The other kids do stuff too!

Kindergarten Spring Sing (it's actually their only sing)

Amazed by all his adoring fans! (he's in the blue-striped shirt)

There's a dog in school, OH NO! What are we going to do? He'll have to learn his alphabet, too!

Kindergarten Farm Field Trip

 Touching the disgusting poop-covered milking machine (get the hand gel!!!)  That's me in the baseball hat.

 Feeding hay to a cow (in case you couldn't tell)

AWANA Awards Night

 Banana Boy got the Sparky Award (finishing the 2nd book), a Book Review Emblem (reviewing all the verses in the book) and and Extra Credit Pin (doing another book full of verses)

Pepper got the Excellence Award (finishing the 4th grade book) and Silver and Gold Awards (completing an extra 32 activities, projects and memorizations) 

We call this the crying award.  Many tears were shed over having to do ALL THOSE projects.  Now that she has the pins, she's glad she did it.  It was the same story last year.

Good job, everybody!

Oh, and if you were wondering about Daisy, she just lays around all day composing music on the piano and then writing lyrics for it, working on her novel, and teaching herself Hindi.  I wish she'd accomplish something, too!

It Was Like a Pillow Fight -- and We Couldn't Find the Liver

Rose Bud got hit in the head by a bird. A Cedar Waxwing, to be exact, although we didn't know it until later.

We were peacefully driving down the street on the outskirts of town with the windows open because it was a beautiful day.

Suddenly, all at the same time there was a thud and Rose Bud ducked and yelled, "OW!" and I saw something white zip through my peripheral vision and then there were feathers everywhere. Little ones. Blowing all around the car.

And Rose Bud said, "A bird! It hit my head!"

And none of us could believe it.

We didn't see anything in the car. Everyone was looking all around them. We all were sure that SOMEthing had gone into the car. We FELT an object had moved through. But no one could see anything.

I found a street to pull over onto. I got out and looked in the back of the van. Pepper thought maybe it had fallen back there. Rose Bud and Daisy got out and looked between their seats and the door.

Nothing.

All the way home I alternated between cracking up and worrying about a bird decomposing in my closed-up-148 degree van once we got home. We kept looking all around.

At home I pulled into the garage and opened Sunshine's door. And SCREAMED. There, sitting under his feet, LOOKING AT ME, was a Cedar Waxwing. I'm sure it was just as upset as I was. More, maybe.

It sat. We all stared. It stared. Pepper got Daisy some gloves and she carefully eased in to pick it up. Just as she was about to grab it, it flew out, bumped the ceiling of the garage and flew to a nearby tree.

Where it stayed for over an hour. (can you see it there on that bottom branch, right next to the trunk?)

Rose Bud is fine.

We're not sure about the Mr. Waxwing.

We began our day with Pepper lying on her bench upside down, peering inside and wailing (do you detect a theme here with Pepper? She has only two voices: Giggle and Wail) "I CAN'T FIND MY LIVER!!!!"

It took about 5 more minutes of searching before we discovered the poor liver, along with her stomach between her binder and an old lapbook.

Did I mention we've been studying the human body? And that we're making a life-size paper body? And that they color and cut out their organs and glue them onto said paper body? Hence the need to find the missing liver.

And here was the excitement in Daisy's day:

 Yes, they are green.  Neon green.  Mr. GT wanted to know how she would know if she had lettuce in her teeth now.

And that was our day.