last day of school

My kids' last day of school was Wednesday. I am so glad. I cannot wait to just relax and  not have to watch the clock all day. I feel like all I have done for the past 9 months is go to the bus stop. 540 times to be exact. Yes, I counted. I was that annoyed by it.

I gave the teachers a really lame gift this year. Swedish fish in a bag with a tag that said, "you are o"fish"ally the best" I also included gift cards for Starbucks (for the special teachers, nurse and bus drivers) and Target for their classroom teachers. I wish I could say   I wanted to do more but this has been a tough year and I am glad to be done. I did not come up with the fish idea myself. I blatantly stole it from someone else's blog who stole it from a Pin, so if it is your idea. Thanks. Sorry I don't know who I got it from. Their version was way cuter. 

 I love these guys (and girl!)

 Tanner is demonstrating the concept of "your head is not screwed on right" I guess. 

 We are super proud of Zoe and Parker for doing a fantastic job at school this year. Especially with their crazy mom who forgot things, yelled a lot to "hurry up we have to get to the bus stop (I hate the bus stop!), and other school issues, it's a lot to deal with but they both did better than we could have ever imagined. 

I have to say I am over the top excited for Zoe. She wanted to win the most Reading Counts points award this year and she did. She told me in August that she was going to try to win. She had to read a lot of books, take tests on the computer and this was all independent work. She even had it written on a post-it note by her desk. "Win Reading Counts Awards" so cute. Well that girl won by a landslide. She got 827 points. The closest competitor had about 400. She read over 3,000,000 words! The computer test calculates the scores. We were thrilled. The principal made her this crown for the awards assembly because she had the most in the school, beating even the older kids. 

More than anything this just helped her feel more confident and proud. She has always loved reading and now she loves Harry Potter because of it.  (I am so glad, there are so many other icky things she could be interested in!) All those trips to the library have paid off. I wish I could bottle up this pride and enthusiasm and save it for those teen age years when it might not come so easily.

Now, let the summer begin, already!

Any ideas how to train my kiddos to sleep a teeny bit later?  ;)