K Visiting and Christmas Tree

Once again, I am busy, busy, busy. We are leaving for Chicago for 4 days TODAY but in the meantime, we had some things to do this week. First of all, it is National Education Week which means it's Parent Visitation Week at our kids schools. First up was kindergarten.

I know some of you might think your child has the best kindergarten teacher ever. But you are mistaken. This is the BEST kindergarten teacher ever...Mrs. Fitzgerald. Parker had her and now Jack does. We LOVE her. Whew...she wears me out though. Kindergarten is very, very busy!

The K kids do a performance. Uh oh. This little Indian boy is nervous.

He actually ended up doing very well and was obviously having fun being "Brave and Strong"

We wanted to put our tree up before we left so it was all nice and pretty for us when we got home. I'm a glutton for punishment, I guess.

I didn't take any pictures of 2nd grade visitation because it just isn't nearly as cute. Also, Parker would probably die of embarassment. We are headed out to Chicago soon--with the boys for the first time--so with any luck, I will have lots of fun things to post soon! (Although, last night Jack had a fever so............)

Happy Birthday Mrs. Wheeler!

Today is Parker's teacher's birthday. I have know this day was coming since August and, yet, I waited until last night to really start working on her birthday gifts. Why, oh why do I do this to myself!? Anyway, everything got finished and presented and enjoyed, so now I can breathe easier.

I e-mailed all the parents in Parker's class and asked them to have their child make two birthday wishes for Mrs. Wheeler. They sent them to me and I typed them up, cut them into strips and placed them in individual covered matchboxes. After Mrs. Wheeler opened the gift, she handed the boxes out to each kid and they read their wishes and put the box back into the jar. Of course, I cutied up the jar which is a plastic salsa jar from Sam's. Yes, I bleached it out.

I also made another project which the kids unknowlingly helped me with. I will post pictures of it as soon as she hangs it in the room. We also gave her a bunch of menus from local restaurants and told her to make her choice and we would bring her lunch. And finally, we brought birthday cookies for the kids. I'm blogging about this because I think people are always looking for ideas for teachers. None of these things cost very much but they were all fun and special. Now I'm going to go take a nap. :-)

Christmas Countdown!

This is the reason I haven't been blogging this week. I decided to put some of these Advent calendars at the Lil' Bow Peeps store which is opening on Monday. If you are local, you really must check it out. Lots of nice gifts for the girlies on you list. I have 5 of the girly version and 2 of the gender neutral version. I am also working on a Nativity version, traditional (red & green) and a primitive country version. I will be selling them for $28.00.

Just in case you didn't see my old post about these, they are muffin tins and you put a little candy or a little slip of paper that would say something like, "Go look at Christmas lights." in each well and remove them as you count down the days 'til Christmas.

O.K.. Back to work! I even made a Christmas playlist so it would inspire me to work on Christmas stuff and it seems to be working!

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!

This is Shadow from G.I. Joe. Shadow was not in a very Halloweeny mood this evening.

This is Dracula. He was in a very Halloweeny mood and attended 3 parties today. For the first time ever, he did not dump his bag of loot and sort out all the different candies. He's probably too tired after all that partying!

This is a very blurry pictured of my front door. I actually think it looks kind of pretty which is not normally a word I would use to desribe my front entrance!

This is our basket of Halloween books. My sister gave us the Halloween basket liner from Pottery Barn Kids and I LOVE it! I also love Halloween books and I try to buy all I can from Scholastic. I think we have almost 30.

Super Boys

Whooohoooo....my computer remembered how to download pictures! Actually, I figured out another way to do it.


On our way home from Nashville a few weeks ago, we stopped in Metropolis, IL to visit Superman. Kitschy and cute!

Yes, I've been working out. ;-)

lil' bow peeps....gift boutique

I have spent the last few days painting this store window for my friend Jody's new little shop. It is only going to be open for the holidays and it will be featuring clothing, accessories, home decor, and lots of handmade items. Most of it is stuff you can't find anywhere else. I had so much fun painting this. It was hilarious to hear the comments people were making as they walked by. I don't think they thought I could hear them. In actuality, it was like some kind of freakish sound-amplification chamber and I could hear everyone within about 100 yards! Funny stuff, let me tell you!
If you are local, the store is located right next to Panera Bread in what used to be the customer service area of Circuit City. It will open on November 9th from 9-4. Go check it out!

Just a mess

Ughhh....I'm such a bad blogger. My computer has forgotten how to download photos from my SD card and I just hate posting without pictures. I've been taking pictures from my phone, but I haven't figured out how to quickly download those pictures onto my computer without e-mailing them to myself one at a time. I joined Flylady.com for about the 10th time in 5 years and she sends me so many e-mails that I barely have time to do anything else. Holy crap. Halloween will be here in a few days and I didn't do a fraction of the fun things I wanted to do. We never made it to Boo at the Zoo because of all the rain. (oh well, on that one!) Happenings with school have kept me busy and I'm painting a window and sign for a new seasonal store that my friend Jody is opening. I'm a hot mess! Always!

Snippets of Stuff

My children have not really followed after my crafty footsteps. Neither one of them really likes to color or draw. (Sob!) That's why it was kind of funny when Jack made all these balloon people and wanted to sell them at the school's fall festival.

Each room-mom was assigned a theme and given the task of assembling a basket to be sold at the fall festival's silent auction. I got the apple theme. I just asked the parents in Parker's class to make a small donation and I would go get the stuff. I'm so, so, so glad I did it that way. I think it was easier for everyone. Anyway, I filled the basket with stuff from local orchards. I also picked some stuff up at the Apple Barn in Nashville. If you like apples, you should really go there! I think the value of the basket was probably around $65.00 and it sold for $82. I guess that is o.k.

My parents own a farm (they don't live on it) and my dad has planted pumpkins and gourds the past few years. We all went to pick them a few weeks ago. It is always pretty funny to watch the kids go at it.

How cute is Jake!? Look how adorable he is dressed for mucking around at the pumpkin patch. I used to be able to do that too. And then they got old enough to whine and complain about their clothes and hair and they always look like ragamuffins nowadays.

While we were in Nashville, Parker and Jack fell head over heels in love with the Dennis' family dog, Lucy. I am not a dog lover but even I have to admit that Lucy is a very good dog. No jumping up or sniffing around or slobbering or running all over the place. She is almost 2 and she has been trained very well. Obviously the boys want a Lucy of their own. Never. Going. To. Happen. Sorry guys. We will just have to make more trips to visit Lucy in Nashville!

Nashville Friends

Me and Heather.

Clay and Jack.

Parker and Coleman.

Carmin, Heather and me. (Yes, those are two little fingers making rabbit ears behind my head.)

We are in Nashville this weekend visiting my girlfriends. I love it down here. Mostly I love visiting with old friends but I also just think it is very pretty here in the South. We are hoping to leave the boys today and do some shopping. I never know how cooperative Parker and Jack are going to be, though! So far pretty much everything we have done has revolved around food. Maggiano's on Friday night and Rainforest Cafe last night! Good friends and good food!

Fall Craftiness

Parker's teacher asked me if I had any fall ideas for the 2nd Grade Pod's bulletin board. Oddly enough that day I saw a very cute ad in Southern Living that would make the perfect board. I brought newspaper in to the kids and they painted it with watered down acrylic paint. Painting newspaper accomplishes two thing: 1. We are recycling and 2. It gives the kids a part in the making of the board. I took the paper home and cut out the leaves and wrote their names in corresponding marker and then a friend and I put it up (which was a mighty big job because the board is 8 ft x 8 ft.) I love the colors--it's a modern spin on fall colors. We took bets on how long it would be before the cute little owl gets torn off! Nothing at a school is safe from little hands.



Then my super crafty friend Michelle put her spin on it. Oh my goodness....CUTE! Her daughter is going to wear this to the Pumpkin Patch on our class field trip. Can you stand it!!!??? She cut all of this stuff out on her Cricut (she is the Queen of the Cricut!) Make sure you check out her blog where she gives the details on how she did this AND look around at all her other waaaay cute stuff!

Great Pumpkin Patch 2009

We went to the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur, IL yesterday after school. It was prettty cold and windy, but we had the place to ourselves which was nice. Don't be fooled by Parker's scowly face. He fell at school and busted his lip so he couldn't smile! We had a great time. It is really such a lovely, fun place!