The boys had a lot going on this weekend, especially with Bruce home on Friday for his regular day off. First up was Finn’s robot, Robyo.
He and Bruce also made a blunderbuss.
And Ezra made wings and rocket boosters for his penguin, Pengladoo.
Then set him to flight.
This week the Kings won the Stanley Cup! I’m going to say that again because I’m still having a hard time believing it’s true — the Kings won the Stanley Cup!
I didn’t get to go to Game 6 where they trounced the Devils 6-1, but I watched from home and celebrated with screaming (“Mommy, you startled me!”) and tears of joy and disbelief. I’ve watched a lot of mediocre Kings hockey in my time but they were absolutely brilliant in this playoff run.
I was lucky enough to attend the celebration at Staples Center on Thursday. My seat was good, but still a little too far for great pictures. But I have a few. Here’s Dustin Brown bringing in the Cup. What I love about this picture is that a number of the players have their cameras and phones out to take pictures of the festivities.
Here’s my all-time favorite, Luc Robitaille, giving a speech.
Here’s the team watching the highlight film put together for the occasion. I think they enjoyed the film as much as the fans did. The LA Times had a great shot of some of them clapping while watching it.
And here they all are with the Cup.
That NHL commercial is right — it really does turn men into boys.
As usual, I was really looking forward to Ezra’s Celebration of Learning this week; I love seeing all of the students’ work up on the walls, going over what he does at school each day, and getting the reports from the teachers on how he’s doing academically. In the past Ezra has seemed to enjoy COL, too, proudly showing off his work and the different jobs he does at school. Sadly, not so much this time. I’m not sure what set him off as he seemed fine when we got to school, but he was in no mood to show us anything. Regardless, I took some pictures for posterity.
Things didn’t start off too badly. He read a little of his journal to us.
Here’s his book review — blown up as a display on the wall.
And his picture and notes about Jabuti.
He also showed us his spelling book, but was clearly losing his patience.
So we moved on to his Math/Projects class. This face about sums up how things were going.
He showed us the state map puzzle and how he puts it together without the board.
And built a plane out of Lincoln Logs.
He had an art project up on the wall that was fun — all of the students did Escher-inspired tessellations. Ezra’s was a Pack of Sea Monsters.
Finally, we quit torturing him and left. I snapped a picture of his class picture on the way out.
He’d chosen Pie ‘n’ Burger for his post-COL celebration and was finally sort of himself about half-way through. But he had trouble mustering up excitement for anything — even this extra-long french fry he insisted I take a picture of.
He did enjoy his apple pie a la mode.
Finn had blueberry.
Despite the less-than-celebratory mood, we were very happy to see that Ezra’s doing well academically and has made great progress this year. Now, I think we’re all ready for summer to begin.
Neither of my boys has been much of a drawer. Ezra really didn’t start drawing at all until he was in Kindergarten, and Finn, up until recently, limited his artwork to colorful scribbles. But the tide has turned. Ezra’s drawing of the week is this replica of a picture from the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.
Here’s the original.
Finn has taken to drawing “feeling” pictures everyday. Usually he’s happy so we have a lot of smiley stick figures around.
He also drew a special picture for Jamma this week — one of him diving in the pool for a ring. He even drew himself in goggles, and he added an arrow to make sure we understood the orientation.
Then he signed and dated it. He was very proud.
The boys found an alternative use for our ice chest this weekend.
Ezra’s class had 1900s Day on Friday and Ezra came home with all sorts of fun stuff. Here’s the list of all the activities they had to do.
Here’s Ezra’s pinwheel, marble, jack, sample writing with the quill and ink, and information about Oreos (which he particularly enjoyed).
He also made a very cool candle.
Bruce worked in the classroom to help out and was on washboard duty. Apparently, they had rags set out for the kids to “wash” but the rags were clean, which seemed anticlimactic. So Bruce and the kids set about cleaning the classroom windows. Ezra’s Projects teacher thought this was great, but when he tried washing Ezra’s Literacy teacher’s windows, she was less than amused. At least she didn’t put Bruce in “reflection” for the infraction.
Finn and I had a play date with Chapin yesterday while Cari worked in Ruby and Ezra’s classroom for 1900s Day. It went spectacularly well. These boys played outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs; they never asked for a snack and barely looked up from their tasks.
First, they grabbed some instruments and had a parade in the front yard.
Next, they cut out the parade part and just played an original composition.
They did a little exercising.
And they worked on a little art. Chapin drew this picture of him and me. That’s him on the left with the curly hair, and me on the right with the long hair (and the big nose).
Finn had to get in on the act, so he made some pants for me and glued them on the picture.
Apparently, I wear my pants a little high.
(Chapin also had drawn himself as a baby in the middle.)
They ended their time together with train track building. What a pleasurable afternoon!
In the quest to find Ezra some shoes that actually fit (after the Star Wars light up sneaker fail) I ordered him some new Crocs this week. He said his current ones (size 12/13) fit fine, so I ordered new ones just the same. But, alas, they were too small. So I ordered the next size up. Apparently, according to Crocs, between size 12/13 and 1 a child’s foot miraculously gets an inch wider.
And as if these failures were not enough, I accidentally put his old pair in the dryer. Now they look like worn out elf shoes.
I give up.
While I was at the hockey game on Wednesday evening, Bruce was home with the boys and Ezra made a list of activities he wanted to do.
It’s pretty legible, but here’s the translation:
Plan for June 6, and 7, 2012
Watch Stanly Cup til end
Blend the bananas in the freezr (without peel)
Eat bananas (at same time)
Have running race
Bear class
Plan by: Ezra
He managed to check off watching the game, and they did have their bear class, but the rest had to wait for the next day.
The Kings are playing for the Stanley Cup! As a long-time Kings fan and former season ticket holder who suffered through many seasons of mediocre hockey, this turn of events is bringing a lot of excitement into my house. And to make things even more exciting, my friend Sherry (a current season ticket holder) invited me to join her at Game 4 this week because her husband had an unfortunately-timed business trip that forced him to miss the game. The Kings were up 3 games to none and had the chance to win the Cup at home, but alas they did not. Still, it was very exciting to be in the building and I took a few pictures, of course. Here’s a short slideshow.
Tuesday we went on Aveson’s annual K-2 beach trip to Mother’s Beach in Long Beach. Finn got to go along again because he’s already out of school. We hitched a ride with Cari; Finn and Chapin had a good time hanging out in the way back and watching some Little Bear videos.
When we got there, Finn and Charlie enjoyed some quiet time in the water before the big kids arrived.
When the rest of the crew arrived, we started with a picnic lunch on the grassy area.
Soon they were off and running toward the water.
Somehow Finn managed to find a quiet spot, at least for a few minutes.
Ezra ran around in the water for about 10 minutes and then parked himself (and a shovel) in one spot for the entire rest of the time — at least an hour and a half. He and Jenner had some serious building to do.
Finn and Charlie got in on the action, too.
Ezra was covered from head to toe in sand.
Finally, the madness was about to end, and the kids got dressed, had a snack and some play time before lining up for the head count. (Yes, they are actually in lines here.)
On the heals of the success of the woodworking class and now that Mad Science is no longer taking place on Monday afternoons, Jack’s mom proposed Math Club and our first meeting was last week. We’re starting out with a small group and as many parents as we can get to stay so we can ease into things as we figure it all out. It’s basically just a chance for the kids to get together and play games that use math. There were several games of War and Uno happening, as well as this giant dice game that was meant for the younger siblings but seem to draw in all the kids.
We brought an ice cream game where the kids do either an addition or subtraction problem on an ice cream scoop shaped card and build up a giant ice cream cone with each correct answer. Ezra and Amelia started off with a quiet game.
Soon, Finn and Charlie joined in.
Most of the kids were pretty relaxed and had a good time with the games, although a couple of them got a little competitive.
The annual June Jubilee was last Sunday and the kids enjoyed all of the usual fair type activities. They only played a few games; here they are doing a goldfish game where you tossed the ball and tried to get it into any number of containers of either water or goldfish crackers.
The big hit of the day was this PVC pipe organ that the upper school built and played earlier in the day. When they were done, other kids (and adults) were able to have a try.
The end of the day brought kettle corn and a squirt gun/balloon fight with Bruce and Bren taking on the kids.
All in all, a very successful and exhausting day, as evidenced by Finn’s impromptu nap in the late afternoon.
After the last post about Finn’s yearbook, I decided I had to dig out Ezra’s and scan in the picture of him ironing. It’s my favorite page of the whole book.
Cottage has a great tradition of doing yearbooks for the graduating Rainforest class. I pull out Ezra’s every now and then and marvel at how tiny he looks. (And laugh at the full-page picture of him using the pretend iron with his quote, “My wife knows everything.”)
Finn, of course, got his yearbook last Friday at graduation. There is a page for each child and parents are asked to submit something for it. Most families write letters to the kids but some, like us, draw pictures. Or in Finn’s case, we (mostly Bruce with some input from me) made a collage. Here it is.
He loves it. And I’ve caught him more than once poring over all of the pages, filled with pictures of him and his friends this year.
