Author: Christy

Our preschool works in conjunction with Whole Foods Arroyo in Pasadena for our big fundraiser in the Fall, the Apple Sale. It’s been marvelously successful for the first two years, and in an effort to solidify our relationship with the store, yesterday we presented them with an art piece. This has been in the works for some time — it was Ezra’s class last year that did the piece — but we are just now finding the time to coordinate the unveiling. The project was led by one of the Cottage teachers — beloved Teacher Ana — who is an artist. Here’s Ezra with the piece, a door that the children glued found and recycled objects to for a mosaic. He’s pointing to the piece he put on.

Here’s a close-up of his piece.

I like that it’s the tallest item on the door so I’ll always be able to find it when the piece is permanently installed in the store.

To add to the festivities yesterday, Whole Foods provided an ice cream social. Here are the kids lined up in anticipation.

Mostly the kids sat together to chat with old friends.

But Finn was very serious and wanted to sit alone. He does not take ice cream lightly.

Then they even had a scavenger hunt for the kids — they each got a reusable bag and instructions to find items throughout the store, which they got to take home.

Here’s Finn getting his bag checked by Cindy after he finished the hunt.

Of course, most of the items were quickly consumed by ravenous kids but we did manage to take a few items home.

All in all it was a fabulous event, which made me happy as I was Fundraising Co-Chair last year and will head up the Fundraising team in the Fall. So, get your checkbooks ready — I’ll be hitting you up to buy apples in September!

We had a good (and busy) weekend which included a visit from Grandpa Bill and Grandma Therese. The kids were in heaven. Finn, in particular, talked their ears off. Here they are at lunch.

I neglected my photographer duties, but if I get some more photos from Grandpa I’ll add some.

Also this weekend, Ezra discovered he can read the comics … well, some of them. I’m not so sure it’s a good thing, but I did enjoy how much he and Finn were entertained by them at breakfast.

Late Sunday afternoon, Bruce was feeling the need for an activity with the boys and decided on an “experiment” with the big lens and some newspaper. Boys and their fires.

On top of this, Bruce finished one more project for the house – adjustable shelves for the office closet.

They rock! And now we can actually see the floor in the office!

Start by sending three of them to school, two for their last day of Kindergarten and one for 4-1/2 hours at Cottage. Make sure no one has a nap.

Then provide six hours of constant play including …

Sand.

Water.

And playing school.

Not to mention, swinging, bike riding, scootering, playing house, etc.

It is advised to provide snacks, preferably on floating tables.

Make sure they have plenty of time to formulate and execute plans.

Then feed them dinner and drive them around until they pass out in the car. Voila!

Ezra’s second Kindergarten field trip happened this Monday — a trip to Mother’s Beach in Long Beach. This one Finn could go to as well, so I pulled him out of Cottage summer camp for the day and we headed for the beach. It was a little crazy because it included all of the Aveson students in Kindergarten through second grade — about 200 kids — plus many siblings and a whole lot of parents and teachers.

The beach is great for little kids — very calm waters and a large sandy area, plus a grassy area (where we had a picnic) and a park with play structures. The kids had a blast. Here’s a brief slideshow of my pictures.

I’ve been woefully slow at blogging this month but I’m trying to catch up. Here are some random shots.

Finn at Cottage last week on the day I worked. He liked that giant helmet for about 2 minutes.

The boys trying on their new goggles and showing off their aqua racers. I got them for our trip but they couldn’t wait to try them out.

Finn’s garb one morning last week when we took Ezra to school — a Batman cape and his umbrella because it was sprinkling.

The boys riding a pink motorcycle at the mall.

Finn fell asleep at the dinner table Sunday night. He must have needed the extra rest — he slept from 5:15 that evening until 6:15 the next morning. Wish I could do that.

Yesterday, it was time to say goodbye to our little ones. No, not the boys — the tadpoles and toads that have graced our dining room table for the last couple of months. We’d all become attached to them, but I was grateful when Ezra and Finn agreed to Bruce’s plan to take them back to the Arroyo this weekend since they’d balked at the idea a few weeks ago. Finn said that now the tadpoles could make friends and get married, since they’d find other tadpoles that weren’t in their family. I’m not sure where he learned that concept.

Anyway, we loaded them up in the van for their final trip.

And took them here.

I skipped out on this trip, but Bruce enlisted some friends — Cari with Ruby and Chapin and Jon with Kai and Caleb.

What on earth possessed them to do this I’ll never know, but Ezra, Finn and Ruby jumped in that gross water and started dragging out the algae.

They eventually had this giant haul.

Kai and Caleb preferred to play on the shore.

And Chapin caught a lot of toads.

Here’s a video to show the toads. Bruce said it was hard to really get them because they would scatter when he got near. It’s hard to believe there were more than this.

Even though I didn’t get to go on this trip, I felt like I was there thanks to Cari’s awesome texts and pictures while they were there. Here’s a sampling:

“Our kids r going 2 come down w algae disease. They’re in heaven!”

“U might want to toss ur plastic containers. I’m just sayin’.” (They went right in the trash when the boys got home. Yuck.)

And my favorite: “Half step from Lord of the Flies.” I was on a nice walk up in Altadena when I got that one and laughed out loud.

All in all, it was a successful — if gross — trip. And my dining room is now tadpole free.

Every Wednesday, the Aveson Kinders are treated to a guest speaker, usually a student’s mom or dad, sometimes a grandparent. The talks vary widely — they’ve had a veterinarian, an actor, a high school teacher, a special effects guy, a doctor, a coin collector, a rock star, and many more. This week, much to Ezra’s delight, was Bruce’s turn.

First, here’s the audience (46 or so Kindergartners).

He started off by talking a bit about Mars and showing, with his helpers, the size difference between Earth (the blue balloon) and Mars (the red one). Finn’s holding a Mars globe on loan from JPL’s outreach office.

Ruby helped to demonstrate how far apart Earth and Mars are.

He brought some things to pass around, including a wheel just like the ones on the Mars Exploration Rovers.

Turns out, Kindergartners aren’t really able to pass cool things around AND pay attention, so after a short bout of chaos it was decided they could look at those things later.

After watching the video of the MER launch and landing on Mars, he started talking about how the JPL engineers communicate with the rovers and how the rovers send data back to Earth. He talked about using something like a megaphone to broadcast data and a “big ear” to hear the whisper from outer space. Here’s the big ear. (He was listening to Ezra’s whisper from across the room but I was too distracted by one child losing a tooth and another child having a bloody nose — within minutes of each other — to remember to take a picture of Ezra. I swear, I don’t know how his teachers keep their sanity.)

After the communication portion of the talk, he told them a little about the math he uses for his job. He told them that math is used to figure out how the world works, especially when you can’t do an experiment to figure something out. As an example, he showed them how to calculate how much water would fit into a glass. Then, to demonstrate his confidence in the math, he had one of Ezra’s teachers (Ms. Jessica — the math and projects teacher) pour 500 ml of water into a cup on his head.

But, of course, he’d switched the glass out for a smaller one and got drenched when it overflowed.

The kids were cracking up.

“So what went wrong?” he asked.

One little girl shouted out, “It was the wrong glass!”

And they all watched in anticipation as he poured 500 ml of water into the correct glass. Math prevails!

After a brief question and answer period, his time was up.

The kids split up into their blue or purple groups and went on about their day.