The Graduate!!

Not that there was any doubt, but she did it!  Ella graduated Preschool on May 16th, 2014.  From what I have heard Ella will be the youngest in her kindergarten class this fall (not by much), but I think she is ready.  

On her last day of school her class sang some songs and had a mini-graduation ceremony in the classroom.  Here is some of SMMA's class of 2023!!

You can just see the anticipation on her face waiting for her name to be called...

and this is the "great" picture I got when I said "Ella, smile with your diploma".  They were handed a little windmill toy with their diploma…there was no more smiling without the windmill in her face.

That is until I took it away to get a picture with her teacher, Mrs. Doerr.  I gotta hand it to her…keeping this group of 19 four and five year olds entertained and quiet is no small task, not to mention teaching them a few things along the way!!

After the graduation "ceremony" on Friday the class got together one more time on Monday morning for a fun field day at Crestwood Park.  Here is Ella with her best friend Emma on the swings.

Ella has done some growing this year and gained a few muscles too.  This has allowed her to master a few things at the local parks.  She now shimmies up every pole.

Swings across the monkey bars (with some help reaching the first one).

Scales the rock walls.

And climbs to the top of anything she can.

Because Ella is all over the place and constantly yelling "Look Mom!"and "Mom, look where I am!" Gavin is feeling the pressure to keep up.  He will scale the rock walls  (I took this picture before I ran under him to spot him as he climbed).

And climb as high as he can on just about anything.

No monkey bars yet, but Dinosaurs are a hit.

I know these pictures make it seem like we were the only ones at the park, but there were actually about  50 other little kids from the preschool running around.  It was a pretty big park and they had tons of games, toys, bubbles and food set up, so we always seemed to be doing the opposite of what the crowd was doing.  It was a great day and a great way to end preschool!  Ella is so excited to start kindergarten, she even woke up on the first day of summer break saying "do I get to go to kindergarten today?"!  She is still small, but there is more smiles, SPUNK, ATTITUDE, surprises and laughter in her little body than most of the kids I know.  I love her more than she'll ever know and I can't believe she will be 5 in less than a month!!