My Girl!

My hardworking 16 year old!

Awwww........

Can't you feel the love?

The expression on Princess' face cracks me up too.

School Days

The little ones play with blocks while I read aloud.

Sweet Pea is working hard at her new history program.

Boo helps Elvis look vocabulary words up in the dictionary.

Bugs wanted me to take a picture of him with his balloon. So I did. =0)

Printing the alphabet

My lefty!

Looking up Prairie Primer vocab.

Terrific work, Bugs!

His favorite part was erasing! Lol!

The End

As many of you know Sweet Pea attended a tutorial/enrichment program this year. It was an all day, once a week program that ran from August through the end of April. She had classes in percussion, Spanish, writing/composition, history, health, living skills, theater & science. This program was a God-send for us. Sweet Pea not only learned a ton and had a blast doing so but made new friends and grew in the Lord. Every Monday when we picked her up she bubbled over telling us all the things they had done that day.
To close out the year they had a program. Each grade performed a play or a song. They were all very creative & entertaining. We were very proud of Sweet Pea.

Slide show ~ Our beautiful daughter

Her class

Princess waiting for the program to begin.

Setting up for their skit

The skit. The theme was very cute & funny.

What a terrific ending to an amazing year!

Sweet Moments

I love these pics.

Shepherd's Heart

Thanks to the generosity of her Nana, Sweet Pea has been attending tutorial/enrichment classes this year. They meet every Monday from August until the end of April. Sweet Pea enjoys academics and we hoped it would be a way for her to meet some friends as well. They have small classes which are favorable for this. It has been HUGE success. Sweet Pea absolutely LOVES her classes, her teachers and her new friends. She doesn't want to miss a minute of it and chatters all the way home every Monday telling me what she did & what she learned.

In December they had a Christmas program. Dave & I agreed it is one of the best programs we have seen in years. They had a great showing of each classes talent. They moved swiftly not wasting a minute or dragging things out. The program was meaningful, extremely enjoyable & entertaining and done in a timely manner. Bravo, Shepherd's Heart!

Of course I took pics! Hee, hee! I am posting those where Sweet Pea participated.

The opening number.

All the kids were on stage and in the aisles singing "Father Abraham" in Spanish.

Poor Bugs must have been exhausted because he fell asleep waiting for the program to begin. He woke up about halfway through the performances.

Elvis watching his big sis.

One of the classes they studied was Percussion. This teacher did an amazing job! Not only did she teach the children for the semester but she choreographed routines for every grade to perform in the program. And they were absolutely fantastic!

The 7th & 8th graders did a two-fold performance. First they did a cup routine at the table. Each took a turn doing a mini-routine and then the others followed.

They flipped the cups, clapped, flipped some more.........well it was awesome!

Next they did a standing routine where they stomped, clapped & slapped in rhythm.

It made you want to get up and try it with them!

Sweet Pea took Speech during the semester. Each class had a speech contest and the winners got to give their speeches during the program. Well, guess who won the speech contest for her grade? Sweet Pea! I was bursting with pride! She did it all on her own. The ideas, the writing, the presentation ......all of it. And she did an superior job at the program. She received several compliments from people we didn't even know. =0) Oh, and the speech was about her favorite family Christmas traditions.

The finale.

Sweet Pea & her percussion teacher.

Sweet Pea & her Spanish teacher.

Ms. Anna is teaching Theater/Drama this semester.

Sweet Pea & her classmate J.

Sweet Pea

Sweet Pea with her school goodies.

Task Master

Yes, I am a task master. I made Sweet Pea work in her math book while we were at Nana's. I know with all that will be going on here in the next few weeks formal school time will be hard to capture. I want to make the moments we have count. And if we can get ahead all the better, right? She wasn't happy with me but I guess that's one of the things you have to deal with when you are the mom. She came around eventually and finished quite a few pages. Whew!

Coaxing a smile from Sweet Pea

Not too happy

Happy to get back to her book.

A Couple of Things

I got this shirt for Elvis from Old Navy on last year's clearance. It now fits him. I think not only does the size fit him perfectly but the statement does too. I can NOT see this child sitting in a classroom all day long! LOL!

Being a lefty this was a torture device for me too growing up!

Cool Idea

Sweet Pea came up with the idea to decorate her own notebooks. She made this one for her brother using his current favorite - Transformers. Elvis is over the moon for his new notebook. It goes everywhere with him!

(By the way it's frugal too as she used a 5 cent notebook from Walmart, FREE glue from Staples & papers we already had in the house. Neat, eh?)