Saturday

We started this Saturday as we usually do,at the Farmer's Market.

It's getting good - we are moving on from the early spring crops into the early summer crops.  We are also part of a CSA so we have more greens than we can handle at the moment, but we went to the market anyway just to pick up a few things and to enjoy the scene.

A great part of the scene, in the girls' minds, is the grassy open area next to where the farmers set up.  There are fish sculptures, and rocks that are great for climbing (or defying gravity, as Clara appears to be doing).

And away she goes!

Elena was happy to bask in the sun from the top of the sculpture for a long time (she was probably worried about losing her place there).

But eventually she got in on the fun jumping, too.

And then we ran into our friends with twins just about to turn two!  You may remember them from earlier posts on the blog.  They are getting so brave - check out Lucie on the rock with the big girls (and how is it possible that OUR girls are the big girls??).

Clara and Elena really enjoyed being in a mentorship role (though we had to redirect when Clara's modeling of how to stand up on the rocks was compelling enough that she tried it, too, and she has a bit too little balance yet for that maneuver!).

Lucie and Amelia, offering some carrots and water to Clara and Elena. 

 

Then we went home to work on various home improvement tasks that we have before us.  The one the girls have been most excited for is redoing this cedar kid's picnic table a friend gave us.  Clara really did use the electric sander to help get it ready, though this is just a re-enactment for reasons of both safety and shyness.

There was a great debate on some paint colors, but in the end we decided to put tape down the middle and let them each choose a color - we got kind of lucky that they went together as well as they did.

Laboring away.  This is about as long as Elena labored - she got this part done, and a little of her bench, and then told Christina that she could "help" finish.

Clara, on the other hand, was in it almost the entire time, working really carefully.  She would even say that: "I like to take my time.  I want to do a careful job."  She had some real pride in working well.

Elena, for her part, supported her sister by popping little cookies into her mouth when she was too busy painting to stop for her own snack.

It was actually a pretty quick project, and by the evening meal the paint had dried enough on the table for them to sit at it to eat.  And oh, they were so excited to do that.  They were very into making the rules at their own table.  For instance, "At our table, the rule is you can bring toys to the table!"

"At our table, we play with our food!" (hence, the corncob holder placement on Elena's corn).

There were some other rules (one involving them getting eat before Steve and I instead of waiting for everyone to come to the table).  You might guess that each of these rules runs in opposition to our typical table rules.  Steve and Christina ate out on the patio and were not so terribly disappointed to be missing out on the kid-table-dining.  Those girls were doing just fine by themselves.

Last Day of School

Ah, the last day of school.  It feels like just yesterday that we were posting about the first day of school!  Oh, er...hmm.  Well, time flew, that's for sure.  Here is the gang at the busstop (there are two boys and an older girl who also wait with us, but they weren't feeling the whole photo-documentation thing we had going on).

 We went to see Clara and Elena read their books to the class on "Kindergarten is the best because..."
Especially charming in Clara's book was that "we get to read with Mom" was in there (so she noticed that volunteer time!) and "I get to be with my sister" (confirming some of our decision to keep them in the same classroom together next year).

 

Elena's book featured Gus the Plus and Linus the Minus.  Very notable for her was her reading enthusiasm - some kids chose not to read, and Elena has sometimes been self conscious about her reading skills.  But she seems to not be concerned now, and was so proud to read her book! 

  

 Clara got her certificate of achievement for finishing kindergarten.

 Elena basking in Mrs. Malchi's love and her certificate of achievement:

And here the bus rumbles down the block at the end of the day, bringing them home for the very last day as kindergarteners.

We decided to have a celebration to mark the last day of school - can you guess what we thought might be a fun way to work off some of the excess energy of the last-day excitement?

Not a hard guess, huh?  Pinata time!

The role of hitting and the role of raising/lowering the pinata were equally coveted.  Joining us were Moana (the best friend of both girls, met just on the first day of school, who was in the same class with them all year and who happily lives just down the block) and her mom, Casey.

All the girls stuck with this for much longer than we would have thought - this pinata was pretty impenetrable!

But success was finally ours (after Casey swung the bat for a few well-aimed bashes):

Then there was reveling in the parent-approved snacks from the pinata (fruit snacks and oreo crackers) and Zimorino's pizza.  Yum!

And we topped off the party playing with these foam pellets - they are essentially vibrantly dyed packing peanuts.  You dab a side of them with a wet paper towel, and when you put another pellet against it they stick!  And when you're done you dump water on them and they dissolve. 

Clara's creation - a bird.  Can you see it?

And no "last of" post is complete without a little retrospective.  So first day is on the left, last day is on the right - that's a year of kindergarten right there.  It's not the physical growing that is really notable, but it is incredible how their minds have developed this year.  Kindergarten rocks!

Dunk tank

Christina was one of the faculty voted this year into the dunk tank as part of a fundraiser on campus.  Although she partly hoped she wouldn't end up being a finalist that got dunked she also had always wondered what being dunked would be liked.  And Clara and Elena LOVED the idea of Christina in a dunk tank.  So it came to pass.

And, my, was there a lot of dunking!!  That was an easily-triggered system, and the faculty in our department all gave the girls lots of money, so there was ample opportunity for Christina to experience the dunking part of the tank.  It was cold, but not nearly as bad as she thought it might be.

In the end, a fun life experience.  And Clara and Elena will always remember that they are the ones who got to dunk mom in front of all of her students.

School things

We did not take that many pictures of what went on in school for the girls this year. Christina was in the classroom every Monday to volunteer, and both Steve and Christina helped with a few other things, but we apparently did not document much of it. Here are two illustrators of what went down this year in kindergarten, though. These first shots are from a group work day to double the size of the community garden at the school. Each week the kids have a "special" period outside where they plant, or weed, or eat from this garden. On this day we helped lay down the weed fabric for the new section of the garden (a GREAT job for a group of kids, as it turns out) and to thin strawberries.

This is a bonus picture that has nothing to do with school, but somehow got lumped in the file and we're just leaving it here.  This was a performance for Irish dance that happened as part of the wildlife film festival in April.  We didn't bring the girls a coat, so here they are sharing Christina's.

And, here is a snapshot of each girl from their recent field trip, where they explored the University of Montana. For some of the kids this was a huge experience - for our girls, not so much.  They are there with us all the time.  But do they get to lift meteorites with us?  No, no they do not.

There was also an inflatable planetarium brought out for this visit - so funny!  We didn't know those existed, and they chose to inflate it and have the show in the classroom Christina has spent three hours every week in for one of her counseling classes.  It was certainly a different experience to have 20 giggly kids in an inflatable planetarium in that room instead of grad students talking about group counseling!