Pre-School Graduation

Last Friday, Clay graduated (for the second time !) from preschool. This time he is graduating into kindergarten and he is so excited. As you can imagine, a preschool graduation can be pretty entertaining. Clay provided a good deal of the entertainment by himself as he struggled with a "wardrobe malfunction." You can see in the picture below that he has his gown hiked up and is trying to snap his pants that have come undone. This continues on for a minute or two and he is practically laying back in his seat trying to snap his pants as everyone is snickering. I'm trying frantically to motion to him to put his gown down and just leave his jeans alone, but he misinterprets my "put your gown down" motion as "come down off the stage and let me snap your pants". Now everyone knows who he belongs to and I can feel my cheeks turning red, but we managed to get his pants snapped and get him back on stage.

The rest of the graduation consisted of the kids singing some songs from preschool, answering questions about what they want to be when they grow up, and receiving their diploma and awards. Clay did not do any of the song motions during the practice, so I told him I might cry if he didn't do the actions that night. He looked over at me at the beginning of the songs and I gave my best sad face, so he put in a pretty good effort at going through the motions. He told us later that he "hates the Chicken Dance song" and Daddy agreed, but I was still proud of him for doing the actions.

When it was Clay's turn and Miss Tami asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said "a buffalo rider". She asked why did he want to be a buffalo rider and he responded "cause I like to get bucked off !" Out of 20 preschoolers, 12 wanted to be cowboys/cowgirls or work with horses. Thats when you know you're in a rural school. There were also some future cops, a navy seal, a teacher, a flower, and one girl just wanted to grow up to be herself - which I thought was great.

Miss Tami had to call Clay's name 3 times to come get his diploma because he was busy visiting with his buddy Xander (on the right). His special award that he received was the "Helper" award and Miss Tami talked about how Clay is always helping to pick things up even if he didn't get them out. Levi mumbled "He doesn't do that at home !" but I reminded him that Clay actually does that a lot at home. He is always putting his brothers' backpacks and shoes up for them. I thought it was a well-deserved award for Clay.

After graduation, we got a notebook full of Clay's drawings and other activities as well as a photo album with pictures of Clay throughout the school year. One of the activities was a fill in the blank about Daddy - similar to the one he filled out on Mother's Day for me. Here are his answers to that one:

My Dad is 100 years old.

My dad is the strongest when he picks up wood.

My dad likes to make pizza

My dad always says, "Go to bed !"

My dad is funny when he talks on the phone in his underwear.

(Daddy doesn't usually talk on the phone in his underwear - it happened one time when he was changing clothes and his phone rang, but apparently it made a big impression on Clay !)

Overall, graduation was pretty fun and most importantly Clay had a good time.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Morning....

We woke up this morning to the sound of thunder and lightning and rain blowing in the open windows. Daddy was in Columbia, so it was just me and the boys. It was Levi's turn to feed the calves and he said "This is going to be fun." I told him I was really sorry, but we still had to feed them. He replied "No, really this is going to be fun !" Even Caleb, who complains everytime its his morning to feed the calves ran in my bedroom and said "I'm going out with Levi to feed the calves !" When they came back in they were drenching wet, so they had to go put dry clothes on for school.








I was supposed to substitute for another teacher this morning, so we went ahead and drove into school. When Clay and I tried to get out to go into preschool, his teacher yelled at us from her car saying we couldn't go in the trailers because of the storm warnings. So, we sat in the car for a little while until the tree we were parked under lost a big limb right in front of us. It missed the Explorer by about 2 inches. We moved away from the tree to the other side of the parking lot. Meanwhile, we saw Clay's teacher run across the street to the elementary. She got across and was waving at us to come over, so I got the umbrella out and we took off across the parking lot and across the street. The wind blew my umbrella completely apart and Clay was screaming "Mommy Mommy Mommy !!!" We both looked like we'd jumped in the creek before we got to the school. Once we were there, they said everyone had to go to the basement of the high school due to the tornado warnings and straight line winds of 85mph. The whole school district pre-k through high school was crammed in the basement and we were all soaked. At least I got to be there with Levi and Caleb as well, so we were all happy to be together. We were there for about 45 minutes (which seemed much longer !) before they let the kids go back to class. Preschool ended up being canceled and so Clay stayed with me and the kids I was substituting with until we could find someone to take my place.

Caleb & his friend Kolby in the basement

The storm blew out the windows of several houses, knocked down trees and power lines and poles, blew roofs off of a couple of houses and generally made a big mess everywhere

My Dad and several other lost metal storage buildings and many towns are without power.

When we got home we had to move several limbs off of the driveway before we could get to the house. There were huge limbs blocking the cattle gate and some stuck in the fence that we had to remove so the cows wouldn't get out. One whole cedar tree down by our pond blew over leaving just about 10 feet of the trunk in the ground. Fortunately nothing was damaged but there is a whole lot of clean up to do. When we were in KS, I really missed MO and all of the trees, but now after 2 ice storms and several bouts of damaging winds, I am really tired of picking up tree limbs ! But even that isn't enough to make me want to go back to Kansas.

Clayster-isms

Clay's self-perceived job at our house is to keep everybody entertained. Most of the time it is 6 year old humor and its funny only because you have no idea what he is talking about, but sometimes he really cracks us up.

A few days ago we were sitting at the table eating and Clay was telling us about the caterpillars that were turning into moths at preschool. He was very proud of himself as he told us that the caterpillars make a cocoon before they turn into butterflies. We were telling him how smart he was when Caleb piped up and said "Actually, its called a chrysalis." Clay frowned at Caleb for a second for raining on his parade and then said "Well, actually you are called a girl !" Although we don't usually condone name-calling, we couldn't stop laughing for a while.

Then today, Clay came home from preschool with a mother's day gift. His teacher had asked him to fill in the blanks as she made statements about his mom. Here's what Clay had to say:

My mom is 14 years old.

My mom is the prettiest when she talks on the phone.

My mom likes to make pancakes

My mom always says "time to go to bed!!"

My mom is funny when she talks like me.

I'm not sure what makes me prettier when I talk on the phone - maybe its because I'm not yelling "time to go to bed !!"

And finally, here is a picture of us at the park in Carthage tonight before our 4-H meeting.

I took this picture shortly after Clay stood at the very top of the playground equipment and yelled across the playground: "Hey bubbas them are Spanish people over there !" Of course Levi & Caleb didn't hear him so he started to yell it louder before I about fell over myself trying to get close enough to tell him to be quiet. I think they were actually from Mexico not Spain, but Clay couldn't tell the difference. I tried to explain that it wasn't nice to point at people and yell about them. After he promised not to do any more yelling, I let him go play for a little while longer.

Its always risky taking Clay out in public, but he is usually good for a laugh.

"Surprise" Party

Saturday, we had planned on having Clay's party after teeball practice at the park. He woke up excited Saturday morning and asking if this was the day of his birthday party. When I said yes, he asked if he was going to be 7 this time. I think he was joking, but I'm not sure, so I explained that he would still be 6 for a whole year before he was 7. Unfortunately it was rainy and all baseball practices were canceled (which means we didn't have to be at the ballfield at 8am :) - yippee !) I figured that no one would show up for Clay's party due to the weather, but we thought we should go just in case. David and Levi stayed at the house to work on the barn and I said we'd call if anybody came and then they could make their way into town. We were surprised when 4 kids showed up at the park for the party. I called David and he & Levi came in. Clay had a great time playing with the kids and hitting the pinata. Since I hadn't really planned on anyone coming, I didn't go out and buy cupcakes for the party because I didn't want to be stuck with a bunch of cupcakes at home. And the remains of the spider cake were not worthy of being seen by anyone outside the immediate family. I did buy ice cream though, so we had ice cream and fruit punch with no cake and I apologized to the parents and other kids for being a really bad party planner. By the time I started serving ice cream, the party had grown from 7 kids to 12. Several town kids had seen the party and wandered over to play, so I fed them too. It didn't rain on us while were there although it was a little cool. Clay was so excited that his friends had come and I think he had a lot of fun.

Clay's 6th Birthday

Cool Spiderman birthday card from Grandma & Grandpa

I think Clay had a pretty good 6th birthday. It started with him coming into our bedroom that morning and saying "Six feels the same !" He apparently was expecting some overnight transformations because he followed that statement with "I guess you'll still have to help me read too !" I think he was hoping he would wake up being able to read. (I wish it were that easy !) We had pancakes for breakfast and let Clay open a couple of small presents - a race track and a new Hot Wheels car. He even had time to play with it some before school.

He took M&M Ice cream treats & Capri Suns to preschool and handed out bubbles and party blowers. He got a coloring book and crayons from his teacher and the other kids drew him pictures and put them in a birthday folder for him. After I picked him up from preschool we went and ate at Culver's and went to Pier 1 to get a gift card for Aunt Nikki's birthday. When we got home I talked him into a short nap so he'd be ready for the party that night.

Uncle Kevin, Aunt Nikki and Kyra were the first to arrive at 5:30 that evening. Then Nana and Papa came and finally Daddy arrived with the pizza. We opened presents first - Clay got a water spitting, biting dinosaur from Nana, a Snakebite Monster truck from Uncle Kev & Aunt Nikki and money from Papa and Grandma & Grandpa. On Friday we went to town and he spent his birthday $ on Lego Indiana Jones for Nintendo DS, a car-carrying semi truck that crashes and throws the cars off, and a Batman action figure. He was very excited. Daddy and Mama also got him a new Spiderman bicycle that he immediately took outside and rode around on it for awhile. While Clay was riding, Uncle Kevin was wrestling around with Levi and Caleb.

When we finally got him back inside, we had pizza and then birthday cake. Clay couldn't decide on what kind of cake he wanted for several days. We went through Spiderman, Transformers, Tiger, Lion, Zebra, Elephant and Frog cakes before he finally decided the day before his birthday on a Spider cake. I'm not sure why he picked a spider cake, but I think it has something to do with the fact that Mama absolutely hates spiders. (I was ready to smash this one into the ground before it was all said and done.) The spider cake looked good after I got it all formed just right and stuck it in the freezer that morning, but by the time everyone had arrived for the party his legs had melted into a tangled mass of chocolate rice krispie treats. At least it still tasted okay.

This is the spider's good side.

On Saturday (tomorrow) we were planning to have a party at the park in town after teeball practice but, seeing how it is monsoon season in Missouri it looks like we may have to cancel that. We bought a pinata for the party, but we may end up having some friends from church come over and whack on it when the rain clears up. Overall Clay had a great 6th birthday, even if he can't read yet !

Science Fair

Levi's science fair was this past Monday night and Levi's project was a big hit. He had his heart set on building a Hovercraft and he was so excited about it that we ended up building it about a month before the Science fair. Sunday afternoon (before the fair on Monday) he started working on his project board. We went out to the garage and turned on the Hovercraft and it wasn't working quite as good as we wanted so we rebuilt the whole thing for the fourth time. I was out of plastic sheets for the bottom of it, so I took down the boys shower curtain from their bathroom to use. I'm pretty sure Levi and I could mass produce Hovercrafts now !

We got it to work really well and Levi tested weight limits by having all of us take turns riding on it. His hypothesis that it would only work with weights of 50lbs and under turned out to be false as it held everyone from Clay to Daddy.

At the Science Fair, the kids were lined up to take turns riding it. Levi enjoyed giving everyone rides and was disappointed when we finally had to leave. I think his teacher was probably not too disappointed that we were leaving and the ShopVac would finally be turned off. He brought home his score on the project yesterday and he received 85 out of 85 points. It was pretty fun, but I sure am glad to be done with project boards for this year !!