Cold, Wet, Rainy Friday

In addition to a bunch of errands, I spent part of my day making a double batch of chili for the PTO fall social at Christopher's school this evening. We had a good time trying some different soups, the kids enjoyed the hot dogs and lemonade, and of course Christopher ended up with a couple too many desserts:)

I did have a minute to put the finishing touches on my latest layout:


This one was fun! Yin has some great sketches (for paper scrappers) and .psd layered templates of her sketches (for digi scrappers)...some are free, others are in her related blog store.
I like them for the pages that I want to include TONS of photos:)

I rarely purchase specific birthday related scrapbooking supplies, paper or digi. Christopher's pirate-themed party lended itself more to pirate/Halloween items than birthday...but for this generic party at preschool I really had to dig and was glad I had all my digi supplies organized in ACDSee Photo Manager (also great for photo managing and organizing, obviously). The only new thing I had to buy was the candle flames...what's a birthday candle without the flame?!

Journaling: Birthdays are a big deal at a Waldorf preschool, and rightly so. Parents and siblings are invited to come for the day and enjoy all the usual and special activities. I helped the children make yarn fiber tied balls, Christopher played with everyone, especially Daniel, Michael played with the kitchen, the gnomes, and checked out the “vacuumie”, and Jeff took lots of pictures.
Yin template
Sarah Batdorf Birthday Wishes circle/target
Valerie Randall Assemble Your Own Birthday Candles (5 candle and all the flames)
Thao Cosgrove Beautiful Distress Brush Set (white brushwork behind title), rectangle words from her Friendship and Merry Mine collections
Brandy Hackman brads
Sara Carling brad and leather circle tags (Aero collection)
Mary Ann Wise 2 peas Party Hat freebie collection candle paper (recolored)
Dani Mogstad Cabana Boy "play" tag
Cari Lopez "Exotic Bag" candles
Chatterbox Fingerpaint font
Miss Mint "play time" tag

TFL,
Cheri

Country School

A challenge from Jen Wilson Designs pushed me to do this layout. Paper scrappers may recognize her style from My Mind's Eye papers such as Laundry Line
Supplies (all from Jen Wilson unless otherwise stated):
My mom and the country school she attended through 6th grade.
Supplies:
Academy: orientation papers
sandcastle frame
Little Agendas calendar strip
Journal Hot Spots quotations
My Playroom alpha (circular letter)
Laundry Line letter tabs
Americana BT and SchoolScript fonts
Journaling: United Township #7 Crossroads School (photo taken in the 1980s) was home to Kenneth, Carol, & Bruce, as well as their mother and her 4 siblings years before.
Pictured with Carol and Bruce are Ruth, a cousin, and Myron, the boy who once kissed Carol on the mouth behind the schoolhouse! Carol doesn’t remember if she liked it or if she told him to get lost.

Kindergarten, scrapbooked already

Journaling: The big first day has come and gone! We biked the first morning while Jeff stayed home with
Michael. Christopher looked sad, but didn't cry, when I left him off. Christopher thought school seemed long and wouldn’t tell many stories. Two days later at the mini-conference his teacher said he’s doing very well, participates, and seems happy. He has brought his lunch every day so far: The first day he had a turkey sandwich, grapes, cottage cheese, baby carrots, and a tiny bag of Lego fruit snacks for a treat. It’s hard to believe he is really old enough for kindergarten!
Supplies:
Scraplifted from Vivian Masket's layout in 9/08 CK magazine
Robin Carlton Bears 'n Blossoms 'n Blooms kraft paper (bottom layer)
Shalae Tippetts Freedom special (stripes)
Angie Briggs Beloved red paper for apple
Erica Hite Fabric Buttons apple
Angelica E. Almost Solids ledger paper
Thao Cosgrove Typography Scrap Simple Paper Template (words overlay)
E-lena calendar
Ursula Schneider Mini Calendars Emb Templates
Shabby Miss Jenn pencil
Impact and Candara fonts
Jan Hicks Coin Folder Chip style on "off"
Katie Pertiet Defining Moments -Love (circle brush at bottom)

Phew, the first week of school is done!:) C actually admitted school was "good" today, though still said it was too long. Y'all should have seen me getting to school to pick him up today. A bit of background first: Jeff drove the van to work this morning and left M's carseat here, and at 4:00 we are riding with our friends in their big van down to Des Moines to have dinner with them. Then we will ride back with Jeff in our van:) Anyway, the boys don't fit in the bike trailer together anymore, and fight when they try, so C would have to ride his own bike home. M and I didn't want to have to run any errands today, so we didn't have a chance to drop off C's bike at school. So M rode in the stroller, I pushed it, and pushed C's bike off to the side, the whole 1/2 mile to school this afternoon. :) I'm sure I was quite the spectacle. And C did just fine riding his bike home with us. He isn't super fast yet, so didn't seem to mind waiting for us to catch up on foot. M slept most of the way there and back, but of course woke up when we got home. Guess he'll be a bit sleepy tonight at Grandma & Grandpa's, oh well!

Kindergarten

The big first day has come and gone!:) We biked this morning while Jeff stayed home with Michael. Christopher looked sad, but didn't cry, when I left him off. I was quite impressed that he smiled for a (yes, a) picture...he's on a 2-3 year kick of not liking to have his picture taken (must be a scrapper's curse or something, lol). Michael and I biked to pick him up at 1:45 (shortened days this whole week for mini-conferences with the teachers). M fell asleep on the way there:) Christopher seemed a bit too proud of himself for not saying anything at school. Later it came out that he talked with a couple children he knew from other classes at recess, but apparently didn't say anything in his own class. I think within a couple-three days he'll be talking TOO much in class;)

He was adamant that he bring his lunch and liked that, but unfortunately I'm not sure how many turkey sandwiches a kid can really eat! (Or how many lunches a mom can make). He brought: turkey sandwich, grapes, cottage cheese, baby carrots, and a tiny bag of Lego fruit snacks for a treat. He knew he could buy milk there but drank the water in his lunch box. Now that I know it stays cold enough, I think I'll just send milk with him. It sounds like we're going to keep up the bringing the lunch thing! And speaking of, he just fell asleep so I better get downstairs and make his lunch!

Mayfest at Preschool

A week ago we celebrated Mayfest at Christopher's Waldorf preschool. Since I don't have permission to post all the children's pictures, I'll give you a sprinkling of what I can. I came early with the boys to set up for the scavenger hunt. I was on the festivities planning group this year, and managed to combine digital scrapbooking with my duties (heehee).



I sweet-talked Amy in to making the May cake since no one on the planning committee seemed to have any experience baking large cakes from scratch. I think she pulled it off quite nicely (with some decorating assistance from Sydney)...see center of top collage.

Besides the scavenger hunt, there were various fun activities for the kids. One father and his boy made a beanbag toss, someone brought various musical instruments and allowed the children to experiment (M loved the guitar), there was a recorder ensemble led by one of the teachers, one mom played the drums with them, and her older children later played a violin duet, sack race, 3-legged race, dancing around the Maypole (of course), making and embellishing May crowns, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something. At the end of the evening one father brought their fire pit and the few families who stayed late sat around talking and perhaps roasting hot dogs.

I don't think I've ever had such a great dinner...lots of organic, lots of vegetarian, lots of yummy dishes including curried fish. I have had 3 or 4 different curry dishes before and have never liked the flavor at all, but this fish was AWESOME! I totally need the recipe:)

Waldorf has an emphasis on natural, especially outdoors, play. There is a wooden hilly area behind the preschool, complete with a hollow log, a teepee, and a tree for climbing. Several of the children ran amok up there much of the evening. At least twice when we couldn't find Michael, he was up there by himself, roaming around. The other time, we found him in one of the Sunday School rooms (ie. not part of the preschool places of the church) with Charley, playing with the toys.

Preschool Halloween Party

Christopher's preschool celebrated the weekend before Halloween. I don't have any individual shots of my children, and didn't feel it right to post pics of others' children, so here are some mood shots of the evening. We started out with a few adults/older siblings up on "Crystal Gnome's mountain" (otherwise known as the wooded hill at preschool) handing out goodies at stations. One station had candy, another had cute little pipe cleaner spiders, and my station had little spice bags made by another Mom. I was dressed as an Egyptian queen mummy, so I called the bags "embalming spices." My station was the most popular as there was a tub of "boiling" dry ice there. A few of the older boys stayed with me the whole time, stirring the pot and putting leaves and twigs in it.

Jeff carved the awesome owl pumpkin to contribute to the decorations. Michael was a tiger, same as for trick-or-treating. The preschool (Waldorf-based Prairie Flower Children's Center) frowns on media characters, especially violent ones, so instead of Batman, Christopher chose to be a sheep. One day a few weeks ago he came down from upstairs wearing my gray slippers on his feet, Jeff's socks on his hands, and a white handled basket upside down on his head and proclaimed he was a sheep. We modified the idea a bit for the preschool party and borrowed an actual sheepskin (which wouldn't really stay on, oh well).

I made the cream cheese pumpkin, above, and provided crackers. The stem is a large twisted pretzel, the eyes and nose are raisins (cut in a triangle for the nose), and the mouth, out of desperation, was made from a strawberry Tootsie Roll from Christopher's 4th of July parade stash (yes we still have a big bag left over, lol). I don't have a picture of the cheeseball at the party, but the Tootsie Roll got all warm from me molding it into a smile shape, and started to melt...it looked way cool, like a bloody dripping mouth! (Maybe not the greatest thing for a non-scary preschool party, but one of the other dads thought it was great.) And I have to say, this was my idea from start to finish...I'm not saying no one else ever thought of a cheeseball pumpkin, but I didn't/don't know anything about it. I don't come up with too many original ideas, so :-P

The children bobbed for apples hung on strings from the ceiling, played outside a bit, and then we played a game I found on the internet: I bought a skein of cool black fiber/yarn and rewound it in a ball. We sat in a large circle and the chilren threw the ball back and forth while the adults held onto the fiber until it became a large spider web. The kids all threw their pipe cleaner spiders on it and we bounced them up and down, then they ran in the middle and got all tangled up and giggled and giggled.

There was a quick story time, then cleanup. Unfortunately Michael continued his sometimes habit of hurting himself as we are leaving someplace (he got a huge knot on his forehead and a bloody nose this summer as we were leaving the Bible School picnic): He was standing by Gray on the stone stairs, and next thing I knew, a couple feet away, he had tumbled down one or 2 stairs and was crying. He bit his lip and needed one stitch below his lip...his first (and I'm sure, not last) stitch. So I had to take him to the ER where I work and have Dr. Fisher sew him up. He was fine by the time we got there and just wanted to explore. One of the nurses commented she could see how he could get hurt, as active as he is.