Memorial Day Weekend!

While Marcus was in Nashville, Tennessee, for work, we spent a lot of time this weekend with May and her son Leon, who is in Ennio's class.  We went to the park nearby (as you can see, Ennio is not as much into meditation as Lily is!), we made fresh lemonade from homegrown lemons in May's kitchen, and flour-less chocolate cake. It tasted delicious!!!

Open House at school!

The kids were proud to show off the projects they've been working on this past school year!
It was nice to have a sneak peek into the classrooms!  I was impressed with the "city" Ennio and his classmates had built. Lily's room had life-size paper persons on the students' chairs (they had drawn themselves) and showed the students' "heritage diorama's". We also had a chance to meet the 1st grade and 3rd grade teachers. We know the first grade teachers already, but it was the first time we met Ms. Mittermiller, Ms. Barnes and Ms. Sanchez (third grade teachers). We will find out in August - just before the new school year - who will be Lily's teacher. But for now, we'll enjoy summer!

ENNIO - Room 3 - Ms. Sy

LILY - Room 5 - Dr. Guanlao

Lily's diorama. On her Informational Sheet she wrote:
- How does this diorama represent your cultural heritage? 
It represents Germany and Belgium, the countries where my dad and my mom are from.
- List down foods, customs, and traditions celebrated in your family.
Foods: chocolates, beer, brezeln, sausages.
Customs: sinterklaas and zwarte piet.
- What did you learn about yourself from doing this activity?
I learned more about the Atomium and the king and queen of Belgium, and the black forest in Germany.

I thought this one was funny. It's The Big Bang!

Our friends Leon and Fifi!

Bug Festival at the Natural History Museum!

Girl Scouts Badge Ceremony

At the paint studio of Erin, Juniper and Scarlett's mom.

Mother's Day keepsakes!

Free coupons from Lily (100 free hugs, one free hour cuddle time, one free car wash, back massage for free, help with dishes for free, and many more!!!). So cute! And very nice letters from both kids.
Lily: "Dear Mom, I love you because you are always nice to me. You always say yes to everything, you get me toys and clothes. You take good care of me and Ennio. To me you are the best mom in the whole entire Earth. Mom, I love you in ways you can not even imagine." (Surprising, because yes, I do say yes a lot, but there are just as many days where I don't say/shout/scream anything else but NO!)
Ennio: "Mom, Thank You for giving me Kisis. Love, Ennio" (Funny, because I always have to beg him to give or get a kiss!)

Mother's Day Tea

I've never owned such a beautiful hat :-)
Designed by Ms. Sy and made by the kindergarteners.
Proudly worn by the moms (see picture below: Jennifer (Charlie's mom and my co-room rep), Helena (Benjamin's mom) and me)

Police officer Ennio!

Ennio wrote: 

"When I grow up I want to be a poles ofisr bcus I want to urest bad gis I can sav the gud gis." 

 (When I grow up, I want to be a police officer because I want to arrest bad guys. I can save the good guys.) 

Ennio is doing "project-based" learning in school and the topic during the past few weeks was "our community". Each kid was paired with another kid and had to pick a "job" and read and learn about it and then make a presentation before the class. Ennio picked the police officer as a job (not sure if I'm so happy about that!!!). We went to the library and picked out some books. The focus is mainly on the fact that police officers "help": they make sure kids who get lost, find their mommy or daddy back, they help guide traffic, and of course they catch the bad guys! On the day of the presentation, he dressed up as a police officer and did his presentation with Charlie. I wasn't there to see it, but the teacher sent us some pictures.

In the morning before going to school, talking into his (plastic) walkie-talkie!

We dressed up his shirt with self-made stickers.

Charlie and Ennio

Other community workers were the mailman, the firefighter, the doctor, dentist, etc. Speaking of which, Ennio and Lily had their check-ups today. Lily was very happy. She was supposed to have a tooth extracted today, but it fell out by itself just a few days ago. Ennio also got the "all-clear". No cavities! Yippie!

Blog updated with the month of April!

I have been busy lately (working full-time and having a commute that seems to get worse every day, is no easy feat), so it's been difficult to update this blog on a regular basis. We did a lot of fun activities in April (Sigur Ros concert, Easter,  Ennio's birthday,...) and I really wanted to document this, so I finally scheduled some time today. Please, scroll down, there are at least 8 new posts!
Happy reading!

Spring School Photos!