Two very busy weeks in one. The first part was the end of Summer Vacation 2016 shenanigans and the second part was the beginning of the school year. The end of summer was just as busy and fun as expected. The start of the school year actually went much smoother than I was anticipating. My boys seemed to flow right back into their school routine and there were no heartbreaking moments when the littles at daycare realized the big kids weren't around.
We spent the last two weeks doing some of their favorites...which mostly means making the house incredibly messy!
Here's a quick look at our last two weeks:
We broke out the homemade play dough one day and flour "sand" the next. My kitchen was a mess!
We tried out a cool Skittles experiment. Put Skittles in a circle and pour warm water on them. Then watch the rainbow appear in the water. All of the kids thought this was "so cool" and even cooler that I let them eat a few Skittles too. Much like every day, we were pressed for time so we had to quickly move on to the next activity. I set the plate aside and forgot about.
A couple of hours later the kids checked the plate and found this:
And just like that no one wanted to eat Skittles anymore!
One of the activities the kids wanted to do again was Lemonade Stand Day. All morning they played Lemonade Stand/Shop in the backyard. In the afternoon, we set up stand in the front yard and sold lemonade. We did this at the beginning of summer too. That time I let the kids use the money to buy new toys (of their choice) for daycare. This time around I suggested they donate any money earned.
After throwing a few ideas around, they decided to donate the money to the National CMV Foundation. One of my daycare babies and their little friend Pippa has congenital CMV. I loved hearing the kids (attempt) to explain to everyone who bought lemonade what CMV was and why the money was going to the Foundation.
All in all, the kids made $111.60 at the lemonade stand. The next day we donated $150 to the Foundation (via their website) thanks to some extra donations thrown in from daycare families.
The kids painted canvases to take home to their parents. The kids have been very anti arts and crafts all summer. They've only wanted to draw and color their own pictures. The preschoolers practiced coloring in the lines and making pictures with stickers and the older kids perfected their drawings of princesses and Ninja Turtles. This was the only planned art I could get the kids to do since June!
We attempted one last science kit for the summer: make your own candy. The kids decided on marshmallows. They didn't quite turn out (as one child said, the marshmallows tasted like "a combination of marshmallows and kiwi very well mixed together), but no one seemed to mind.
So, so, so much play time in the backyard....and when they weren't in the backyard, they were inside building.
We did the smash cake the kids requested. Read more about our last few days of summer and the FUN we had here.
We made Back to School Night even more fun with dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant (even better when we ran into and ate with friends/a daycare family) and Snookies (our favorite local ice cream shop).
The last day of summer vacation was special: the bigs got to do whatever they wanted. Literally whatever they wanted. I figured I didn't have to deal with "but you let us do ____ before!" so why not?? They chose to bring every single figurine outdoors, making ice cream sundaes, trying Gobstoppers for the first time, and spending all day attached at the hips.
My "favorite" part of the day came in the early afternoon. All summer long we went without an injury (excluding the occasional scraped knee). That is until I pulled out the Kiwano melon. No one had tried it before and I knew it was sharp (the oldest mini had poked himself on it when we bought it at the store). So I warned all of the kids not to touch it. It WAS in fact sharp. I cut into and the kids asked to smell it. Sure, completely harmless, I thought. First thing that happened, a child grabbed onto the fruit and cut their hand. We were down to final hours of summer vacation 2016 and THAT'S when the first injury happens. Face palm.
After all of the goodbyes were said, I collapsed on my couch. Summer was over. I took off the first day of school to give myself a break. Or that was the plan. I actually had a crazy busy day that didn't feel like much of a day off at all. But I did get things accomplished, so there's that.
I love first day of school pictures!
After dropping the boys off at school, we caught a quick breakfast at one of our faves La Mie. I had a completely relaxing breakfast with Hubs and the littles mini.
Of course the only time the cat wants to cuddle is when I sit down to fill out paperwork for preschool while I'm wearing a black dress. I was not impressed.
One of my biggest treats for the day was going to Target in the middle of day. Of course I had the four year old with me who cried when she didn't get the shoes she wanted and picked out enough new dresses to clothe her entire class.
You should always cry when Target is out of "my size of sparkling shoes!" She took this further and placed the blame on me, screaming "you never buy me new shoes! My feet hurt in my old shoes! I can't even wear them anymore! I'll have to go barefoot to school!" I couldn't decide if I was more embarrassed or ready to throttle her. Either way we promptly left Target and had a good talk in the car. Not exactly what I was planning on my afternoon trip to Target!
But once we were all calmed and apologies were made, we tried it again....and daycare got a new toy out of the deal.
I've got to admit, I was nervous for the first day back with the big kids gone. It was quiet and only a couple of the kids questioned where the big kids went, but everyone seemed to transition fairly well. Although, having Play Doh and Kinetic Foam around Thursday and Friday may have helped things....plus as soon as the boys made an appearance after school, daycare seemed completely crazy again.
I don't have much planned for the next couple of weeks. Once preschool starts for a few of the kids, there will be even less kids around. I know the kids will need time to adjust and settle into the new normal of our days. Instead I did a massive toy rotation and brought out toys that haven't been played with in months. Then we'll be starting in on our fall activities--some of my favorite activities ever!