favorite day and a new goal

It's really one of our favorite days of the year, the food drop at our church.  I've written about it before.  Our church takes a special Thanksgiving day offering and all that money (it's our biggest collection each year) goes to buying wholesale groceries.  They get delivered on semi trucks.  We all line up and fire brigade style pass them down the line to be sorted and stacked. 

 

 

We ended up in a little group of kids from our school, some of my students, former students, and my own kids all passing boxes down the line.  After it's all unloaded and sorted, you get into groups and assigned a location.  Each location is given an inventory and we send out our runners to gather the items on the order.  Bee got promoted to inventory collector which is a tricky job.  Lou got to man the stacking on the truck. You've got to be fast when you do that job.  We each worked to our strengths this year.  In the past, we've been runners and gotten the things from the sorted piles.

 

 

The food is shared with over 30 local food banks.  We have gone the same place the last three years.  When we get there, we unload the boxes and help them sort it onto their shelves. The people at the food bank usually talk about their programs and services. 

 

Bee and Lou always have an amazing time.  They work harder than they do at any other time of the year. I'm reminded that they need more volunteer opportunities.  Other than Bee helping in the church nursery with me we haven't been doing much since I went back to work full time.  It's hard to find places that let kids volunteer too.  My new goal is to make that happen for them. I've got a lead at a place in town and feel pretty good about it, Bee and Lou are excited too. 

Christmas fun news

I'm at home with a sick kid and time to post!  Poor Bee was up in the night throwing up and not feels 'great' but we're camping on the couch just in case.  I's a Cake Boss marathon for us!

 

We had a fun and whirl wind kind of Christmas.  We had lots of guests- two legged and four.

 

I have bunches of pictures from that, but first- fun news.

 

 

My sister and her boyfriend came with some exciting news.   Did you see that?   Their sweet little puppy Penny had an announcement. 

 

 

Aren't they cute?  We like him a bunch and are glad we get to keep him.  Lou has decided he can go ahead and start adding uncle to his name. 

 

 
The girls wasted no time and went wedding dress shopping while we were all together.  That's our sister in law, mom, I'm with the camera and the bride.

 

She found the dress!  She said I could post the picture here since the Fiancé never checks in here.    Gorgeous!  She tired on six or seven to get to this one, but knew it was the one as soon as she saw it.

 

 
She loved it and we loved it and she bought it! 

 

They have a date, she has a dress.  That's pretty much it, right?  She's a teacher too and this is going to be a summer wedding, so she's moving on all the details!

 

 

Our joke for awhile has been that Bee is running out of good flower girl years.  I think we're still alright on time.  Flower girl Bee has her dress too.  Shhhh- we've had it for months.  We'll be replacing the belt with something that matches the bridesmaids.

 

 
Oh, Poor Lou, all this wedding talk.  He has already asked if it's all we're going to talk about until the big day. 

wax museum

I must not have written about the wax museum last year.  Frankly, last year, I was lucky to be wearing clean clothes and have run a brush through my hair.  It was survival mode at least.  The new teacher on our third grade team is brand new this year and also a brand new mama.  Double wammie!  She confessed she's barely keeping her head above water too.  No doubt!

 

Anyway, our school does this awesome wax museum project.  It's during book week and there are events each day.  The wax museum is the big event hosted by Third and Fourth grade. Fourth grade is a historical character that they've researched through reading a biography.  Bee was Anne Frank. 

Here she is with some of her buddies Hellen Keller and Annie Oakly.   We don't do Halloween at our school, so this is our event to dress up.

Third grade dresses up as a character from a book and they report on the author they have studied.  Here is my costume winner, The lorax.

 

Third and Fourth grade dresses  up, creates an informational board, presents for the class and then works it at the wax museum, sharing their presentation many, many times.

 

First grade practices by dressing up as a bible character and sharing with their class a little about their person.  Second grade researches an animal, dresses up as that animal, and gives a one minute report to their class.  Lou was a tyrannosaurus rex and wouldn't be photographed.  He was a grumpy t-rex.
 

I try to dress up as a character too, but not many teachers do. I love an excuse to dress up a little. My Lorax and I found a cat and the hat at lunch. 

It's one of those projects that's tons of work or everyone, but super fun and everybody learns a lot.