Counting Down

The countdown is on!  Friday is the last day of school, and we're all wondering how in the world this year has gone by so fast.  With the end of year, have come all SORTS of activities and projects for the kids. So, to start my catching up, here is a recounting for ETHAN, since he's the one who has been hounding me to get a blog post up every night.  {Which clearly I have not been doing.}

Our resident 6th grader has been super busy.  Between finishing up school work -- he did "math cohort" this year, which essentially squeezed 6th, 7th, and 8th grade math into one year -- working on group projects, and participating in "graduation" type activities, he's had a lot going on.  Not to mention, he's a budding landscape artist.  Hahaha.  Just kidding, just kidding.  BUT, I will say that this kid is one incredibly hard worker.  Give him a project and he is all over it.  A couple of weeks ago, once I was out of the first trimester, I started feeling better almost immediately and decided that it was the PERFECT time to tackle all the yard work that had piled up and was in dire need of tackling. Ethan was my right hand man, and ripped out ugly and dead bushes in the front yard while I pruned the overgrown, non-tree-looking, Japanese magnolia tree that was looking woefully ungroomed on the corner of the house.  It took quite a bit of muscle, but he ripped those eyesores out, and helped to prep the ground for the new plants and bushes I had bought to take their place.

 We think these were planted when the house was built over a decade ago, so the roots went pretty deep.  It took quite a bit of effort to get everything out.

 Don't let this face fool you -- he was LOVING it.  He needs a purpose to function.  :)

 One down, three to go!  {Not counting the two barberry bushes he already pulled by the front doorstep.}

 Some of the detritus.

And the final blank slate.

With the help of the missionaries on the Saturday before Mother's Day, we got the new Hydrangea Bushes, peonies, and gardenia bush planted, and the rest of the beds mulched.  It was quite the task, but I'm super excited for my new plants. :)

Little Lime "Hardy Hydrangeas" waiting to be put in the bed.

 "Sarah Bernhardt" Peony, ready to go in.

{We still need a couple more bags of mulch -- it always takes more than I think it will.}

 Ethan and I were both quite upset that I didn't take any true "Before" pictures of the front yard.  I'm especially mad at myself for not snapping a picture of the overgrown column of leaves and branches that had taken the place of that tree in the corner.  The "After" is not quite as impressive when you can't see how terrible it looked before!  

Meanwhile, this picture doesn't do justice to the scale of this pile of branches that I sawed off while pruning the tree.

Up next?  The all-district 6th grade Skate Party last Monday night.  The purpose of this event was to bring all the 6th graders from all the different elementary schools together to help them mix and mingle before being thrown together at the Junior High next year in 7th grade.  What actually happened was that most of the kids still stuck with the people they knew from their own school, and didn't mingle with others all that much.  Hahaha.  Even though there was a get-to-know-you scavenger hunt with major cash prizes on the line!  Siblings were invited to attend with the 6th graders, but much to the dismay {and that's understatement} of Sophie on down, I only brought Grace with me.  Haha.  And to be honest, even with those older two, I spent the majority of the evening worried we were going to end up at the hospital with a buckle fracture thanks to their lack of skill on the skates, and the general chaos and commotion of the rink.

I have to give Ethan some credit for a valiant effort exerted out there on the skate floor, but I think he quickly realized it's a lot trickier to get the hang of than he thought.  Grace, meanwhile, spent the bulk of her time in the practice area on the other side of the rink wall, working on building up her confidence {and competence} to get out there and hang with the big dogs.  All in all, it was a night to remember.  Hahahaha.
The very next day, Ethan's "Desktop Country" finally made it's debut.  With a few other boys in his class, he researched Uruguay and put together a project and a presentation to showcase to the rest of the school and the parents and it was quite impressive!  I've never been the hugest fan, personally, of group projects, but Ethan seemed to really enjoy working with his friends, and they did a great job together.

 Dressing up was optional, but I know Ethan was a little upset with himself for not going all out like his group mates.  ;)

The last thing to document is Ethan's final magic performance in the school talent show, along with the 6th grade singing performance that closed out the show.  The whole talent show was quite entertaining, and I know Ethan was glad that we all showed up -- even though ALL of the younger ones were majorly melting down that day and really should have stayed home with me to go to bed early.

 Waiting in the wings to do some magic.

 Singing one of their songs.

And filing of the stage with his friends.

And that is pretty much that!!  Ethan's graduation -- or "Recognition Night" as they call it -- is Wednesday evening, and he's super stoked that he was chosen to do one of the introduction speeches for the night.  They had to submit their speeches a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say I was kind of really impressed when I read over his!  Hahaha.  I know I shouldn't be so surprised by that, but I'm still getting used to this idea that my kids are getting older and even though they've ALWAYS had opinions on things, it's kind of really cool to see them able to express themselves more coherently and intelligently.  If that even makes sense.  When I asked him how he came up with his speeches, he told me that he just googled "inspirational quotes" for his starting point and went from there.  Hahaha.  This was made all the more hilarious to me by the "duh-how-ELSE-would-I-have-done-it" tone of voice that was used to convey the response to me.  Hahaha.  In all seriousness, though, I'm super proud him and can't wait to celebrate his accomplishments this Wednesday night.  :)  {I'll post the speech as soon as he gets me a copy of it.  And just as a disclaimer, when we're talking about a speech, what we're really talking about is a long-ish paragraph -- not a full-on address. ;)  }