Friday, May 31, 2013

Kindergarten Finale

I can't believe Kindergarten is almost over. It has been an amazing year and the progress I've seen over the year is unbelievable. L went from reading on a level 3 at the first of the year to now reading at a LEVEL 20!! She has grown so much personally, mentally and academically. It has been amazing to see her turn into a "little person."

Over the past couple of weeks she has had numerous things going on at school. I wanted to share 2 videos from school functions she has been involved in. The first is from her Kindergarten musical night. They sang lots of fun songs and L got picked to sing a solo at the beginning of one of them. They dressed up like different professions and she was a teacher.

Then today she was selected to participate in the talent show. She chose to perform part of her tap dance from dance class this year.
She did great and I am so proud of how outgoing she has become over the year. 2 1/2 more days of school and we will have a FIRST GRADER!!

Friday, May 10, 2013

Teacher Appreciation Projects

For those of you who have kids in school, you know that this week was teacher appreciation week. My oldest is in Kindergarten so we had to step up our game a little more this year. Not that I didn't want to shower her teacher in gifts because she is just flat out A-MAZING, but we also wanted to give a little something to her art teacher, music teacher, technology teacher, and PE teacher to say "THANK YOU" for all that you do. If you add that up that makes 5 teachers! So I wanted to do something creative, inexpensive and yummy (because frankly, who doesn't like a good sweet treat!)

Here is what we decided on:

 Here is how you make them:
1. Make a cake as instructed on the box or from scratch. You want the cake baked through and not 
    gooey. (I used a Pillsbury Traditional Yellow Cake Mix)
2. Let the cake cool completely
3. Use a food processor or a fork and break the cake up into tiny crumbs.
4. Mix the cake crumbs with a can of frosting. (You can use any kind of frosting, but I used Pillsbury 
    Creamy Supreme Cream Cheese Frosting)
5. Once mixture is thoroughly mixed put it in the freezer. Leave in there until its nice and firm. (I left 
    it in the freezer for about 1 hour)
6. Once mixture is nice and firm, roll into golf ball sized balls. Place the cake balls on wax paper or 
    tin foil lined on a cookie sheet for easy clean up.

7. Put the cake balls back into the freezer to get them firm again.

The next step is where it gets tricky. Mine started out good, but went downhill fast. Here is what I used: (Melting chocolate, food coloring and pretzel sticks) After learning the hard way that food coloring and chocolate don't mix, take my advice and buy chocolate that is already colored red. Michael's has some red candy melts.
 8. Melt your chocolate in a sauce pan on the stove or in a microwavable bowl in the microwave. It's
     important to melt it slowly to prevent it from burning.
9. Take a pretzel stick, dip it in your chocolate and insert it into the cake balls. Let them set and
    harden up for a few minutes.
10. Dip the cake balls into the melted chocolate, letting the excess chocolate drip off before placing
     back onto the cookie sheet.
11. For the leaves I colored some of my chocolate green and molded it into a leaf shape and placed on the top of the cake pop, but you could also color some icing green and use that for the leaf as well.

And this is what you get:

Our other project for Teacher Appreciation Week was a class project.
We took 2 16x20 canvases and painted the top blue and bottom green. Then added a tree trunk. Then we painted each child's hand and placed their hand prints on the canvases like leaves on the tree.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Running Family

(I usually start blogging by naming my title first. But I'm not going to this time because I'm not quite sure where this blog post is going to go so I'm going to do that part last.)

Before I started running about 3 years ago I always thought runners were a little "crazy." Not only did they enjoy running, but they always seemed like they were in some secret society. Like they were part of some brother/sisterhood. I never quite understood it until 1. I got addicted to running and 2. I completed my first half marathon in January. I think anytime a group of people work hard, push themselves and strive to achieve a common goal it automatically ties them together. And after the physical, mental and emotional exertion (that's the best word I could think of, sorry) of running a half marathon, let alone those who run a FULL marathon, I totally got it. I automatically felt like a part of that "society" that I hadn't understood before. I found myself finishing my race and going to the finish line to cheer on my fellow runners (You can read about my race here). I was proud of those that completed races after mine. I was proud to be "a half marathoner." Call me crazy, but that's just how I felt.

Fast forward to yesterday when I went on my first run on the road since my half marathon. I've been running on the treadmill at the gym, but haven't been on the pavement since January. And I must say, it felt great! But I ran with a heavy heart. I couldn't help but think of all of those runners whose either accomplishment will forever be tarnished or they never got to complete one of the hardest things they had ever trained for. My race (read about it here) was such an emotional day for me with feelings of relief (to finally be accomplishing something I had been working so hard for), of happiness as I passed by children holding up signs for their parents (including my children) and strangers cheering us on, of appreciation for my parents as I see them on the side of the road with my children holding up signs and cheering me on as well as appreciation for my husband who decided just days before the race that he would run it with me since my friend who was originally suppose to run it with me was unable to. And then there were feelings of tiredness when I got to about mile 10, and silliness as I sang out "Call Me Maybe" as it played from my ipod because it reminds me of my girls and all of the times we have sang and danced to it together. It was a day of such wide range of emotions, but one that I never had to experience was fear. Or terror. Or sadness. These are all things the runners at the Boston Marathon experienced. And one of the greatest feelings a lot of them didn't get to feel was accomplishment and sheer joy as they crossed the finish line. Because they had to run in the opposite direction of the finish line. I can't even begin to imagine what was going through their minds that day. And sadly what some of them witnessed that day.
I ended up doing a lot of praying on my run. Praying for those injured, those heroes who sacrificed their lives to protect others, those who helped out and have done and seen things unimaginable, and those whose loved one were there that day and didn't get to come home. I know God is so much greater than the evil in the world and there was so much goodness that far surpassed the evil that happened that day. I know my God will prevail. I love hearing all of the amazing stories that happened that day. And I am so thankful to be a part of that "crazy, running brother/sisterhood."