1st Annual Summer Kick-off Party

Cooper's last day of kindergarten was yesterday!

The day was a bit of a roller coaster ride for the little guy. When I woke him up in the morning I told him that tomorrow he didn't have to wake up for school. He told me he wanted to go to school and didn't want to have a break from school all summer long. Jake, the kids and I went to Cooper's school for the handing out of the kid's certificates and a slide show his teacher, Mr. Hall, put together of the whole year. Mr. Hall was so sweet recognizing each child and telling a little about each one. He said that Cooper was a model of responsibility and excited to be at school and that it showed in his work. He got very teary the whole morning, you could see how much he loves his job and the children he teaches. It's got to be hard having a group of kids every day then watching them move on each year. We appreciated his work so much this year. He is THE BEST kindergarten teacher ever. Every time I visited the classroom and observed him with the kids I could tell how great he was with them. It takes a special person to be in a room with 30 five and six year olds on the daily!!! He was SO organized and communicated SO well with us as parents. Cooper absolutely loved him and cried the whole way home from school yesterday when he realized Mr. Hall wouldn't be his teacher next year :(

We took all the kids to get an ice cream bar to celebrate then played at the park.

We decided a few weeks ago that we want to have a little party at the end of each school year to get summer started and at the end of the summer we'll have a little party to get ready for the next school year to start. Our party included yummy, fun hawaiian haystacks. I literally cannot remember the last time we had a dinner with ZERO complaints but it happened last night! The kids loved it, Jake had never had it and my neighbor had never heard of them. I'm pretty sure it's a Mormon thing? It typically takes cream of chicken soup but I don't like using cream of anything so I found this recipe. You can do whatever toppings you like. We had all the toppings chopped up in individual bowls and everyone built their own. That's probably the reason they all liked it so much.

During dinner we compiled our 2013 Summer Bucket List. We're traveling to Utah and Washington so we thought of some items that worked in all three states.


Here are a few pictures from our day: