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.