End of the year

Our school year ends in December. I can't tell you how busy our Decembers are.

This year along with end of year school parties and birthday parties we also have two graduations along with the parties that go with it.

Costumes have been a theme recently.

It's been Garrett's senior year and once a month the seniors went to school dressed a certain way. The last time was an all night costume party. HIs friends begged him to go as Woody from Toy Story. So my girlfriend made his costume. She is amazing.

He's not really taller than me. He's got cowboy boots on for crying out loud.

Do you think Gi looks up to his big brother? I think for a minute he thought he was standing next to the real Woody at Disney.

They had the party and then walked to school the following morning to welcome all the other grades to school and remind them that the seniors were skipping that day. If you don't have the school uniform on then you can't enter school so a group of costumed kids weren't, obviously, allowed in. This party is a senior tradition. Our apartment is on the same street as our kids school so when we heard fireworks going off at 6:45 we knew who it was.

Here's what that looked like walking by our front window.

Here's what a group of seniors welcoming everyone to school sounds like.



This is Bruno, one of Garrett's best friends, dressed as Ace Ventura Pet Detective.

With some of his best buds at the party.

The entire class.

Anderson had an end of the year play of Alice in Wonderland. He was a parrot. Guess who made his costume? You guessed it. My girlfriend.

Anderson with his best friend Lucas. They've been friends since they were two years old.

Anderson stole the show. Everyone laughed when his turns came up in the play. His teacher later told us that he just invented that part as they practiced and she just rolled with it. It ended up being really funny. The entire play was good. The kids worked hard.

Giovanni was invited to a pirate themed birthday party. Want to guess who made his entire costume?

I am amazed at my girlfriends creativity and her ability to make stuff like this so quickly. I'm also amazed at her ability to do it with all the other things going on (our cookie business, church responsibilities, everyday mom stuff, other end of the year stuff and packing to visit the U.S. for three months).

Oh yeah, on top of all that, she's super cute!