Volunteering at School

I had a couple opportunities to volunteer in the school this year.  Blake's teacher asked for moms to help during centers on Tuesdays, so I'd go for an hour or more every other Tuesday (or so).  I thought it was a fun opportunity to see Blake in school and meet, and get to know, some of his classmates.  I had a great time with them!  (Kids are just so cute!)  Well, the last week of school, Blake's teacher came and found me in the other place I volunteered, which I'll tell you about in a minute, and gave me this sweet gift!

The idea for the gift is so neat!  It's a pitcher with a spoon and Country Time Lemonade mix along with a thank you from all the kids in the class and the teacher.  I'm totally keeping these and rereading them.  They say things like "you are my favorite in centers", "you must be a great mom" and one was signed "your little friend".  Blake even wrote that he wished I could come more.  They all just melted my heart!

The other volunteering I had the opportunity to do was in the school library.  The librarian asked for help in the the parents that worked the scholastic book fair so I offered.  I had no idea how much work goes into keeping a school library going!  I'm sure that the school librarian isn't paid enough for all she does, but it's a neat job for sure. I really enjoy working in their, shelving books, checking books in and out, and doing whatever is needed.  I'm definitely planning on going back again in the fall.  The librarian also gave me a thank you gift of this cute bird feeder and seed.

Rich hung it out front for me in the Mountain Ash tree so we can watch the birds through the front window.  It's going to be fun watching the birds year round!  Morgan spotted this little guy today:

The kids have a great school and I'm happy I've had a chance, in a small way, to be part of it!

"Fizz, Boom, Read!" Summer Reading Program 2014

The kids and I did A LOT of reading this summer!  Within the 2 months that our library's summer reading program ran, I read 24 hours to the kids.  Morgan ended up with nearly 74 hours, so 50 hours of reading on her own!  Blake ended with about 29 hours, which was mostly from what I read to him, but Morgan read some books to him too without me.

 

It's really fun reading with the kids, but a couple things made it a little extra fun this summer.  The library's summer reading program theme was science, which the kids LOVE.  They kicked off the summer reading program by having the Michigan Science Center come and do all sorts of neat fire-type reactions.  I have to admit that it was pretty awesome!  I was so involved that I almost forgot to take pictures, but got a couple at the very end. :-)

 

 Beyond the kick-off, the library then had a different science activity almost every Friday.  We missed the first one where they were making lava lamps, but we made it to make terrariums.  (FYI-I can not keep house plants alive...they died, we replaced them, those died...I gave up!)

 

There was a sink/float activity that I didn't get pictures of.  Basically the kids put different things in water to see what would sink and what would float, then they experimented with different candy to see what would sink/float.

 

The kids also made what is a lot like silly putty one Friday.  That was pretty cool...as you can see from Morgan's expression :-)

Another Friday, we had some friends over, and they went with us to do some solar activities.  The kids made bracelets with beads that changed color in the light and raced solar cars. :-)

 

The last 'science' activity was mostly using pop and having it react to things.  The best one was using pop and Mentos and seeing the pop shoot WAY up in the air! :-)

 

The library ends the summer reading program with a picnic each year and this year they had a local place come and bring some exotic animals.  I hadn't heard of most of the animals before and it was really neat learning about each one!

 

There were also prizes drawn after the picnic and Morgan happened to win one!  It just topped off a very fun reading program this summer.

The other thing that made reading extra fun for us this summer was reading some classics and then having movie nights to watch the movies based on those classics.  These are the ones that I can remember reading: Little Women, A Little Princess, How to Train Your Dragon (saw the movie first, then wanted to read the book) and The Secret Garden.  It seems like there were more, but those were the main ones.  I think we read some of the stories that the Disney Princess movies were based off of too.  We also read Farmer Boy, (we had read Little House in Big Woods this past winter), and I hope to read Little House on the Prairie soon too.  I hope to track down some of the TV episodes so the kids can see those after we read it.  We had SO MUCH fun doing this, I hope to do even more next summer...if I can wait that long...it might end up being an ongoing thing.  ;-)

Morgan's 8th Birthday

We celebrated Morgan's birthday with family a couple weeks early, because it just worked out the best time for several reasons...and EVERYONE made it! 

 

 

Morgan helped design her birthday cake.  We actually used food coloring in the cake batter to make it marbled with purple.  Morgan thought that was GREAT!

 

 Morgan received a lot of great presents!  She has several new craft projects AND science projects to do, several new clothes for her and outfits handmade by my mom for her American Girl Doll, a talking Olaf that she has wanted since Christmas and more wonderful gifts.

 

 She is ready to try that one-of-a kind cake...

...had to blow the candle out first though.

 

We had tried to keep the party simple.  Morgan asked for snacks instead of a dinner/cookout, so I was able to prepare everything ahead of time.  Turns out when you only feed snacks, though, your guests don't fill up on a dinner and EVERYONE takes cake.  We need to remember to make a bigger cake next time...although we managed to spread that little cake out to 20 people! ;-) (Rich and I were the only ones who didn't get a piece.)

 

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Even though we have a party at a separate time, we still try to make the actual birthday special too.  I think Morgan was more excited than I've ever seen her before for this birthday.

 

Morgan requested waffles for breakfast, but I talked her into pancakes...since Birthday panCAKEs seemed to fit the occasion better.  (And they don't take nearly as long to make...VERY important on a school morning!)  She even got to choose her topping of blue icing and pink sprinkles.

 

Morgan decorated the cupcakes for her class this year.  They smelled delicious!  (Rich and I still didn't get any cake...lol!)

 

 At school, Morgan's teacher gave her a few things for it being her birthday and some of her classmates made her cards.  When I picked her up from school, we went to the library.  The library had a contest where the top 20 guesses for the number of books in the library each received a digital bookmark.  I had gotten the call the day before that Morgan and Blake each received a bookmark, but Morgan won with the closest guess and got to choose something from their prize box!  I thought that would be a fun thing to do for a birthday activity! ;-)

 

We also stopped at the grocery store so Morgan could pick out an ice cream to have for an after school treat and she chose ice cream sandwiches. (Yum!)

 

After the kids had their treat, Morgan wanted to do one of her science projects she got at her birthday party and decided on the Dinosaur Dig.

 

She must have dug for that dinosaur for about 2 hours total, but this was the first piece she found.

 

Blake was getting too anxious watching Morgan dig, so he sat down with a new book and read it to me...wearing my sunglasses :-)

 

Morgan chose to have hot dogs and nachos for her birthday dinner.  My mom also stopped by and dropped off mini cupcakes.  (Rich and I finally got some cake!  LOL!)

 

After dinner Morgan opened her present that we saved for her birthday.  She received two books in the same series as "Like Bug Juice on a Burger".  As you can see, she was thrilled!

 

 She also got a couple cartridges for her InnoTab3...a Sophia the First game and a Doc McStuffins.  Again, super excited!  She had been wanting them since receiving her InnoTab for Christmas.

 

I offered for her to have a movie night or a family game night and she chose a game night.  We only played one game, Farkle Around, then she went back to digging out her dinosaur, which she finished, and playing her new InnoTab games.

 

Morgan's own dinosaur 'fossil' all pieced together.

 

We finished off the day measuring the kids' heights.  We try to do that a couple times a year...it's always neat seeing how much they've grown.  The last time we measured them was January 1st and Blake has grown just under an inch since then, while Morgan has grown just over an inch!  I had teased them before we started that they 'better not have grown at all'....no such luck! ;-)

A Winning Design!

The local library held a bookmark design contest for March being reading month.  The kids were to draw a favorite character from a book and enter their design in their age division.   Each class at school was also able to enter, as long as the teacher wanted to, and one winner would be chosen from that class as well.  (Morgan's class did it, so she was able to enter twice!)   Anyway, Blake had the winning bookmark design for his age division!!

 

The prize was that his design would be made into bookmarks that anyone can pick up at the library.  We got the call that he won on Wednesday but it was going to be a few days before the bookmarks would be made up...we checked in Friday and they were done!

 Morgan had drawn 'The Cat in the Hat' for her age division entry, so Blake went with a 'Thing'.  He drew it and then he seemed to be done, so I asked if he wanted to write anything on it, like maybe "Reading is Fun!" or "Reading is a Fun 'Thing'".  That little guy immediately said "Reading is a Fun Thing To".  Apparently I'm kinda slow and didn't know why he stopped at 'to', so, kinda confused, I said how about "Reading is a Fun Thing to Do"....then it hit me, he meant 'Thing 2'!  LOL!  That made so much more sense!  Anyway, this is how it came out:

I never thought to get pictures of Morgan's designs before she turned them in.  I don't think they'll be getting them back now. :-/  Morgan was able to grab her best friend's winning bookmark and another that had drawn an 'American Girl', though.  They all did such a great job and, most importantly, they had a lot of fun creating them! :-)

Halloween Activities 2013

Our Halloween activities started at the beginning of October.  Some friends invited us to camp with them at a nearby campground during one of their Halloween Weekends.  It was a warm weekend for October which made it nice to be outside.  It was rainy too, but only at night while we were sleeping.  The kids enjoyed a scavenger hunt, looking at the campsite decorations and trick-or-treating.  There was a haunted hayride too, but we figured they were too young.

Morgan as a fairy and Blake as Hulk.

The kids with our young friends.

 

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The following Friday night we had made plans with another friend of mine to go to one of Greenfield Village's Halloween nights.  It had cooled off a bit, but was a pleasant night and perfect for being outside.

 

The kids just outside the gates waiting for our time to go through.

The amount of carved pumpkins was AMAZING!  There must have been hundreds lining either side of the walking path, plus more stacked in places and the neatest was seeing several decorating a tree!!  (Bottom left picture is the tree with the jack-o-lanterns.)

There were several 'spooky' sites, but nothing really scared us.  Some of our favorite spots were a covered bridge that was full of smoke, the carousel with ghosts riding, the mad scientist lab where all the glassware glowed neon colors and the headless horseman!  The kids thought for sure the headless horseman must have been fake.  We reassured them that he was alive.  His costume was just so good that you couldn't really tell that his head was in it...we didn't tell the kids that though ;-)

 

There were also treat stations along the way with people in really neat elaborate costumes.  The whole experience was really quite awesome!  The only thing I wished was different is that it wasn't so crowded!  Keeping track of the kids, in the dark, in shoulder-to-shoulder people, was a tough task!  Thankfully they're really good about sticking with me.

 

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We didn't make any new decorations this year, but we enjoyed the ones we already have.  The kids absolutely LOVE the decorations that glow and had me take pictures of them all.  They thought it was fun to turn them all on and shut the lights off to make it 'spooky' in the house. :-)

 

 

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We also took advantage of the library's Halloween activities this year.  They had a Halloween Origami night this year.  The kids were able to make some neat origami pumpkins and bats!

 The library also had a movie night where they showed Monsters U with snacks, a treat bag and a costume contest.  Blake was still the Hulk, but Morgan changed her mind the week before and said she wanted to be a vampire.  When I asked her why, she said her teeth made her look like a vampire anyway!  LOL!  (She was missing her 2 front teeth.)  I didn't think it'd happen, since we didn't have anything to make her look like a vampire, but she found a cape at her grandma's, she wore her own black pants and white shirt, Blake's vest and some orange teeth he got from his teacher, we pulled her hair back and she inherited her pale skin from her mom.  ;-)   She was all set!  She won 2nd place ($2) in the costume contest! :-)

 

 

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Halloween day was busy!  I didn't even stop to take pictures...how bad is that?!?  The kids had their Halloween activities at school that I went to to be with them.  They went at separate times to see a magician who was quite good and it was all Halloween themed tricks!  They would typically parade through town and the businesses would hand out candy to them, but it was rainy and our town's main street was torn apart, so someone from each of the businesses lined the hall of the school to pass out candy.   Then they'd usually enjoy donuts and juice outside, but they had that in their classroom instead.

 

I then took them out of school early, so I could run them over to meet up with my mother-in-law and go to Rich's great-grandmother's nursing home were they handed out candy to the kids.  Afterwards we had dinner with Rich's family, then spent the rest of the evening driving around visiting family.

 

That was the gist of our Halloween this year.  Very fun times that I'm sure we'll always remember. :-)

Tea and Tiaras...Times Two!

  

Cinderella Tea Party

 Morgan had the opportunity to go to a Cinderella Tea Party where the 'real' (as Morgan says it) Cinderella sang to all the little girls.  Of course they had cupcakes and punch too!

Cinderella had the most beautiful princess singing voice.  She could have been any of the princesses, she sang their songs so well!

Morgan even had the opportunity to dance with Cinderella and then have her picture taken with her.  I'm pretty sure she felt quite special :-)

The Library's Prince and Princess Tea
The library always has fun activities to do, especially during their Summer Reading Program.  This tea party, Blake could even attend!

Looking cute as usual! :-)

Coloring fun.

Pin the Kiss on the frog!  CUTE!

Cupcakes AND Cookies and pink lemonade!

These tea parties were only a few days apart and both were very fun in their own ways! :-)

Wordless Wednesday: Watercolor Painting at the Library

It was National Library Week last week and one of the activities our library had was a watercolor bookmark class for all ages, so the kids signed up.

 

These are the two bookmarks they had to choose from.  They both chose to make the 'bee' one.

 

I somehow cut off the top of both their heads while taking pictures...I'm going to blame it on my phone ;-)

 

 

Their finished bookmarks!  I helped a little with staying within lines and blending, but the kids did most of it on their own...even the writing!

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Wordless Wednesday: Centennial Celebration, Story Time and Face Paintings

Our local library celebrated 100 years of being open this past weekend. We went for Story Time and Blake made the paper! (Upper right-he's doing the craft.) I was also quoted, but you can ignore that. ;-)

One part of the celebration was the kids could get their faces painted. Morgan chose a butterfly...

...and Blake went with a shark.

Of course the library had other things going on and snacks for everyone to enjoy. I think it's wonderful all they do to show the kids that the library is a fun place, which not only encourages them to visit, but also to develop a love for reading. :-)