Mower's

Kate entered her schools reflections contest.   It is a program at the school that allows the children to enter their works of art.  There are several categories such as visual arts, photography, music, poetry, writing, and dance.  Kate worked on a visual arts entry.  It's titled "Love is blooming everywhere"

  The above photo is one at her school where she won here category for her school.  Her catagorey was between 3rd-6th graders.  She also won for her entire district and our school region.  That means she advanced three times.  I just found out that she also won Honorable mention at the state level.  That is amazing.  There were probably hundreds and hundreds of entries within the state.

Kate learned a very valuable lesson with the success of her entry.  She tried out for her ballet studio's nutcracker and didn't make it this time around.  She was disappointed and I knew it was bothering her.  I was upset that the studio didn't allow more kids to participate.  Is it really that hard to double cast a nutcracker there are four performances.  Why not have twice as many kids involved and have the kids perform twice?  In the end we are both glad she didn't make it this year (she broke her arm and the doctor said no Dancing for 8 wks).

However before the broken bone happened  I wanted to teach her that just because an opportunity closes doesn't mean that there aren't other opportunities waiting to be taken advantage of.  Now that she wasn't doing Nutcracker she had extra time to work on her reflections entry.  I encouraged her to put a lot of thought into her entry and use her talent of art.  She LOVES art and is always painting, drawing, and writing.  She had art supplies that she hadn't touched since summer because of all of her homework, and extra curricular activities.  This worked out beautifully since she ended up winning so many awards.  She has two trophies and a medal. I think she's learned an important lesson that I wished I had realized at an earlier age.  She doesn't need to worry about not making things.  This experience has taught her that her talents will always be appreciated.  Maybe not always in the way we think, but if she looks hard she can find hundreds of different ways to contribute to the world.  I told her life always has opportunities if you are looking for them. Just keep on following your passions, trying your hardest, doing your best and eventually success will come!  Below is the medal she won for winning her category for her region.