One more day

So the school year for gans and elementary schools is ending tomorrow. It means it's the last day for Craig at elementary school and the last real day for the twins in gan. They will start junior high and 1st grade on September 1. Ceremony for Craig's school is tomorrow and the twins' gan is the day after.

It's insane. Rosh Hashanah was just yesterday!

Well, in reality, yesterday was Sunday, and Craig had several tests at school--talk about last minute testing!--and an unrealistic amount of homework to turn in today, for the practically last day, including finishing and tidying up the "science lab book" that never got looked at by the teacher till Friday when she collected them and only gave them out on Sunday! I wasn't happy with that! Craig had quite a bit to fix up from the beginning of the year, so he wasn't a happy camper either, especially since he needed to practice for today's piano exam. He had to prepare with 7 pieces and any 3 to 4 pieces could be selected by the examiners for him to play. He aced his exam, and he says that he got lucky because of the three pieces he had to play were actually the ones he knew the best.

Now we have the two graduations and the Krav Maga presentation to look forward to. Justin is especially excited about that as he really loves Krav Maga. Ever since he started with it he stopped fighting in gan, and it has generally been great for him disciplinewise. It also helped with Matthew's self confidence. I think the one person who likes it the least is Craig, probably because he has to be extra careful withe the CI.

Mentioning the implant, the idea of implanting his other ear has come up again. It seems that the last few years thechnology has improved a great deal. That is, in fact, the one reason why I am hesitant about implanting his other ear as of yet. I think we can give technology another 5 or so years before we go with that. For now the plan is to get him a CI that does bluetooth, so he can use his phone and mp3 player easier.

And while I'm talking about surgeries, it seems that the final reconstruction surgery for Matthew is postponed indefinitely with continued quarterly checks and twice a year audiologist appointments for him. That was really good news: he really didn't want to ruin his August with not swimming!

A birthday party

We held the twins' birthday party yesterday, and while the original plan of going to a local fast food place with the crowd didn't work out, a lot of fun was had by all. Including myself.

I got home from the airport literally minutes before the first guests started to arrive. All together we had 16 kid and 3 parents join us for the party, which, with the consent of our neighbors happened in the courtyard and garage of our building. Expanding the concept of "consent", one of our neighbors set up a slip & slide for the kids that got good use.

From previous years we found that the best birthday parties were the ones where we just let the kids play, and serve food and cake. Pretty much that was the idea this time as well. We had the boys' immense LEGO and car collection out, the slip & slide and bakeable play dough, so all the kids found something to keep busy with. There was much running around, some dancing (girls in one corner, boys in another one... so cute!), and lots of eating. Alas, the small Coca Cola cans are still not all gone! That gives you an idea just how many of them we had!

We were facing a dilemma about keeping the party foods kosher, but after talking to all the parents we ended up serving both meat and dairy in the form of hot dogs, sausages, burgers and ice cream. We also had home baked chocolate pudding cake.

One of the keys for a successful party is keeping it short and sweet. Two hours and 30 minutes were just the perfect time for this party. This way the kids didn't get bored and while we had a broken plate (entirely my fault), no misbehaving occured. Plus, I don't think I could have kept my neighbors happy with the noise any longer!