Lily Graduates From Preschool

Lily graduated from preschool and I love that the school made it such an event.  They even had caps and gowns!  Here are some the songs they performed for us.

She was so proud of herself for graduating and we had so much fun celebrating with her!  We got her a real nice and tasty Sweet and Salty cake from Jones Brothers' Cupcakes and she got flowers from her grandma and a nice graduation stuffed dog.

She was so excited for kindergarten a while back and now she that she is ready, she's not so sure about it.  A few days after her graduation as I was putting her to bed, she started crying.  I asked her what was the matter and she told me that she was scared to go to kindergarten at Skyler's school because it is so big and that there are so many big kids there.  I felt so bad for here.  She was genuinely scared!  I told her that there is nothing to be scared about.  I reminded her that she already knows a lot of people at Peter Sarpy and she will do just fine there.  I also told her to talk to Skyler and tell him that she is scared to go to school there and ask him to tell her what it is like there.  She finally calmed down.  Now we just have to wait a little over a week and she can give it a try and see how she likes it while she is in summer school there.  My guess, the only one crying will be me :)

Skyler's music program

Skyler's music program was quite a treat!  The 1st and 2nd graders put on quite a show for us.  Here are a few clips of the excitement.

Lily is 5!

Lily just could not wait to turn 5.  She thought so many things in her life would change once she turned 5, turned out, she was wrong.  She thought she her loose tooth would get looser and fall out, nope.  She thought she would get to go to kindergarten right when she turned 5, nope.  Even though those things did not happen, she still had a great time turning 5.  She had her very first birthday party!  We aren't big on birthday parties in our house and when our kids turn 5 is when they get their first big party.

Lily celebrated hers at Skate City.  She had so much fun skating and getting to play the arcade games, which we never play any other time when we are there.

She also had her birthday dinner at Grandma Biben's.   What is great about birthdays at grandma's is that the birthday person gets to pick out the menu.  All Lily cared about was having green chips (lime tortilla chips) and queso and lemon cake that had lemon drops on it!  She got it!  But we also had cowboy steak and veggies, you know, to round things out!

She got great gifts and was so excited to turn 5.  The next day, she wanted to know how long it would be before she turned 6!  Oh, to be young again!

St. Patrick's Day 2011

We had so much fun again this year celebrating St. Patrick's Day.  We worked very hard on our leprechaun trap, but again, it did not work.  We saw the evidence of the fact that the leprechaun got caught it the trap, but he was able to get out and then he punished us for our trickery!  He turned our milk green, turned our toilet water green and left green spots all over the toilet paper!  Skyler's solution to this is to make more than one trap next year.  We will have to see if that will work.  And now that I am done with school (hopefully I passed my exam!) I sure hope I will have more time to blog, we'll have to see!

Martin Luther King Jr.

I am very lucky that I can help out in Skyler's class a couple of times a month.  I like that I can see what is going on in there and help the teacher at the same time.  Yesterday I helped and I was a little bit amazed at what I was seeing.  Actually, I was not so much amazed as I was angered.

I was helping a group of kids with a play about Martin Luther King Jr.  I was shocked that in the play any reference to religion or God was blacked out!  They actually had text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech and they actually blacked out the any time he said "God's children."  I was in complete shock and then I was just appalled and angered.  Here we have an actual historical speech from one of the most important people in American history who fought for equal rights and his speech was changed to be politically correct.

Have we come this far?  How can you teach about this country and its history and not include the religious aspects of it.  How can you change the text of one of the most important speeches in history?  I don't know.  But I am glad that I saw it and happened to be in the room that day.  I already supplement what my kids learn at school.  Obviously, they attend public school and so we teach the Christian values and concepts at home and they learn them at church as well.  I guess I never thought that I would have to reteach history to my kids to make sure that they were getting the whole story.

So for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday we will be listening to his I have a Dream speech and listening to U2's Pride, and watching A Ripple of Hope, a documentary about the day he was assassinated.

The speech:

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Our first family rodeo - YEEHAW!

We were so lucky to have the chance to go the the River City Roundup Rodeo.  We had so much fun watching all of the action!  We all dressed in our best cowboy/cowgirl gear too!  So much fun watching the bulls!  Skyler liked the bull riding the best.  Lily liked the the bull lassoing the best.  I liked the bull riding and the bronc riding!  Chuck liked the bull riding the best.  We were a little disappointed because there were a lot of disqualifications and we weren't sure what all of that was about, but the action was awesome!

Camping Again

We went camping again a few weeks ago and had so much fun.  There was no one there again and we had all 300 + acres of nature all to ourselves.  We did a lot of hiking and some chilling too.  We also did some animal catching.  We caught a toad that Lily decided was her best friend in the world.  She carried him with her for some time on one of our hikes, but when we finally told her it was time to let him go, she was not too happy, as you can see from the pictures.  We got some incredible views of the destruction caused by the tornado of 2008, the same one that hit at the Little Sioux Boy Scout camp.  They have spent the last 2 years cleaning the park up from the destruction and it makes me wish we had seen it before the tornado because I cannot even fathom what it used to look like.  

Lily recovered from the toad loss after she caught a monarch.  She was upset when we had to let him go too, but recovered even quicker when she found her friend "cricket" who for some reason didn't want to leave her and just stayed right by her for over 2 hours!  The last night we were there a thunderstorm struck.  We survived it fine, but I was a little creeped out by it.  The kids slept through the whole thing.  By the time we needed to get up and go it was still raining and the water was just starting to creep through the bottom of the tent, so even if we hadn't planned on leaving at that time, we probably would have.  

We later found out that Chuck got into some poison ivy and he is still trying to get rid of it!  I loved this campsite better than our other one, we had the perfect toilet all set up!, but I am pretty sure we will never camp at campsite number 7 again, as it has scarred Chuck forever and I guess we will either go back to friendly number 2 again, or try out number 6 next time!