Stuart Little

Stuart Little 2 is one of Jackson's favorite movies. It is a really cute movie. When I read that our local community college was doing that for their summer play, I knew I had to take Jackson. He has never seen the first movie, but thought he would still enjoy seeing Stuart and George on stage.

I forgot to reserve seats online, so we went a little early to claim our tickets.

We met up with some friends at the theater. Jackson didn't want his face painted like a mouse. I even tried to bribe him with food!

Jackson exceeded my expectations of watching the play. The show was about 45 minutes and we had already waited at 30 minutes before the show. However, the play did not impress me. There were some cute/funny parts, but overall it seemed to be all over the place and hard to follow at times. Jackson said he liked it, but said "in my movie Stuart is white. Why was he brown here?"

His first theater experience for a drama.

 After the show, we joined some friends for lunch and play at McDonald's.

Even thought the play wasn't the greatest, I am still glad we went. We had a fun morning experiencing something new together (and with friends)!

Schlitterbahn

On Thursday, I had to go to work for our last staff day. PTO provided us with lunch and at the end of lunch my principal did a drawing for 4 Schlitterbahn tickets. Yup, I won!

We decided to put them to good use right away and went yesterday. We left in time to be there when the water park opened and gave our extra ticket to the family behind us. I am so glad we decided to go. It was a perfect day in all senses of the word; the weather, the amount of people there, Jackson's behavior at the park, the enjoyment, really everything! We know that was all because of God!

 All the pictures we took captured Jackson's love for water and the fun he had. I think he was smiling all day (except the one picture below)!

 We started with the big tube rides, where we all could ride together. We rode these two many times, and I loved watching Jackson's reactions.

 Then, we rode some blue slides you needed a tube for. Jackson mainly wanted to ride with Brian, but rode with me once to make me feel good.:) These slides were fast and a lot of fun!

 The blue slides spit us out into the lazy river. Brian and I have been to many water parks together, especially when dating. It was fun being able to take Jackson and go on the slides with him too.

We rode it around several times yesterday.

We missed going into the rapids the first time around. You rode the conveyor belt up and then floated down the rapids.

 Brian and Jackson almost over turned into the water a few times.

 We rode the rapids (or the rabbits as Jackson called them) several times. Jackson said they were his favorite ride!

 The height requirement was 42 inches for the majority of the rides. Jackson is 42 1/4 inches. He went down one slide all by himself. I was a little worried about him dropping into the water himself, but he came up and doggy paddled like a champ.

 There were many different little play areas for the children. At the beginning of the day Jackson had no interest in them. But, by the end of the day this is were we spent our time.

We never made it to the area that contained the indoor play area that we played on for his birthday. The outdoor season is definitely better!

Enjoying the day together on one of our 50 trips around the lazy river. Brian dropped the camera on one of those times, and I quickly dove under to save it.

 Playing in the wave pool

 Lots of fun!

I guess when you play hard all day, it is hard to keep your eyes open.

Not even 3 minutes into our drive home

So thankful for free tickets and a wonderful day together!



Done!

I can't believe I just finished my 6th year of teaching.  The year flew by and ended on a very positive note, which I am thankful for!

We went out for frozen yogurt to celebrate the start of summer vacation or stay-at-home days as Jackson call it!

I know I won't be sleeping in thanks to my cute alarm clock, but I am thankful for some down time and extra time with him.

Looking forward to a great SUMMER!

Pool Parties

Sunday afternoon we went to a pool party with our Sunday school class.

We all enjoyed swimming, eating, and hanging out with everyone.



Jackson swam for about 3 hours and loved having other kids to swim with.

Katrina and I

We are almost the same height!
(She is standing up on the curb, ha!)

I think Jackson had too much fun Sunday because he woke up under the weather Monday. He had a fever throughout the day and didn't eat much. However, he still wanted to swim!

My friend and her children decided not to chance getting sick if Jackson had a bug and didn't come over. But, my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins did.



Brian had to work a 12 hour Holiday shift. We had pizzas for lunch and grilled out for dinner. It was nice to have some company for the day. Aaron always plays so nice with Jackson. 

Jackson is reading the recipe to Aaron and he is making the smoothie!

Jackson woke up from nap with a higher fever. After some Tylenol and a Popsicle, he wanted to swim again. Cool water is good for a fever right?

I love this picture of him in the tube. So cute!

His fever never came back after that. Praise God!

We definitely had some fun in the sun this weekend!

From the mouth of Jackson

Jackson is at such a fun age. He is quite a character!

I am trying to write down the things he says right away so I don't forget.

Here are a few:

"Fine! You just want me to poop my pants." At Target (loud and clear) in response to me telling him to hold it and we would go to the potty in a minute.

"Dad, what are you eating?" Brian answers nothing and trying to hide his candy. "I heard you smacking." That earned him his own M&M.

 "Excuse me." Anytime he wants to talk and we are talking.

"Daddy, did you give Mommy a hug and kiss?" He asks Brian this every morning before he leaves for work.

 "Can I go down there with naked feet?" Asking if he could walk to the mailbox with bare feet.

"I really like this shirt (shoes, book, strawberries, etc). Thank you for buying it for me." Anytime he gets something new.

"Mmm! This is good. Thank you for making this for me." Most nights after his first bite of dinner. LOVE making dinner for this boy, makes me feel good!

"Does this give me muscles/make me jump high?" In regards to food he is eating.

"Protein makes me jump high." Explaining to us why he should eat chicken.

So THANKFUL for this sweet, goofy, and full of life boy!



Swim Lessons

Jackson is a fish in the water. He absolutely loves it! He had swim lessons last year and is able to swim on his own a little bit. We want him to become more independent in the water and a stronger swimmer.

Our neighbor's daughter teaches swim lessons and agreed to come over and teach Jackson. She did a great job with him. She was even able to corral him back when he was being silly!

She is teaching him to make "spoons" not forks with his hands and scoop the water when he swims. His arms tend to be all over the place.  She is also working with him to swim, then roll over, and float on his back. Last night, he did it for the first time himself!

He mastered getting out from the side of the pool by doing elbow, elbow, tummy, leg. 

He likes Miss Brittany and gets excited when he sees her car down the street. I am already less nervous when he is in the pool swimming and hope he makes more progress this summer.

Synthesizing

I don't talk to much about school or the lessons I teach on here. But, I have to share my student's thoughts regarding synthesizing because I don't ever want to forget them.

We started the week talking about adding another comprehension strategy to our busy brains. I wore my Jackson's superhero cape to model "super-sized" thinking. We synthesized many stories together noticing how our thinking was changing and our understanding getting larger.

At the end of the week, after my students had the opportunity to synthesize on their own,  I asked them to think about how they would describe synthesizing to someone else. Their thoughts blew me away.

Here is how they see synthesizing:

-It is like a tornado. A tornado gets bigger and stronger as it covers more ground. It is the same with our thinking. The more we read the bigger our thinking and stronger our understanding gets.

-It is like blowing a bubble or a balloon up. You must work really hard at first, but if you keep trying you will get a big bubble. You may need to think hard at first, but as your thinking changes your understanding will get bigger.

-It is like creating something with play-doh. You must mold many pieces together and sculpt some to get your final project. When reading we must take one thought, put it together with another, change it as we read something new, and finally have our synthesis.

-It is like evolving. We start as babies, grow to toddlers, then children, teens, and are finally adults. We are constantly changing. Our thinking evolves and changes along the way of reading a book just like growing up.

There you have it, synthesizing straight from the mouths of six and seven years old. Pretty impressive, huh?!?!?