Maddie's graduation

This year went super fast!!  Maddie graduated from kindergarten on May 15th!  She always tells me she wishes she was still in preschool so she could stay home with me, or that she wishes I was her teacher at school so I can be with her all day.  I love this sweet age!  Maddie is not just a sweet little helper at home but I hear, also at school.  She is so responsible, and being the middle child, sadly, has to learn how to do things for herself without my help most of the time.  I will always remember how she would come home and go straight to the dining table, get her stuff out, run upstairs and change into play clothes, come back, get a drink or snack, and go right to work on her homework, day in and day out.  She would do it all by herself with no prompting from me (since she can read very well!).  When she was done, she would go to our big bookshelf in the theatre room and pick a book to read.  She would come back to the kitchen, set the timer on the microwave for 15 minutes and read her book.  When it beeped, she would come find me and announce, "I'm done with my homework, Mom!" She is so independent, one of the things that I love about her.  She would usually help me make dinner and clean up (she is the best vacuum helper there is) and loves to do dishes too.  She always says she is just practicing so she can be an even better mom than me!  I love it, I said that she would definitely be a much much better mom since she is practicing so young!  Of course she kept straight A's all year and would tell me from time to time that she really needs to be in first grade since kindergarten is so easy (not so fast, Moo!)!

She grew a few inches and the same dress was above her knees before school got out.

Maddie on the last day of school:

Maddie dressed herself for her graduation - she picked out her dress, shoes, hair clip, and sweater to wear.  She ended up not wearing the sweater since it was a little warmer than she thought!

Maddie loved having Ms Jenny Jones this year!  She looked forward to seeing her teacher every day.

Standing outside her class room

Some of Maddie's kinder friends from our ward except for the 2nd and 3rd kids from the left - Jacob, Jackson, and Halle (who also all went to preschool at my house)

Maddie kept asking if her Grandma was coming to watch her graduation!

It reads: My favorite memory from kindergarten was Fun Friday because I got to play and get stuff.

Getting her diploma from Mr. Brown

We don't usually have everyone altogether to events these days but everyone wanted to come to watch Maddie graduate!  We love this girl!!!  Can't believe she is old enough to be in first grade!

Preschool graduation - Year 1 for Zaney!

Yep, May is a busy month and it's always scrambled with all kinds of end-of-year stuff to plan and go to!  Zane was super excited to get to do preschool graduation - I included the first years to this year's program.  It went well and Zane participated in it - was so cute!  He learned so much this year - recognizes most of his letters and sounds and loves the letter Z!  He would always say "hey that's z for zane" every time he sees it.  He likes to name things and tell you things that start with whatever letter he sees.  He loves being the name tag helper at school - surprisingly he also recognizes the names of all his preschool friends - he would take one look at the name tag and deliver it to the right child sitting at the line!  So even though I haven't really paid too much attention to him at preschool (I have 10 other kids to teach) - he has picked up a lot this year.

Zane and his class (he is sitting next to his "best friend Kate") - he loves Kate because she took on being his helper and mentor/teacher at school.

Grandma came to watch too!  

Zane's official first day of school and end of year photos (I take one of all the preschoolers to see how much they've grown and give them a portrait for their graduation gift from me):

Nope, he wouldn't smile!  and darn, his hair wasn't even done, but this is how he looked on the first day of school.

And yep, yet again, not dressed for pictures at the end of the year, but this ended up being the picture I printed since it captured his personality right down to the not so clean shirt.