Spring Break 2019

We survived Spring Break 2019!  The kids head back to school this week, and while we had a fun and relaxing week off, I am more than ready to get back to our normal routine!

My oldest daughter and I spent some time in Nashville visiting colleges at the beginning of the week.  It was so fun to take a road trip with just the two of us!  We laughed, cried, and saw some amazing sights!

Stood on the stage at the Grand Ole Opry!  It was such a neat feeling standing in that circle where so many legends have stood.

The Ryman Auditorium is absolutely gorgeous!

Lunched with Blake ;)

My girl.  

I am so not ready to be looking at colleges with her!!!  Can't she just stay in high school for a few more years?!

We finished off the week with the other 3 at our two favorite state parks that are a couple hours away from our house.  This is our annual Spring Break activity, and is one of our favorite traditions! 

Don't forget, if you want to follow along with more of our daily happenings, follow along on Instagram by clicking HERE.

Now, I am off to get these kids to school and start on the laundry!
I hope you had a fun Spring Break as well!

-Emily

Firefighter Turkey

My second grader came home this week with a fun turkey project!  He was given a turkey printed on a piece of paper and had to find a way to disguise him without just coloring him with crayons.  So of course, we decided to make him into a firefighter!  (Although, I must be honest that he did ask about making it a minion at first...)

We used scrap book paper for his gear, some firefighter stickers that were on clearance for accessories, pipe cleaners for the hose, glittery blue paper for the water, and topped him off by coloring his feathers like fire.  It was a fun project to work on with him!

Homework Supply Drawer

After school can seem to get a little crazy around our house.  I have tried to put some routines in to place to help make things run a little smoother, but definitely the most helpful thing for us is to have everything needed to get homework done in one location.  In our old house I actually had a homework station set up in our basement, but found that having it down stairs away from the rest of the house was not very functional for us.  So now we have the space to let the kids do their work on the main floor of the house so I have a drawer in our kitchen buffet that is dedicated to homework supplies. 

No one ever has to ask where a pencil is or go searching for a ruler.  Everything they need is right here.  I still have young kiddos going through school so crayons are still a part of our homework routine, and I also keep extra erasers, glue sticks, tape, and scissors.  In the back of the drawer I also stash some flash cards and a set of pretend money to help kiddos as they are learning about that.  

It certainly is not a fancy set up, but it sure does make things run a little easier at time to study!  Now, speaking of homework, I am off to make sure these kiddos are getting theirs done! 

End of School Celebrations

My kids finished up their last day of school Monday afternoon.  Tuesday morning at 8:38 I heard the words.  The words every mom dreads to hear in the summer.  "Mom, I'm bored."  What?!  8:38 on the FIRST morning of summer?!  You've got to be kidding me! Wow.  I think I've got my work cut out for me this summer!  But before we jump too far into summer, I wanted to share with you how we celebrated the last day of school for our kiddos!

We strung streamers all over the kitchen and put up this little sign I made.  We don't always do gifts for the last day of school, but this year each of our kids had a pretty big accomplishment or award given to them so we decided to get them each a little something special which we put at their spots at the table.  (And my 2 year old got a gift too-a potty seat and big girl underwear!  Her present for the big kids being out of school is that she is going to be potty trained-well, maybe that is my present?!)

Then we hung streamers in the doorway between our Butler's Pantry and Kitchen for when they walked in the door.  (Funny story, our little dog REFUSED to walk through them!  Scared her to death!)

And to make sure the fun began as soon as they got out of school, we filled the van with balloons!  Which of course meant there was a balloon fight on the way home.  Good thing we live close to school ;) 

And to top it off we kept with our tradition of blasting "School's Out For Summer" as they got into the car and we drove home.  It was a fun afternoon for sure!  Happy Summer!

Teacher Gifts

Today was the day!  The last day of school for my kiddos!  Sort of a bitter sweet day for me.  I am excited to think about less structured days, fun summer activities, and best of all-a break from the busy morning routine!  But I am also a bit nervous about the long days of summer and trying to keep everyone entertained!   But like it or not, here we go!  And I must say, I am looking forward to not having to make lunches at 6:30 tomorrow morning ;)

We have absolutely amazing teachers for our kids so I of course wanted to do something special for them for the last day.  I like to do something personal but also something I think they will really enjoy.  This year I decided I was going to do Target gift cards (actually, I had a different, more time consuming project I was going to do for them but ran out of time so I had to come up with a plan B...but who doesn't love Target?!  Still a great gift in my eyes!). 

I wanted to find a way to make them a little more personalized than just sticking them in a greeting card, so I made up these fun little notes to go along with them.  I saw some other similar ideas on Pinterest, but wasn't totally satisfied with any of them so I took some ideas then made ones to my own liking ;)  Then I just taped the gift card on top!  Easy!  And they were a big hit today!

HAPPY SUMMER!!