Closing a chapter

This one's been in the bloggy cue for a while... (I have a lot of catching up to do!!!)

I've probably said this 100 times on the old bloggy, but oh my goodness, I wish time would just stop moving so quickly.  We are in transition around here, I guess you could say.  Jonathan finished up preschool (forever - sigh!) last Friday and Wednesday, Jacob finished up his Kindergarten year (sigh!)  Oh my goodness, how is it possible that I'm the mother of a first grader and a kindergartner and a much too old 7 1/2 month old?  

Jacob had a fantastic year at Painted Stone and I'm so proud!  He had the best teacher ever and really really flourished.  Okay - totally gonna be that braggy mommy for a minute...hold your ears if it makes you gag.  Ha!  He was a model student.  He had great behavior (stayed on green all year!) and was kind to his peers.  One of my favorite pictures I have of him at one of my trips to his classroom was him randomly helping one of his peers tie his shoe.  He is a fantastic reader - I loved watching him read stories to his classmates.  He loved doing his homework (may be a nerd, just like his mommy!) and was super motivated to earn special treats and to pick from the treasure box at school.  He scored so well on the standardized tests.  They made him nervous.  He enjoyed all his special area classes but music was his favorite.  He played outside for recess and loved it.  Sometimes he even got to play on the "big kids" playground.  During indoor recess, he often did art and would draw some of the cutest pictures and write funny stories.  I loved reading his writing and trying to decipher his spelling.  He has a strange habit of putting an apostrophe at the end of every word he makes plural.  It's cute.  At the beginning of the year in his writing activities, his teachers would try to get him to expand and write more sentences, he would embellish his stories with sentences like, "they are.  They really are.  Yes they are."  He gets in quite a hurry when he writes, which makes me nine kinds of crazy, so I'm constantly telling him to slow down and remember to write the letters the way his teachers do.  He tries to write in cursive - which kind of looks like chicken scratch if I'm honest.  :-)

Here he is with his super sweet and super awesome teacher, Melinda Haggard.  Can't say enough good things about her!

 

Kindergarten awards day. 

 

Jacob grew and changed a lot this year.  He is more obedient and helpful at home and a great big brother to both his brothers at home. I'll always remember his kindergarten year as the year with no teeth.  Seriously - almost his entire year was without his whole row of front teeth.  SO CUTE!!!! He is a typical silly boy - doing silly, impulsive things that get him in trouble.  And he is SOOOO messy. But, for the most part, he does so well.  Jacob grew and changed...So did mommy.  I tried to cherish the time I had with him, because it felt so limited.  That was the biggest adjustment for me - not seeing him as much.  On the first day of kindergarten, (y'all remember...) I was a hot mess.  Well, I had nothing to worry about - he was great!  I am grateful that summer is here - we have a whole list of fun things planned.  I hope I can not be too busy to soak in all the precious little moments we can share.  My prayer is that I can truly enjoy all of my kiddos every single day.  I also hope first grade is just as fantastic as this kindergarten! 

 Here he is on the last day of school - took pictures like this on the first day of school too....