The Ben Folds Experience

Thai Margarita - yes please!

On Friday, the last day of school, I hightailed it out of the building just minutes after the kids left for the last time. It was date night! Many months prior, Matt had purchased tickets to a much-anticipated event, Ben Folds performing with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I love Ben Folds, I have always wanted to go to the symphony, we were celebrating our ninth anniversary, it was the last day of school... a perfect combination.

I knew our seats were going to be decent. We showed up, presented our tickets to the usher, and were told to go down to the fourth door on the left. As we walk down the hallway towards the stage, I quickly realized that the fourth doorway was the last doorway, the closest doorway to the front of the concert hall. Let me tell you, these seats were good. Good enough to see the adorably geeked out expression on Ben Fold's face, close enough to watch the string players' fingers fly over their instruments. It changed the whole experience and was totally worth it to sit so close to the action.

Nine years of wedding bliss with this guy.

Why, hello Ben!

So I have to say, I'm a symphony fan! Of course, it helps that they were playing all my favorite Ben Folds songs. But that didn't detract from the magic that was happening. It's amazing to close your eyes and listen to something that most of us take for granted - all the different instruments blending so seamlessly into music we're all familiar with - and then open your eyes and realize it's the result of all these individuals working together, each contributing their own part that separately might not make much sense but once combined, becomes a beautiful, living creation.

And then Ben had us all sing along. So fun, so memorable. Such a great way to kick off summer.

At one point, he started conducting the audience.

Annie Bug, 8 Months

Just as happy as ever. Loving table food and feeding herself. Not napping much but sleeping like a champ at night. Two teeth below and some ready to pop up top. Thunder thighs. Doing well in therapy. Sweetie all the way around.

Camping in First Grade

Well, we did it. Another year is in the books. Teachers report back next week for post-planning, but let's face it, work doesn't really count when there are no kids. So, yay summer!

Here's how we spent the last week in first grade. Best. Idea. Ever. The kids were super engaged and busy, letting me get my own things (ie: pack up the entire classroom) done. It was awesome. Everyone marked it as their favorite first grade memory and I'll definitely be making it a tradition. So without further ado: Welcome to Camp Loughman!

Crosswords and spooky ghost stories around the campfire.

The Reading Tent!

Designing camp t-shirts.

Craft Table: leaf rubbings.

Old school, but still cool!

Craft Table: marshmallow building!

Craft Table: coffee filter butterflies!

There were six rotations each day: the craft table, reading tent, writing center (they designed camp t-shirts, wrote ghost stories to read around the campfire, and wrote a letter to their parents from "camp"), a snack center (they made trail mix using up all the leftover food in the closet - best way to get rid of things!), the campfire, and game rug. All the activities were things they could do independently and all were relatively cheap (or free) to assemble.

Mother's Day

From my Annie-bug!

Love Violet's little bird

Ah, Mother's Day. The irony. A day just for mothers that I'm sure has more than one mother stressed out! Sometimes trying to relax ends up being more trouble than its worth. But I was so tired on Saturday that I crashed on the couch and poor Matt was forced to play with both girls - this after I made him set up not one but two tents in our living room. And after he took Violet shopping for a Mother's Day present and she insisted (before they even left the house, mind you) that she wanted to get me a Hello Kitty hooded towel. No amount of walking around Target convinced her that anything was better than that towel. Ha!

The reason I'm a mother.

Today we had the honor of hosting both our moms and other family members over at our house after church. We ordered Chinese so no moms would have to cook. Best. Idea. Ever. Everyone relaxed, napped, ate, played in the yard, and then to cap it all off, my wonderful went to the grocery store for me, baby in tow. Happy mother's day to us all!

Best mom eva!

Just chillin' with Uncle Lukas.

Camping Practice

So I had this insane idea. What if, the last week of school, traditionally a whirlwind of packing up the classroom, crazy schedules, eating in the room, specials being cancelled, the end of year party, kids already mentally on vacation... what if this week I transform the classroom into a campground? What if I bring in a tent and fake campfire. What if we do fun camping activities like writing ghost stories and making leaf rubbings and building structures out of marshmallows and toothpicks? What if we read camping stories and "make" s'mores? What if, after a long year of hard work and good learning, I actually take some time to enjoy my kids and our last few days together? After all, grades are finished, report cards are done, we're all just surviving each other for a few more days...

So in preparation for our camping week, I made Matt get our tent down. Then when it was too big, I made him get our other tent down. We set it up, played in it for a while, then packed it back up to ready it for school. I have to chase down some Christmas lights I can turn into stars on the ceiling. A fake campfire is being delivered tomorrow. The necessarily camping supplies are on the shopping list. And come this Friday afternoon, once the kids are gone, I'm setting up Camp Loughman! Or Camp-Much-Better-Name that I can't think of right now. I hope the kids love it!

Some reading in the tent.

The cat had to be kicked out multiple times. No claws allowed in the tent!

Testing out my end-of-year gift - autographed beach balls!

Busy

So intent on her homework.

Ah, if only I could be as dedicated to updating this blog as Violet was to her homework this weekend. Girlfriend took that seriously! And it was a multi-step project involving coloring, cutting and gluing!

Alas, it's that crazy time of year when we're over scheduled and stressed to the max. I have 14 days left with the first graders and about 26 days worth of material to cover (those snow days are really biting us in the butt now). I'm living day by day and trying not to think about all the looming to-do's like field day, report cards, end of year gifts, packing up my classroom...

And that's just on top of regular life: Annie's PT, small group, Violet's gymnastics, church nursery volunteering, life in general...

So yeah, I've fallen a bit behind and the old bloggity blog here. Hopefully there will be lots of time this summer to catch up with things.

Proof Violet can be organized when she feels like it.

Reading the My Little Pony book a girl in my class made for her!