julia's friends. 5:00 arrived shortly therafter, and we showered my high school friend Kim with goodies for her upcoming arrival. My friend Stacey arrived with her mom before the shower, and together, they did a beautiful job decorating and setting up. Andy and Zachary were both on hand to help with some of the grunt work.




The shower begins. See what I mean about the nice job done by Stacey and Barbara?
We invited little girls for the party, and as you can see, Wyatt stuck around. Andy and Zachary headed off to shop after we were set up to go, and they returned just in time to help with the last of the clean-up. Wyatt played nicely (mostly) with the girls, and he and several of the girls helped open the gifts. (YIKES)!

Stacey had this sign in storage, and it made a great decoration to lead people to the shower. Stacey and I grew up across the street from each other, and I met Kim in high school. Stacey knew her from grade school, and we have stayed connected all these years. Ironically, Kim and I have the same last name now, but our husbands are not related. (Kim's husband is also a former classmate of ours).
Here are the three of us and some of our kids. Of course you can't see Kim's baby boy, but he is there. Stacey's youngest child, Karlee, is in her arms.

I think the shower was a success. Savannah loved helping with the games. In fact, she ran them for us. We had people guess baby foods (pulled the labels off the jars and numbered them). Then, they had the task of naming that poo! We melted candy bars in diapers, and they had to guess which one was which. This ended up being more disgusting than I thought it would be. If you have never played this game at a shower, you might be surprised at how hard it is. When I revealed our game plans to Andy, his response was, "this is what happens at showers? I had no idea." Now this baby just needs a name, and he has to await his father's return from deployment in Afganistan to arrive.

In other family news, Andy left for the airport right after a somewhat eventful morning at church on Mother's Day. He was gone for the week, and I got to play single mom to four busy kids. For the most part the week went fairly smoothly. When Andy travels, things are very different here at home because half of a team is gone. Normally Andy takes everyone to school because I have to be at work before anyone can be dropped off. I get the pick-up and homework duty in the afternoon, and Andy cooks dinner while I manage the laundry. For the most part, every other chore in this house is done on a crisis basis - sad but true. When Andy is gone, I trade hours with a co-worker, and I get everyone to school and home. I pick Savannah up late because I leave work at the same time I am supposed to be picking her up. This week was the first week that Andy has traveled since Wyatt has switched school systems, so that threw quite a wrench in the schedule as Wyatt leaves for school after I have to be at work even going in an hour late. Sooo, we enrolled him in before school care, and I dropped him off first, took Zachary to the bus stop, and then grabbed the girls and took them to school. Whew! Our biggest issue at home this week was the dog. Normally Andy stops by the house at lunch time and lets her out. In her younger days, she was thrilled to spend the whole day outside - not so anymore, and we had a stormy week here. I made her spend her days outside and had a couple of days where she came in covered in mud in the afternoon - what a mess!

This week held the usual field hockey, wrestling and AHG schedule. In addition, our church held the kick-off to women's summer Bible study. I thoroughly enjoyed that event on Tuesday night and got to spend some time with Stacey while there. I am so excited to be returning to my home church for study this summer, and it looks like a fun study - but very personal.

On Wednesday I scheduled some fun for the crew. The senior class at the school where I teach goes on a boat ride as one of their last events before graduation. That was scheduled this week, and I took all the kids for what we hoped would be a fun night. The skies were threatening as we left our house, but it ended up being a terrific night. I think Zachary and Savannah got bored toward the end, but all the kids did enjoy the boat.

"Give me some quarters Mom, so I can look."

It was a trip watching Wyatt dance. He was so funny, but he got too rowdy toward the end as he was tired. The boys get frisked (you have to check for alcohol at school events) as they get on the boat, so Wyatt held up his hands to be frisked too. The security guard tickled him, and Wyatt spoke to him every time he saw him after that. He talked to the police officer about his gun and told him that he didn't want to be shot. Wyatt told me after the police officer walked away that if you do bad things, the police can shoot you. I wish I had his dance moves on video. Maybe he will repeat them at my brother's wedding reception this summer, and I can get this boy in action.

We got silly with the camera. Julia took this picture of Savannah and me.

the girls

silliness

a beautiful night

On Thursday I took a much needed nap before Savannah's field hockey game. I thought that would do me, but on Friday, I took a 3.5 hour nap. I then slept through the night and struggled to get up to the alarm on Saturday morning. Andy's flight was delayed, so he didn't get back until Saturday. His suitcase arrived this morning, and it had his razor, so he looks like he belongs on Miami Vice right about now. He left a very distraught Julia last week, so he took along one of her stuffed animals and sent pictures home along the way. He is exhausted right now. And to add to the stress that Andy is facing at home, Wyatt and Julia took our storm door apart. Yes, they took it apart while under Zachary's care. If you know Andy, this is a problem because...well, Andy is no handyman.

And to end this post, I HAVE to share this Wyatt story. We served at church this weekend, and friends of ours had their one month old baby with them. Wyatt saw the baby from across a room, and she was all bundled up in a blanket so you really couldn't see her. He said, "that baby is CUTE! We should get one of those!" Yeah, we'll see about that! It has been a baby boom around here. We ran into some other friends from church this weekend, we haven't seen them in a while. They were anxious to introduce their new daughter who was a week old on Saturday. They told us that they were just trying to keep up with us, and it is now a competition. I say "bring it on!" ha, ha - if we are scoring in numbers, we are in the lead by one

An AWANA luau and a meltdown for mom

Wyatt and Julia celebrated the end of AWANA last night. They came home very excited one week ago with invitations to celebrate their success with an end of year luau. We were all excited to go as a family and celebrate their success, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.


In what is entirely not an unusual situation, Julia could not find her vest. For several weeks now, she has gone to AWANA either without her vest or without her book. She has an incredible knack for losing things. So we all tore the house apart trying to find the elusive vest, and I completely lost it. I was furious with her because on several occasions, she has been told to put her vest in her bag and hang it on her door. After it was clear that we would not find her vest last night, I told her that she would not be going to the celebration. UGH!!! She had been beside herself with excitement over this, so you can imagine how disappointed she was. I was beyond mad! I finally gave in and let her go, but I told her that I will be withdrawing her registration for American Heritage Girls in the fall as she is clearly not responsible enough for scouts, and yes, I do remember that she is not quite five yet. Poor Julia. She sure faced my wrath last night. We ended up barely getting to the church on time, and after taking our seats, I realized that I left the oven on with a sweet potato in it. I knew that it would leak out of the aluminum foil and start a fire, so I left the celebration to turn off the oven, and I did not make it back in time to see Wyatt and Julia receive their awards. sigh


This is Wyatt's and Julia's class. Wyatt is really too old for Cubbies as he is in kindergarten, but he was not far enough along with the language to handle Sparks when we enrolled him. I personally think that Sparks is too demanding for some kindergarten students, and definitely too much for Wyatt.

Wyatt received a participation award. He only earned three patches, and I do think his teachers were quite generous with those. They definitely showed grace this year in AWANA. I tried to dress the kids in "luau" type clothing. Wyatt told me he was going to wear his Spiderman shirt, but when I gave him this one, he said "oh, that is pretty."

Julia received a medal for finishing her second book at Cubbies. She was in the program last year. I did not work with her as much this year as I did last year, nor did I work with her as much as I did Zach and Savvy when they were in Cubbies. I do believe she received some grace too, but she is a whiz at memorization, and that is how the patches are earned.

This celebration is kind of sad as we do not do AWANA at our home church, and I don't allow the kids to go further than Cubbies. Therefore, we are not returning. I joined a women's Bible study late in the year and really enjoyed the women in my group. This particular church has a pretty amazing adoption ministry, so lots of adoptive families are involved there.

Their teachers made these cute little bags for them.

Julia insisted that we also get a picture of the backs of the bags.

After the awards ceremony, there were hot dogs, fruit and dessert available. I am sorry that I did not get Wyatt and Julia to visit with Cubby Bear and get a picture with him, but these two are very slow eaters. Finally, we packed up and went home, and I went to bed. I have much to do in the next two days, and I think that is just adding to my tension. As for Julia's enrollment in AHG, I am not sure what I will do.

Other than the difficulties last night, we are having a wonderful week here. Savannah is testing at school, and for testing week the school challenges the students to take a week off from TV and video games. There is a bingo card of activities to do instead, and we are having lots of fun with some great family time. For one of the activities, we were to do a family devotion and have dessert, so we had some yummy brownies (even though I added too much water to the mix, clearly I don't belong in the kitchen), and Savannah wrote the devotion for the family. She did a great job on that. We have even seen some of Zachary this week. How cool is that?! I think I may extend this no TV or video game thing, but shhhh, don't tell the kids.

out of the mouths of babes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am preparing to co-host a baby shower. Today, Julia was wearing a skirt that is one of my favorites, and I asked her if she would like to wear it to the shower. I wish I had her response on video. "What?! We are going to wear clothes!? Is it a real shower?" oops, I guess I didn't fully explain the concept of a baby shower

In other news, I have started a project. Wyatt's lifebook from China was put together in one of those plastic covers that you probably used for book reports when you were a child. Well, as you might recall, they don't actually hold the paper together all that well. I knew we would need to remedy this in order for the pages to last and to be in some kind of order. My plan A was to buy page protectors and slap all the pages into a notebook. However, I decided on plan B which is to tear the thing apart and scrapbook it. It is a simple project as I am trying to maintain the Chinese writing and the integrity of the original. Where possible, I am copying the text onto colored cardstock and then putting the pictures on the pages and writing in the translation. If the original text is too faint to make a nice copy, I simply cut it out and tape it onto the scrapbook page. I am using simple borders and a few stickers to make the pages nice, and I am soooo very excited to be scrapbooking again. Wyatt is also happy about this. He told me the first page I did was "cute" and that he liked it. He shopped with me and was very excited to see this project get started. Getting him to understand just how long this will take is another story. I have scanned less than half of the pictures for his website, and there are 77 pictures scanned so far. You can imagine what a project this will be, but it will be so much fun.

I'm just saying...

If you haven't been to Wyatt's site in a while, you might want to check out the latest post. It is interesting, and that is all I am saying.