Spring

Spring!  

Welcome old friend!

Green grass and warm weather... welcome back.  

Both kids are glasses wearers now.  Lou has joined the glasses team!

My sweet team of teachers won the camping themed dress up and room decorating contest at school for the Spring book fair.  We rock!

Bee is running track again. 

She likes the sprints.  

Lou and daddy are back to playing baseball.  

Bee is a soccer referee for the school. 

Sister has a job!  That's her time card she's signing in on.  And there's our new under construction high school in the background!  It opens in the fall.  

Busy spring. 

teacher thank you with thank you

 We really came up with a cute teacher thank you this spring.  It came together at the last minute, as all great gifts do!  It could have been done a little more economically had I shopped around for more inexpensive thankyous.  It was last minute as I said. 

 

 
We bundled up several packages of adorable thank you note cards, a sheet of stamps, and a cute little card I made through silhouette.
 

 

I borrowed the floral image that says many thanks from a google image search (I searched many thanks clip art).  In photoshop, I added the little saying "Many 'thank-yous' to you because we thank you for a great year!" In silhouette I cut it all out with the cute scalloped edge.
 

 
We do thank our teachers!  Lou wouldn't pose with his teacher on the first day of school this year but he was happy to by the end. She earned all the thank you we could have given her!

 

 
Heck, he'd hardly pose for me that first day of kindergarten.
 

 
Bee and her sweet teacher.  First day of second grade.
 

 
 

 
Last day.

reading and playing around

I haven't updated the books we've been reading in awhile.

This spring we've read:

Adventures of Mohan and Mohan in the Jungle both by Ella Grove.  They were lent to us by a homeschooling friend and are by the folks at Rod and Staff.  Both were good reads. 

 Also from Rod and Staff, we read Bread for the Winter by Harvey Yoder.  All three books have strong Christian messages and were books we enjoyed.  I may read Bread for the Winter as a read-aloud next year to my 3rd graders. 

Just this last week we read Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner.  It's one of the novels we will read in 3rd grade.  I hated to ruin it for Bee, but I need to read all our novels this summer so I'm ready.  WOW,  surprise ending to that book!  It was so good that we read it in two days.  The kids couldn't wait for me to read more.  They even asked me to read during dinner, which I did one day.  Major surprise at the end.  I'm glad that I pre-read it though.  If I was reading it with the kids at school, I would have been caught off guard for sure!

I'll add these to our longer list of read-alouds.

unrelated photos:

Both kids hit 38 inches over the winter and can now go on the big rides at the amusement park! 

I won't go on either of these rides!  Thankfully hubby is brave and will take the kids.

We're all graduating

My little friends graduated last week.  The school year is over for us.

It was a great year with them.  They were a delightful group and man oh man, did they learn and grow this year.  It was one of the most years of growth I'd say I've seen from a class o'mine.  Probably for me too as a teacher.

They graduated and left... and I'm doing the same. 

I'm leaving preschool too. I found a job teaching third grade. I'll miss my little bitty friends, but I'm ready to get back to the big kids.  I've taught third grade before, but it's been awhile... I'm excited. 

That's me in the firefighter gear at preschool waving bye. 

I spent some time after preschool was out observing different teachers and spending time in the new building.   I get my curriculum in a few days and have all summer to get into it.  I'm learning all about common core but was pleasantly surprised to find the science and social studies standards are the same ones I taught with years ago.  I am thankful for pinterst.  I told my sister (also a teacher) back when I started teaching, we really didn't even use the internet as a resource- you had to use magazines and books.  It's different now!  My summer reading list is already filling up with books about daily 5 an the CAFE strategies.  There are a lot of great things about this new opportunity, but one of the best parts is that many of the families and friends I've made at preschool will go to my school and I'll see them again! 

I still have a few preschool related things from this spring to share here, but there won't be anymore sensory bins and table activities and preschool finger plays around here after the next few weeks.  In the summer, my blog turns to garden and travel and things about my own kids anyway.  In the fall though, I guess I'll start sharing big kid school stuff. 

just a few days old

We host a little gringo Cinco de Mayo shindig every year.  There's lots of yummy food, costumes, music and a piñata for the kiddos.  Basically we're just looking for a reason to dress up and party after a long grey winter.  Bee was supposed to teach us the Mexican Hat Dance, which she learned at school, but she got nervous. 

 We invite just one family each year because our little dining room can only seat that many.  My friend Melissa from Emmie and Olive joined us this year with her family. Aren't they cute?  Our house was full of kids!

Happy Day

Happy Day to you!  My little people are taking me to the theme park after church, so it's pretty much a happy day here!

new silhouette projects

Silhouette and I have been busy.  I just love using it.  Lou and I used up almost the last of the black heat transfer vinyl.  Gotta get more!  I ordered it from Pick Your Plum.  This dog image is one I found on google image and traced with the silhouette software.  Lou says it's Tippy. 

I used the regular vinyl from Joann's to make this M for Lou's Michigan baseball team.  If the boys have their own helmet, they don't have to share at baseball.  Our helmet looked just like the 'share' ones.  Not anymore.

We added his number.  Easy to tell when my little man is up at bat.  That, and I'm keeping the team's stats.  It's a fun job and I totally have follow the game.

While I had the yellow vinyl out... I wanted to add a little sunshine on a dreary weekend.   I couldn't find an image to trace for this so I just wrote the text out myself in the silhouette software with four different fonts and sort of arranged them in a fun way.  I wasn't sure how the vinyl would go onto a round object, but I used the transfer tape and only had to smooth out one little part of one letter. 

We picked up this bench a few summers ago for 3 dollars at a yard sale.  It holds the gloves and hats and scarves.  I've been wanting to add a little something to it for awhile.  I made stencils with some weird color vinyl I had on hand. I used some random old paint from my stash to roughly paint over the letters.  I love how the letters look.  You can't tell from this picture, but it turned out a little off center.  Every time I look at it I see how it's a tad crooked.  I tried to fix it by adding a little scroll-like doo-dad at the end, but it's not any better.  I'll have to scrape it off and start over.  Another day.

Back at Easter, this pretty flower was the weekly free shape from silhouette.  I cut one and added it to our front door wreath.   Then I kept thinking about how pretty it would look with a whole wreath of them. 

And I couldn't do anything else until I did just that.  I ran that machine all afternoon while doing laundry and school plans and feeding children and then I declared family movie night and I assembled them.  I ended up buying two other 3d flowers through the silhouette online store and mixed those in too.  I used whatever random springish colored scrapbook paper I had on hand.   I wish it hadn't taken all day and run me through the better part of new sharp blade because I want to make one for my classroom and one for the kids teachers. 

This wasn't cut with my delightful machine, but it's getting in this post anyway.  It does feature some washi tape though.  It's a new to me craft item and I am loving it.  I also ordered it from Pick You Plum.  Have I mentioned I may have a slight problem with my level of admiration for that site?  Washi tape is making it's way into a lot of projects at this house these days!  Even Bee is in love with it.

back off ladies

Be careful ladies.

You may not have seen such a good look'en baseball player.

I'm smitten.

Baseball players are my favorite kind of boy.

That's where I found Hubby, playing baseball.

 
 You'll have to find your own ball player, this one is mine. 

violet jelly

This is the prettiest jelly I've ever made. It was pretty the entire making and I took so many pictures. It's wild violet jelly. 

Yep, made from those pretty spring violets that grow in the yard. 

I had two lovely pickers.  Bee and a neighbor picked and picked. Then they got bored and went to play with their horses.  They have imaginary horses that live on the pool deck.  They dutiful feed, water and exercise them.

You'll need a lot of those lovely violets, about 3 cups.

You'll also need the juice of a lemon, 3 1/2 cups of sugar, and a box of sure jell.

Pick the stems off the flowers.  You don't have to get crazy about getting off all the green, it won't matter.

I rinsed the flowers, but I suppose it doesn't matter.  We have a dog, thought it might be best (have you met him, he's lovely).

The flowers get 2 1/2 cups boiling water poured on top. 

And left to steep. 

And get prettier and prettier.

It's best if you work in the smallest corner of the kitchen.  I dream of big open countertops!

While the violets are soaking, squeeze the juice of the lemon. 

You should totally use what's left of the lemon to make lemonade.  Sugary, delicious lemonade.

The violets turn the water such a pretty blue.

Strain them, saving the wonderful blue water for cooking.  Toss those mushed violets in the compost.  They smell a little funk at this point.

The violet water turns from the deep blue to...

a bright pinky purple as soon as you add the lemon juice.  Turn up the heat.  Add the package of sure jell and bring to a rolling boil.  Add 3 1/2 cups sugar.  Bring back to a boil.  Boil for a minute or two.  Stir well the whole time.

Process now as you would any jelly.  Pour into clean and ready jars. 

I used my tattler reusable lids.  They are a two piece lid.  They work great for jelly.

Process for 5 minutes. 

Allow 24 hours to set up, but it you can't, it's fine.  We ate ours about 2 hours after I made it.  I cut up a whole chicken and we had fried chicken and mashed potatoes and biscuits.  We needed the jelly.  It has a light flavor, almost grape.  It was sweet and yummy and we gobbled it up. 

Hubby mowed the yard that same night.  We hope to get one more picking of violets and make another batch of jelly.