Preschool Graduation - Lucas

Lucas graduated from preschool on Wednesday. It was a bittersweet day filled with laughter and tears, memories and talks of the future ... kindergarten! His preschool puts on a wonderful commencement ceremony complete with slide show, pomp and circumstance. Miss Betsy asks all the children what they want to be when they grow up. Lucas said he wanted to be a Policeman, which was news to me since all along he'd been saying he wanted to be a "tractor guy."

Walking across the bridge...

to receive his diploma.

Miss Christy and Miss Malia with Lucas.

Miss Eva, our babysitter, came to see the ceremony.

Future world leaders, for sure!

Miss Susan, the best preschool director in the world.

One of our gifts to the school, mentioned in this post, with Roxanne, Susan and Audrey.

 Back in class with his sweet teachers again.

Lucas Nault, preschool class of 2012.

Blackhawk Helicopter Tour

Ethan's Cub Scout den organized a tour of a Blackhawk helicopter at a local airfield. Mark took him and was the photographer for the day.

I love this picture. Absolutely love it.

Baby birds nesting on a Humvee tire.

KDO Helped Them Grow...

Lucas, Caitlyn and Cole are the youngest kids in three different families that will be graduating from preschool this month. All our older kids spent two or three years at KDO and eight years later, all three families will be leaving! It's bittersweet, so we did a group photo session to get some pics to give to the staff. They turned out so great, we made this one into a large canvas print ... 

and put lots more into a collage print and framed it.

The kids are in birth order going down the slide with the youngest at the top: Lucas, Cole, Caitlyn, Kate, Ethan, Camryn, Sarah, Colin, Connor and Jacob.

I was really proud of myself for taking these photos and getting ten kids to look at me and smile all at once! Well, almost. 

Loving Legos

Our friends living in Germany for a couple years visited LegoLand there and sent the boys these cute hats! They even fought over the plastic bag the hats came in! 

Only in Texas

We found this book in our pediatrician's office.

Cinco de Mayo Party

Our friends, Tonya and Mike, threw a Cinco de Mayo party - for grown-ups. Catered by Chuy's and with a margarita machine, it was a rockin' party!

I provided the desserts: margarita cupcakes with tequila lime frosting, sugar cookies in the shape of margarita glasses and sombreros (that somehow escaped getting in a picture) and jello shots shaped like mustaches! It was hilarious and wouldn't you know - the jello mustaches were gone first! Ole!

Reading Restaurant

The first graders host a Reading Restaurant every year and it was Ethan's turn to be a Chef! They present a menu of the selections they will read like auto-biography, non-fiction and poetry, and you pay for your selections with compliments. 

Afterwards, there are light refreshments - good thing - because it's hard explaining to Lucas that it's not a REAL restaurant! Our compliments to our Little Chef!

Oliver K. Woodman

Oliver K. Woodman is like Flat Stanley. He was sent to us by Ethan's friend Matthew who lives in Virginia. Here's Oliver's story:

OLIVER K. WOODMAN VISITS SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS!

Matthew sent me to see his good buddy, Ethan, in San Antonio, Texas. Matthew and Ethan used to go to preschool together and their birthdays are only nine days apart!

Ethan wanted to show me lots of cool things in San Antonio.  I saw the world’s largest pair of cowboy boots. They are 40 feet tall. It would take 160 Oliver K. Woodmans standing on each other’s heads to reach the top!

Since my feet aren’t nearly as big as those boots, I got tired of walking all over downtown. So I hopped on the Alamo Trolley!

My next adventure was at the Alamo!  The Alamo was originally built as a mission church to teach Native Americans about religion. Texans and Mexicans fought over the Alamo many times but the Battle of the Alamo in 1836 was the most famous.  The Mexican army cut off the water supply for 13 days and killed all the Texas Revolutionaries inside the Alamo.

Texas eventually won the war at the Battle of San Jacinto and the Mexican army left the Alamo. Many years later, a group of people decided to honor the heroes of the Alamo and San Jacinto with a Battle of Flowers. The people actually threw real flowers at each other!

Over the years, the Battle of Flowers has become part of a bigger 10-day event called FIESTA. There are kings and queens, carnivals, parties, concerts, sports tournaments, military events and parades. The kids in San Antonio don’t have school on the day of the Battle of Flowers Parade!

Downtown San Antonio is very pretty. There are lots of fountains. I wanted to take a swim because it is very hot there! It already feels like summertime! Flowers are blooming and I took a rest in a pretty garden.

We walked under some bridges to see the river that runs through the city. Under the bridge there was this neat picture of the Alamo and other famous buildings and it was all made of tile!  See the blue and green water near the bottom? That’s the river!

They call this part the Riverwalk. No railings! I had to be careful not to fall in!

There are lots of restaurants and shops and hotels along the Riverwalk. I could explore for days! You can even take a boat ride.

I met lots of interesting people and saw a restaurant full of piñatas! I even tried to jump over Hemisfair Tower!

  

One of my most favorite adventures was going to a Spurs basketball game! I even learned a new cheer. GO SPURS GO! 

I sure had a good time in San Antonio. I couldn’t wait to get back to Winterpock Elementary and tell you all about it!