Last Day of Kindergarten

SMC Panther paw cookies for the girls' party at school

The evidence that Tucker found the cookies!

Ms. Landrith, Emma, and Molly on the last day of school. Ms. Landrith started to cry, so this was the only shot that we got, but it was a good one.

Well, not exactly what we expected . . . as usual. The girls were supposed to celebrate their summer birthday party at school today, Tucker was supposed to meet with his teacher for next year, and then we were ALL going to attend mass together to finish out the school year. The kindergarteners were to sing a special song at the end of mass in special recognition of their "graduation". However, God seemed to have different plans in mind for us. Rayleigh woke up with a migraine headache. It was severe enough that it was causing her to vomit - so needless to say - no school, no party, and no special song for Rayleigh. It was so sad that I just wanted to cry for her. Molly was very brave, however, and picked up the slack for Rayleigh, and made sure that she was not forgotten during school that day.

Tyler ended up staying with Rayleigh, who had fallen back asleep before we left for school. I took the other two with me. We took Ms. Wendy's sugar cookies (the best), ice cream cups, and Kool-Aid drinks for the birthday party. Molly was so proud to have such a great treat to share with her friends, but paid special to set one back for Rayleigh for later. Tucker and I headed back home for a short while before going to meet his teacher. Take note of the picture above to imagine my despair when I discovered that he had helped himself to one of the extra sugar cookies with blue icing, unbeknownst to Tyler or I. He was apparently sold on having a sugar cookie for breakfast and knew that if he asked, I would probably have a different suggestion. So . . . he simply snuck one! TURKEY! It wasn't until he had blue frosting from ear to ear and all down his cute little outfit for school that I discovered the missing cookie!

Tucker and I went to meet Ms. Jill, which he loved. He was shy at first, but one look at all of the great toys and activities in the room and he was sold. His teacher is as sweet at pie, so I think they will hit it off just fine. The kindergarten class sang "Jesus Loves Me" and "Jesus Loves the
Little Children". It was absolutely precious and brought tears to my eyes. They are so innocent, and have so much ahead of them, yet have not a care in the world. In that moment I realized how very tender they still are, and how quickly that will all slip away. I couldn't help but cry - I was a bit of an emotional basket case that day, in case you haven't realized! I think the last day may have even been harder that the first for me.

By the time mass was over, Rayleigh had slept off her headache and she was hungry. So Tyler and I took all of the kids to The Mall Deli, their fav, for a special lunch. All in all, the day turned out ok - to have been such a crazy one!