Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Emmy's birthday present

Emmy has asked for a couple of years now if she could get her ears pierced, and we decided that it would be a fun birthday surprise to let her do it.  So, for her birthday, she unwrapped earrings that went with an appointment at a local salon.  That appointment was yesterday.  We (my mom and grandma) picked up the kids early from VBS (they are attending Calvary Chapel's VBS this week since we will be missing SBC's this summer) and headed there. 

The gal, Julie at Studio 3, was absolutely wonderful with Emmy.  She let her pick out the studs (apparently it's not just the standard gold balls anymore!) she wanted and then talked her through everything.  She even sounded the piercing gun close to Emmy's ear so she wouldn't be scared of the noise.  Emmy was super brave and only cried for a minute or two afterward.  As soon as someone doted on her about how beautiful her new pierced ears were, that smile came through and she was on the mend. 

She is loving her new look and can't wait to show them to everyone! :)

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Our new kitty

Emmy was surprised and over the moon when she found out that some friends of ours had found some baby kittens and wanted to give her one of them for her birthday present!!!  So, after her party on Sunday, we went to the Crawford's house to pick up the newest member of our family.  Emmy named her Oreo.  We're guessing she's about 5 weeks old or so, super tiny and fluffy, super cute and loves to snuggle.  While keeping her safe inside, we are also playing with Oreo outside as much as possible to keep her comfortable so that she'll be ready for that transition better than our last little kitty. 
Emmy has her little buddy and she couldn't be happier (everyone else likes her, too)!!!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Field Trips!

I am so blessed that my semester at Columbia College (work) ends at the end of April so that I have no work schedule during all of May!  Because of this, I was able to attend all of the end of the year field trips for both Zeke and Emmy's classes.

Emmy's class trip to Safeway.
The manager of our local store is a dad of one of the boys in her class, so it was even more special that we got some personal attention throughout our tour.  They had yummy treats in every department (but stickers from the butchers!!!) so everyone loved that.  We went to the store today and Emmy thought it was very cool that she'd been 'back there.'

Zeke's class trip to the Stockton's Children's Museum.
It was a beautiful day and after the long bus ride with two classes full of 2nd graders, we were ready for some lunch and then some great fun exploring.  The museum is set up to help children learn about life in the Central Valley, popular careers in the area, and everything is hands on and fun. 
The bonus about this field trip was that we went on May 24, which is Zeke's birthday!  Super fun way to spend a birthday school day!

Emmy's class trip to the Sonora Library and Heaven for Kids Park.
This was a walking field trip, as these places are right next door to the school. Neither of these places are new to Emmy, as we go to both regularly, but it was still really fun to go with her class, have story time, and playtime with her classmates.  It was a beautiful day and it was fun for me to get to hang out with Emmy, and the parents on the trip, too! :)

Zeke's class trip to Baskins & Robbins.
This was also a walking field trip, as 2nd graders can make it a bit farther to the nearby shopping center.  They got to walk into the deep freezer where they store all the ice cream and learn to make their own ice cream cone clowns.  It was a fun and low key trip!

Teacher Gifts

I have so many posts to catch up on! There was tons of stuff that happened w/in the last month like 2 kids birthdays, end of the school year field trips and kindergarten graduation, our annual trip to Avila, and more.  I figured I'd start with the simplest one... end of the year teacher gifts.  I already posted the gift recipe book we did for Mrs. Braga (Emmy's teacher)--which she loved!!!  This one is what we did for Mrs. Fox. It is actually a repeat performance of the one we did for Mrs. Braga when Zeke was in kindergarten.  

I took pictures of each kid in Zeke's class on our various field trips, used my handy dandy cricut to cut out flowers, had each kid write a note to thank Mrs. Fox on the back of their flower, and had parents donate gift cards (or cash).  The parents were very generous and in addition to the thoughtful notes from the kids (yes, we did succeed at bringing tears to her eyes!), she got over $300 in gifts!
I found this flower pot at our local Walmart, as well as the other needed supplies of floral foam, green moss, flower stick/stems, and paint pens.  I used orange, yellow and red cardstock from my stash and double stick tape to get the flowers around the stems.  The gift cards were wrapped in the wire on the floral stems and stuck into the foam.  I wrote the quote on the ceramic pot with a red paint pen.  Zeke asked if it had come like that or if I put the words on--he couldn't tell (which was a compliment that it turned out so well!)
Everyone--and especially Mrs. Fox--loved the gift!  I'd better start looking for gifts for next year, I'm running out of good ideas!!!