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End of the Year Teacher Gift ~ Gift Card Bouquet and Memory Book

I love being Room Parent for my kid's classes!  It's so much fun for me to spend time with them at school, get to know the kids and watch them grow and learn!  One of my "duties" as a Room Parent is the End of the Year gift for the teacher.  You may remember this Gift Card Bouquet that I made last year.  That one was a ton of fun, but took way too long to make.  This year I wanted to do another gift card bouquet because that seemed to have gone over really well last year, but something that was a little more simple.

I sent home a letter in the student's backpacks for their parents about two weeks before the end of the school year asking them to donate a gift card, any denomination that they felt comfortable with.  Of course, it was totally optional.    In the letter I also asked the parents to have their child fill out a questionnaire about their teacher and to draw a picture of their teacher on the blank card stock that I have included in the envelope.

I also asked the parents to write their child's name on the gift card, so the teacher would know who each one was from.  They were to place everything back in the manilla envelope and send it back to school to be put in my daughter's backpack. I used hot glue to attach each gift card to wood skewers.  You could also use those clear picks that florists use to hold cards in flower arrangements, but I wasn't able to find them.

I really enjoyed reading some of the answers that the children came up with.  Most of the kids said that Mrs. Z was going to read this summer.

And the drawings that they drew of her were so fun too!

 After everything was collected, I made a cover and took all of the papers to the FedEx store to have them bind it for me.  I found the idea to make the book through Pinterest at A Small Snippet

I really hope that Mrs.Z will enjoy going through and looking back at what the kids had to say.  

I presented Mrs. Z with the book and gift card bouquet today during class and she absolutely loved it.  She especially loved the book with all of the things the kids had to say!  She read some of them to the kids and they also loved seeing what each other had to say! 

If you would like me to share my letter and the questionnaire page. Leave me a comment and I'll make sure to post it for you.

Getting Awesome

Birthdays......
Every year I still look forward to it!
Even though, as a Momma, it's not as exciting as it used to be.
Each year I search the internet for my "birthday wish list."
I enjoy celebrating
Going out to dinner and if I'm lucky, maybe even a movie
I still look forward to my family and friends singing Happy Birthday to me
In some ways I'm still like a little kid when it comes to my birthday

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On the other hand, I have a friend who's birthday is today.

About a week ago, I said to her, "So you're birthday is coming up next week eh?"

Her reply was, "How did you find out?  I purposely took my birthday off of Facebook and anywhere else someone could find it!

Well, it was on the church June Newsletter

Dang, she said, I didn't want anyone to know it was my birthday.

So, this morning when I was dropping my daughter off at school, 

I saw this friend.

I went up to her and said Happy Birthday!

She purposely ignored me

I said to her jokingly, "Are you ignoring me?"

She said, "Yep, I sure am."

 

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My question that I pose to all of you is

How do you feel about birthdays?

Do you celebrate?

Do you pretend it isn't happening and not let anyone know?

My opinion is, life is short

We should celebrate each and every birthday that we have!

Remember, We're not getting old, we're getting Awesome!

The White Table

9 years ago when Curtis and I got married.  I knew that I wanted a white dinner table.  So, I saved up my money and bought a beautiful white wood table with upholstered white chairs.  I feel in love with this table as soon as I saw it, and knew that it had to be ours.  We moved into our One bedroom apartment and had my table delivered and got it all set up in our dining room. Well, it wasn't really a room, more like a dining area.

We met some other young newlyweds through church and would have weekly game nights with them.  It was tons of fun.  We had birthday parties for each other at each other's aparments.  It was such a fun time in our lives.

One evening it was our turn to have a surprise party for one of our friends at our apartment. All of our friends came to the party.  One of our friends had two little boys.  She hadn't been over to our apartment before and saw my perfectly clean, white kitchen table.  She commented to me, "Wow, look at this beautiful white furniture.  There aren't any fingerprints or drawings on it. Just wait until you have kids, it won't look anything like this."  At first I was a little offended, but 9 years and 3 kids later, I understand where she was coming from.

My white table is definitely not like it used to be.  There are stains on the top that I covered with a piece of glass so that we don't get more.  There is usually toys, homework and other things on top of it. 

The upholstered seats are not perfectly clean like they used to be.  They have tons of stains and marks.  One day I'll get around to recovering them, but right now this is how they are staying.

The seat backs have fingerprints and food on them.

 The table legs have streams of sticky juice down them.

There are Sharpie, crayon, paint marks, and worn spots.

But, you know, I wouldn't trade it for the world.

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There will always be time to clean, but the kids will grow up all too quickly.

I still love my white table, it just has more memories on it now.

Hello Tuesday

This post is inspired by Lisa Leonard's Hello Monday {just one day later}

Hello Tuesday!

 Hello to spending the afternoon at the beach with the kids

Hello to seeing Epic The Movie as a family.  We need to do this more often.

Hello to being married 9 years!

Hello to going to my daughter's First Grade Open House, and Hello to her amazing first grade teacher!

And Hello to my two silly twin boys!

How is your week going?

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