I Love My Kids... (and school adventures)

Yesterday was a fun day (okay, mostly a fun day!)-

The fun part: My wife, older two kids, and I spent quite a time last night playing games. We started around 9:30pm and ended at almost 1am. We played Dice bowling, Pictureka Cards, and regular Pictureka! It was quite enjoyable to say the least!

Before that, we had loaded up the car with all the kids in their jammies and headed out for a evening drive. I have been really stressed out with some issues with what we thought was our plumbing and I needed to get away from the house and enjoy time with the family. We drove out to the pump house and I got to tell the kids all about my fishing days there with my family when I was little. By the time we made it home the two little boys were completely out! My little M was so tired we was talking away in the back of the trooper one minutes and then laying on the floor sound asleep the next. What a silly boy! My Z-man made it through scriptures and prayers before he crashed and burned and that left the two older ones and my wife and I up. (See paragraph above). Before all this however...

I worked at the school from about 11am to 7:30 pm. I get these hair-brained ideas that eat up oodles of my time, are not in my plans for getting ready for school, but usually turn out really well. I think that what I did last night (thanks honey for being my right-hand-lady!) will save me tons of time. I out all the calendar items that I use each week (signed grades due, no school, etc.) and typed them up and put magnets on the back on them. Now instead of writing out those things each week, I can have my son or daughter check my schedule and just slap those babies on the board each week! YEA! I also made my daily planner headings that I hated writing each days on the magnets. The best part is that the font is matches is whole "theme" idea. Speaking of theme, here are the promised pictures of the bulletin board my amazing wife and I made:

Here is a close-up of the whip (from Oriental Trading- and boy can you tell. The whole thing was falling apart. But, hey, what do you want for $3?!?!? lol) and the bag. The fedora hats were actually really good quality and I think they look REALLY nice! The bag looked funny just stuffed with paper AND because the bag was cheap to begin with, didn't really fit. We knew we had to change something about it. We went on-line and found a site that had items from each movie, printed, laminated, and filled the bag with them. If the kids have NOT watched Indiana Jones (any of the movies) the bag will be lost on them, BUT, the frozen monkey head with it's brains hanging out will still be a hit with many of the kids! :)

The question is CAN YOU name what item came from what movie??? Huh? Can ya???

I guess NO ONE will miss the theme in my room. I even made THIS for my classroom door:

I think it turned out pretty cool. Of course, when printed on white card stock, it doesn't look like the Welcome is all stupid! But oh well! lol

Last night I also invited all my new students to come to the school and help weed the 6th grade flower garden and enjoy floats (we had many different flavors, so they aren't just Root Beer floats!- :) I had 11 of my 20 students show up. I was thrilled. I even had several parents come. That was great too. I really enjoyed visiting with the kids BEFORE school started in a relaxed atmosphere. I even had three kids from previous years crash our little party. I made them help and then let them have some ice cream! It is funny, but this year I am WAY excited for school to start. I hope that is a good omen. lol

I have to share this picture too. I found this sign at some "junk" store (my wife drags me to all these home decor stores- I am actually glad I went to this one-).

I hang this sign outside my classroom. Many parents have commented on it as they laughed about how funny it is. I think it is funny too. Maybe the kids really feel that way sometimes. I guess that is good. Schools have rules, procedures, and expectations.

Well, my wife is headed to Moab right now to pick up our Bountiful Basket (we are hoping the Green River site will start on Sept. 11- making Ordering due on Sept. 7th- Cross your fingers and pray REALLY HARD!). I am going to walk with the kids to get the mail and enjoy some time with them.

Later...