Gavins Pet Chicken

Gavin has become the keeper of Weston's pet chicken. This silly chicken will let the kids hold and pet it. Gavin is taking his egg business pretty serious. He takes good care of his chickens and gathers eggs and cleans them everyday. It is funny to watch him deliver eggs to his customer. He will stand there until they pay him. If we get talking and they forget he will remind them that they owe him money! We give eggs away quite often and he said to me the other day, "Mom how am I supposed to sell eggs when you keep giving them away." He was quite upset with me.

Weston's Class

Vernet (Allen's Sister) wrote a story about Weston and gave it to us at Christmas. It was such a perfect story about Weston. I was talking to his teacher and she mentioned that the kids were really struggling with Westons death. When I received Vernets story I decided to get it published and give each one of Weston's classmates a copy. I got online and emailed several companies for quotes. The quotes were between $1500 and $2100. I gave up on that idea and then one day I got an email from BRIO print. Here is what it said:

Hi Cindy. On behalf of BRIOprint, please accept our deepest condolences. We will gladly donate our services to this heartfelt endeavor. Our hope is this gesture will in some small way assuage the pain of such a profound loss, and forge the life-lasting memory of your son in the young hearts and minds of his classmates.

I was floored. I couldn't believe it. So they got busy and we had the book finished the day before school let out. It turned out so cute!! We added at dedication page to the book. You should have seen us the day they arrived in the mail. We were all so excited, it was like Christmas! Thank you so much Vernet!! It was such a special thing for our family to get.
We went to Weston's class and brought cookies and milk and read them the story. We also invited Landon Dull, Tracy Munsterman and Brooke Dunning to join us, since they were also Weson's good friends but not in his class. Then we had them sign each others books. They were all so cute, they all wanted to make sure that our family all signed their books also. We had them sign our books too.







One little girls came up to me and said, "Mrs. Wilkins, Weston and I had a hard time remembering how to spell purple so everyday we would say to each other P-U-R...P-L-E. I sure miss him"

After then end of the story we gave them an animal that grows in water. Mrs. Osborn surpised us in the end. The girls each gave me a flower and then we all took balloons outside and let them go to Weston.

Nate Shroyer our neighbor let his balloon go before everyone elses. The other kids kindof got on him and he came up to me and said, "Do you know why I let my balloon go first?" I said, "No, Nate how come" He said, "I miss Weston so much" then he started to cry, "I didn't want him to fall off the wagon and die, he was my best friend, so I let my balloon go first so he could get mine first!"

It was a special day for us. It was fun to honor and keep Weston's memory alive. I feel so sorry for his classmates. They have really struggled this year. But I am sure they will be fine with time.

Honorary Student of the Year

Weston's teacher Mrs. Osborn called and asked Allen and I to come to her room early before the Elementary awards ceremony. When I walked in the room all the kids started saying, "Hi Weston's Mom". It was all that I could do to not start crying. She presented us with these ribbons that she had Mrs. Keith make. Each one of his classmates and her were wearing one. The principal, secretary and others had ribbons as well. It was a neat tribute to Weston.

At the ceremony, after Mrs. Osborn had presented the awards to her class she read the following statement:

As I end my awards presentation, the first graders and I could not go without recognizing our classmate and student that passed away in october. Weston was our friend, buddy and an outstanding student. We are wearing our ribbons in remembrance of Weston. When I asked if I could do this Weston's Mom said to me "It is sad, but it makes us feel good to remember." Remembering is what these students and I have done; As I read the prepared statement from our counselors the class was very saddened---they had many questions but mostly what I heard was "We miss Weston." I heard this when we wrote in our journals, when we wrote our Santa letters, when we made our zoo books, and when we received our Memory Books. I just heard again today that they miss Weston. The children were excited when they checked out books donated in Weston's memory and they call these Weston's books. Thank you, Weston's family for these memories. I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins and their children for letting us have this closure.

Weston had these awards: Reading, Language, Spelling, Math, Science, Social Studies, Craft Club, reading Circle, Book Worm, Perfect Attendance, and he is our, Honorary Student of the Year. Thank You, Mrs. Osborn

Allen was too emotional to speak. I Thanked the Community and School District for the many acts of services that they have given to our family. I also thanked the Students of Lakeland for taking our children under their wings and for being good friends. I thanked the teachers for all they have done. I thanked his classmates for being good friends to Weston. I told them that Weston loved his class and his teacher. That is all I can remember that I said, I was shaking and crying and can't remember anything else. It was very touching, it was very hard, and it felt very good to remember him publicly.

The yearbook publisher made a dedication page to the front of this years Yearbook. It was really cute. They brought by 5 copies to our home the day before they distributed them to the school, so we could see it before they came out. This is the poem that was on the page:

Time spent with you

Was so very precious

Even if only for a very short time

We hold a special memory

Close inside these hearts of ours

To us you were very special
Much more than words can say
We still love you now little angel
And we'll remember you every day.
Author Unknown

Our Pet Monkey

Gavin is pretty proud of his new trick. Everytime I turn around his is climbing up the door frames!

Caiden and Colton Awards Night

8th Grade Graduation

I can't believe that Austin is going to be a Freshman in High School next year. Here is his 8th Grade Graduation. Allen was elected to the school board this month and so he was able to hand him his diploma. He walked in with his friend Brittany Barkley, they have been friends since Kindergarten. Now if we can just get Austin to smile for a picture!

Caiden and Colton Music Program

The music programs at school this year were so awesome. Their music teacher is so good and she is leaving us this year. Not only were the programs good, but the kids had a blast! Caiden and his best friend ended up wearing the same shirts! They were both sooooo embarassed.

Caiden and Colton Basketball

It was really fun this year to watch Caiden and Colton play together on the same team. They won 45 out of 50 games. Caiden was number 23 and Colton was number 14. In the pictures, for some reason Colton is always the one holding the trophy.









This video shows Colton Hustling for the ball.


This video shows Caiden's Agressiveness :)

Austin Music Program

The Lakeland Junior High and High School Vocal Music Department Present

ROCKIN' AMERICA

Austin is the one in the white T-Shirt next to the girl in Pink.

The music programs this year were absolutely awesome. Their music teacher Mrs. May is leaving and going to teach in Clinton. The kids had a lot of fun in their music classes and programs. We are going to miss her!

Caiden Basketball

Austin Basketball

Austin is really doing good this year in Basketball. He is alot more agressive. His has really grown tall!

Caiden Stock Market Award

Caiden and his team won 1st place in their region in the Stock Market game. This is his second year winning. We are considering giving him some Real money to invest for us! Last year they won first place.

His team was Autumn Hehner, Caiden, and Ashton Stewart.

They were treated to a very nice meal at the Hawthorn hotel. They thought the turtle cheese cake was the best!

Caidens Turkey

Caiden was thrilled to go turkey hunting with the Fellhoelters. Levi and Caiden have been best friends since preschool. They waited quite a few hours before Caiden got a shot at this turkey. He hit it the first shot. He was pretty excited as this is his first turkey!

Pigs

Here we go again! The boys just bought their show pigs for the County Fair in July. Gavin even bought one this year. He is going to show in the Pee-Wee division.

Flooding

We have had soooo much rain. This is the first time I have ever seen our road flood. We went to go to town and we were flooded on both ways out.

Gavin wanted to go swimming. He thought the flooding was pretty cool.

Our basement ended up flooding also. The drain in the field couldn't keep up with the rain. We ended up with about 8 inches in our basement. Nothing was ruined.

LOGO Presentations

Austin, Caiden and Colton are in the LOGO Program which is a program at school for gifted students. Each year they have to do an Independent research project and present it to the entire school K-12. They did a really good job. Colton had a lot of fun with his. He did his on Magic and famous magicians and when he presented he even did a few tricks!

Caiden did his research on the city of Macu Picchu. It was very interesting. It is an ancient city that explorers found in Peru. I would love to go there!

Wilkins Easter Egg Hunt