1st Day of School 2013, Pre-K and 3rd Grade

JT and HeaBug started school! They are both excited and ready for the year ahead. HeaBug is in her last year of preschool and now attending 5 days a week! Big girl status.

Traditionally, Booth Kids can have ANYTHING in the world for breakfast on the first day of school. This girl wanted a donut with pink frosting and sprinkles AND a chocolate donut with sprinkles. Crazy hair got her wish!

JT wanted a tres leches cake from Cafe Rio. Mmm cake for breakfast!

So silly.

So serious.

Time sure is going by fast...

Summer. All of it. One Giant Nutshell part 1 of 3

May and June

Mother's Day sweetness from HeaBug <3

Coach Kimbo came to JT's school for Special Person's Day.

JT started boxing at DG Boxing in Long Beach. HeaBug can't wait to start too when she's 5!

Went to a Dodger game with our homegirl MsLeiDy.

Took a quick midweek overnight to Vegas to snap cake smash & 1st birthday pics of Ms Abby

Went to a Dodger Game.

Auntie Nini moved  out :(

Went to a Dodger Game with our Imbach Ohana.

Celebrated our girl, Maile's 5th birthday

HeaBug moved into her own new room!

JT had his last day of 2nd grade!

We kicked off Summer with Jamba Juice!

Both kids too swim at the YMCA

Celebrated Fathers! Especially this amazing guy.

Spent a week in Laughlin at Lake Mohave/ the River with our Booth Fam.

Our nephew Elisha celebrated his 12th birthday!

Spent the weekend in San Diego with our friends watching the Dodgers beat the Padres at PETCO Park.

Left early on Sunday because Mr B was in intense pain! Drove straight to Maga's to drop off the kids then went to Urgent Care where tehy sent him to the ER where they admitted him for Gallbladder issues.

He never stops. We were in the hospital for 4 days! Thanks to my wonderful sisters and mom, I was able to stay with him almost the entire time!

After having the blocked stone removed, he was scheduled for a laproscopic surgery to remove the gallbladder.

After being discharged (and a quick stop at work) he went home to recover. Took a day off and then painfully got back to the grind. Thank you to everyone who brought meals, picked up kids, brought meds, sent texts, prayed and offered good healing thoughts!

Kids spent some time at the shop and we bought a new piece of equipment called a CNC machine.

And JT went to his first week of Dirtbag Baseball camp. 

Phew!

Up next, July!

Girl Bug in the Spring

HeaBug is growing too fast. Her hair is getting longer, she's playing t-ball, still doing her gymnastics, she's old enough now that at Brother's games, she just runs off and plays with her pals. She's writing all of her letters. She makes up her own songs. She plays and plays and plays with her toys. She's able to navigate most apple devices. She's such a sassy pants and I can't get enough of her.

love being her mom.

Open House

Spring time means Open House. Where we get to wander through our child's classroom, oohing and aahing over all the things they have done. Thanking and congratulating their teachers on a job well done and browsing the classrooms of the next grade level up.

We did all of the above and are still so THANKFUL that JT has such an amazing teacher. She's wonderful and experienced and we really lucked out being a part of her class.

Just speaks volumes about the level of teacher at our school, their dedication to the students, their classroom and the community is so apparent. Proud to be an Emerson Eagle!

JT's Dinosaur Report

JT was assigned to do a dinosaur report. He chose the Velociraptor. I helped him navigate how to open the windows on the computer and guided him as he did his own research. He had the option to hand write the 5 paragraphs on this informational report or to type it. He chose typing. We sat there and I had him place his hands on the home-row keys. (He knows a little about it since he's started learning to type thanks to a fabulous and free BBC website!) I walked him through most letters... T, index finger, left hand up, H, index finger right hand out, E, middle finger left hand up... You get the idea. But he typed every bit himself.

He also had to put together a diorama. We spent an afternoon and went to the book store in hopes of finding something in the clearance area that we could cut up and use pieces of but we had NO luck! We did find some fun things at Michaels, river rocks, glitter glue, confetti and desert plants (thank you California Mission Project kids). So Mr. B picked up some sand paper from lowes and we printed out a desert landscape picture and glued that to the back. Our pair of velociraptors came courtesy of Amazon Prime. I penciled out the layout for JT and gave the boy a glue gun. There were only a few things I had to re-glue but he did it! It's really important for me that he does his own and takes responsibility for his own projects. They don't always come out as cool as "I" would want them but they are his own work and he can be proud of that. I think there's more to be taken away from that for him in the long run than something pretty that his parents did for him. Way to go JT, he got an excellent grade on his project and we got to see it displayed at Open House.

Emerson Olympics

Each year at JT’s school, they hold a fitness day fundraiser. The purpose is obviously twofold. To raise money and to teach the importance of fitness. You may have heard of, donated to or attended something similar… think jog-a-thon, trike-a-thon etc. 

One of my gals decided she wanted to chair the even this year and early on, health and fitness being high on my importance list, volunteered to assist. She had an amazing theme picked out, the Emerson Olympics. With the summer games just having passed in London, Olympics were still fresh on everyone’s mind so it really gave the kids something to relate to. We have a few olympian parents and members in our community. She was able to reach out to them and they agreed to speak to our students about the importance of fitness and working hard in school. We had an opening ceremony, a lighting of the torch, and olympians speak to our kids. Each class was assigned a country, given a flag and their donation packets. They were pumped.

It was a great day and it was such a treat hearing the kids talk to their parents after school and tell them what a good experience it was. We ended up raising $17,000 for our school! Isn’t that crazy awesome?!

A month of collecting pledges and donations went by and before we knew it, our games were upon us. Thursday morning, bright and early at 6am, there we were to decorate and transform our playground for the kids.

The lunch benches became the olympic village, banners and streamers hung and floated on wind. Flags dotted the rooftop. The grassy area was strung with banners and flags and the eight 8’ balance beams our Rock Steady Guys built for me were placed in the center. The whole playground was divided into 9 stations. #1 Cardio Warmup, #2 100 yard dash, #3 arm ropes and jump ropes, #4 hula hoops, #5 shot put, #6 kick a goal, #7 centipede run, #8 monkey bars, #9 balance beam. Then they ran around the front of the school to the finish line where they received medals and took a class picture with the rest of their country at our awesomely decorated backdrop/handball medal podium. 

I was stationed to take photos all day which was tons of fun. Mr. B and HeaBug came and helped all day long. Like all day. Love them so much. He spent this time after spending the majority of February traveling for work. I was so glad to have his company and he was just the best. He went and got us John’s for lunch (Our favorite local burger spot) and just spent the whole day being amazingly supportive. (And handsome, he’s so good at that!).