Oh What do You Do in the Summer Time?

Tanner and Ashlyn officially started their Summer break on May 20 and boy did they go out of first grade with a bang.  The whole first grade had an alphabet countdown to the last day of school.  For the last 26 days of school, every day the first graders had a different celebration for the letter of the day.  Some of our favorite were I for Ice Cream day, J for Jump a Jillion ways day, P for pancakes and pajammas day, and so much more.  The kids also got to go on a walking tour of Rigby for a field trip where they visited a grocery store, bank, post office, mortuary, and candy store.  They loved it.  They also both got to star in clas plays.

 Ashlyn was the Farmer's Wife in a production of the Golden Goose.  She had three lines to memorize and she had them down easy.

 This is Ashlyn with her teacher Mrs. Scoresby.  This was Mrs. Scoresby's last year teaching in Idaho, as she is moving to teach in Utah next year.  We were lucky to have her.  She was a great teacher for Ashlyn.

 This is Tanner starring as Ducky Lucky in a production of Chicken Little.  He also memorized his lines and did very well.  I am kicking myself for forgetting to get a picture of him with his teacher Mrs. Jorgensen.  She absolutely loved Tanner.  Every time I went in to the classroom, she would tell me how much she enjoyed my boy.  It seemed like every Friday, he was coming home with prizes from the prize box for being student of the week.  He is really going to miss Mrs. Jorgensen.

Both kids had awesome report cards and have come so far in their reading and math this year.  We are so proud of them both!

Now that we are done with school these are a few things we have been up to so far...

Playing cowboys with the neighbor children.  Even Maggie the dog got into the action on this one.

And riding bikes everywhere!

Ashlyn, Ty, and Ethan, with Ian, Maggie, and Tanner seated.  This is our neighborhood gang.  These buddies are inseparable and playoutside all day long as long as the weather permits (and even sometimes when it doesn't).  My kids think living in a neighborhood is pretty great.

 Charlotte has discovered that she is the right size to ride Ian's Power Wheels 4-Wheeler and she LOVES it.  She wants to be outside every waking moment of the day.

And recently, the kids got into the contesting mode with me and we all created entries for the Jelly Belly Jelly Bean cupcake challenge.  You can find the link for the contest on my cooking blog: Chew and Chew.  The kids designed, created, and took pictures of their creations.  I am so proud!

 Ashlyn's Sun Flower

 Ian's cupcake which I am told is "A Kind of People"... look at that good use of Jelly Bellys.

Tanner's Octopus, each mini cupcake is a part of a tentacle.  The Jelly Belly's are the suckers.  His octopus is eating a sweedish fish.  You can see his technical drawings underneath.  He really put a lot of thought and creativity into this one.

And here is my entry, I thought it was clever, but if you actually look at the contest site, there are lots of VERY clever cupcakes, so wish us luck, we will need it!  The grand prize is $10,000, wouldn't that be nice!

So, that is our Summer so far, but now that June has hit, we have baseball/tee-ball games every night M-Th, swimming lessons for two weeks, piano lessons starting up, and library summer reading.  We will need more luck to get us through June than we will in winning the jelly bean contest!