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!!

Chore Charts

I've searched long and hard for a chore chart that functioned how I wanted it to.  I love all the cute ideas on Pinterest with chore cards and magnetic boards, but with 4 kids to make them for and the space it would take to put them up for each kid, it just isn't the best option for us. And I have never found just the perfect basic chart, so I finally decided to make some myself! 

I wanted something simple to use and not cluttered up with a bunch of things I didn't need.  The left side is for daily chores that need to be done (make bed, read, feed dog, etc.)  The right side is for things that just need to be done once a week.

I am laminating them so we can use dry erase markers to change the chores as needed (like during the summer when homework is not an issue and as they get older and can do different things.)  I also printed them out as a 4x6 size so that I can easily have them all displayed without taking up a ton of space.   At some point they could even keep them in their rooms (although I prefer to have them all in one spot so I can keep a close eye on what is getting done or not ;) ).

Hoping this is finally the system that works for us!