6th grade comes to an end for Emily

Hard to believe that we have another child graduated from JI and will head to middle school next year!  Emily had a pretty good 6th grade year.  She achieved alot of her goals and also was a leader in her classroom.  Or at least that's what her teacher tells us!  The 6th graders had a fun year filled with lots of field trips.  The month of May I'm not sure if they really had much classroom time since it seemed like they were always planning for another trip.  Brian got to go on the Valleyfair Physic trip which was very very cold.  The high was 43 degrees!!!!  All the kids were dressed for winter not May!  He also was chaperone on the 6th/Kdg Mill pond fishing trip.  Emily and the 6th graders also went on their last Adopt-A-Grandparent outing.  Once every month they would head over to the Assisted Living center and play games and chat with their grandparents.  The kids had just as much run as the residents did!  The 6th grade girls participated in May crowning and they were all very lovely!

Cold day at Valleyfair but still had tons of fun!!

Fishing at Mill pond...sometimes you don't get the biggest fish but you still have fun catching them

6th grade beauties at May crowning

Emily had been the 2014/2015 Student Council President and LOVED every minute of being in charge of a committee.   She loved working with her fellow council members and she loved working  and planning the service events held by the SC.  This is her handing over the gavel to 2015/2016 president MaKayla Moline.  

Awards Day:  Emily and 4 other classmates achieved high reading numbers on Mr Reuters 100 point club.  These girls over all had the highest points total.  Emily took 3rd place with over 500 points.  She read and read and read this year!  And actually enjoyed it as well!  She also received Academic All-star like Rachel and she got the Achievement Phy-Ed award.

6th Grade graduation night

Receiving her diploma from Fr. Todd and Miss Wenner 

6th grade friends Ella and Madison

Last day of school with Mr. Reuter!  He's prepared them well for 7th grade!

Rachel's Last month of 3rd Grade

Rachel and her 3rd grade classmates had their very last prayer as 3rd graders.  All of them did a fantastic job and they really are a class that gets along with each other well.  

There's no big field trips taken in 3rd grade but they sure do alot of projects and presentations.  They get super good at them by the end of the year!  Rachel's last presentation was on Chris Evert, the tennis player.  It was more of a book report presentation.  All the information they gathered had to come from the one book and not from any other sources.  She did a great job on the presentation and inspired a few kids to look into tennis as a sport!  She was pretty proud of that!

Another exciting moment for Rachel was running for Student Council for the 2015/2016 school year and she won!  As 3rd graders they all got to participate in student council throughout the year but in May they had to decide if they wanted to run for 4th grade representative or not.  They elect two from each grade.  Here is her poster with her "clever" slogan!

 

Next year's student council reps

End of year awards was another day Rachel was excited for.  She knew she had achieved the Presidental Excellence award in PhyEd.  She's gotten it every year!  Something her older sisters haven't done!  She also received an award for Academic All-star.  This award is based off their standardized testing score.  All students over 90%  receive the award.  She was looking forward to adding another perfect attendance award to her file but that darn flu bug that went thru our house in March sealed her fate.  She only missed 1 day of school!  That's pretty darn awesome if I do say so myself!  

She did have an awesome year in 3rd grade!  I think her teacher Mrs. Lynch had a special bond with all the 3rd graders.  Rachel was sad to leave but knows she'll see Mrs. Lynch at students council meetings next year and in the hall ways!

Natalie's End of Kindergarten

Natalie's last month as a Kindergartner was a busy one!  The Kindergarten class prepared all year for the one mass they would get to lead at the end of the year.  They all did an amazing job and surprised all of us how well they could read!  None of them were shy or nervous and they had some pretty big jobs to do during mass, especially for a 6 year old!  They definitely learned a lot from Mrs. McGraw!

They went on many field trips too during May.  I was able to chaperon two of them and Brian one.  I had the privilege of going to the Police Station and then to Farm Day sponsored by the FFA students at the high school.  Both were equally fun and entertaining!  Lauren got to go as well and she loved the animal the most!  Brian got to take Natalie and the Kindergarten and 6th Grade classes to Mill Pond for a little fishing.  It's tradition that the 6th graders take their kindergarten buddies and fish with them.

The last day of school was field day.  It rained which was a bummer so the kids ended up having their field day inside in the gym.  They all had a lot of fun and made the best of it. Natalie's team, which Emily is also on, were the overall winners.  Both girls were excited about that!

Sad to leave Mrs. McGraw!

Wining Team!!

Spring Programs and Recitals

Emily had a trumpet solo at JI Spring Program...she would admit it wasn't her best performance on trumpet but totally made up for it with her piano performance which awed and amazed the audience!

Natalie's First JI Spring program and she and her class did a fantastic job!  Natalie just loves singing and performing.  We knew all the songs a month before the program because she would sing them non-stop every day!

Rachel did a great job as well.  She really knows how to project her voice so we can always pick her out!  She enjoyed singing in the JI Childrens choir as well where they performed a medley of broadway songs.

Emily's last program at John Ireland.  The sixth graders had a great time performing and the girls especially had an amazing performance of Frozen songs.  It was fun to watch them!

Caitlin joined band this year after taking off her 7th grade year.  I think she enjoyed it and we had a good time watching them at their end of the year performance.  At the end the whole middle school and high school performed a very very very long song....but it was good!

Piano recital for these 3 is always fun.  They all did a fabulous job and performed well in front of an audience.  Emily participated in Guild Auditions and received a superior rating from the judge.  Piano is definitely her thing...not the trumpet!

May Birthdays

We celebrate 3 birthdays in May, Mine, Natalie and Caitlin's.  This year was a big year for me and it felt like Mandy-palooza for most of the month.  On my actual birthday Caitlin had a track meet in Belle Plain so we had originally planned to check out Suzette's restaurant between Jordan and Belle Plain.  Well, Lauren had a melt down and the others did NOT want to go to watch Caitlin so I told Brian that we'd meet him.  Unfortunately the track meet was running 1-1/2hrs behind schedule so we ended up waiting for Brian and Caitlin to come home and we had dinner (Papa Murphy's & a Margarita) at 9pm.  The family had a nice yummy cake from the grocery store for me as well. :)
We celebrated at El Agave the next night with Fajita's for two for Brian and I and Jumbo margaritas.  It was a good thing we walked to the restaurant!  They were potent drinks!

We then celebrated Caitlin and Natalie's birthday jointly for a family birthday-Granparents and Godparent, Aunts/Uncles and some cousins.  It was a very warm day but Uncle Mike and Aunt Laura were the real troopers taking all the kids to tremendous park to sweat and play. 

Natalie's birthday was on May 7th and she chose Pizza Ranch for her birthday meal!  After pizza we headed back to our house for cake and presents!

Then Natalie thought she should have a friend birthday party so I gave in and we invited her girl classmates to our house for 2 hrs of fun.  

Some of my saint peter friends and Gina and Laura took me to CoV in Wayzata for a girls night out and to keep my birthday celebration going.  It was so much fun and I am so blessed to have these wise beautiful, fun women in my life.

The following evening Brian had a little surprise set up for me.  I didn't know where we were going but I knew he had invited some people to join us.  We ended up at The Woods at Shoreland Country Club for a private 40th party for me and some of the favorite people in my life.  Not everyone could make it but the ones that did sure made it a fun night.  I did miss those who couldn't be there to celebrate.  Brian had all my favorite snacky food, my favorite drinks, my favorite kind of cake and a few games that he and the girls had sneakily prepared for us to play.  It was such a fun night!  And a great end to Mandy Palooza.

Ok, finally we get to the Golden girl, Caitlin who turned 14 years old on May 14th!  She chose Dino's Pizzaria-yummmmmmmo for her birthday meal. Brian had surprised her at school that morning by decorating her locker.  We wanted to make sure everyone knew it was her birthday in case she didn't tell everyone herself.  After track was over for the year, she had 4 friend sleep over and catch a movie outdoors.  Both events were a lot of fun.

Lots of dinners out= yummy

Lots of cake=yummy

Lots of fun, friends, family=priceless

It was a great month of May