Celebrate!

Sniff, sniff!  My son is a kindergarten graduate.  This little celebration is such a tear-jerker for me.  The students do an amazing job of singing and reciting, and I get all choked up. 

The class of 2024 - yikes!

Andrew all ready to recite.

Andrew with one of his BBFs, Jacob

The wonderful, incomparable, fantastic Mrs. Huiksen!

Another great friend, David

Kathryn with Paige (one of Anika's best friends who was there for her brother David's celebration).

Childhood Joy

This post may look familiar as I have a similar one from two years ago here.  Where does the time go?  I find May/end of the school year to be one of those reflective times as you look at the year gone by and how much changing/learning/growing was done.  The challenge for me is to make sure that my year matched my children's in terms of growth and maturity.  (I don't always make the grade!)

Being home without without the older kids means that Kat gets the beater all to herself!  It is almost as good as being in school!

My precious 4 year old!

Total Eclipse of the . . .

When I heard from Lloyd that we were going to be in prime viewing for an annual eclipse in northern CA.  I was so geeked.  I jumped online and looked up directions for a pinhole projector and got all excited.  Then I learned that it was going to occur during church on Sunday night.  Well, I'm afraid that I skipped church tonight to experience this amazing phenomenon.  (The kids were excited but Mom was over the top;-))

Our pinhole projector: the longer it is the larger the image it projects.

Can you see the shadow start to eat into the image of the sun?

Progress. . .

All the amateur astronomers!

Almost there. . .

Keep coming. . .

Crazy shadows!!!

Our total eclipse shadows

Totally geeked geek!!!!

Kathryn's 4th Birthday

Happy Fourth Birthday to our Precious Kat!!!

Kathryn requested a "purple flower cake" so Mommy did what I could to deliver:-)

Some sibling love!!!!

Opening her Lego Friends present!

Waiting patiently while her family sang to her.  (We discussed earlier in the week whether she would sing along or not.  She chose not to!)

What a day!

Since Mother's Day is always Sunday, I'm continually amazed at the way my busy husband makes this day special.  Even though he had to preach twice today, he still helped the kids to make this a pampered day for Mommy.  I was greeted to a rousing "Happy Mother's Day" and a big sign this morning.  I opened a precious gift from Anika (two magnets she made a school and a home-make book Prayers from Your Child's Heart.  Initially she wanted a prayer for every day of the year . . . then one for every week. . . she settled for two a month:-) They are so special. I also got an envelope of coupons good for "anything you want"!)  Then we enjoyed a wonderful mornng of worship.  When we got home, I was directed to sit down and turn my kitchen over to the experts!  I was treated to an amazing meal of grilled steak (perfect medium well), a twice-baked potato, and amazing green beans (specially created by Anika & Lloyd with bacon bits, tomatoes, seasonings, etc.)  A red-velvet cake from Costco rounded out the perfect meal.  I couldn't be more happy! 

The reason I get to celebrate today: Anika, Andrew, & Kathryn!
BTW, I let them eat, too;-)

Journey of Praise

Anika's second-grade class have been busy beavers working on a special program called Journey of Praise.  Combing scripture readings, recitations, solos, songs and dances, the students led us in a musical extravaganza. 
P- provider
R- redeemer
A - answer
I - Immanuel
E - eternal father

Students could choose how they would like to be involved and Anika did a number of memorized lines and a solos

The entire second grade at RC this year!  Anika's class has 15 students:-)

. 

Muffins and Makeover for Mom!!!

I was so excited to enjoy my special mother's day treat with my second kindergardener.  I loved being pampered by my special man at a "Muffins and Makeovers for Mom" event at school.  We enjoyed noshing on muffins, fresh fruit and juice.  Then I got a make-over: make-up, foot rub, pedicure & manicure.  What a special day!

Andrew enjoying his  muffin!

Mom (sans make-up): the before shot!

Special pampering from my special guy!

Mom's makover: the afters shot (can you tell mommy has pretty neutral/natural make-up)

Tball Excitement

Andrew is absolutely estatic to be playing ball this year.  This is his first year playing but he is picking things up really well.  In this age-group they pitch three pitches before they use the tee and Andrew has made a decent showing of hitting the ball without any aid.  He's got a pretty good arm, too. So, you know where you can find the Wicker family every Sat. for the next two months -- on the ball diamond cheering on the Thunder!

Andrew choose #12. (One of his dad's old numbers!)

So excited!



Hey batter, batter, batter!!!!

Loving Ripon

The last Sat. in April, we participated in a wonderful event called LoveRipon.  It was a community-wide service day sponsered by numerous churches in town.  There were loveripon.com signs up all over town and you could go online and pick a service project.  Projects were designed to be family-friendly and ranged from baking cookies, to landscaping, to painting, to pulling cables at a local school to help move their computer lab.  It was an amazing day -- we worked hard at spreading woodchips the bike trail.  The kids were troopers!

Anika, Andrew and Kathryn show that they love Ripon!

The kick-off crowd at the community center.

Katnryn gets into the spirit of things

Working hard to spread out the wood chips