Teacher Gifts

Its almost the end of the school year for my kids.  They get out of school on Wed May 23rd.  I can't believe I will have a 1st and 4th grader!!  Where did the time go?!

I wanted to do something special for the teachers but didn't want to give them the same old stuff I normally give them.  So I decided to browse pinterest and asked for some suggestions on facebook.  Someone mentioned that they did a berry basket.  I thought it was a cute idea!

I tried to find some containers the strawberries came in, but couldn't find any without purchasing the strawberries themselves.  I didn't want to purchase some strawberries because I had already bought 4 gallons of strawberries at a local farm.  So I went by goodwill and picked up some baskets for .77 cents each. 

 I filled it with Bath and Body works strawberry hand soap, hand sanitizer and a car freshener.  I then went to the store and purchased some gum and pop rocks in strawberry flavor.  There is a lot of other things you can put in this basket going with this theme.  candles, drink mixes, koolaid, etc.  Whatever you can think of.  

I had some leftover ribbons from a previous project so I just wrapped it around the handles and made a bow on both sides.  Then I crumbled up an white tissue paper for the bottom and put the stuff in it.  Then I printed out some notes here.  I then taped it to a kabob stick and stuck it in the basket.  I thought it was a cute idea and the teachers all loved it!

Tell me, what are some of your ideas for teacher gifts??

May

I have TONS going on for the month of May.  My kids only have 11 more days left of school.  So we have all the end of the school activities to deal with as well as normal everyday things. 

My middle son has baseball practice every Tuesday and games every Saturday.  Then we have his Kindergarten Graduation Tuesday evening.  Then all the 3rd graders is having an award ceremony and then a class party afterwards so I'll have to go to that as well.  Then the whole school is having a field day that Friday. And my kids of course want me to watch them during field day.  So that would mean I would be at the school from 830ish till 2, since my son will be doing it from 830-11 and my daughter will do hers from 1130-2.  That's going to make for a long day, especially with an 2 year old.  

I've got to some how find time to get teacher gifts.  I have an cute idea of what I'm going to give them.  I will post that another day when I have it completed.  I will have to do 3 teacher gifts and 1 bus driver gift.

In the middle of all this, me and my husband will both have a birthday.  We will turn the big 3-0.  I'm thinking of having a cookout here at my house to celebrate it.  

The last day of school is May 23rd and I'm going to take me and the kids to visit my family for about 2 weeks. We are leaving May 24th.  

Our Weekend

We have lived here in our house about 5 1/2 years now.  I've always wanted to get a fence for the back yard, but always thought they were super expensive to do so.   Then a friend of mine recently did hers and it wasn't as bad as I thought.  So we saved up some money and decided to get it done.  It only took the crew about 4 hours to do so.  I highly recommend Steve Long if you ever need to get any fencing done. 

 But the end result is amazing!  I love it!  The dogs and kids love it!  I love being able to let my dogs outside and let them run and play without being on a leash.  I also like the fact that I can just let my 2 year old son run around and play and I don't have to worry about him running to the road or going where he's not supposed to.

Before - Looking towards the back of the property

After - looking towards the back of the property

Before - looking towards the right side

After - looking towards the right side

Before - looking towards the left side

After - looking towards the left side

We got a new patio set so we can sit and watch the kids play.

 This is underneath our balcony deck.  We have an 2 story house in the back and this is leading out of our daylight basement.  Now our next project will be redoing the deck so we can have stairs going off the deck going to the back yard.  This will be a lot easier to just let the dogs/kids out instead of having to go through our laundry room, down a flight of stairs, through the basement and then outside.

Swingset with the neighborhood kids

 We had purchased a really nice wooden swingset a couple of years ago, but the storms we had in the last year or so knocked it over and destroyed it.  So the kids haven't had a swing set to play with in a while.  I just bought a basic metal one.  I didn't want to spend a lot of money on a swingset only for it to be damaged again.

We also removed some bushes/trees that was just annoying us! Thanks to a friend of ours for lending the chainsaw and helping us out.  We removed the tree thats at the corner of the house in picture #4.  As well as this bush that was at the corner of the house and driveway.  It was just an horrible bush, it was too tall to trim and it was prickly and full of bees/bugs.  So whenever we got out of the car, we would always get pricked or have bugs flying around us. 

Before

After

I think it looks a lot better with it gone.  Now our next weekend project will be mulching that same area.  But I have no idea when we will be able to do so since we have baseball games every Saturday and no truck to haul the mulch in.  The mulch place near my house that is less than a mile, wants $50 just to deliver it!!  CRAZY!

Baseball

Today was my middle child's 1st baseball game!  He had 2 games back to back and he did AWESOME!!  The team however lost both times but as long as they had fun.  That's the most important part.

Right before the game started

lining up to start the game

batter, batter, batter

I got to play in the dirt

Playing in the dirt

Afterwards we went to a friend's house for a birthday cookout.  The kids then played outside even longer.  I don't think all of us as a family has been outside the whole day almost.  Needless to say that all of us are worn out.  I'm exhausted!!  

The hubby is taking the older kids to see Avengers tomorrow morning.  I'll be able to relax and sleep in tomorrow hopefully.

Garage Clean out

I've had several things on my to do list that I was wanting to complete soon.

Clean out Garage

Clean out basement

Get stuff together and tagged for yard sale

Clean out hall closet and linen closet.

Sell the pool

put some things on craigslist and cheapcycle.

My today's to do was to clean out the garage.  It took me 5 hours to clean it out all while chasing a toddler.  Thank goodness he napped for 2 hours today so I could do it with no interruptions. 

Before - I'm embarrassed to be showing this to everybody

Before - Left side of the garage

Before - Right side of the garage

This is after.  While I was cleaning the garage, someone came and bought the pool so that free a good chunk of the garage space right away.

After - Left Side

After - Right Side

Another view of the right side.

Another view of the left side

 

See how nice and clean it all is!!  You can actually walk around in it without having to climb over everything. I filled about 6 black trash bags full of trash.  I even went around the room and swept all the cobwebs from the ceiling and floors.

Yard Sale Pile

I've already got a good chunk of the yard sale stuff together and ready to go.  These are already priced and tagged because its leftovers from previous yard sales or returns/rejects from the consignment sale.