I no longer have a kindergartner... I have a first-grader!  Conner finished up his first official year of school on Thursday with a fun field day.  Audrey and I (and Weyla Marge and Papa Doug) went to his Kindergarten Recognition Ceremony on Wednesday at his school.  It was really cute - they lined up around the gym and walked in two at a time to stand up front on some risers.

Here he is taking his turn walking to the front:

They sang 5 songs (in addition to the one they walked in to), then each student had the opportunity to come to the microphone and say his/her name before walking off the stage to get their certificate.  I'm sure as a 6-year old I would've been scared to death to do this, but Conner did great!



We then all went to the cafeteria, where they had cookies and juice available.  After hanging out for a little bit, we were ushered out so that they could get ready for the lunch that was soon to start.  I'd discovered on Monday night from a fellow mom at baseball practice that most parents take the kids to lunch and then don't go back to school for the rest of the day.  I'd taken the whole day off and could've done this, but then someone else told me that Mr. Bailey (the principal) didn't like the practice and was discouraging parents from doing this.  I ended up leaving it up to Conner.  He decided Wednesday after the program that he wanted to stay. It turned out that there were only 5 kids in his class (out of 20) but he had a ball.  They still had their normal library and computer times, but also got to go to an extra gym class. 

After we left, Audrey and I went to New Richmond Elementary for her preschool screening.  I was really worried going in that she would be all shy and not want to talk to anyone - we'd discussed it several times, and she knew that she needed to be herself (outgoing, funny, smart) but I didn't know if she'd actually do it!  She had no problems going off with the teacher when it was her turn for the screening and was chatting as they walked.  I'm very hopeful that she kept it up; I think she did.... Aud told me that she spelled her name for them and sang her ABC's (but who knows if that's really true or not!).  We'll hopefully find out early next week if she got in or not.

After a quick trip home to change clothes, Aud and I then went to get her hair cut and had lunch at McDonald's.  She does her best when I'm trying to take a picture not to look at the camera - what a goofball! 

We made it home for about an hour before picking Conner up at school (a little early) and then going to my school for a student/teacher wiffleball game.  All in all a very busy (but fun!) day.

It's been really warm this week (mid to upper 80's... definitely not what I wanted to happen before school got out!) so I took this kids to Coney Island this morning for our first trip of 2010.  They had a ball even though the water was a bit chilly.  Actually, they didn't even acknowledge that the water was cold - that was all me.  After a little bit of freaking out about floating around by herself in her floatie, Aud ended up loving to jump off of the "island" in the middle of the pool and then didn't want me to even touch her floatie.  Conner went off the diving board once (with me waiting for him in the water) but tried to do a dive and ended up doing a belly-smacker.  He didn't want to try it again.  I don't think that will last long, though!  (As we swam over to the ladder where Audrey was waiting, I discovered her standing there peeing.  Lovely.)  We stayed for an hour and a half before heading home for lunch and a nap for Audrey (who desperately needed one).

This evening we all piled in the Jeep and headed down to the Taste of Cincinnati that was being held downtown.  It was a nice festival-like atmosphere with lots of different restaurants represented in booths.  Audrey and I had pizza (mine was a yummy chicken bacon caesar), Conner had fish and chips, and Eric had some sort of steakburger.  We also got fried pickles and a giant soft pretzel.  Then we went to Dairy Queen for dessert. Can't beat that!

I'm not sure how much I've mentioned this on the blog, but I started jogging in January.  After struggling through 2 15-minute miles at the beginning, I've worked my way to 3+ miles at a sub-10 minute pace.  I actually ran in my first 5K last weekend and didn't do as well as I'd liked but then I looked it up on a map online and found that instead of being 3.1 miles it was actually about 3.3.  There were also some crazy hills that weren't pleasant.  I finished in 30:51, which was 19th out of 48 in my age group.

Just 3 more days of school for me!