Happy Heart Day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day to all my friends!!!!
I've never been much of a Valentine's Day fan but that doesn't mean I don't get into the Heart Day spirit.  I'm all about spreading the love today!  I hope everyone takes time out of their busy day to tell the special people in their lives that you love them time!!!
Here's one of my 3 Valentine loves

Em's dr's appointment took ALOT longer than I imagined so I didn't make it back to Noah's school for his Valentine's Day party :(   I hope all the kids like the heart shaped crayons I made.  They were fairly easy to make and would have been so much easier if I had a ton of broken crayons without the wrappers laying around the house.  Oh well. Here's how to make them:

Unwrap the crayons and break them into little pieces.  Noah helped me break all the crayons.  I still have wax under my nails from trying to rip the wrappers off.  {Note to readers....try to pay someone to do this. Not only will it save your nails, you won't look crazy with colored junk under your nails}

Next, put some broken pieces into silicone baking molds.  I forgot to take a pic of this step.
Bake them for 10-15 minutes at 275 degrees. Remove from the oven and let them cool completely.  If you don't, your hearts will break (hahaha) when you try to remove it from the mold.

Remove them from the mold and voila!  I packaged them in treat bags and put each Valentine that Noah wrote out in the bag.  Nice, simple, and cheap Valentine's gift for the kiddos!

 Now it's off to a Valentine's fro yo date!!!  Can't wait!
Enjoy your love filled day!!!
 

Cross that one off the list

I survived my first field trip!  Granted it wasn't a hard one (just a short walk down the street to the local park) but it's done.  Noah's PreK class went to Taylor Park with their 5th grade buddies today and I was lucky enough to be a chaperone.  Emmy hitched a ride in her stroller and off we went.  The morning was filled with slides, turtles, popsicles, water balloon toss/fight, and lunch (after a HUGE mishap) from McDonalds.  All in all, it was a great day.  Here are just some of my favorite pics from today:

Noah and his 5th Grade Buddy

Walking to the park...of course Noah would be closest to the other lane

A turtle visited the playground

Em and Uncle Justin (with Noah's PreK teacher)

Friends playing together

Popsicle time....look how red his cheeks are!

She really thinks she's in PreK

Water balloon toss

 My little brother works at the school as the afternoon PreK aide, he subs alot, and he coaches most of the sports teams.  Today he was the PE teacher/PreK aide.  All the kids LOVE Mr Justin. So when the water balloon toss was over, they were allowed to have a water balloon fight with the remaining balloons.  I have to figure out how to upload the video because it is awesome but here is a great action sequence for getting Mr Justin wet!

Justin was trying to get Emmy to throw him her balloon and Maddie was trying to pop her balloon on his head

She (and a few other kiddos) were successful!

 Noah just loves his buddy.  He was really excited to give him his gift (a Target gift card).  I'm glad I had the opportunity to catch this hug.

Hugs for his Buddy!!!

I can't believe that the school year is over already.  I know this sounds cliche but it really does feel like yesterday we were walking him to school for the first time.  He's grown up so much and matured (if a 4 year old can do that) so much.  I am so thankful that the Hubs and I made the last minute decision to enroll him.  Now he's got friends his own age, knows his alphabet, can spell his name (and other words), among many other things.  I'm just thankful we have another year of PreK left before Kindergarten.  I'm not ready for that yet.  Tomorrow is the first Last Day of School we'll celebrate with him....tear.... 

Happy Last Day of School to everyone!!!

We appreciate Teachers in our house!

Happy Teachers Appreciation week to all the teachers out there. Noah's school had a very special teachers week this week that we participated in. I might have gone a little overboard but why not? These special people are shaping my 4 year old (and dealing with his tantrums). I was really bad about taking pics of each day's gifts so I'll recap as best as possible.

Day 1: How You Help Us Grow
This day Noah was supposed to bring in flowers, a plant or something for the garden. I had seen these great seed packet wrap-arounds over at Hello, Good Gravy! and knew I had to use them. Well, when it came time for it, I never printed them out. (we don't have a printer at our house....shocking I know...how do I survive?) I forgot to send them to the Hubs so he could print them out for me. So I improvised. I made my own with the same little saying...not as cute but works all the same. I placed the seed packet in a clay flower pot and there you go....2 flower gifts.

Day 2: Take A Moment to Relax
This day was all about the teacher's favorite hobby. Noah's teacher loves the beach and playing sports outside. The aide in his class loves reading and cross stiching. I found a cute straw tote in Target's Dollar Section (for $2.50 but she's worth it), tossed in a cute beach towel, a pair of flip flops and some tanning oil. Perfect little beach pack! I actually wanted to keep it but I didn't. For his aide, I found a really cute cross stich kit that said "Laughter is an instant vacation" How true that is!!! I also put in a really nice bookmark. I forget the quote on it but again, I thought about keeping it.

Day 3: Teachers are especially SWEET
You guessed it....candy day! I knew what Noah's teachers' favorite candies were but I thought I'd make something fun for all the faculty and staff of the school. I made mocha truffles for Christmas gifts 2 years ago and they were a big hit. So I decided to make them for the teachers. How could the combination of chocolate and coffee be a bad idea?  They are super rich though...like diabetic coma rich.  But they are yummy!  I was making them late at night and got tired so they ended up being HUGE truffles but I hear they are the talk of the school, even 3 days later!  The recipe is super easy.  I haven't figured out how to appropriately chocolate coat anything so mine didn't look as pretty as the picture with the recipe.  But really, you should make them.  They're awesome!!!

These are NOT mine.  These are from the recipe and are what mine were supposed to look like if I could correctly dip things in chocolate

Day 4: We Flip over our Teachers
This is the day I am most proud of myself!  For this day,  we were supposed to bring in a pair of flip flops or anything that has to do with flip flops. Now PreK has 16 kids.  There was a potential for them to receive 16 pairs of flip flops.  Granted Noah's teacher LOVES flip flops, I wanted to be a little different.  The Hubs and I found the greatest gift on the entire planet (and this one wins the best flip flop gift in the entire school)



Flip Flop Wine

 I about fell over!  How perfect is flipflop wine for flip flop day?!?!?!  And I just learned today (when I was looking for this pic) that flipflop wines partners with Soles4Souls.  It's an organization that provides shoes (new or gently worn) to people who are in need all over the world. I also learned that flipflop wines will donate 1 pair of shoes for every bottle of wine sold in the first year.  So I donated 2 pairs of shoes to a person in need.  How awesome is that!?!?

Day 5: Our Teachers are Special
This is the wrap up of Teachers Week.  We were to bring in something in her favorite color or something that every teacher can use.  His teacher's favorite colors are pink and black and the aide's favorite color is blue.  I had seen this amazing idea over at eighteen25 a long time ago and I just had to make them for this week!  I found office supplies in pink and blue (and purple) and ran with it.  I actually took pictures of this project so here is the final result!!!

The finished products

A view of the inside.  They are exactly the same except everything that's pink in this one is blue in the other one

They loved their boxes and loved their teacher week.  I credit them for how much Noah's grown over the past year.  He's adjusting to routines, learning to follow the rules, he can write his entire alphabet and is already spelling words on his own, and he's learning about God, Jesus, and his Catholic faith. 

Thank you so much to the teachers at his school for being wonderful angels in our lives!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

So I was going to do a big long update on all the fun (both real fun and not so fun) that's been going on in the Crimella house but I couldn't pass up sharing the St Patty's Day gifts I made for Noah's class (he goes to St Patrick Catholic School...its only appropriate his class get goodies on this day!).  Noah's been out sick all week so I definitely wanted to send these in to let all the kiddos know that he's still thinking of them.  I wish I could claim this fabulous idea as my own but I can't.  I stumbled across it here.  A great idea AND a great printable....how could I go wrong?!? 

Drum roll please........

Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow

Supply-wise, all you need are rainbow Twizzlers (I had the hardest time finding these.  KMart was the only place that had them), chocolate coins, treat bags and the amazing tags found here.

Yes I'm OCD and separated them out by color

Gold coins courtesy of Party City

The rest is easy.  All you have to do is create your Twizzler rainbow, place inside a treat bag and throw some coins in. 

I wish I had put more coins in but it was for a group of 4-5 year olds.  I want their parents to still  like me after this

Now add the cute tag (with Noah's name, of course) and there you have it....an absolutely adorable way to spread some St Patty's Day cheer

The finished product

I wasn't there to see how the class responded to their goodies but my mom filled me in.  It seems that most of the teachers were head over heels for these tasty rainbows.  The Kindergarten teacher said she couldn't wait for Noah to be in her class so I can make cutesy things for her! 

Happy St Patrick's Day to everyone!!!

~JRC~