All the Small Things...

Back To School 2011...

It's back to school for the Greding kids!

I've been DREADING it for the weeks.

No more lazy days of "oh, I'll do that tomorrow" or late night movie nights, or last minute sleepovers.

 We are now filled with "Are you done with your homework?" and "Oh my gosh- we are SO late!"

waa waa

:(

BUT, I put on my big girl panties and tried my best to make a great first day of school for my kids... and me!

 

 

First-- the breakfast...

So, I gave up the Super Mom dream of pancakes, bacon and hash browns for my kids' first day of school kick off and just went with donuts.

I will not feel guilty.  I will not feel guilty.  I will not feel guilty.

At least they were fresh-- I sent Dan to the donut store at 5:30 am!

 

 

Second-- the lunches...

I always try to make the first day of school lunch extra special.  

I like to include all of the kids' favorite snacks and even decorate their lunch sacks a little.  Patrick and Chandler would KILL me if I did this to their lunches, but Scarlet definitely loved the cuteness of it!

Oh, and how cute are these Lunch Lines?  I bought them at The Paper Source.  The jokes are dumb-- really dumb, but that's what I like about them.  :)  Just a fun little note from me and a silly joke-- a fun little addition to any lunch!

And yes, I even stick one in my Senior's lunch.

Sorry, kid.  Your mom is a dork.

 

This was Dan's contribution to the festivities.

He's a cute Dad.   

I love that I'm married to a man who would stay up late and create a chalkboard message for his kids' first day of school.  SO sweet...

 

 

 

Okay-- So here are the official BACK TO SCHOOL front yard pics of the 3 "bigs".

The chalkboard frame?  It's a decal from The Paper Source.

As soon as I take Keiran's first day of school pic (September 6), it's headed for the front of my refrigerator.

I love it.

Scarlet brought our usual first day of school basket of apples to her teacher.  

This has been a tradition since Patrick's first day of school 12 years ago!  All the kids have presented their teachers with a basket of apples on the first day of school in grades K-5th.

Come to think of it... I have MANY more years of this tradition!!! :)

 

Wednesday Jones and Keiran came along to see Scarlet off to school.

I LOVE that KK brought his Lightening McQueen lunch box... just in case he needed it!

 

Then the after school snack--

I LOVE a caramel apple!

Love.

 

All in all, it was a great first day and my kids are happy with their teachers and their schedules (except Patrick -- he's not a fan of his math teacher-- deal with it).

 

Here's to a GREAT 2011-2012 school year!!!

Our Welcome to Summer Celebration...

For the last few years I have made these banners for the kids to run through when they get home from school.  It's turned into a tradition and it just wouldn't feel like summer without the banner now!

This year the banner didn't break too easily so KK got another chance to run through it all by himself and he LOVED that a lot!!!

My friend, Michelle, and I also make a few of them for some of the girls we visit each month and dropped them off at their homes, so they could have a fun kick off to summer too!

 

 

After the kids get home from school, we also always go out and do something together.  This year we kept it close and simple and headed over to our fav burger joint, The Habit, and then had Shave It (Hawaiian shaved ice and ice cream) afterwards.  The kids brought their yearbooks and had fun going through each others.  

Hey, Patrick-- I know you don't read this, but just in case you happen to: I know you refuse to ever pose again nicely for a pic for me, so just know that I will still publish the LAME ones of you.  Just a little FYI for ya...

I can't express enough how HAPPY we all are that summer is here!!!!!!!!!!!!

End of School Teacher Gift...

I loved what I gave Scarlet's teachers this year and I hope they loved it too!

 

I started with the idea of what would be fun for their kids too and came up with a snow cone maker.  We've had one for years and LOVE it.  I love it more for making icy drinks than for even making snow cones.  Fill a glass with ice shavings and add strawberry lemonade or a diet coke?!?!?  DIVINE!

 

Then I made some cute fabric flowers and added them to a straw tote.  I then placed some snow cone syrup (for their kids), an adult bev mix (for them) and a fun summery ring (I removed it from it's lame wrapping and made my own) to the tote and I was done!

 

A VERY summery gift that is thoughtful, but was easy to put together.  :)

A Little Bit of School Stuff...

So I made the Caramel French Toast for some of my friends and it turned out GREAT.  It was so fun delivering it to everyone and they all seemed SO appreciative!  It felt great to help them out on such a crazy day!  A bunch of you have written to me and told me that you loved the recipe... it's SO good and quite easy to make.

Here I am in the process of making some of the deliveries:

Here are the baskets that I made for Scarlet and Chandler's teachers:

The baskets turned out pretty cute.  I even added apple candles this year!  The teachers loved them!

Our 9th annual "night before the first day of school" breakfast out!  Swanky, huh?!  lol

Chandler's Last Day of School...

Goodbye 3rd grade.   :(

Just some little gifties for the best teachers ever...

I started off the year sending the kids with a bucket of apples to school, (photo here)so I thought it would be a good idea to end it with an apple candle.  I also included some yummy pancake mix and Pear and Honey preserves.

 

The last lunch of 3rd grade...

1st Day of School...

What a morning!  Three kids in three different schools...

.

This is the outfit I made for Scarlet for her 1st day of school.  Recognize the fabric from my pancake bags? 

I don't know if you can see, but Scarlet's bows have little polymer pencils on them... cute!

Teacher Gifts...

So, I'm a traditionalist... on the first day of school my children always bring their teachers a red juicy apple. 

Well actually, it's always a galvanized bucket of apples... even cuter, huh?  Their teachers always get such a kick out of the gift and it is the EASIEST gift EVER!

You can get these cute buckets HERE... and they're super inexpensive!

Back to School Gifts...

Well,  quite a few of my girlfriends' children are starting Kindergarten tomorrow (such an exciting day!) and I thought it would be fun for the kids and I to deliver a little something to make their breakfast a little more special.

This was a fun project!  I just sewed some fabric bags with the fabric I had left over from Scarlet's "First Day of School" outfit (I'll post the pics of her in the dress tomorrow) and made some cute tags with the same fabric and ironed the fabric onto the tags with WonderUnder.

I then made up batches of our fav homemade pancake mix and put the mix into mason jars and put some stickers on the jars to identify what the jars contain.  I then added an instruction tag to the rim of the jar.

I then put the mason jars in the bags, tied a cute bow, attached some cooking utensils and the tags with another cute ribbon and VOILA... a fun gift!  I hope they like it!