Fleur de Aleta

Dear Son, All three weeks of VBS are over.  You couldn't say which was your favorite.  You said, "All of them!"  Each offered a variety of fun and learning. St. Augustine's VBS had a huge amount of crafts, songs that you learned throughout the year at preschool there and individual picture magnets and the kids sang at the Sunday service. St. Matthews' VBS had cool games and a really nice singing performance for the parents to enjoy and a picture of the kids' groups. Atonement's VBS sold the CD with the music, which was for both their VBS and St. Matthew's.  It's nice to play the CD in the car for you to sing along to.  Atonement turned snack time into craft time - kids decorated cookies and cupcakes and made s'mores.  (Quick note:  TJ used the potty at Atonement's VBS!  The teacher asked if he had to pee.  TJ said, "No."  The teacher said, "You need to pee." and he went to the bathroom!  This is a big step in pot...

Dear Son, We went to Eli's birthday party at Surge.  You love going to the trampoline places; you don't stop.  It was sweet to see you with your schoolmates from St. Augustine's.  I was sad to hear that Eli and his family are moving to California.  They have family there and are happy to be returning soon.  You will have more time with Eli when you go to the first week of camp at Lutheran Atonement, because Eli will be there too! Mommy also shared Lutheran Atonement's camp schedule with Connie, Carsen's grandmother.  He originally was with Kids Camp, but he wasn't pleased when they changed schedules around.  Good news though, he is enrollment in camps at Atonement too.  If summer is when you get to see your schoolmates again, then that's great (hopefully during the year too). You had plenty of schoolmates from St. Augustine's at the St. Augustine's Vacation Bible School!  Every day at VBS, you brought home a bunch of projects.  You...

Dear Son, The last time I wrote a letter you were still in prek-4.  Now you are a preschool graduate, but I'm getting ahead of myself. On March 31st, I posted this on Facebook: "We started a list of verbs today for Gregory to read.  One of the words was "blush."  We had to explain what this meant.  My husband said, "When a girl gives you a kiss and you blush."  Gregory whispered to me, "When you are in love with a girl, you blush."  This is the first time Gregory mentioned liking a girl.  I had to coax him into sharing, but he said, "I like Harper."  Aww, that is the reason why he asked me to take a picture of him with Harper at the school Easter party :)" I love how you understood the word and applied it to your life, my sweet son.  Since posting that, we found out that Daniel has a serious crush on Harper as well.  And since then, you have also mentioned that Kylie, Scarlett, Amelia, Ellie and Nahomy are very pretty too. ...

Dear Son, The teacher invited parents to come to share their work with the children.  One parent works for a judge.  The classroom became a court house.  Kids took turn as either a judge or an attorney.  One of the mommies took pictures and sent me text messages, with the comment, "Gregory looks cute as a judge."  You were wearing the judge's gown and had the gavel in your hand.  You looked adorable.  Your daddy said, "Supreme Court Justice Gregory O'Brien has a nice ring to it." When it was your turn to be an attorney, you had to defend your teacher, Mrs. Kim.  Mrs. Kim had a toy and didn't want to share.  It was your responsibility to represent her.  Instead, you looked at the judge and said, "Mrs. Kim should share her toy."  Mrs. Kim tried to explain that you needed to help her with her defense.  You would not budge.  It seems that we have raised you a little too right.  Mrs. Kim had to find a new attorney. ...

Dear Son, It's three days later and we are still on cloud 9, in amazement.  I just looked at my last blog post and realize that it was written around the time of your testing, back in October last year.... I think hope held it's breath for that long and so I didn't write.  Now we can breath, big happy breaths, mingled shouts of joy! You tested into Airline Park Advanced Study Academy for kindergarten!  Your score was higher than 96 percent of four year old children, nationally.  The areas of testing included reading, writing and math.  Sweet boy, we could not be prouder!  Every day, even on weekends, Oma and Mommy worked with you.  It's a pattern we started this past summer.  We decided to continue the education throughout the school year.  In essence, you had a combination of Home Schooling and Private School. We worked hard and you worked hard, but we never pushed you.  We taught you and if you weren't ready for something, we bac...