Yesterday was Mackinon's kindergarten grad. They were so sweet. Some of us moms had gotten together to make their grad hats and they turned out awesome. They came up on stage and sang a couple of songs and poems, then their teacher handed them each their scroll and told them each a wish she had for them. Mackinon's was that he always love to draw as much as he has in kindergarten. At centre time he almost always chooses to draw and thus comes home with piles of drawings of which I now will have to sort and decide what to keep! Last year I scanned or took photos of all the artwork I had saved from his pre-school years and uploaded it into a photobook. Much easier to store than the originals. But I could have a whole book or two or three just of kindergarten so I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. Anyways, for their final performance they sany a song called "First Grade, First Grade", to the tune of "New York, New York" complete with holding hands and kicking legs. Then they played "It Won't Be Like This For Long" as they each walked down the stairs and their teacher gave them a gift. Yes, there were tears. We had just been at Jade's grade 12 grad the weekend before and on the slideshow they had pictures of their class at their K grad and I remember being there and so this just made me think of how fast it is all going. I guess that is why I am obsessed with the photo taking, because somehow I think I am slowing things down, but I'm not. Then we had a snack and visited and we gave Mrs. Stenson the card we got for her and we had tucked in a photo of her and Mackinon and a letter that he wrote to her (see below). Well, I should have warned her to save it for later but she opened it and read it and then was quite teary, though she said she had been that way all day. This was not her first class, but she was quite attached to them, they are a really nice class of kids. I was not too happy with my photos of grad, I couldn't figure out how to get the settings quite right for the whole dark gymnasium/bright stage thing. You pretty much need to be on full manual I think, and I'm just not quite there yet, still learning. Then we picked up his backpack and report card and found out whether he was in the straight Gr. 1 or the 1/2 split. He is in the straight and his best buddy Justin is too. It's tough though because there are some really good friends that will be in the split and that is hard for them to understand. We came home and kye fell fast asleep and I found that I was just exhausted, really just from the emotion of it all and I tried to lay down too, but couldn't quit thinking. Seems like the first day was last week and now it's done.
Here is the letter Mackinon wrote for his teacher:
A letter to Mrs. Stenson from Mackinon, as dictated to his mom.
June 18,2009
Dear Mrs. Stenson,
(Her name is now Mrs. S. She calls herself that!)
I like it that she calls us kinder-binders. Thank-you for pulling out my tooth.
I like it when she reads the name of my cheese-string. She is the funniest teacher in the whole school. She helps us if we hurt ourselves.
I like playing on the computer and assembly and making letter pages.
She tries to play tag with us but she never catches anybody! I don’t know why!
I like the stories and centres and when we go to the ‘lie-berry’.
I like when you would help us makes snacks at school. I liked the applesauce.
You are a good teacher because you let us go on field trips.
She makes me feel good.
Your kinder-binder,
Mackinon
This past weekend we spent at Cabri Park. The boys had a great time on the boat and playing in the sand and water. We got to see almost all of Aaron's family members at a big Fish Fry up at Gma Beej and Auntie Bev's trailers on Saturday night. Kye liked the fish but of course mackinon wouldn't even try it. He has eaten fish before, but maybe seeing it flopping around in the bucket turned him off. The boys especialy liked driving the boat and having magic campfires at night. Gma Beej and Auntie Celia put a piece of copper pipe inside a piece of old garden hose and put this into the fire when the boys couldn't see. Then they did a dance around the fire like indians and after a bit the fire starts to change colors. It is pretty cool. Well, the boys thought they were nuts at first and they had, had a few beverages that afternoon so most of tha adults also thought they were nuts, but when it started going pink and blue and green the boys were amazed. Kye stopped in his tracks with his mouth in an O-shape and fell to his knees he was so shocked. I got video of it the second night and I will try to post a little clip, but it was really dark so we'll see.
Kye just loves babies. He always has and is very gentle and sweet with them. He loves his baby O. 
The week after Mackinon got out of school we decided to head down to Pine Cree again. It was mostly just me and the boys because Aaron was working, but we had lots of friends check in on us and it was lots of fun. We almost always had someone to play with. It was a little rainy and wet at first but it brightened up and the kids spent a lot of time in the creek. Mackinon got really good on his two-wheeler while we were there and is now able to start and stop himself. He sings "cadillac" while he rides and pretends to be burt reynolds even though he's never seen the movie, we might have to try to find that one. Then he slams on his brakes and goes skidding to one side and of course it's all about the blackies, though how you can leave blackies on a dirt road I'm not quite sure. We have signed him up for a dirt bike beginner class in Swift at the end of the summer so we are glad he is feeling so confident on the two-wheeler. The only bad part about the week was that Kye's allergies went crazy. The poor little man, the same thing happened last year and we ended up in the hospital on the nebulizer. Anyways, his nose started running clear like crazy and by the first night he was sleeping and could breathe in but couldn't breathe out. My mom was staying with us with my nephew wyatt, and it scared us enough to pack them up and head to town. We were going to head in to emergency but once he sat out in the cold night air it seemed to clear him. So we dragged the other two sleeping boys into town, and the two of us sat up in the rocking chair with him all night so that he could breathe. The next day we got him some claritin kids but it still wasn't good and his eyes were red rimmed and just leaking. He would say to me, "mama, why I crynin'?" By day three the claritin had kicked in, we were going to town to sleep at night and mom got him a nebulizer from the health centre that did wonders, it just washed all the bad stuff out. We had to call it his darth vader mask to get him to do it, but you could tell it made him feel better. I took him into the doctor the next week and he told me it was not allergies, it was croup. Yeah, not buying it. He seemed to change his tune after I described all of aaron's allergies and how they had flared up at the same time as Kye's. Anyways, he said he would refer us for allergy testing if I wanted, but I just don't want to have to put him through that. So next year I think we just have to be really on top of it with the claritin. I also purchased my own nebulizer and it can even plug into a car charger and has it's own battery for if we are camping. 
