Five for Friday: School, Sister, Sewing, and Running

It has come to my attention, again, that I am too often posting about things that happened months ago.  Sometimes months and months ago.  (Stay tuned for my post about our family trip to Edinburgh LAST DECEMBER!)  Anyway, life is busy busy, as it is for everyone, and even though I am still catching up, here are a few things that are going on right now.

1.) Jayce's school is going well.  I mentioned to Chris on Monday that a year ago that day was when Jayce had a major meltdown, and we decided to only send him for half days until he was a little more comfortable.  I know I have mentioned it several times on here recently, but it's just so great to look back on a time that was filled with stress and uncertainty and see how far he has come.  Every day we'll ask him what his favorite part of the day was, and usually he says "playing with my friends."  A year ago, he would say "when mom came to pick me up."  So yes, this is much much better.

2.) Chelsea is here!!  Just over a week ago Hannah and I were anxiously awaiting her arrival at the airport where I chewed off all of my fingernails and Hannah ran all around the arrival area.  We were so happy to see her, she's an old pro at getting around town, and she's going to do great in her program.  She is one of the easiest people to get along with and has made a pretty seamless transition into living with us, from my perspective at least, although I know she is feeling a real lack of The Bachelor/Bachelorette.  

On that note, and this is may seem kind of random, I'm not really going to write much on here about how Chelsea is doing/what she is up to, because it just doesn't feel right to me.  I certainly write about our families and siblings sometimes, but I kind of feel like the ins and outs of Chelsea's life, even living in with us, just isn't my story to tell.  If you're wondering about Chelsea feel free to send her an email and ask! :)

3.) Just before we went to the US, literally the day before, I went and traded my new but horribly incompetent sewing machine for a different new machine.  So I am back to sewing!  Since we've been back I've already made Hannah a reversible dress, 4 tops, and a shirt for Jayce that I am extremely proud of!  There was lots and lots of patting myself on the back for Jayce's shirt and I'll get some pictures this weekend.  

One of the shirts I made for Hannah was pattern testing for Kate for this pattern.  It has evolved a bit since I sewed my version, which is part of the point of pattern testing, I think.  I just got my copy of the final pattern yesterday, so I'll try that out soon as well.

4.) Along those lines, (along the lines of sewing, anyway), I have some other news.  I'm going to start selling again and I think the photo above will give you enough hints for the moment.  More on that later, but I'm very excited. :)

5.) Next weekend Chelsea and Chris are both running in a half marathon that starts at this gorgeous place.  I'll do my best to get pictures, but I don't think you can beat a shot like the one above, which was not mine but the event's photographer that got it.  Love it.   

Happy weekend.

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And Then There Was "Year One"

Today was Jayce's first day of school.  He's in Year One, in the Rabbit Class.  

This was the source of several confused conversations while we were visiting in Akron.  Chelsea had a graduation/going away party, and it seemed like everyone had this conversation with Jayce.

Person: So, what grade are you going to be in?  Are you going into Kindergarden or First Grade?

Jayce: Uhhh… (They don't use either of those names for the grade here, so he kind of had no idea what they were talking about.)  Then he'd finish with, "I'm going to be a rabbit." and run off.

But the truth is, even though I don't really want to admit it, it's more like he's going into First Grade than Kindergarden.

Last year he went to school all day long for 5 days a week.  And it wasn't like a preschool kind of set up.  They played a lot, of course, but there was a lot of time for learning.  He already knew his letters, but every day they did some phonics and he learned to read.  He learned lots of other things too, measurable and immeasurable, but this one is the big one in my book.

(One day this summer, Jayce pointed to the word "whatever" and said, "Mom, what's this digraph?"  I told him and then asked him what a digraph was.  He said, "It's when there's two letters that make different sounds, but when you put them together they make a new sound."  Honestly, I was a little surprised by this, because, though he's pointed out different digraphs before, he's never explained to me exactly what it was.  I was just a  little surprised by the fact that he does seem to actually get it.  I wanted to go hug his old teacher.) 

Regardless of what it's called, it's the next year of school for him and he loves it.  Honestly it's just me that has the problem.  I'm still a little disappointed that I missed out on my last year with him at least partially home with me.  (Last year I thought his school was only half days and was a little surprised/freaked when I discovered it was full days, but I got on board.)  And though we had a rough patch in the beginning, things ended up working out great.  

So, yes.  He needs to go to school, school is good for him, in no way can I replicate at home what he is getting there, not even by a fraction, so to school he goes.  I just miss my little buddy while he's away, but luckily I get him back every afternoon. :)  End of random processing mom-rant.

Jayce was a great sport this morning, jumping out of bed right away, got dressed quickly, and even happily ushered Hannah around to the yard to get some before school pictures.

 He was much more agreeable during picture time than last year.

Much happier than Chris and definitely more so than Hannah.

He even wanted to take a few pictures himself.  That's my boy.

Then we grabbed the scooter, sunglasses, and were off.

And as far as I can tell it was a great first day.

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The Sharing Assembly & Best Part About School

Jayce's class had their sharing assembly a few months ago, which is pretty much what it sounds like.  The class has a  short 20 minute or so presentation to the parents one morning on some things that they had recently been working on. The class sang a few songs, talked about their senses, and went through the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  (There is a video at the end of the post of their performance.)

It was pretty cute, though certainly not as elaborate as their Christmas play.  They each had speaking/acting parts, sang a few songs, and then we got to go back to their classroom to see what else they'd been working on.

I was recording the show, and Chris was doing his best to keep Hannah restrained, who was so excited about the singing, dancing, group of kids in a big room, and well, all of it.

When they finished and Jayce ran over to say hi Hannah was delighted.  

She took his hat and decided to start a little performance of her own.

This picture (above) is my kiddos to a T right now: Jayce chilling, Hannah performing.  This is what they were like our whole vacation.  

This is one of my very favorite things about Jayce's school, they do a "learning book" of sorts.  Each child has a book that the teachers fill up throughout the year with various examples of them achieving their learning objectives in the classroom, pictures of them participating in different activities with captions, and examples of their work glued in with dates and explanations.  

I loooooooove this.  I love being able to see what he is up to in his classroom since he rarely tells me about his day, and I love the pictures of him in action, obviously.  There are a few different times during the year when parents are invited into the classroom for the students to show us their books, and Jayce loves flipping through it and telling me about his work.  

We have his book now, we received it at the end of the school year.  But at the time of this assembly I felt like this book was a precious treasure and I was eager to get a few pictures to show the grandparents.  It turns out that I didn't need to do this since we brought Jayce's book with us to the states and he was able to sit down and flip through it with a few of them.  It turns out that even kids who don't want to talk about their day still want to talk about their work and photos when it is all pulled together, and I have read through it with and without Jayce a few times since it came home.  It's like his teacher made us a detailed scrapbook of the year.  I can only imagine how much time this took them and I love it.

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Race Day

(A very short video of Jayce's races is at the bottom of the post.)

Jayce's school had their race day last week, which is kind of like a mini-field day.  All of the reception classes had little relays set up, the boys and girls did them separately and only against the kids in their class.  The parents were invited to watch since it was just after drop off, and they had a few lines of chairs set up along the stretch of grass where the races were held.I only got a few pictures because I had 2 toddlers with me that morning and they were very interested in the various types of chaos happening around us.  But they let me get a few, along with some video.  

(Jayce is wearing a black shirt and blue shorts, and on the left side of the middle in the pictures above and below.  It helps to find him before you try to find him in the videos.)As to the races, they were fun, he seemed to have fun, but it confirmed something that Chris and I had already observed at his soccer practices, which is that he seems to have not inherited our competitive drives.  He raced just fine, but without any particular sense of urgency at reaching the finish line before any of his peers.  But he gave it his best shot

I took the picture below after the third race, and even though it's super blurry, (remember that thing about the 2 toddlers) I love the big smile on his face.  A relatively successful race day, I think.

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School Holidays and Our Park

Jayce is currently still in the middle of his school year.  He is finally nearing the end, which is not until the 3rd week of July.  (I know!!)

There are only 6 weeks (maybe 5?) of full summer vacation.  The school year is 3 terms: fall, spring, and summer, there is a week long half-term break in the middle of each and a 2 week break for the Christmas holiday season, which is why the summer break is so much smaller than what we're used to.Maybe Chris and I need to re-think the way that we celebrate holidays and travel for vacation, because it is pretty typical for parents to take off of work for some of the time whenever their children are on a half-term break.  But thus far, we haven't done that.  Chris works as usual, and I find various ways to keep the kids and I busy for random (at least to me) weeks off of school throughout the year.One very easy go-to outing is to head over to our park, as we call it sometimes.  Just down the street from our flat is a sweet little park, with a playground out front, trees and logs to climb on, and a small stream running alongside it.  We cut through it often on the way home from school for a quick playtime before dinner, Hannah and I stop by after dropping Jayce off at school sometimes to feed the ducks or run along the path beside the water, and sometimes we have a picnic.  This was a picnic day.Actually, it kind of wasn't.  Hannah took a few bites and was on the run. (Who can eat when there is a slide in plain sight?!)  

Also, despite the sunny sun in these pictures, it was surprisingly chilly.  There was a cold wind and even in the sun it was just a bit too cold for comfort.  So we played for a short bit, had a quick picnic, and then scooted home.This is actually one of my favorite things about this park.  It's so close and easy that even if the outing is a bit of a bust, it doesn't matter, we just head home.  Very little ventured, and typically something is gained.  It was still very beautiful and spring-y, the kids got some fresh air and exercise, and we got out of the flat for a bit.And we were happy.

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