School Yard Bash

It was perfect weather for the annual School Yard Bash for Emily's elementary school.  The event was actually held at the middle school.  I didn't take any good pictures, but this is one of the kids enjoying the cupcakes we donated and then won back at the cake walk, along with their giant helium balloons.  They also had a pizza meal, a giant inflatable slide, mini golf, a DJ, face painting, hair coloring, a teacher watermelon race, a race car display and much more. 

I donated stuff for the cake walk and worked the entrance table taking money while Austin took the kids around.  We also bid on one of the themed silent auction baskets put together by donations from each classroom.  Emily really got into it and was absolutely set on winning the baking basket.  I was more interested in just bidding it up. :)  We didn't end up winning, but that's okay.  The Parent Connection group raised $1,300 with the silent auction and $4,100 overall.  The money is used for things like new playground equipment and funding field trips.

Walking the dog

This weekend the kids had a sweet gig walking the neighbor's dog, PJ, for $5/day.  They picked her up at 4:00pm and took turns walking with her to the fairgrounds and back.  I was in charge of the doggie-do bag. :op 

In addition, we were in charge of feeding "Rudy the Rooster" at the fairgrounds.  Apparently a bantam rooster either escaped or got left behind after the county fair last year and took up residence in one of the livestock barns.  Our neighbor has been feeding him cracked corn all winter long.  He recognizes her car and comes running.  We saw him on Thursday when we walked with our neighbor to see what to do, but we didn't see him again.  All the corn was gone, though!

The other part of our job was to check on our 98-year-old neighbor.  The dog belongs to her daughter who lives with her full-time.  Obviously, Millie is not able to walk the dog when Jo is out of town, so that's where we came in.  We ended up visiting with Millie for 30-45 min. each day.  It's interesting talking to her, but also exhausting because she is quite deaf, so you have to basically yell the whole time.  All-in-all it was a great experience for everyone and something I'm sure we'll repeat often in the future!

Happy Flowers :)

Flowers & plants make me happy.  I love picking them out, planting them and caring for them.  I spent a great deal of time (and money) this week collecting this year's "happies".  Lincoln "helped" by filling his little watering can over and over and dumping it out wherever he pleased. :)

Newspaper field trip

Continuing their "Community Helpers" unit, Lincoln's preschool class took a field trip to the Waverly newspaper office and I volunteered to go along.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a rather awful tour.  The guide was a 40-year-old bachelor reporter with no kids who really didn't know how to relate to a 3 & 4 year old preschool class--like trying to explain what a pdf document is.  It turns out the paper is actually printed in Oelwein, and the printing presses had been moved after the 2008 flood.  Therefore, the only thing to "see" was the newsroom consisting of a bunch of computers and a regular laser printer.  The teachers felt bad because they had no idea.  Although the guide might have slightly disagreed, the 14 kids did AMAZING through a very boring 60 min. "tour".  They even cooperated for a posed photo with a newspaper and pencil souvenir that appeared in the next issue of the newspaper.  At least it was a beautiful day to make the 4 block walk back to preschool!

Lincoln would be the one holding his newspaper upside-down. :)

American Girls

While visiting my parents over the weekend, I was dragged encouraged to shop my mom's reverse basement sale.  She had done her most thorough purging yet and was wanting to "share" some gems with me and my sisters.  Everything was free, but you had to take something else, too. ;o)  There were some fun items that brought back a lot of memories.

One of the things that ended up coming home with us was the entire doll collection from our childhood, including many handmade outfits.  My sisters & I each received a hand-made "Cabbage Patch" doll one Christmas, as well as some store-bought dolls.  No one wanted them, but Emily was thrilled.  She is really into the American Girls book series.  She immediately assigned a character to each doll and called them her American Girl dolls.  They have already provided hours of entertainment.  It was a lot of stuff to take home, but the price was right, and it just might keep her from thinking she "has to have" the real thing. ;)

Here is Emily with her favorite, "Samantha", who is wearing a dress my sister, Courtney, actually made herself in Home Ec.  Then it's the entire collection.  Some are sporting the handmade outfits.  I also dug out the tub of 0-3 month girl clothes to further expand their wardrobe.

Boote cousins

The kids & I enjoyed a fast weekend with my family in NW Iowa.  This is the best picture yet of the Boote cousins.

May snowstorm

It has been a ridiculous spring as far as the weather goes, so it was hardly surprising that we had a late start because of a snowstorm in May.  Some locations in Central Iowa got over a foot of snow--which we saw while heading to NW Iowa.  We *only* got 4" in Waverly.

 

Preschool visit

Today I was a guest speaker in Lincoln's preschool class.  They are doing a unit on Community Helpers and asked for volunteers to come and talk about their job.  I brought my computer and a stack of bills and tried to explain bookkeeping/payroll at a 4-year-old level.  It was fun and they made me a gigantic thank-you card.

"My Family" by Emily

One of the projects Emily has been working on at school is writing a book.  Her first one was about our family.  Below is a movie of the pages.  I laughed about the cranky comment and wondered if she really thinks about mischief that much.  You can pause the movie to finish reading a page.

April 2013 videos