Hope's First Primary Talk

Unfortunately, I am blogging about this several months after the fact, so I can't recall many details, but here are the big parts.

Hope got to give her first primary talk! Apparently she offered to do it instead of being asked, which I think is very cool. She loves to do stuff like that and doesn't get too scared or embarrassed. Hopefully that courage will continue throughout her life. At first, I tried to get her to memorize her talk. After the first line she wasn't having it and I didn't want to turn it into something she was dreading, so I resolved to just whisper the whole thing in her ear. She did awesome. I am so proud of my sunshine Hope and her little testimony that seems to grow stronger and more beautiful every day. I am so grateful that my children know who they are, why they are here and that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them.

This is a copy of her talk.

"There are many ways that Heavenly Father can talk to you through the Holy Ghost. He can speak to you through the scriptures. One very important way that Heavenly Father talks to His children is through His living prophets. When the prophet speaks, he is telling us things that Heavenly Father wants us to know.

Our prophet today is Thomas S. Monson. Heavenly Father uses the prophet as his mouthpiece to deliver messages he wants us to hear. Each April and October the prophet and other general authorities speak to us in a special meeting called General Conference. They tell us things the Savior would if He were here. Their words are like scriptures and will teach us and help us choose the right. I am thankful I can listen to Heavenly Father's messages for me by listening to the prophet."

Last Day of Kindergarten

Before kindergarten started, Hope's teacher gave all the students an assessment test. Hope did not do very well. In fact, her score was very, very low. To be fair, I was sitting nearby when she was given the test and Hope knew more than she told her teacher, but still. You will remember that I admitted in a previous post that I had not prepared her very well academically. Something that I regretted and vowed to do differently with her little sister. Anyway, Hope soaked up everything. So much so that her end of the year score was 
283/289!!!!

 Hope & her teacher, Mrs. Holyoak.

And remember this picture taken on the first day of school?

 

Well, here is one from the last day.

Congratulations to Hope for graduating Kindergarten!

Eden's Joy School Graduation Party

Little Eden made some cute friends this year and LOVED school- except when I was teaching. I don't think she actually considered it school when I didn't drop her off somewhere. She was so excited each Wednesday morning (she called it her "school day")...until after preschool was over and then she was so disappointed that she didn't get to go somewhere for school.

This year she learned the days of the week, how to trace, how to glue lots of things, how to color with effort instead of just scribbling, and lots of social skills. All the girls learned this little saying, "You get what you get and you don't pitch a fit." Which is actually something that Hope learned from one of her classmates early in the year and I applied during preschool when all the girls wanted the purple cup. I only have two purple cups. Lesson learned....buy the same color for all the girls. Which is why I brought them all a purple balloon for graduation.





For graduation we had a water party in Mrs. Sandi's backyard. The kids had a picnic and then played in water.



Eden & Lilah watering flowers.



Eden with Mrs. Sandi (Brooke's mom).



Eden with Carter (Lilia's little brother). Eden kept jumping and landing on her bum in the pool with would splash poor Carter in the face. Thank goodness he loved it.



Lilia, Brooke, Eden & Lilah



Singing ABC's & the Days of the Week song.



Getting her diploma that Mrs. Aubrie (Lilia's mom) made. They are super cute and I'm so glad she thought to do it.

 

Aubrie was also thoughtful enough to get a picture of the first and last day and give a copy to all the moms. Thanks Aubrie!!!

 First Day

Last Day

 

Brooke, Lilia, Lilah & Eden

Look how they've grown into little ladies!

Kindergarten

She is ready.

 

Ben and I have had several conversations since the birth of our little sunshine about when she would be starting kindergarten. Most of the conversations included results from psychology studies about children who are in the bottom age range of their class and those who are in the top. Yes. I said "psychological studies". The consensus seemed to be that younger children in an older class setting didn't do as well as those who were older - and that wasn't even mentioning sports or extra-curricular activities. At least I think this was the consensus he was talking about. I have to admit that I zoned out once or twice when I felt statistics coming into play. Just kidding, Ben! Not really, but you already know I am not perfect and if my brain power must be used to decipher statistics of kindergartners I'm going to check out for a moment to save some brain power for all the other things you say that I have to decipher. We can't all be blessed with a photographic memory and human-calculator-like math skills. :) *phew* That was quite the tangent.

What we finally agreed that it came down to was if we felt Hope was ready for school when she turned five. Now, let me take a moment and make a confession. I did not teach her at home like I should have been doing these past five years. She is not entering kindergarten with the ability to read, she does not know EVERY SINGLE LETTER of the alphabet, but she does know several. She can write her name (first and last), she knows her shapes and colors, she can count to 20 with minimal mistakes. I have friends whose children are in Hope's class and they can read. I did not do that with Hope. Yes, one of my many mommyhood regrets, but I am hoping to do better with Eden. Hope is, however, very eager to learn and she is a socially mature for a five year old. She follows directions well, and more importantly is excited to learn and be in school! That is how I know she is ready.

 

Ben disagreed with me for a while, until I finally dug it out of him that HE was really the one who wasn't ready for his little Hopie to start growing up. He took time off work so that he could go with me to drop her off and pick her up for her first day. What a good daddy.

 

 

Hope was so excited that she woke up early that morning and wanted to get dressed right away so she could go to kindergarten. She was disappointed when I told her it would still be several hours before her class started. But to help pass the time, she helped me make her first day of school poster with sunshines on it, because well...when she grows up she wants to be a "Big Sunshine".

 

 

A couple of days before school actually started, she had her assessment and got her first assignment! Her first project was that along with mommy and daddy she was to make this girl cut-out look like herself.

 

 

I had some fabric scraps that we glued on as her clothes and I had some horse stickers that she put on the shirt of the doll to match the purple shirt she is actually wearing in this picture.

 

 

Hope made a little necklace that we attached to the doll and she and daddy made some silver painted shoes to match Hope's sparkly Sunday shoes. Then daddy printed out a picture of Hope and we glued it on.

 

 

It turned out pretty darn cute if I do say so myself. Hope was concerned about leaving it at school. She didn't want it to get ruined.

 

 

Here she is getting tired of pictures. Just a few more Hope!

Eden wanted in on all the fun too and found Hope's old Strawberry Shortcake backpack to wear.

 

 

Finally time came to leave for school. Here Hope is walking to the building like a big girl.

 

 

School is over! It was awesome!

 

 

On her second day we arrived a little early and the door was locked so I pulled up to the curb to wait. Hope saw one of her friends arrive, and wanted to get out and wait with her. I allowed her to get out, but I stayed in the car to watch her. Soon more and more children and their moms arrived and I was sure Hope would come back up to the van where I was but she didn't. I could see her in the middle of the crowd talking to her friends...being all independent and "sunshiney". Fear was no where in her countenance. Then the classroom door opened and she went in with the other kids. She IS ready.



Zoe

An early birthday present for Hope - her very own, REAL doggy.

Hope has become quite the lil momma over the last 72-ish hours. She holds Zoe almost constantly and carries her around like a baby. It reminds me of the relationship I had with Pepper Sr. when I was about Hope's age.

{Love the boots.}

Before we got Zoe, I told Hope that she would have to take the puppy to go potty and clean up after her and feed and play with her. Of course she agreed. She has held up her end surprisingly well. I thought for sure she would disregard what ever instruction I may have given to her before the puppy and just assume that "mom would handle it". However, she's taken ownership quite nicely, and I see some pride in her eyes as she takes care of her puppy. If only she was old enough I could hand off the night time puppy responsibility to her. That would be great.

Zoe is wonderfully patient and rolls over on her back when she sees Hope coming like she knows she's about to be picked up. She is playful, but not overwhelmingly so and she is small enough that she can't knock the girls over.

Ever since "the incident" several years ago, involving a puppy, Hope's ear, and a few stitches...*sigh*...Hope has been a little skittish around dogs. I was concerned that she might be too scared of any dog that we adopt and it would take some time for her to get used to it, but she took to Zoe right away.

One of Zoe's favorite things to do is chase the kids around the backyard. At first Eden was scared, but then she realized they were playing and couldn't stop giggling.

Zoe likes to bury her nose in the grass and pull clumps of it out at the roots. The kids think this is rather silly, but I think I may teach her to weed the garden. :)

Eden picked some flower weeds for the dog. I think she might have eaten the top off one. Zoe...not Eden.

Zoe enjoys being outside but isn't out for long before looking for shade to rest in. The trampoline is the perfect place. Also perfect cause the kids like to play under there already.

She's a snugly little thing. On the way home from picking her up she sat in Noah's lap and fell asleep while Hope sang her a lullaby. So far she has been sleeping with me at night, simply because I am not used to waking up several times during the night anymore and I don't want her whining to wake Ben and the kids. The good news is that Eden slept with me for at least the first year and a half of her life so I am accustomed to sleeping with little wiggly beings. I'm devising a plan on getting Zoe to sleep in her kennel throughout the night though. I just have to psych myself up to lose some sleep or perhaps sleep on the couch for a few nights. Hm, why did we get a dog again???

Originally we were looking to get a Border Collie. After a couple weeks of looking they just seemed too expensive and we were worried about their herding instincts especially around Miss Chevious who could actually use some herding. Anyway, I finally found this little puppy. The mother is a husky mix and the father is a chihuahua/dachshund mix. Ben wasn't thrilled with the idea of a small breed dog, but I think after seeing Hope with her he is more than fine with it.

She has multi-colored eyes. One of them is mostly blue with a brown spot on the bottom and the other is half green/brown half blue. It is a little weird, but also pretty cool. I've never seen a dog with multi-colored eyes before. Hopefully, it isn't something to be worried about.

Noah lovingly gave Zoe one of his stuffed animals to use as a chew toy. She also likes to chew on our carpet and anything else that might be lying on the floor. So are the puppy days, I suppose. On the other hand, Muffin has barely shown his face since Zoe's arrival. Guess we'll have to work on that.

Swan Lake

Today was Hope's first dance recital, or as she calls it, her "big dance class". She has been excited all week to go back and do her dance again.

Here we are getting ready.

She wasn't nervous at all, until about 15 minutes before they were supposed to go on and it was only because there were so many people stuffed into a crowded little nook backstage. I was a class mom, so I stayed with her backstage while she did her part and was able to talk the jitters away.

When she actually got on stage she acted mesmerized by the audience and stood there for a minute just looking at all the people. I wasn't able to see her very clearly because there was quite a bit of chaos in the wings, but Ben and one of the other mom's told me it was pretty cute and funny. She is a brave girl! If that would've been me at 4 years old I probably would've freaked out and started crying or run off stage. She was very proud of herself and very pleased that daddy and I were so proud.

Hope was in the first act so we got to go sit in the audience with daddy for the rest of the show. While we were watching some of the swans dance she leaned over and whispered to me," When I get big will I be a swan?"

Here are a few pictures after the show.

Daddy is so thoughtful, he brought her flowers! I didn't even think about that. I am SO grateful that my girls have a man in their life to teach them and show them how they should be treated by other men -when they are old enough :}-.

I think she is doing her bunny hops here.

Trying to stuff her into her car seat with all the foof from her costume.

Here is the program and tickets.

Here is the page in the program that had her name under "Bunnies."

And here are her beautiful flowers resting in a vase.

Congratulations Hopie! We are so proud of you!

Dress Rehearsal

Today Hope had dress rehearsal for Swan Lake. She and her classmates are bunnies and looked rediculously adorable in their little costumes. We had to wait quite a while for Hope's costume because it was accidentally left at the dance studio but that gave me plenty of time to get lots of super cute pictures.

This is after she got her headpiece (fancy bunny ears).

I LOVE LOVE LOVE these pictures of her looking at herself in the mirror. It was required that she wear her hair in a bun and wear make-up (because of stage lights I am sure) so that took a little coaxing to get her to cooperate, but once I started applying the make up she decided it was fun.

I just can't help myself, I am going to have to frame one of these. While we waited Hope found ways to entertian herself.

And finally it came!

Isnt' that the prettiest little bunny you've ever seen? Here she is rushing to take pictures with the other bunnies. There were professional photographers there to take class pictures and such. It was halarious to watch them trying to pose and keep the attention of five little girls. I am anxious to see if any of them actually turned out good.

Finally it was time to go out on stage! Here she is (right in the middle) waiting for her turn on stage. She did so great! She wasn't nervous at all and had a great big smile on her face the whole time. When they came back off stage she said smiling, "I'm so proud!!!" I glad she recognizes her accomplishments and gives herself the credit she deserves for them.

Saturday is the big show so stay tuned for more pictures.