Festival Tree's

 Last year at the Festival of Tree's we only had 7 tree's. It was sad and just lame! Last year I was so disgusted with the entire event that I was all for opting out of this community event. Looking back I see why it was such a terrible night. There were 4 of us on the Booster Club and our leader was a procrastinator. I really think it is seriously impossible to put on a grand community event 2 weeks before the scheduled date and have it remotely successful. Being new to the community and never been to the Festival of Tree's I was going in blind and doing what I was asked.

 In the past we have had businesses donate decorated Christmas Tree's to be raffled off. Most businesses turned us away last year not wanting to participate. I think everyone was really struggling with the economy and businesses just couldn't do it. Wanting to change things up a bit I presented to our Booster Club last year that maybe next year (this year) we should have all the grades decorate a tree. That way we'd start off with at least 8 tree's. I wanted to go around and buy the tree's after Christmas when they were on clearance. We'd hold on to them and then give them to the classes to decorate. They thought it was a good idea but we weren't sure we were going to participate because it was such a terrible night. This was suppose to be our biggest fund raiser of the year and after expenses we only made $250. I could go on and on how terrible the night was and what we did wrong.  

This year we decided to try having each class decorate a tree. The other 3 ladies and I made many trips, made many phone calls and posted add's all over the place looking for donated Christmas Tree's. We needed a total of 8. What wasn't given to us we bought at thrift stores. I then contacted all the Room Mom's back in October and asked them to work with teacher's and their class in decorating their tree's. I had a few that were great and other's chewed me out over the phone telling me it wasn't in their "job" description of being a Room Mom. My eye's were opened this year with the lack of parental help and I'll leave it at that. Needless to say I ended up "helping" decorate tree's over these past few weeks. 

Here they are......

6th Grade did a school tree.

 The Room Mom asked each student to bring in a book or a box of crayons, marker's, pencils, etc.

5th Grades Room Mom did "Thank Ewe" cards. She wasn't able to be there so I did her project for her. The kids made the cards with scrapbook paper and then made matching envelopes to go with. My sister picked up a stuffed lamb for me that we used as the tree topper. The tree needed a little more so I added plain chipboard cut out's and red holly.

4th Grade Tree...

This Room Mom had the kids hot glue peppermint's together and then she only planned on them making one each. This being Madelyn's class tree her her and I spruced it up a bit more. It really was terrible with only the one ornament on it. We bought red bulbs and turned them into Santa's belly, added some ribbon, attached red and white berries and of course candy canes. My kids called it a Santa Clause Tree so I kept going. I took a Santa Hat that doesn't fit anyone to use as our tree topper. For our tree skirt I wrapped a card board box in red wrapping paper and used Hunter's black/silver duct tape for the belt. For the stuffing coming out I ripped apart an old pillow that wasn't being used anymore.

3rd Grade Tree....

Our 3rd grade teacher loves penguins so the room mom took light bulbs and painted them to look like penguins. She had blue and red candy canes and then used chip board cut out's to spruce it up a bit. 

2nd Grades Room Mom baled on me so after making a few phone calls I found a grandma willing to help us. There class theme this year is Dr. Seuss. 

This grandma brought in red bulbs and had the kids put white circle sticker's on them for their contribution. She then added other Dr. Seuss/Grinch ornaments she made out of foam. Very original, very cute. 

Our Kindergarten class....

The Kindergarten's class theme this year is Owls. The room mom bought owl foam kits from Oriental Trading for the class to make. She then took felt and styrofoam balls and made more owls and the tree topper.

Can you guess which class this ones from?

It's Preschool's. Miss Wendy did an AMAZING job. She took burlap and had the kids paint it with white paint. When it dried the teacher's cut it into star shapes. She also mad applesauce dough and had the kids make star cut out's. As if that wasn't enough she also let the kids decorate plastic clear bulbs with star stickers. Inside the bulbs the kids put star cut out's inside. It was everyone's favorite tree. I loved that kids made so much of the decorations and it was beautiful.

1st Grade did a western theme. I was afraid I'd end up doing this class too but in the end I found a mom willing to help out.  The kids glued star cut outs back to back. The mom had red beads attached to the branches. She covered old Christmas bulbs in bandana print using modge podge. She also attached square pieces of burlap and wrapped the tree with a rope. It was pretty cute too and another favorite.

Our lunch ladies wanted to participate too and so made a Hello Kitty Tree.

Our Math lady know as "Math Mindy" also decorated a tree with math flash cards, math books, fake money and other math related fun stuff.

  

We did great with our trees' this year! Everyone that helped participate did an amazing job. The Booster Club also did a tree but I must have missed taking it's picture.  It really added to our Festival of Tree's. I'm so glad we had our grades decorate a tree. On our big night only 4 tree's were brought to us as a donation. We just can't call it Festival of Tree's when we've only got 4 tree's.  It was great having so many more tree's.

During our big night each tree brought in anywhere from $20-$80. The tree's after cost really didn't bring in a lot of money but we wanted the experience for the kids. We wanted the kids to have fun, do something they normally don't do at school and be excited to show off their tree on our big night. For that we were successful. 

Festival of Tree School Crafts

Each year our community hosts an event that we call Festival of Tree's. Everyone is welcomed. The Booster Club (4 of us) are in charge of Santa's Workshop, Tree's, Raffles and Vendor's. The high school is in charge of food and Santa.

In previous year's our Santa's Workshop consisted of Oriental Trading stuff to sale. Last year I was on the Booster Club and was quite disgusted with what we were selling. I absolutely hate giving my children money to buy cheap throw away toys that are usually broken within hours.  I vowed then that if we were still here and I was on the Booster Club there would be a serious change to our Santa's Workshop. It took a lot of time and a lot of planning but we were successful. I started back in September and scheduled a day with each of our teacher's to come in and as a class make a project. I was at the school almost once a week during October and November doing the following crafts.

6th Grade made word blocks. We sold them each for $15

5th Grade made personalized plates. They were sold for $5

4th Grade made "Snow Men" magnet's. All the kids made 6 and we sold them in their own set's for $3.

3rd Grade made personalized Christmas Bulbs. I took there hand print with white paint and then turned their finger's into little snow men. We sold these for $5

2nd Grade made a total of 6 gift tags each using stamps and scrapbook paper. I put these in sets of 6 and sold them for $2.

1st Grade made Advent Calendar's. I guess I never took a final picture. Using bottle caps the kids made all the magnets. I than using my cricut applied vinyl that said Christmas Countdown and the numbers 1-25. They turned out pretty cute. We had 4 different designs with a total of 12 calendar's. 

For Kindergarten I took every ones hand prints in salt dough. I brought them home, baked them and then painted them to look like Santa. We sold these for $5. This one is Brayden's I did his first to make sure it worked. If I were to do it again I'd use plaster. I made one for Kylie too but both of them have already broken. Kylie's was put down to hard on the counter and broke. Brayden's was pushed off the counter and broke. I know plaster would break easily too but having used both now I think the plaster is a little stronger. 

For Preschool I made hand print hot pads. We sold these for $2.

I love the way our crafts turned out. The kids had fun doing a craft at school they normally wouldn't do. The kids were great and the teacher's were a big help. I really appreciated them letting me come into their classroom's to do these projects.

Red Ribbon Week 2013

This year our school's Red Ribbon Week fell on the same week as Halloween. It was a busy week for all of us. Monday was Sports affiliate day. Tuesday was crazy hair day and Wednesday was Pajama Day. Thursday was Halloween and Friday wear red day. 

For Halloween Brayden was a dinosaur, Madelyn a clown, Hunter a creepy guy and Emily a baker. 

This year Natoshia (sister in law) and I took our 8 kids and went to Orderville for some trick-or-treating. We had a blast! It took us 2 hours to walk around half the town and the kids came home with more candy then ever before. Miss Kylie was pooped by the end of the night.

Friday for Red Ribbon Day the kids and I were at the school that morning about 6:30 am. Wow was that an early morning especially being the day after Halloween.  By 7 that morning we were deeply involved with blowing up all those balloons. This is my favorite part of Red Ribbon week. I love seeing everyone in red and watching the balloons fly away. 

After the balloons were released everyone got some cotton candy.

Here's Madelyn and her "Drug Free" Poster. She came in 2nd place. Good Job!

We all had a great week. It's so fun to be at the school and see the excitement from the kids.

Snow Fall

It happened!

Last night we received our 1st real snow fall. We did get snow a few weeks ago but it melted that same day.  Today's will be a bit different.  I took these at sunrise this morning after my kids had left on the school bus.

The below bush usually cover's up that window. In fact this morning my kids said, "Hey mom did you know that shed had a window?"

About 9:00 this morning I snapped the below picture. That power line was arcing but I can't get the arc in the picture. The sun's hiding behind some dark clouds. We've got about 3 inches of snow now and over the next 3 day's could get up to another 3 inches. I mopped my floor yesterday! So not ready for the wet, slushy mess that will be tracked into my house. 

But I'm sure thankful for our deck that is fully loaded with ready firewood. 

Burr it's cold outside!

Town Halloween Party

Last year I really really wanted to host our annual Halloween Party. However having a new baby taking too many classes online, being involved with the kids school and working as a Book Keeper for 2 companies my plate was filled to the max. The kids and I were disappointed but I knew I couldn't do it. I promised them "next year". When my sister-in-law heard of this, she being on the town board, asked if I'd be interested in doing a town Halloween party (something never been done before). The kids jumped for joy before I could even respond. 

Fast forward to this year. Here's are invitation to all!

The town gave me $200 to work with. Knowing I'd need help I asked my sister-in-law that got me roped into this. She took charge of the food and I did decoration's and games. That night the board members were suppose to be there to help me run the games. Fortunately or Unfortunately our High School Girls Volleyball team was at region's that night. This left me with no board members to run games and many many parent's away. We had kids trying to come in 2 hours before the party was suppose to start! We finally started to let kids in about 5:45. The 1st hour was CRAZY. My sister-in-law, my mother-in-law and myself were the only adults with 40+ kids. I wanted to grab my camera out of the van and take pictures but my hands were FULL! The last 45 minutes I finally had parents show up and some help. By then though the kids were done with the 17 games/activities I had stationed all around. I had games like pumpkin bowling, witch's toss, skeleton relay, zombie tag, sensor boxes (witch's tongue, etc.), bobbing for apples, sucker ghost treat making and many many more! We ended the night with a pinata full to the brim with candy! Overall it was a success. The kids had fun and I have received many compliments from parents about how much fun their kids had. My sister-in-law doesn't know if she wants to do it again next year due to the lack of parents. When I'm asked I politely let them know that I won't be here next year!

At the party we were having a treat contest. Madelyn wanted to participate but knowing how busy I was it needed to be something simple. She searched online and saw chocolate chip cookies that looked like they had spider's all over them. She's great at baking chocolate chip cookies and can make them by herself. When she had a few dozen baked I showed her how to pipe the legs and she finished her treat's! Madelyn was the only one that submitted a Halloween treat. She should have won the gift bag but there was a little misunderstanding with our judges and it went to my sister-in -law for her monster eyes (meat balls). Our judges didn't realize that she had done ALL the food and it was suppose to go for the treat. 

Oh well! She still had fun.

In between decorating for our party and waiting for the kids to get home from school Kylie and I spent some time outdoor's enjoying the warmer than usual weather.  I needed a break from my disaster of a house and so grabbed my new camera to take with us. I don't have a costume that baby girl will leave on so she was ready to go to the party dressed like this. 

Playing with our home grown pumpkins.

I'm getting "cheezy" smiles a lot lately!

I love em'.

There's a real smile.

Playing peek-a-boo on the porch. 

I sure love this little pumpkin of mine!

Did you know that Monday, October 14 was Columbus Day?

The kid's were wishing it was one of those "No School" day's but it wasn't.

Madelyn's 4th grade class did put on an assemble though.

They each had a part to read. 

And they sang many songs to everyone.

Afterwards they all sat as a class to allow the many mom's around to take their picture's.

They did a wonderful job!

Mystery Reader

In 1st grade every Friday after lunch a Mystery Reader comes to school. Clues are given to the class to see if they can guess who it will be. When the Mystery Reader is decided upon the child of the Mystery Reader get's to go to the office to pick up that special person.  I got to be that Mystery Reader a few weeks ago for Emily.  It was so fun to watch Emily come and get me. She had no idea I was coming to her class that day. I think that's what makes Mystery Reader's so much fun!

Being October and my favorite holiday is Halloween I decided to pick one of our favorite Halloween books to read aloud to the kids. 

I think my kids love this book because we've put action's to it. Emily's class loved the repetitiveness to it and the action's.

After the story Emily got to pass out her treats that I brought to go along with our story.

Since it was a Friday Brayden didn't have preschool and so he got to come too. Mrs. Leigh had him pass out the napkins. He felt so big!

 Ms. Rochelle helped Emily pass out the treats.

With my Halloween theme we all dressed up in some of our Halloween clothes including Miss Kylie. 

It was a hit! Can't wait till I can do it again sometime this Spring.

Cutting Wood

It's that time of year again.

Wood cutting to keep us warm all winter long.

We've been told by the "old timers" that is going to be one "dozey" of a winter. Apparently with all the rain we've received this summer it's a sign of being a lots of snow kind of winter. Yeah for us! So glad this will be our last winter here. Really hoping we'll be in St. George for the next one. 

One particular nice, sunny, Saturday morning we headed up to the mountain. We came across this old tree that had fallen over. Kory decided we'd start off with it.

While dad sharpened the chain saw this kids had fun climbing all over the tree's branches.

Kylie fell asleep during our short drive. When she woke up she decided her pig tail's were just no fun. So she pulled em' out and looked liked this for the rest of the day. 

 The kids and I explored a little bit while waiting on our dad. Down the hill a little bit we came to one of the Hunter's local spots. This kids had fun climbing up to the look out chair

and playing in the now empty watering hole.

It was a great day. So glad we came home with lots and lots of wood.

We've gone wood cutting twice more since and are so glad we are finally done. Our porch is full of wood and if need be we've got lots out in the shed as our emergency pile. Hope this winter isn't going to be as bad as everyone's saying it's going to be.