New principal at IVE

Our new principal started at Issaquah Valley Elementary this summer.
She had the PTA board members and their families over to her house for
a homemade lunch. The kids loved meeting her plus she had a
professional sized trampoline and 3 young pygmy goats. Monti decided to

skip her last day of choir camp to go to the luncheon. She explained to Joe,

"Dad, how often do you get to go to the principal's house?" We all had a good

time. Her yard was gorgeous — full of beautiful trees and fresh herbs. For

dessert she served us lavender shortbread cookies containing fresh lavender

from her garden. I was excited to hear about some of her plans for the new

school year. I am very optimistic we will see some positive changes at IVE

with her at the helm.

Walk-a-thon results

One of my last jobs for the Walkathon at school was to put together a
bulletin board that displayed the results for the students. We
exceeded all our goals this year. The kids at the school raised over
$31,000. I like to think Joe's Blues Brothers interpretation helped
rally the kids around the fundraising goal.

WAT bulletin board

I was so done with promoting the walk-a-thon after working all weekend on the opening assembly but I had committed myself to also putting together a bulletin board. My goal was to keep it simple and get it done quickly. There was little overall plan for this project hence the
multiple shades of light green that drive me nuts.

The Blues Brothers come to IVE

Joe and Gary did great at the assembly. The kids laughed and screamed at all the right moments. Best of all Joe really enjoyed being up on stage. I felt like I had dragged him into the show and I knew he was initially dreading the whole event so it really was important to me that he had fun.

One of the moms tripped over the audio cable and broke the cable so when I tried to play the audio for the last song there was nothing. It took us about 4 minutes of dead space to figure out we could do the final act if someone literally held the cable in place. I hated it not going off perfect but overall the assembly was a big success.

Practicing for the assembly

To kick off the school walkathon they hold an assembly to pump up the students and to explain their role in the fundraiser process. We recruited Joe and another dad, Gary, to be our Blues Brothers. The opening act included singing "Sole Man". The 'sole' spelling was our small tie in to anything doing with walking. The last song was "Everybody Needs Somebody to Pledge." Once Joe had his lines memorized he started having fun with his role. I loved seeing him doing a little acting again and his Chicago accent was very good especially when you are in Seattle. In addition to doing all the talking he had to put dance moves together for 6 different songs (each only about 60 sec.). Liz's son Josh was helping Joe and Gary come up with different moves for each song. We also had a group of moms who were the "sole sistas". They were the backup dancers for the opening and closing acts. I was glad to sit this performance out because Kerri outdid herself with the fancy footstep choreography.

Dahlia's science fair

As you can probably tell I gave Dahlia a lot of help putting together her science fair presentation. She did however pick out the fancy flower wrapping paper to use as her background. I tried to talk her out of it because I was afraid it would be too busy but the pink and purple flowers did work perfectly with her subject matter. Her project presentation was a big hit and everyone loved her choice.

Monti's science fair

Monti put together most her own project. Joe helped her type up her descriptions and I glued all the pieces on the board. Many of the kids found her hamster experiment to be very entertaining. I worked at the science fair all day while each class went through all the experiments on display. It was so much fun to talk to kids about the various projects. By far the Mentos/Coke phenomenon was the most popular subject matter.

Monti singing Dites Moi

Golden Acorn

They handed out Golden Acorn awards to a handful of people at our school including my friend Leah during the Tuesday night PTA meeting. She puts so much time and energy into all her school projects. Congratulations!

Potty training for Annie

For Monti's science fair project she will see if it is possible to
train a hamster to use a litter box. We added the corner litter box to
the cage today. We can't wait to see if she will use it or not.

Dahlia's birthday week at school

This week Dahlia had a chance to celebrate her birthday at school. She wore her birthday crown and everybody sang Happy Birthday to her before eating their donuts. She made an "All about me..." poster this week to display in her classroom. It was very easy to tell who had helped her make her poster. All you needed to do was to read the responses written down on it. For example under the categories "my favorite people", "my favorite things", and "what I like" you could find the same answer for all three of them...Montserrat.

Eric Carle project

As part of the Art Docent program at IVE, Dahlia's class put together a
mural imitating Eric Carle's books. First the class painted large
pieces of paper with lots of different colors and patterns. Second we
pulled students over to our table in the back of class to cut out shapes from the paper they had made earlier. Then we took the shapes they had cut out and
we stapled them to the hallway bulletin board in the appropriate spot. The final village looked great. Eric Carle himself would be impressed with their work.

Cat and fishbowl

Dahlia's artwork.

Finale at night

Our act was a complete success except for the fact that I had it in my mind I would be meeting Joe at the ER with Dahlia right afterwards. All the moms had a great time doing the act even those who had their own fears and doubts.

Dites-moi

Monti sang the song "Dites-Moi" from the musical South Pacific at the
IVE Variety Show. She sang her little heart out. In the musical this
song is sung by a couple of Polynesian children. Monti and I searched the
internet to find an appropriate costume. The dress came all the way
from Guam — we found it on ebay. I will post video when I get it.

Dahlia's heart

Moments before the variety show evening performance began Dahlia told
Joe her heart was "beeping" fast. I had to manage the backstage area 
during the performance so Joe had to care for Dahlia. He took her out
to the car to see if she could relax and get her heart back to normal.
Relaxing wasn't working so I would leave backstage every once in a
while to try something new to get her heart to slow down. I tried
gagging her, holding her upside down, and splashing her face with cold
water from the drinking fountain. If anyone saw me doing these things
they would have thought I was just plain abusive. Nothing was working
so I finally told Joe to start driving towards the ER. On the way over
she feel asleep in the car. The little nap did the trick! As they
pulled into the ER parking lot Dahlia woke up and she told us her
heart was OK. At first we weren't sure that she wasn't just saying
that because she didn't want to go in but it truly had slowed down and
no doctor intervention was needed. Thank goodness!

Cougar Mamas

The teachers never perform at the evening performance of the variety show Liz (dark hair in front) had the idea that the volunteers that ran the show should get their moment in the spotlight. People agreed very reluctantly. I was on board right away. Liz also came up with the name "Cougar Mamas" for our act since the cougar is the mascot for IVE. At least half of our act had no idea of the double entendre of "Cougar Mamas". Here is a picture from our one and only practice. Liz provided lots of liquid courage and Trish, our drummer, provided lots of laughs. We all wondered at the end of the night would it be as much fun on stage without the wine.

They will talk about this finale for years

The surprise act at the end of the Variety Show included a group of
teachers rocking out to the song "Old Time Rock N' Roll." To set the
stage for their act we used some fog in a can. We had tested it before
hand and used it in the opening number but this time the fire alarm
went off after spraying some backstage. The fire alarm occurred right
in the middle of three first graders dressed as angels singing so
sweetly. The kids were so efficient and calm when it came to getting
out of the school. The whole school had to evacuate and wait for the
fire department to arrive and clear us for re-entry. There were at
least 8 kids from the show outside barefoot including Monti. By the
time we got back inside the kids had to catch buses to go home so the
teachers never made it on stage.

Nerves

Monti woke at 5:30 am the morning of the Variety Show full of nerves.
When asked what was making her so stressed we found out it wasn't the
fact that she would be singing a solo in front of more than 300
people. Instead she was terrified she would hold up her sign the wrong
direction during a skit act she performed with her friend Morgan.
Right before she went on stage for the skit she started to tear up
regarding the issue of the dreaded sign. I quickly resolved all fears
by volunteering to walk out on stage myself carrying the sign when the
appropriate line was read. During the daytime performance I walked out
with the sign covering my face. Lots of kids in the audience were
whispering things like "That's really her mom." After the performance
Monti asked that I not cover my face with the sign. She wanted me to
really act mad which she said I should be very good at doing.

Continuous line art

The project seemed very simple but even "simple" with a class of
kindergartners can have its fair share of frustration. The kids were
to create a design using straight or curved lines but they had to do
it without ever lifting their pen off the paper. As a parent volunteer
you want to help several children instead of focusing on your own but
Dahlia just wasn't getting it. I finally took her hand and physically
helped her make some designs. These are the moments when I crave more
patience.

1st Variety Show practice

The first practice was filled with lots of chaos and drama. Kids would
just create acts on the fly including Monti who decided at the last
minute to join her friend in a poetry reading act. There were also
tears when one girl was dropped from an act by her so-called friends.
We have a lot of work to do in 4 weeks.

Indian, Pilgrims, and Turkeys

Each kindergarten class came to the feast dressed as a different
Thanksgiving character. Dahlia's class came dressed as Indians. They
joined kids dressed as pilgrims and turkeys to sing a couple songs for
the parents after they were done eating.

Getting the food ready for the feast

I worked with several other parents for an hour getting all the food
ready for the feast. It took so long to cut up all the fruit for the
fruit salad and it killed me when they poured in marshmallows and Cool
Whip on top of all of our perfectly good fruit. In the end, the kids hardly
touched the marshmallow/Cool-Whip/fruit but the popcorn was devoured.

Organizing Christmas caroling performance

We had our first practice and organizational meeting for the school
caroling group. A group of 50 students will be performing  
Christmas carols at a two of the assisted living homes in Issaquah.
The woman organizing the group had a subset of us over to her
house to figure things out before the entire group would practice together.
Monti is one of the kids singing a solo. She is doing the first verse
of "When Christmas Comes to Town" from The Polar Express movie.

Lockdown drill

The kids during the week had a lockdown drill at school. Dahlia explained that it is what they do when there is a bad person who enters the school. She told me the teacher locks the door, covers the windows, and they sit on the floor and hold their breath (literally). I do wonder if this truly prepares the kids for a likely event or if it gives them another thing to unnecessarily stress about in life. After researching it a little I found that on average 1 person is killed each year and 80 are injured in school fires. In the last 10 years there have been 118 shooting deaths on school property. This only includes K-12 schools. So sadly I have concluded that there is good reason to practice a lockdown situation at such an early age. Dahlia is still waiting for us to practice a lockdown drill at home.