{Saree's Birthday}

My firstborn turned 6.  I can't believe how big she's gotten.  She is such a great helper and such a great sister.  She is growing up to be a very nice girl.  I've been volunteering at her school on Thursday mornings and am so impressed with how she is doing.  She is in the bottom of the advanced group in school.  She is learning so quickly though.  She keeps pointing out words she knows and teaching the other kids.  She's a fun kid to have around, we're lucky to have her in our family.
She has been having a few rough moments in school though.  Mrs. Goodman has emailed me twice to inform me that Saree has been hitting other children.  At times she has a hard time finishing projects and staying on task and last week she was drawing on her desk rather than doing her classwork.  Since she was a "repeat offender" we got a tracker form from the teacher with the offenses and what she was going to do to amend it.
Tovey and I were really annoyed/disappointed over the whole thing.  This was also after a particularly rough Sunday where she ripped up her dress, liked the floor, was put in time out, barked in time out, and told Tovey "to die" when he picked her up.  I don't know what to say about that but I will say that she told me that she doesn't hit everyone.  Phew.  She hits Ephraim (pronounced eff-rum).  He apparently has a crush on her and keeps pinching him.  She said, "I told him if he wanted me to be his girl friend he better treat me right, no pinching, so I hit him".  I kind of laughed when I heard this but still encouraged her not to hurt people.
The other major problem is the class sizes are so big.  There are 30 kids and 1 teacher.  It's is crazy when I'm there.  I mean her teacher is honestly doing the best she can but she spends a lot of extra time helping the kids who struggle.  Saree said when she doesn't understand something she gets frustrated.  "I wanted to ask for help but my teacher was busy and it's rude to interrupt".  So, she starts writing on her desk, and messing around.  It's so frustrating.  Tovey said raising kids was like manning a large boat.  You make corrections then wait and wait to see the result.  Saree knows how to behave, despite class sizes, annoying boys, etc.

Anyway, back to the birthday.  We had a low key dinner at the house and cake.  We invited the Shield's over for dinner and she wanted to invite Syndey and Danica (neighborhood friends from the ward).  It was fun, it was a "rainbow dash" My little Pony" themed party.  I told Tovey that I want to have big parties for  8, 12, and 16.  I wouldn't have just had Trevor and Shannon over but Saree insisted on having "guests".  Here are the kids with the famous birthday balloons.  This year we put painters plastic behind her front door, so when she opened it up all the balloons fell into her room.  It was kind of funny because she tried to come out in the middle of the night and Tovey ran over to the door and told her to go back to bed.  She was sort of out of it and turned around and went back to bed.  We laughed about it, she never comes out in the middle of the night.  She would pick THAT night to come out.

Here is a picture of the whole crew.  Cuties.