Shining Star!

It was Shining Star Award day and Olivia was up bright and early! We got her dressed and ready and headed for the bus. She was all smiles and excitement! (She had grown out of all her summery shoes. I was lucky to find one pair of white sandals still at WalMart. Whew!) Thank you, Aunt Lori, for Olivia's beautiful dress. You always have such great taste!

Her excitement faded at the bus stop, however. She was wondering what kind of award she would get. I told her to ask her neighbor, Jennifer, who received a Shining Star award last year. Jennifer told her she would get a paper with a star and her name on it. Olivia just looked at Jennifer with her mouth hanging open and said, "All I get is a stupid piece of PAPER???"

I almost fell over!!!!!!!! Jennifer's dad was laughing so hard I thought his coffee would shoot out his nose! Olivia went into a funk. It turned out she was actually expecting a trophy or medal of some sort. I explained to her that medals and trophies get lost and damaged. We could keep the certificate safe and she'd have it for always. She was still disappointed, but not as much as she was at first.

Here she is in the cafeteria with the other award recipients, waiting for the ceremony to begin. She was all smiles and excitement again. Whew!

(She's walking a little stiffly because she was afraid her shoes would fall off.) We found out there were two groups of awards - "Shining Star" for academics and "Bright Star" for being very helpful. They started with the 4th graders and worked their way down to the Kindergarteners. I was amazed that the principal seemed to know every kid's name. But then I found out that they all had stickers on their left arms that she could read as they came up. Ha! Afterwards, we got to have cake, fruit and tea/water before the kids had to go back to their classrooms. Olivia changed into play clothes and, since her class had gone to the library, we got to drop her off there.

Student Council elections are coming up and we got to see all the posters clogging the walls. One kid had gone so far as to put a picture of JFK on his poster... Some things never change...