1st day of school

My second consecutive post... I wish I could keep it up.  Let's go back a couple of weeks to the first day of school.  I have to admit, this year I had mixed emotions about summer ending.  usually I can't wait. 11 weeks (minus a couple of trips) having 4 kids stuck in a house because it is too hot outside, no pool day after day can get on a mom's nerves.  But this year, I enjoyed the sleeping in and the kids were really good.  And we did get invited a lot to swim at other's homes, so it wasn't half bad this summer.

But here we are back in school.  The kids were excited and couldn't wait to see their friends and meet their teachers.  And Graham started preschool this year, so I have a few hours a week to myself.  I have to admit, it is weird to have the house so quiet for a few hours.  Half of me likes it and half of me doesn't.  But luckily, I have 3 years of this before he is gone, so it will work out great.  I get a few hours to myself and then I get to have him with me.  Best of both worlds.

Okay, so here are our traditional first day of school pictures.  enjoy!

Teacher Appreciation Week 2014

This year I was in charge of Teacher Appreciation Week for Ella's teacher.  I decided to go with a theme for the week.  And what better theme than Dr. Suess for a teacher, right?

So, I sent these letters home to the parents with a return envelope that said to return it to myself (via her teacher).

On the backside of the envelope it said  

"The news just came in from the County of King, it's time to show our teacher, that she is AMAZING!

May's the month, the 5th is the week, a celebration we're having, please try not to shriek!

We want to show THANKS for all that she does do.  She is the best, so here is what you can do!"

I got this poem from another blog, but for the life of me I can't find it to give her credit, darn it!

Inside the envelope was a note that gave all the details about the week and what we were going to do for her teacher each day.

MONDAY was Pink Yink Ink Drink Day  (from One Fish, Two Fish).

I asked the kids to bring in the teacher's favorite drinks.  I gave them a list of her favorite drinks to choose from.  And then I had a parent bring a Pink Jamba Juice for the teacher at the beginning of class.

TUESDAY was Beezle Nut Oil Boxed Lunch (from Horton Hears a Who).

I asked the kids to bring in the teacher's favorite lunch items.  I gave them a list of different snacks she could eat for lunch or her favorite places to eat out for gift certificates.  And then I asked a parent to bring the teacher her favorite sandwich from her favorite lunch place.

WEDNESDAY was The More You Read Library Day (from Oh the Places You'll Go).

I asked the kids to bring in a gently used or new book to add to the teacher's classroom library.

THURSDAY was Whoville Who Treats (from How the Grinch Stole Christmas).

I asked the kids to bring in her favorite treats.  I gave them a list of her favorite treats.

FRIDAY was Gourmet Hop on Popcorn Bar (from Hop on Pop).

I had the kids all write a nice note for the teacher saying why they like her as a teacher.  And then I asked 5 parents to bring in a batch of gourmet popcorn.  I had a place for the popcorn and that day the kids and teacher had snack time with the popcorn.  And then the leftovers, the teacher was able to take home for the weekend.

I had set up a place in the classroom where the kids could put their goodies each day.  I made Truffula Trees (from the Lorax) to decorate the areas.  Here is a great tutorial on how to make them.  I had a bucket for them to put their goodies and a sign with the "theme" for each day.

Here are the bags I had for the popcorn bar.  I just used brown paper lunch bags and cut them down half way with scalloped scissors and put a label on the front.

And here is the popcorn bar.  I made tags that said "popcorn thing 1" and so on.  And had scoops and popcorn napkins.

It was a fun project and Ella's teacher was so thrilled by it all.  She couldn't believe I did all this for her.  I told her she deserves to be appreciated more for just one week a year :-)  Boy oh boy, teachers should be appreciated all year long!.  But hopefully she felt the love this one week!

Destination Imagination State Competition

In the month of March, Hannah and her Destination Imagination team went to the State competition.  It was so exciting and the kids worked so hard to get there.  It was a great experience and such a fun way to learn, lead and problem solve.  Someone called it "olympics for the brain".  And that is so true.  Our kids did the Tension Builds challenge.  They had to build a structure out of wood, glue and fishing line and it could weigh more than 120 grams or be higher than 7 inches (or something close to those numbers).  This structure was supposed to hold as much weight as possible before it broke under the pressure.  Also, they had to put together a skit about how tension/pressure builds and how to solve the problem.  They didn't move on to Nationals, but they did a great job and we were so proud of them.  What a great experience!

This is their structure and the weight it held.  The structure they built is at the bottom in the middle of the wood square.  It is the light colored, small, structure.  It is hard to see it.  

Valentine's Day Classroom Treats

Here are the different valentine's the kids did this year.  I let them look at my Pinterest board and they get to choose what Valentine they want to do and here is what they choose.

Jake - he loved the Minions.  He was so excited to pass these little guys out!

Hannah choose these gum balls and kisses. 

Ella choose this cookies and milk theme.  We used those zippy straws that have chocolate milk flavored beads in them as the straws.  A little something fun.

Teach Last Day of School Gifts

 Here are the teacher's gifts we gave this year.

A cute, but simple insulated cup full of dark chocolates (the teacher's favorite) and a Jamba Juice gift card.

I did this last year, but it is worth repeating.  I got the mugs from Anthrpologie (for $6).  You can't see the initial, but it has the teacher's first initial on the front and again filled it with Lindt Chocolates.  I feel like it is such a cute, classy gift, but not too expensive.

The tag says "you have been a "letter" perfect teacher.  thanks for everything!"

The last gift was my favorite.  The teacher had three different bags she sent home with the kids throughout the year.  The bags she was using were random "marketing" bags she had gotten from various conventions and such.  So, I decided she needed "real" tote bags that were labeled appropriately.  So, I stenciled the three bags for her to use next year.  And of course added a tag.

End of School

Man, what a busy few weeks.  School got out and it has been non-stop until this week.  I have a lot to share from these last few weeks, but let's start with the last week of school.

I was in charge of the end of school party for my daughter's classroom and it was so much fun.  The older these school kids get, the more fun they have at parties like this.

We started with a pizza/fruit/veggies for lunch.  After the kids were done eating, we passed out beach balls for the kids to sign.  I had parents supply the beach balls and I wrote each kids name on their ball.  We passed out sharpie pens and the kids got to sign their names on all the balls.  It was fun.  The kids had fun signing and then they had more fun playing with the balls.

Next, we had a Candy Bar Award ceremony.  Each kid got a candy bar award.  We had them walk down a red carpet to get their award.  The kids had a blast with the red carpet (strutting their stuff) and loved finding out who got what candy bar.  I got the award design from this awesome site and altered it a bit to include our candy bar and reason for the award.

Also, I got the individual candy bar awards from this site... how great are all these awards.  So, nice that i didn't have to come up with all 27 awards on my own :-)   I had the teacher and principal sign the award and then we laminated them.

I made a fun "end of school" banner with flashcard garland to be the backdrop for the pictures of the awards, but their was no where to put it outside, so I will save it for next year.  I will definitely be doing this again :-)

Here are a few snapshots of the kids getting their awards and walking down the red carpet!  Like i said, they loved this!

Then we had an ice cream sundae bar and finally we ended with a pinata.  It was a fun party and the kids deserved it after a job well done this year!  

Whoopie pies

I have come to the conclusion that my signature dessert might be whoopie pies. Some people do cupcakes, some decorated cookies others bundt cakes (I like those too), but I really like whoopie pies. My next quest is to come up with my "secret" recipe and method that is my favorite.

For our school carnival's cake walk, I made what else? Whoopie pies. I used this recipe that was super easy (from a box easy) but really super yummy! I used her frosting recipe too, but I threw in 4 oz. of cream cheese, because frosting with cream cheese is soo much better!

I wrapped the little yummy cakes in freezer paper and taped them with washi tape! So cute and so stinkin' easy. I need to find a cuter container than generic bread tin, but given my week, this would have to do. Then wrap It all in cellophane and a ribbon and wa-laa.

Little tiny cake happiness!

Ella's Birthday Cont'd

This is the last of Ella's birthday celebration pictures. Between her birthday, school class celebration and her party, there were a lot of pictures. These pictures of from her classroom birthday celebration. The kids in her class made her this birthday banner which we had up in our house for awhile.



And these are the treats I took to share with Ella's class. I printed up the brown paper bags and altered this design to fit Ella's birthday. Simple donut holes with sprinkles are always a winner! And how easy too!

Getting Ready for School

We start school this coming Monday. My oldest is going into 1st grade and my middle child starts preschool. It is going to be an interesting year for me. So many big changes and now with Hannah going to school with the "big kids", I hope I can handle it.

But to get started, I decided to create some magnets that have a few "school schedules" to help me get started on the right foot this school year. I wanted to make sure i remember who drives what days for our carpool and what to pack each day for lunch. That is the biggest one to remember, so I am not trying to figure it out each morning.

I also made magnets for each of the parents I carpool with, so they too can have a little help the first few weeks.

I decided to made blank versions for you my readers, just in case you wanted to use them. And I figured out, how to add links for you to download them yourselves, without having to email me. So here they are: download the carpool here and the lunch menu here.

Calculating Success

I found this idea here and thought how easy and fun to give to my kids teachers this year. The calculators are from Target's dollar Spot, but I couldn't find any red (so sad), but I did find these fun colors. Then I created my own tag to match the colors and packaged them up.

Cheap, easy, cute and practical! What more can you ask for?! Here is to starting the school year out on a fun note!

You can download the tag here