Last Day of School Carnival!

For the last day of school Anna had asked if we could have a party...all she had to do was ask and the wheels started turning. Last year for Anna and Cecilia's birthdays we had a carnival, and we decided to use the things we had kept for our last day of school carnival. We invited her entire class and a lot of the parents were willing to man booths and bring food.

The kids had could earn tickets at each of the booths and then they had to pay for their food with the tickets. It was 5 tickets for a hotdog meal, 4 for cotton candy, 3 for popcorn and 2 for a drink. The kids loved having to earn the tickets and then using them to buy their food and the competition of earning the most tickets.

This is the only way to eat cotton candy-without any boundaries.

One of the highlights of the party was that Miss Doel got to come. She wasn't able to teach the last third of the school year because of her health and the administration was concerned that if she attended the graduation would be to hard on the kids, so we invited her to our party and all of the kids were ecstatic. When she came through the gate they all cheered and ran over to give her hugs. We gave her this bouquet of their hands and a gift card to thank her and as you can see she was overwhelmed. While at our house with Scott and Brennan she realized that she had student taught with Scott's kindergarten teacher when he was in class and that she had also taught Brennan. She said she hadn't ever thought about Anna being an Erickson until she pulled up to the house and thought "Well this is the Erickson home." She had come to our house to attend Brennan's reception with another of Bren's elementary school teachers. How Funny!

My mom and sister came up from Malad for the graduation and they were such a huge help getting ready for the party and helping it be a success-I just love them.

Here are some of the kids enjoying their cotton candy-I think most of them had at least four of them. You only get to graduate from kindergarten once.

We had face painting, the clothespin drop, fish out of water, spray away, ball-toss bonanza, roaring ring toss, and a polka-dot penny toss.

Here is Stacia-she has been having her chemotherapy, but felt well enough to come and we were so happy to have her with us on this crazy fun day.

The whole night before the party it rained and that morning there was a steady downpour. I thought of several options including my mom and I trying to set up tents in the pouring rain and then when that idea failed we decided to move it inside. About 15 minutes before class was out and all the kids arriving the rain stopped...and it didn't rain at all during the party only to start again after all the kids had gone home. It was such a blessing!

Anna had a great time and so did all of the kids. Although she did ask me what we were going to next year when she finishes 1st grade-at least I have a whole year to think about it.