life according to the diaz's: Summer's Here!!

Today was officially my last day of school for the 2012-2013 school year. I cannot believe another year has come and gone. This upcoming school year will be my 10th year in teaching. Seriously, I'm getting old. My very first class of third graders that I had at St. Joseph-Cottleville is graduating high school this year. That is really hard for me to realize. Such babies when they were with me just 10 years ago in 3rd grade and now they are on their way to college. Just surreal.
It has been another very busy school year and I am glad to be finished, ready to start over again in August. I am teaching reading during summer school and I'm really looking forward to it. Juan will be working during summer school as well. It will only be for the month of June, so Juan, Elena, and I will still have a lot of summer together once summer school is over. Besides, Elena LOVES going to be with her friends at daycare and would prefer that Juan and I don't pick her up to go home in the afternoon, so I am glad she will still get to go spend time away from home a few days a week just like she does during the regular school year. We are looking forward to a little over a week off together before summer school starts, so it will be great.
Elena continues to grow and grow before our very eyes. She is SO dang smart. Juan and I cannot believe how we can tell her something once and she knows exactly what we are talking about. While she cannot talk back...well, at least not in coherent sentences yet...our girl knows what is going on all the time. She is the boss and in charge...hopefully she finds a good job one day that this trait will help her in positive ways!!! :) Elena's starting to eat more foods now. She is showing more interest in eating on her own and her fork skills are improving. The spoon is another story...hoping to work on that this summer. Yes, we still throw some baby food in there when we're feeling lazy or Elena just needs a good dose of veggies, but it works for us for now. We are hoping to work really hard this summer on getting Elena to actually eat pieces of fruit. She is still on pureed fruits, which drives me nuts, but she spits out every fruit we try to give her. Hopefully one of these days she will start liking something! We did catch her stealing a few blueberries off her cousin's plate last week at great grandma's birthday party (which made me VERY happy) but when we tried to give more to E the next day, she didn't want anything to do with them. Like I keep reading, just introduce and keep giving it to the kid as much as possible and maybe one day it will be a likable food.
So, the food saga continues, but other than that, life is good. We are SO blessed to have the jobs we have and be surrounded by good people everyday. Elena is healthy and that is what matters!! I saw this quote below the other day and thought it summed up our school year well...Happy Summer everyone!!

"Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."
~Theodore Roosevelt

Recent photos of our girl!!