End of the School Year

This post has been sitting on my “to do” list for a while. This is a hard school year to sum up for many reason. The biggest reason was that this year I had a front row seat to just how fast time flies.

Last summer I left my full time job to be around more and figure out what I would want to do next. That meant getting to pick the kids up from school everyday, supervise homework, go to after school activities and go on field trips without having to rearrange my schedule in a crazy way. What an awesome year. But what a fast year.

Aidan had a great year with many of the same friends and a few new ones. He enjoyed fifth grade though his teacher left at April vacation. Luckily two great teachers stepped in and finished strong. At the end of the school year he was assigned a project about his family heritage. That was a fun one where he made a video about being Italian and made meatballs. Fifth grade was also about more independence- walking to the park to meet us after school, walking to friends’ houses, meeting up to hang out and – on the last day of school- going out with some of his buddies to Sully’s. 11 years old is agreeing with him and he’s beginning to focus more on his interested- mostly science related. It’s been awesome to see him grow into such a young man. I miss baby Aidan but I’m really loving big Aidan.

Brendan had his best year academically. His teacher was out for most of the year on maternity leave but an advance plan to bring an experienced teacher to the school proved to be the best thing that happened to him. He did so well. Everything improved so much- his reading, his writing, his focus. He had great fun of field trips- making gingerbread cookies, celebrating the marathon when his class won the Kid Power challenge, the poetry slam and all the fun rhymes, poems and sing-song cues that will always be associated with third grade.

With the teacher they both had and love this year at Flag Day, one of the fun end of the year school celebrations.

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Brendan’s 9th Birthday

IMG_3943Our kids are a lot like me when it comes to birthday. They like to celebrate. No surprise that Brendan, the star of the show, likes to go big. We’ve had an epic Into the Woods party and Anna and Elsa at our house to name a few. This year we decided to go a different route but that didn’t stop this from being an over the top , I can’t believe that just happened birthday.

We decided instead of a big party we would find a couple of days to go to New York- at some point this summer/fall for kids’ first Big Apple trip. So the party would simply be a family one. It’s never simple.

IMG_5902The week before his birthday was the performance of Legally Blonde which he had asked his high school friend Billy to be a part of. That meant a group of BCT kids would be coming to the show. It also happened to be the same day at the Boston Pride parade. Bren found out the night before he couIMG_3283ldn’t go because of a rehearsal. So the group brought him trinkets from the parade to the show. What he didn’t know what that once I knew of their plans to come I invited them back to the house for cake. I’m not sure who was more excited about jumping out and yelling surprise.

IMG_3948The night of his family party was so much fun. Chris made him a Wicked cake and he had the best day (which also happened to be Father’s Day). Then my friend Meg came by with a little gift- a T shirt from the Tony Awards she picked up for him when she went to the dress rehearsal!

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Bren also had a small cake with the fellow Show Boat kids cast members and cupcakes with his and Aidan’s classes at school (and celebrated the birthday of a good friend who shares the date!). The whole cast of Show Boat also sang to him!

hamiltonBut here’s the part that simply amazed us. A Show Boat cast member knew a couple of Hamilton cast members who send a video message wishing him a happy birthday from the stage!! What an awesome and never to be forgotten experience!

He got lots of messages of love on his birthday. We can’t wait to see what is in store for 9 years old.

Field Trip

I’ve been so lucky to stay home this year and go on lots of great field trips with the kids. Even more special- the last field trip of the year involved both their classes going to the IMAX theater at the Aquarium. It’s so awesome that they can take public transportation to most people and the city is their classroom. And once again I got to see first hand how very different they are!

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