My Unbirthday

Today I am 39.5 years old!

I am now closer to the age of 40 than I am to 39. (sigh) I'm feeling it too. I am even too tired to create a blog post.

However, I did do something to commemorate this historical day. I purchased this.....

It's my favorite cake, German Chocolate. Okay, who am I kidding...any cake is my favorite. It's only about six inches across and made four small pieces, which should make it almost calorie-free. The best part...it was on sale for $3.40 because the expiration date is today. I figured it was meant to be mine, a perfectly, chocolatey unbirthday cake!

I also purchased this book called "40 Things to Do When You Turn Forty" yesterday. I've only read the first page (which did look interesting), when I got distracted by the kids' fighting. I figured I needed the book if I'm ever going to complete this. Funny how I came up with the idea and there's a book with a similar title. If I don't get my 40 things done in time, now I feel like I can reach that goal in my 40's. No more pressure!

Happy Unbirthday to me! It's not everyday when one turns 39.5!

Kesha in Kindergarten?

I don't often share stories of my daily life in Kindergarten, but this one is a must. It happened last week and I am still smiling about it. The names have been changed to protect the identity of my students.

The time is right at morning check-in when two girls approach me prior to doing seat work.

Caitlin: "Mrs. Broeker, Paige and I want to sing a song for you."

Me: "Okay, let's hear it." I'm expecting to hear to a song from the students' music class, when they start to belt out this one...

The girls sing the first seven lines until the "boys blowing up our phones, phones" part. Then they pretty much forgot the rest of the words, but the first half of the song was pretty impressive, I'd have to say.

Me: "Wow! That was some song!" I was a little caught off guard and now I noticed that there are several boys who stopped to listen too.

Dylan: "What does it mean to brush your teeth with a bottle of Jack?"

Me: "Hmmm...I'm not quite sure." Really! I'm not going there with this one.

Ian: (quickly pipes in) "They are meaning something you drink."

I was about to change the subject when Caitlin said....

Caitlin: (matter of fact) "It's licorice."

What's Happening

I thought I'd blog about a little of what happened this week at our house. It's not really worthy of blogging, but very busy with laundry, house cleaning, the school carnival, and ball games (soccer, baseball and volleyball). I don't think we could possibly fit another activity in this month! I guess you won't see me blogging much.

Andy and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary on Thursday. I had parent-teacher conferences, so we didn't go out for dinner until Friday night. Andy spent Thursday night with the kids at Madison's soccer game, which I was very disappointed not to see. Of course, it must be a written rule somewhere, that the game I miss is one that was well worth watching. Madison made the winning goal for her team! (sigh) Andy considered lying about it to me, but Madison's enthusiasm was too much to hide. Good for her, I say!

These beautiful flowers did make my day, even though I missed the game of the season!

Grant and his worms

I had a cute conversation with Grant yesterday, while I was doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen. Grant was helping Andy till up the back area (berm) that's covered in weeds.

Grant: Mom, wook at this worm. Sebastian woves worms. I wove worms too.

Me: That's great Grant. Do you want your picture taken with the worm?

Grant: Yes, it's very swimy (slimy) and wiggly.

Grant: Can I keep it?

Me: No. You have to put it back in the dirt pile.

Grant: I can keep it in my bedwoom.

Me: Nope.

Easter Weekend

We had one super busy, but very nice Easter. Here are a few of the things we did with our three day holiday weekend....

Grant got to hold a real "hamster bunny" at Christi's house.

The annual coloring of the eggs

We went to Easter service, which I only took one photo and it's blurry (of course).

The kids got their Easter baskets full of candy and books.

We had our own hunt in our backyard.

I added this picture only because I liked the colors!

Grant and Tyler decorated Grandma's cake with jellybeans.

AND Grandpa brought his new wheels, his dream car, his pride and joy,

his beloved CORVETTE for Easter at the Broeker's!

Photo time...Tyler and the Vette

Madison and the Vette

Grant and the Vette (Grant couldn't even see out of the car!)

Then our nephew, Xander, stopped by (so did his parents) on Sunday afternoon. Xander's a cutie and is enjoying Grandma's coconut cake. He's really not into Corvettes!

April Fool's Day in Kindergarten

It's April Fool's Day.

Today is one of two days that all educators across the country dread. The first being the day after Halloween when kids are recovering from a sugar-induced coma and are worthless to instruct. The second being today. If either holiday lands on a Saturday or a Sunday (better yet, Fall break) I find this similar to a "bonus" that other employed individuals get. I'm almost 100% positive that other teachers share my feelings on this one.

The day started off pretty much like I thought.

"Mrs. Broeker, I have a joke for you. Your eyes are blue." Which they aren't, but that is almost too much to bear for a 5 year old joke teller.

"There's a bug on your shirt." (This one is a classic, so it's repeated about two dozen times.)

"Your shoe's untied." (Probably their second favorite)

Or my personal favorite that I haven't heard until this year...

"Mrs. Broeker, are you wearing any underwear?" (snicker, snicker)

I really try my best to play along for about the first hour. I say things like, "Oh, you got me!" "What do you know...It's April Fool's Day?" or "You've got to be kidding!"

I also got a "Mrs. Broeker, I think I'm going to throw up!" Lucky for me, I took her seriously and I found out by mid-afternoon that she wasn't kidding. Lucky for the custodian, she had a really good aim for the trash can.

I met my quota of April Fool's jokes at about 10:30 and I responded with this statement..."Yes, I know it's April Fool's Day, but you need to get busy or we won't have time for recess." That seemed to do the job since we had a beautiful, 80+ degree day.

Last night, I started to think about how April Fool's Day was going to feel like a longer than any normal day. Listening to jokes by Kindergartner students can be draining to say the least. So, I decided that this year I deserved to get those little pranksters back. I came up with a clever, entertaining, yet appropriate game plan with kindergartners in mind.

Every day I serve a snack to my kids right after Specials (P.E., Computer, Art, Science or Music) at about 2:45. The snack is something small like animal crackers, Cheese-Its or Vanilla Wafers (whatever parents decide to donate). When kids don't get their daily snack they feel slighted. Rarely does this happen because they can forget a backpack at home day after day, but snack never! Snack is truly a fourth meal for five year olds or so it seems.

I thought it would be so funny to purchase raw broccoli and break off pieces and tell them that we are now going to have a healthy snack like this one on a daily basis. No more crackers, cookies or trail mix. Raw vegetables from this point forward!

So, that's exactly what I did. We have a small refrigerator to store the broccoli in our kindergarten-wing, which helped with the plan. I then retrieved the broccoli right before picking the kids up from Specials.

I instructed my "helper of the day" to dish out the hand sanitizer while I gave my healthy eating speech. To my surprise, I got nothing but silence. Carefully, I then pulled out the broccoli and heard a few moans, but they were quickly overpowered by Hoorays!! What? I could not believe my ears! I would say that about 2/3rds of my class were excited to okay with the thought of eating cold, raw broccoli for snack. One student was a bit disappointed that I didn't make some accommodations by bring the Ranch dressing. Silly me!

Happy for me, there were five children who were thoroughly disgusted by the thought.

One of them being "Miss L" whose mother gave me permission to use her photo on my blog. At least she lived up to my April Fool's expectations!

You'd think with those rabbit ears she was wearing, that eating broccoli would naturally be her thing?!

It's safe to say that the Kindergartners got the last laugh. The joke's on me.

Happy April Fool's Day!

I'll try harder next year.