Tyler turns 10!

Tyler's 10th birthday party was a fun day! He asked for it to be a "spooky" theme, so his friends came over a few days before his actual birthday and they played spooky games and had a lot of nerf gun wars! 

They ate spooky eyeball jello, and veggies with ranch that was inside a pumpkin, and mummy dogs and they were constantly moving and I hardly took and pictures! 

When the evening was over and his friends went home we played Star Wars Monopoly, which is Monopoly is his FAVORITE, with the new game he just had received from his friend Deacon. 

Then on his actual birthday, he requested homemade Big Macs, like always, and pumpkin pie, like always. He's a creature of habit! He got some super fun gifts too! 

It was a great way to spend a 10th Birthday! Happy Birthday, Tyler! 

Fall Leaves - 3rd Grade Art

I loved getting to do this Fall Leaves - 3rd Grade Art project with my son's class. And now that I already had two class projects under my belt I felt like this one would go pretty quick. So last week I packed up my materials, my Fall Leaves example (after finding it on Pinterest!) and headed to Tyler's class to teach the kids what we were making.

Like the previous months, Witches Feet, I took my completed painting, a paper with just the lines drawn out and a blank paper to draw it step by step with the kids. This really seems to be what works for us!

Thanks to DecoArt for supplying this paint at the beginning of the school year so I had everything I needed for them to make this fun picture. We used a white sheet of art paper and the paint from the picture below. I used a couple of different browns since no tree is just one color. I love the dimension it can give.

For the leaves, we used toilet paper rolls that I cut into threes. Each kid had two pieces, one for yellow and one for orange.

We started with drawing the tree with a pencil. After they were done drawing they used paint brushes to fill in the tree trunk and branches. And once they were done with the brown we used the toilet paper rolls to "stamp" on the leaves. Some of the kids loved that if they did it just right their toilet paper roll bubbled and filled in the leaves with paint.

I love that every one of these paintings are different, because no two trees, or people are exactly the same. It is easy for some of them to do their own work but sometimes kids want to make it look exactly like mine.  I try to remind them it is okay for theirs to be different. Last, we used our paintbrushes to just add a few small green leaves onto the tree.

Where we live, right now trees are at all stages. Some still have lots of leaves, some have none. And you'll see all sorts of colors on the tree or the ground below.

I am super proud of the kids and I think they did a great job!

In December we have a short month due to Christmas!  I am still helping and looking forward to a fun themed project coming up soon!

Dinosaur Birthday Party

My little guy isn't so little any more. Yesterday Tyler turned 7 years old. I know that he really is still "little" but such a big kid too!
He is loving first grade and I love to watch him grow. His reading and writing is so great and I love having him read stories to me. And he asked for notes cards and envelopes for his birthday so he can write notes. He is so my child.

For his birthday he asked for a Dinosaur birthday party and as soon as Summer's Mermaid Party was over I got to work on a few things.



I really wanted to keep food more simpler than I have before. We did food for Carivores: Chicken nuggets and pigs in a blanket. Herbivores: veggies and ranch. And Sweetivores: Dino footprint cookies.

We also had Dino eggs which were grapes. Dino bones that were pretzels and Dino teeth that were Bugles. We also had green Din-o-mite punch!



These plates I use are awesome and I use them for every party I have! I just get a can of spray paint and give them a fresh color for whatever our theme is! check out how I made them in this post from Summer's Tea Party.



We had several games that we played. The first was just "Pin the head on the skeleton" and I picked that up from Party City for just a couple of dol1ars. It came with 12 skeleton head stickers, a blindfold and the sheet to put up on that wall. The kids could see out of the bottom of the blindfold if you weren't paying attention. The we had a couple of non cheaters! (Ha!)



We also played another game where we tied a string to a balloon and tied the other end around the kids waist. Then once they were all ready we let them loose and they had to stomp the other kids balloons to pop them without getting their own popped. The last balloon standing wins. I think we only had three kids that cried..... The others seemed to enjoy it!



The last game we played was called Feed the dinosaur. Zachary drew this Dino for me and cut out the mouth then we just put a bucket behind it. We had a bag of plastic golf balls from a game we played over the summer that worked perfectly and the kids seemed to love it. They each took multiple turns!



Then it was time for presents and cupcakes. Tyler got tons of legos, which he loves so he was super excited and couldn't wait to get building!



And next was chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and I used candy corn to make spikes on the back of our Dino!



To make the leaves I just cut them out with my cricut. Such a time saver!



I also made shirts for my family. Getting a 15 year old boy to wear a shirt that says "brothersaurus" isn't easy, but he wanted to stay the night at his friend's so I told him only if he wore the shirt for the party. #noshameinmygame So here we are: mamasaurus, daddysaurus, brothersaurus, sistersaurus and Tylersaurus.



Tyler had such a fun party and I think all the kids had a fun time too! You can see the "binoculars" we made using toilet paper rolls, tape and string. Makes for a pretty inexpensive party and the kids enjoyed the time!

Home made No Sew {Superhero} Capes

When Tyler said that he wanted to have a Batman Party I knew there had to be masks and Superhero capes but I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to go about it.

I got started on his party kind of late and I didn't want to spend all day sewing capes. I googled "no fray fabric" and found that fleece didn't fray! Who knew?



I looked online to check prices and it looked like Joann's was the place to go as their fleece was 50% off. I wasn't sure how much to get and no matter how much math I did I still wasn't quite sure. Because let's be real: I am THAT terrible at math! I bought 7 yards. (which by the way was insanely too much fabric!)



Next I needed to make a template for the part that would wrap around the kids necks. After drawing several terrible pictures with shaky lines I finally got one that looked okay enough to cut out. This one isn't perfect, but it does the trick! Click the picture for the printable version of this cape template. 



Next I cut out my pieces. I cut them in 20x30 sections. So they were 20 wide and 30 long and that worked perfect for me to get 3 capes wide!



Next I folded my cape and half and cut out my template and laid it down on my fabric. This is important: You want to make sure that your fold is on the same side as the "center" of your template. Otherwise when you cut you will have 2 pieces! And you don't want that!



Then cut it out!



When you open it up it should look like this!



Then I used this Iron On Velcro on the end pieces to keep it together!



 

So here is how it looks front and back!



They were perfect. The kids don't need anything fancy and loved these capes and the masks that went with them!

Fun Fall Activities with Pepperidge Farm Goldfish

It is no secret that we are Goldfish cracker eaters in this house. So when I have a chance to combine them with Fun Fall Activities for the kids it makes for a happy family.



Because of the time of the year it felt obvious that we should make something geared toward Halloween. There are so many Fun Fall Activities that we could have made. I thought about making many different crafts. Maybe a spider out of an egg carton and pipe cleaners, or handprint Frankensteins, Tin can ghosts, but we decided on these fun popsicle stick spider webs.

I ran to the store and grabbed our favorite snacks! Who doesn't love Pepperidge Farm Goldfish? I actually don't know anyone who doesn't love them! And my kids will pick Goldfish crackers over just about any other option! And I love the new Goldfish Baked with Whole Grain.

A few things I love about Goldfish crackers:

1. Always Baked with Real Cheese


2. No Artificial Flavors or Preservatives


3. Colors Sourced from Plants, such annatto extracted from the reddish seeds of the Achiote Tree


4. Baked with Whole Grain Cheddar has 12 g of WG per serving


5. And ultimately, it is a snack I feel comfortable giving to my kids

Then we got to work on our fun fall activities, which was making a popsicle spider web.

Of course, before hand I used my hot glue gun and put together the popsicle sticks because I didn't want little hands touching the hot glue! But then it was all up to them. I made one and showed them how I was doing it then it was up to them how they wanted to make a spider web!

All I used was some yarn, popsicle sticks and hot glue (not shown). Then if you want to add a spider to make it a little more fun, you'll need one of those too!



Check out Tyler making his awesome spider web!



We had a fun time full of smiles making our fun fall crafts and snacking on Goldfish Colors while we were at it!



I went and dug into our Halloween decorations and found these plastic spiders that were the perfect touch for our new creative spider webs!



What do you think? Is this a craft your kids would love?

Visit the campaign landing page to get inspired and learn how to enter the Goldfish Tales promotion for a chance to win $1000 plus lots of other fun prizes!

Nutter Butter "Ice Cream Cones"

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #PackSnacksTheyLove #CollectiveBias



We have less than 2 weeks until we head back to school and I am going to have 2 of my kiddos in school and one in preschool. I can't even believe how time flies but I have to admit, I am sort of looking forward to some quieter times around my house and getting back into our routine!

Another thing I am looking forward to is a Little to make lunches for. Zach is heading into high school and he isn't into cutesy lunches. Tyler, however, thinks they are pretty cool! I asked him what sort of things he wanted to take in his lunch and then made a couple "lunch boxes" so he could check them out! He is soo excited!!



What kid doesn't love a lunch that consists of a hot dog, fruit, cheese and oreos? Yum!



The second one I made was a peanut butter roll up. It is a favorite lunch for Tyler! Plus we added some veggies, apple slices and a couple of Chips Ahoy cookies!

I also decided to make a fun treat that he could take in his lunch box and these Nutter Butter "Ice Cream Cones" were just the thing!



Cute, right?

We ran to Fred Meyer (Kroger Stores) to get some snacks and things to make our "Ice Cream Cones". I love Fred Meyer! It is by far my store of choice and I love that I can get everything I need in one place!

All you need is Nutter Butter cookies, chocolate bark, sprinkles and chocolate candies for the "cherry" on top!

Plus I grabbed a couple of other snacks, like the multipack of Chips Ahoy!, Nutter Butter cookies and Oreos. Plus Teddy Grahams because we sort of love them! These are such great snacks to put in the kid's lunched or even as an after school snack, especially if you are on the go a lot like we are!



It is super quick and I made these in about 2 minutes!

Melt your chocolate bark
Dip the Nutter Butter cookie into the chocolate
Sprinkle with sprinkles
and Top with a chocolate candy to make a "cherry on top"







And of course the kids loved them!

(Click HERE for Printable version)

Are your kids back in school? What are your favorite things to pack in their lunch?

Preparing for Kindergarten

Over the past couple of years I have been working on getting Tyler "kindergarten ready". He did 2 years of Preschool/PreK and just finished up at the end of May and I am so grateful for all they worked on with him because it helped and lined up with all we do at home. During his first year of Preschool I made him a fun little "kindergarten book" that I have added to as he has progressed. And last Fall I started one for Summer, because hey! It's never too early to start writing your name! Plus, she will be starting Preschool in the Fall and it's time to get at it a bit more.

So today I wanted to share some of my favorite printables/worksheets to get your littles ready for Kindergarten.

First, the book I made looks like this. Just a run of the mill folder. At first I just used one of Zachary's old school folders, but after I noticed the "scream mask face" that was drawn on it I decided Tyler needed his own!

All you need is a folder that has the brads and page protectors. Then you can start printing out some relevant sheets to add into your page protectors. And make sure you grab some dry erase markers and your kiddo will be on their way to learning! I add in a few extra page protectors so that as I am looking for more sheets to print I already have a spot to put them.

Tracing their name - I LOVE this! You can type in your kids name and it generates it on the paper for you. I do their first name in caps and with only the first letter capitalized. I also do their full name so they can practice that as well.

We have a few different shape pages, upper case and lower case letters. And some that have both upper and lower mixed up.

I like both of these number sheets and I have them in different spots in the book so they get more practice.

Days of the week, months of the year and number in word form.


We also have been working on counting by twos, fives, tens, etc. And addition/Subtraction.

Worksheet Fun is where I get the majority of my printables. They are awesome and have tons of different things. Plus, they have worksheets that would work for older kids too, like multiplication and division, etc.

Trace the Line from My Teaching Station

We've also worked hard on learning site words. Tyler is having fun learning the sounds that the letters make and sounding out words on his own.


There are so many great resources to get worksheets for your kids before they head off to Preschool or Kindergarten! Which I am grateful for since I will have a kiddo going to each of those this year! Plus a highschooler.... where did the time go?!?

Do you have a favorite site with great school resources? I would love for you to share it below!