Anika turns 7

Our Ani turned 7 yesterday and her party today finished off a really busy week.  She's been wanting to ride horses for a while so I asked Jess (my sister-in-law) if she could lead her horse for a few girls for Anika's party.  We had it all planned out but unfortunatelly it rained all day yesterday and pretty much all day today so there was no way we could ride horses.  Anika wasn't sad at all, she could not wait for her friends to come.  Her 4 girl cousins were coming and 3 other friends and Anika was so excited.  Of course, once her class mates and friends found out it was going to be her birthday they all asked Anika if they can be invited to her party and she felt really bad for saying no.  But the girls had a great time despite the rain and just played and played.  They all loved the pinata and after years of asking I finally let Anika get one. :)  Now she's having her 3 cousins sleep over in her room and they're so cute together.  Kade and Kason feel a bit left out because they don't really have any boy cousins to hang out with like that but I'm so glad for Anika.  Having a close girl cousin is such a gift and when you don't have a sister that relationship can mean so much.

Anika has been wanting "A very hungry caterpillar" cake

getting ready for a sleepover

And I am just pooped after this week.  I don't know if it is the 3 days in a row that I had to sub, or the stress from it, or having something going on every single night this week.  I really enjoyed subbing, just seeing so many grades every day was great because you really get the feel of how kids are in different grades.  I had kindergarten kids all the way to 5th grade for 50 minutes each.  By the end of the 3rd day though I was glad it was the last day because I ran out of ideas for games and things to do.  Yes, there is always the option of watching something but I only let the kids watch tv for the last few minutes if they were getting really loud.  One thing I told some teachers is how impressed I was with their classes.  For the most part they all behaved really well and listened to everything I said.  I totally thought they would give me some crap about not wanting to do this or that or not caring about what I had to say but that was not the case at all.  So just that was so great to see and gives me more confidence.  I also had 2 different 5th grade classes, neither of them was Kade's but there were a lot of his old class mates and I just love those kids.  I think they are such great kids, really interested in everything and really stick together.  So I don't know if it's because of Kade, but that grade was definitely my favorite.  And then Kindergarten and first grade kids were really great too, they didn't even peep and listened to me so well which I would never expect from their age.  So, it was a really great experience.  Subbing for one class all day will be totally different and might be more challenging but at the same time I'll have lots of tasks to do with the class so that would be nice instead of me trying to think of games that would work for 5th grade first 50 minutes and then games that would be good for 5 year olds.  On Friday was my last day as a music teacher and it was a short day too because the whole school was going to a homecoming parade in town after lunch.  So I had all the classes, but only for 30 minutes each.  I wanted to see how the kids would do with the wii because we have a dance game that Elementary age kids usually really like.  The thing is I only had 2 remotes for 25 kids.  So I split them up into 2 groups and for each song I picked one player from each team.  I told the other kids to keep doing the dance moves with the players since they can all see the tv.  One class was all really into it and they loved it.  Then the 5th graders had a few boys who thought it was dumb and said there's no way they're dancing but they were singing along at least a couple of the songs. :)  I think some of them were really surprised that I joined in and was dancing with the class but it made them want to try too.  So hopefully I'm not going to get called in the principal's office for using the wii, I just wanted to see if it's doable with that many kids and to see how they would like it.  And at least they were active and were singing.  :) I'm hoping I will get more calls now for subbing but you never know.  A lot of the teachers have their usual subs they like to request and only if they can't do it they will take whoever.  So we'll see what happens.  At least I got to be there and a lot of teachers saw me sub which is great.