A Fun and Bittersweet Ending

This last week of school has been filled with lots of fun and a few tears.

Elina started the week with Field Day. The kids did a "change clothes" relay, egg race, playground obstacle course, and a sack race. Elina's all-time fave was the sack race.

On Tuesday, the kids had Favorite Book Day and they had to dress up as a character from the book. This was a little bit of a dilemma for Elina because she wanted to dress up as a princess, but none of her current fave books deal with princesses at all. I think Elina likes the concept of princesses (tiaras, jewels, beautiful dresses), but she doesn't really have a lot of Disney Princess or regular princess stuff. We finally decided on Leo the Lightning Bug and dressed Elina up as Louise the Lightning Bug, one of Leo's friends. She absolutely HAD to be a girl lightning bug...since she's a girl...she couldn't possibly pretend and dress-up to be a boy (that's definitely one of her dress-up rules). It was hard to think of a way to dress-up as a lightning bug with what we had at home. In the end, we put a yellow tutu (thanks, KT) on Elina so that it could be her "glow" as a lightning bug. Not too bad!

Wednesday was Game Day and the kids had to bring in their favorite games. Elina loves Pictureka! so she brought that in. She was so excited to play this game with her teachers!

Then Thursday was graduation day...ahhhh, graduation day. It was a really wonderful 90 minute ceremony. We all shed some tears because the speeches were incredibly touching. I think all the teachers and the principal were in tears. No one could make it through a speech without choking up. It was comical, but it showed just how Elina's school really is one big family. It's just amazing how much I've grown to love Elina's school, especially Elina's teachers. They just LOVE Elina and really care for her. They have set the bar high for our kids' future teachers. Just thinking about Elina leaving them brings tears to my eyes.
Anyway, other than the heartwarming speeches, the kids also received their "diplomas" (here is Elina receiving her diploma)--

and they performed some great songs. Elina said her favorite part was singing on stage. The kindergartners sang 3 songs, "Do Re Mi," "Three Little Birds," and "Feelin' Good." The last one was definitely my personal favorite because it was catchy and had cute lyrics. I love that there is a lot of sign language with this song. Here are 2 clips--



The only downer to this day was Eli. Unfortunately, he had pneumonia, but we still had to attend the ceremony. Poor guy! He had a 103 fever all week and just looked like death. During the ceremony he just sat on B's lap looking sad (see picture to the right). Because he was so sick we couldn't do many celebratory things for Elina's big day. We were supposed to stay for cake, take her to lunch at Luby's (her fave place) and then dinner out to Sushihana (another fave). Luckily, Elina was a good sport about it all because she saw how miserable Eli was. When we got home Eli was just laying on the couch like a limp body, and Elina said, "Mommy, I miss playing with Eli." Awwwww. So we'll have to make it all up to Elina once Eli gets better. We just couldn't believe that Eli got pneumonia again...he just had it in December. Boo. This has just been a bad month for Eli....a stomach bug, a bad cold, a black eye, and now pneumonia. We are SO done with this stuff!!

Evie, on the other hand, was a champ at the ceremony. She sat still for most of it and had a great time smiling and saying, "Oooooooh" every time she saw Elina. I mean, check out these awesome pics that T got during the ceremony! What a happy baby!Then we ended the week with Elina's End-of-the-Year Party at the splash pad at Fort Sam. Elina had a blast with her friends and I had a nice time chatting with the other moms. This year has really flown by. I can't believe that our little Elina is going to be in first grade already. She began the school year reading at a 1st-2nd grade level and now she is almost at a 5th grade level. Her math, writing, and handwriting have also improved tremendously. But I think the biggest accomplishment for Elina was the development of her social skills. I mean, she's always been social, but not with people she doesn't know well. She used to be more reserved and didn't want to act silly in public. Now she's broken out of her shell and loves making new friends everywhere we go. She laughs loudly and tells funny jokes to her friends. She loves being around people now and that just makes me happiest of all. Elina is growing up so quickly. When we look at her graduation pictures, we can't believe how mature she looks now. We're so proud of you, Elina! You're becoming your own person and we absolutely love it! Congratulations! We love you! (I'm glad that despite the pneumonia, Eli managed to smile for this family picture at the graduation.)
(P.S. Thanks to T for taking all these great pictures for us on graduation day...and thanks to J for helping us get everything ready for the big day. We really appreciated all the help!)