The Weekend Lens

Our weekend looked a little like this:

Simon's classroom had a reunion picnic on Saturday morning. His placement is in a Comprehensive Learning Center at his middle school where he receives extra supports in social skills and academics. His main teacher has been at his school for the past 15 years and she is nothing short of exceptional. She's had a major impact on so many of the kids who have made their way through her program during their middle school years because of her tireless dedication and love for her students. It was fun to meet some of the kids that are now in high school and beyond and chat with their parents about that paths they've walked.

Simon loved seeing his friends outside of normal school hours and they had fun playing catch with a beachball in the courtyard. I loved watching Anna play with all the kids and the other siblings.

New stamps arrived in my mailbox that are now available in my shop. I was so excited for these to be made - they include two enlarged alphabets on 6x8 sheets (one a very classic sans serif and the other a fun mixed alphabet) and one set of 18 of my favorite sentiments. You can check them out here. You can see how I've used the digital set of some of these sentiments right on photos in a past Weekend Lens post. Digital sentiment sets available here: Glorious Moments and Glorious Travel Moments.

On Saturday afternoon Anna and her friend Scout celebrated their 6th birthdays together. Anna's actual birthday was back in February but because of a bunch of different reasons we never scheduled a friend/kid party for her until now.

It was super fun to have a double-party with 30 kindergartners at a local gymnastics place. We ended up over at Scout's house after the party and the girls opened their presents together which was even more fun. Good people.

Anna is definitely a helper. She helped me stamp small manilla tags and pack up fun little paint cans for the goody-bags. We used my Thanks stamp set and Anna kept saying, "Mom, this looks like you wrote it!"

I ordered small little paint cans and sunglasses and some candy from Oriental Trading Company to use as the goody-bags.

I asked Anna to write up a list of the five things she loves most right now. I'm planning to add it to a layout here in the next week or so. Her answers? Swimming, drawing, ABC's, jump on the trampoline, and counting.

We spent Sunday late afternoon at the pool with Aaron and the kids and some other friends. It was in the high 60's (maybe low 70's) which isn't warm enough for me to get in but they enjoyed it. I've written before about how much I love being able to give my kids the gift of swimming outdoors in the summer. When we walked in today Anna said again, "It's so good to be back. This is a special place."

It will likely rain in the first part of this week so we won't be back again until the sun comes out.

And guess what? This will probably be the week that my peonies bloom. Definitely something to celebrate as we head into a new week.