Hello! This is Ainsley and I'm taking over the blog for today (maybe more)—I have been asking and begging my mom to let me do this for months! So I'll be posting about my family tradition of crepes and my school fun run for our school money raiser.

So here are the amazing crepes my mom makes every General Conference. 

They taste so good I ate at least 8! 

This is my class before the fun run (I'm on the right).

                                   

This is me and my best friends after the race and you can see from our red faces that we ran a lot.

     

 (from left to right) me, Lucia, Kaylie and Shayla. Thanks for reading!

—Ainsley 

Fantabulous French School

Posted June 17, 2015

Bonjour! Ellie here. Now I don't blog very often, so savor this post like it's your favorite dessert. Today I'm blogging about my day in French school.

At the school they had a kind of broken apart school I guess, like one classroom was across the street, he others in the courtyard, etc. So, it's not all attached. This is a courtyard where they had recess and lunch.

You had to wait for a couple minutes outside the courtyard (and a couple minutes can be very long when you are impatient!), and then the gates would open and the teachers were waiting for you and you all went your separate ways.

Here is a picture of Ainsley with Émeline and their teacher. They colored in American flags and had English class, but she said it was British English.

And here is a picture of me and Alexia and our teacher. At school we learned about America, because I'm American. We colored maps and read an article on the other side of the worksheets about America. In math we focused on learning our numbers, or in my case learning my numbers, in their's reviewing them. Then, we played a few games. It was so fun! Oh, and it turns out that an American girl at a French school is very popular.

After French school we went to the Mezzasalma's and kept playing. This is a picture of Joey with Clément.

This is a picture of Ainsley and Émeline on google translate, seeing as we couldn't speak French very well, and they couldn't speak English very well. Oh, and this doesn't mean we didn't try it was just, well, difficult.

This is me and Alexia helping each other to get our numbers in French (I told you we tried!), and English. This is something we did in math except we did multiplication facts (it's harder to do it in French—I mean a language can change everything). All in all, I think that French school's pretty fantabulous.

Caution: Photos Ahead

Ah, the end of the school year. This is where the insanity that led to my nearly four-month blogging break began. So many activities that something had to give. We gave up a clean house, regular family meals, exercise, early bedtimes...I may have been able to squeeze a few posts in if only I'd been willing to let go a little on personal hygiene, but even I draw the line somewhere. So photo scrooges beware, this is a photo heavy catch-up post.

We managed to fit in a couple of games with our awesome neighbors—this year we tried kickball instead of softball. They could say jousting, and we'd show up, just because they're all so awesome.

May 14, 2012

I helped with a water polo team dinner, a new experience for me to try to feed that many hungry teenagers.

May 15, 2012

I attended my last (sniff) kindergarten Teddy Bear Picnic.

May 16, 2012

The kids had also prepared a reader's theater. Funny story here:

The first group of kids lined up to do theirs in the classroom, with the other kindergartners sitting on the rug in front of them. Near the end of the performance, one of the little girls standing began to projectile vomit. Guess where Ainsley was sitting? Yep, right in front of her. She was covered, but refused to leave before performing her part. The show must go on...

May 16, 2012

Joey's teacher (and Robbie's former—and favorite—teacher) retired, as did Joey's 1st grade teacher, also a favorite.

May 16, 2012

Robbie performed with the percussion ensemble at the Junior High, and it was awesome. I discovered that he was a soloist when I saw it listed on the program, and had to text Rob to come and bring the other kids. Teenagers! He did well, in spite of his cast.

May 16, 2012

Not really an end-of-school activity, but I had to include this photo of us cleaning the church because it's a classic. Reminds me of a church dinner we were at: Joey started freaking out because Rob got mad at him for taking multiple desserts before everyone had been served, and a nice ward member who witnessed the meltdown said, "Oh good, I thought your kids weren't normal, now I can see that they are." Yeah, that's it, normal.

May 19, 2012

Rob, planting the flowers, because that was something I was willing to let go.

May 19, 2012

Backman Family History night was extra exciting, with a solar eclipse.

May 20, 2012

Another band concert. Joey did an amazing job, especially considering how little he practiced his clarinet. :)

May 21, 2012

We are so lucky and grateful to have a great-grandma who is healthy and supportive.

May 21, 2012

The water polo awards dinner. Robbie and Jonas got a special mention as the only seventh-graders on the team.

May 21, 2012

Joey, as an Idaho Spud in the 6th grade 50 States assembly.

May 22, 2012

The junior high awards night—there are some AMAZING kids there! I'm glad that Robbie is one of them.

May 23, 2012

Joey, after a poetry reading with one of his best friends.

May 24, 2012

And, Ainsley's last day of kindergarten. Sigh.

May 24, 2012

She adored her teacher, Miss Newman/Mrs. Gunn. :)

May 24, 2012

Rob will be shocked that I posted this photo, which is not the least-flattering photo that has ever been taken of me, but is probably the least flattering photo I've ever posted. It's because as a scout leader I had to help with the court of honor, and gave the picture-taking duty to Ellie. She didn't take one of just Joey, but I don't want to skip his big achievement—we finally made it through the 30 days of exercises, so he earned his Tenderfoot!

May 31, 2012

Drumroll here, for the much anticipated last day of school. Yay! Here's Ellie:

June 1, 2012

And Joey:

June 1, 2012

He came home with what appeared to be an arm tattoo. He explained that he didn't want to ruin his shirt by having his classmates sign it.

June 1, 2012

Robbie not only survived his first year of junior high, he loved it.

June 1, 2012

We celebrated by making homemade pizzas.

June 1, 2012

Fun, but a lot of work and a big mess to clean up. Next year I need to remember that and we can just go out for dinner...

June 1, 2012

12 photos on the 12th—April

The 12th of April was busy, productive and fun. I went to my last kindergarten program as a parent! Hopefully I'll have many more as a grandma and great-grandma someday. :) Rob was working from home, so we went out to lunch (Zupas, Ainsley's choice). It snowed, and I finally got our taxes filed. Book group was great—we did something different, and picked a theme, rather than a specific book. The theme was whole food, plant-based nutrition, and we had a potluck in addition to our discussion. It was a record turnout and a fabulous evening.

Lucky Charms Graph

In case anyone else is doing a kindergarten learning center on St. Patrick's Day. :) I couldn't find a graph that was free and high resolution with all eight charms, so I made one. Feel free to use it. Just give each kid a baggy with Lucky Charms in it, have them sort their charms into piles, then color in the graph with a matching crayon. When they're done, they can eat the cereal.

School happenings

Joey's class is studying debate, and he did a good job arguing against vending machines in elementary schools.

The kindergarten classes had a "Kindy 500" road trip. They were each assigned a state and made a cardboard car—Ainsley got Arkansas, which was a bit of a challenge. We used the state seal for headlights, the state flag for tail lights, and although ASU is represented on the license plates, the Razorbacks have decals on both side doors. There's a bumper sticker for Bill Clinton's hometown too. We probably should have added a Walmart sticker on there somewhere...

The Kindy 500 happened to fall on the same day as Dr. Seuss day, thus the crazy hair and socks.

V Day

This year I helped with the Valentine's party in Joey's class—I made scones, which were a big hit.

Here are the kids with their Valentine boxes. Poor Robbie, no parties, notes or candy in Junior High.

Luckily he loves our family tradition of books for Valentine's Day.

And crepes for dinner. New this year is a low carb recipe that I found on Pinterest—they're surprisingly good!

Weird Science

Joey is our award-winner. He did another great project this year, timing 50 different people as they named two sets of colors, one with the name written in the same color ink, and one with the colors mixed. It's based on an phenomenon known as the Stroop Effect. However, at the awards ceremony the judges told him that he didn't receive Best-in-show because he got it last year, and they wanted someone else to have a turn. Lame. Not that I wanted to go the next level, I think it's a major pain. Oh well, great work Joey!