We Finally Have Them All Home!

Eric and I have been having fun since he graduated from preschool a few weeks ago, 

but what we've really been waiting for is to have all the other kids home as well! 

Finally, last week it started to happen.

School ended for Ben last Friday, with a 4+-hour science exam and a few other less stress-inducing presentations and projects due. He was pretty happy to be finished, even though Jason recruited him to his work crew for the next Monday. 

Besides the forced labor, Ben has been crafting away on models, playing with Eric and enjoying evenings without homework.

He got his report card yesterday and was happy to have done pretty well in everything.

This was a little feature about Ben in his school's yearbook.

Yesterday was the last day for Janae and Alaina. We had been told last week that Janae would be receiving her school's most prestigious award for her grade: a Renaissance award for excellence in academics and the arts. I had to keep this a secret, which wasn't easy.

Janae's teacher is leaving the school to get married and move to Europe, so there were a few tears at the assembly. 

Last week Eric, Alaina and I attended Janae's class play, where she played an opera singer--and actually sang "Mio Babbino Caro" in its entirety, in Italian.

Earlier that day she'd got a perfect score on her music final exam, where she'd played a song on the ukulele that she'd had to teach herself. Her teacher had asked her afterwards to play it again behind her head, which she'd also done without any problem. Her teacher went and got her a box of donuts as a reward, since she'd also been helping other students in the class to learn the song several days after school.

She was a little reluctant to repeat the performance at home ... or at least to have it recorded.

Attending a fine arts school has been such a great experience for both Ben and Janae, and seeing them end the year so successfully really confirmed to me that we'd made the right choice in sending them there.

Alaina was sad to have her last day of Grade 4. She has really loved her teacher, Mrs. Peters, and had a great year in every way. She spent the afternoon hanging out in the classroom with her friends, since the annual family picnic had been cancelled due to some heavy rain earlier in the day. 

I brought the girls a giant chocolate chip cookie to celebrate the last day.

Now Eric and I finally have them all home!