Out of school for the summer!

Well...sort of.

This week was my last one with "my" kids at school. It was sweet to see them one last time, but one thing was clear. They were (mostly) all DONE. Ready to be out of school. The behavioral stuff always gets kind of rough those last few weeks. Spring Fever! But even if they were acting up & being monsters part of the time, I got a lot of tight hugs, took lots of pictures and enjoyed them one last week. These are my little munchkins.

This one is my Tues/Thurs class, minus one little girl who was absent on picture day.


And this was my Mon/Wed/Fri crew minus a different little girl who was also absent on picture day.


I held it together much better this year than I have in the past few years. Typically I have a hard time with taking down the nametags & stacking the chairs...one last time. But this year, I cried a little on the way to work those last 2 days & held it together after I got there. I'm not sure how that worked out, but it did.

One of my little guys is autistic. At the beginning of the year, I was a little worried about how I'd teach him because he only had a handful of words. I looked at him as my biggest challenge this year, but he turned out to be my greatest joy! I would've never believed you if you'd told me how far he would come over the course of the year. By Thursday when he left for the last time, he was communicating SO well, talking in complete sentences, coming to me for a hug. He's still "behind" the other kids & will stay in a 3 yr old class next year, but he's come soooooo far. I'm SO proud of him! (Trust me....I'm not tooting my own horn, that was ALL God! Praise Him!!)

I'll go back on Tuesday for a workday to clean my room up, get it organized for the summer classes, move things around a bit ('cuz I'm always looking at the centers & eyeballing how I'd like to re-organize them the next year!). After that, I'm off til June 2nd when Summer Session 1 begins. It's just Tues/Thurs all summer long, which means much less work, much less time spent at the school.....and much less pay. Oh yeah, baby.......Summer Survival Mode has begun. ha ha

Tonight's supper was an example of a yummy SUMMER meal. It's time to break out the light meals that can be put together simply without a great expense. It was build your own salad night! I cut up 2 kinds of lettuce, ham, boiled eggs, grilled chicken breast strips, tomatoes, cucumbers, celery and had bags of sliced roasted almonds, shredded cheese, bacon bits and croutons. Yum! It worked out great. The kids were even asking "when can we do this again?"!! Score one for mom!!


If you were around here (this blog!) last summer, you'll remember my summer days count. Last year, we ended up with an 85 day summer. I wonder if we'll have more or less days this year. Are you ready for summer??? We are! The kids get out at 1:00 on Friday & then it's officially SUMMER! Despite the horrendous heat & humidity, I'm ready. Bring it on!!!!!

(Seriously, the humidity is AWFUL. The other day we looked at the weather.com forecast for the day & at 7:15am, we were already up to 91% humidity!! yuck!)