Grandparent's Day Recap

As I mentioned in the previous post, we celebrated Grandparent's Day at St. John's last Friday.

It was a huge success.

We are so blessed to have such amazing grandparents as part of our school family.

My mom and John (Gigi and Grandpa) came to school with Soliana.

Talk about blessings, how blessed am I to have the privilege of being Soliana's preschool teacher.

Here are the pictures of Soli with Gigi and Grandpa at the big day.

 Here are the three before chapel.

 Their first station was in the cafeteria for a snack.

 Gigi has found a friend and is engaged in a deep conversation.

 Their second station was in the Kindergarten room for stories and songs.

 I love how Soli is totally focused on me and the camera.

 Next stop, my room for Fruit of the Spirit necklaces.

 This is very tedious for the big fingers of Grandpa and Gigi.

 I was even able to spend a few minutes working on the necklaces with Soli.

 After the necklaces, they played Bingo, but I didn't get any pictures of that.

The final station was in the gym playing with the parachutes.

Personally, I think this was everyone's favorite place to be.

It was such fun to watch the older people enjoying the parachute play.

I always say, "there is nothing more fun than a parachute."

Tizita has a Grandparent's day this Wednesday.

Neither John nor I are able to go, but Gigi (my mom) will be going.

Courtney will come and get her tomorrow and return her on Thursday.

I know there will be many memories made for her and Tiz.

Grandparents Day at school followed by Grandparents weekend in Oshkosh

On Friday we hosted Grandparent's Day at St. John's. 

We had our first ever Grandparent's Day last year and it was a huge success.

I, in all humility, like to think that it was my idea to try a Grandparent's Day last year and many of the activities this year were also my idea.  I don't get involved in too many school functions for a few reasons:

1.  I don't get paid enough to do extra curricullars

2.  At my age, I really have no interest in many of the extras, been there, done that

3.  I am happiest in the privacy of my preschool room with my little students and their parents.

4.  And, lastly, my preschoolers are usually too little to participate in many of the extras

But, being a grandparent, myself, makes me more interested in this activity and having seen it work so well at many other schools, I thought it was time to try it here at St. John's.

Last year, it was mainly a day for the younger children to enjoy with grandparents, (Grades Pre. -3)

This year, it was decided that we should include the entire school body and we did.

We had different stations for everyone and they participated in activities which included the parachute, a craft project, a snack, Bingo, and story/sing time.

I will share a few pictures in my next post since our principal has my camera card to download all the pictures that I took.

My mom and John attended this special day with Soliana while I took care of the crafting station.

Soliana had spent the night with us on Thursday so she could be here for the big day.

We ate at Culvver's on Thursday night after taking the Escalade out for drive.

She helped us grocery shop at Aldi's and Walmart.  She is such a great helper and was so happy to ride the elephant and horse at Walmart as payment for her help with the shopping.

On Friday after our Grandparent's Day, John and I took Soliana back to Oshkosh.  We surprised Tiz by picking her up at school and then the fun began.

We made Halloween cupcakes and pumpkin pie play dough.

I am not sure why they are punching the play dough.  Must be like punching bread down when it is rising.

John captured this moment and thought it was so funny.

We met mama and papa for pizza after the baking/punching.

Yummy pizza at Christiano's.

We watched some TV and called it a day.

On Saturday, we had hoped to go on our annual trip to Waldvogel's pumpkin patch in Beaver Dam, but the weather was not cooperating with drizzle and cold weather, so we opted for a trip to mama's craft show followed by lunch at, wait for it, Culver's!  Soli loved the grilled cheese.

Here is one of her newest hats.  It is an Elsa hat from Frozen and very popular.

We bought a few very necessary items and went to a little pumpkin farm right outside of Oshkosh.

It filled the bill for a pumpkin patch experience at a much smaller and cheaper venue than Waldvogels and the girls seemed to enjoy it every bit as much.

The sun was out, but there was still a chill in the air.

There were two small bounce houses that were just the right size for two small girls.

They loved them and it was hard to get them out to move on other things.

There were the usual animals.

Neither girl is really all that "into" animals, they take after their grandparents in that area, but the animals were cute enough and served a purpose at the little farm.

 There was a very cute little home made golf course with some very nice obstacles.

I liked this course much better than the bigger one at Waldvogels which does not have near as much personality as this one does.

Here is Tiz in her "hole in one" pose which dates back to the days of mini golf with Mallory when she was Tiz's age.

There were the usual photo op wooden things, but just not as many.

You could play a friendly game of corn hole.  The game with John and the girls got a bit crazy, but their laughter was such music to my ears.

The real treasure of this little farm was the actual pumpkin patch where the pumpkins were still attached to the stems and you really got to "pick" them.

The girls found other treasures, too, like gourds.

It took quite awhile for each of them to find that perfect pumpkin/

It took Tiz a bit longer to find hers, so while she and I continued to search, Soli and John took a ride on this home made train type thing.  It actually had folding chairs as seats.  It was so funny to see them riding in it.

And, yes, it was driven by a big pumpkin lady.

We just had enough time to leave the farm and get to the theater where we watched,  "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"  What a fun movie.  We all enjoyed it so much.

It was funny, but had such a sweet message, too.

We took two very sugared up girls home and dropped them off.

We had dinner at Fazoli's and headed home with another head and heart filled with  memories.

From Bloody Marys to Margaritas and lots of things in between

Yesterday (Saturday) John and I started our day with breakfast at Schwefel's in Oconomowoc.

We had never been there before, but had heard good things.

We are really not "out to eat breakfast" people. we prefer eating our bowl of cereal, but we decided to give it a chance and we are so glad that we did.

The food was so good and the waitress was so nice, we even decided to have bloody marys with our breakfast and they were yummy.

We may just have to do this breakfast thing more often.

After breakfast, we headed into Milwaukee for some serious shopping.

We started at Northwester Publishing where we found some birthday and Christmas gifts.

We shopped at a music store, Michael's, and Brookfield Square, we had success in all these places.

Slowly my Christmas list is winding down.

We ended up at Kohl's.

On our way home we stopped at El Mariachi and ended our day with Margaritas.

It was a pretty busy day, but we did get lots accomplished and sandwiching it between Bloody Marys and Margaritas certainly helped.

A Blog ABC

My teacher's mind is on the Alphabet lately.
I decided to go through the Alphabet here on my blog and say a little something about each letter.

Here goes:

A - Apples.  We just finished one of my favorite units in Preschool.  I always love telling the kids a fun story about the star in the middle of the apple.  It always amazes them.

B - Blogging.  Sometimes I wonder if I should keep up this blog.  Not sure of its purpose.

C - Christmas.  My favorite time of the year.  I have started some shopping which I do online.

D - Dad.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of my dad and it is usually with a big smile on my face.

E - Eggs.  I made hard boiled eggs today for our salads.  I just really like a salad with eggs.

F - Friday.  Looking forward to this Friday when we go to the Pumpkin Patch with my class.

G - Garden - Ours produced lots of tomatoes and cukes this summer.  I am missing the fresh taste of them.

H - Hunter House.  So happy that Alissa and Nathan are finally in their own beautiful home.

I -  Ice cream.  I love it, but I always end of eating way too much.

J - Jesus circle.  Best time of my day in preschool.  Love teaching the little ones about Jesus.

K - Kevin.  My brother who is always there if I need something.  Reminds me so much of our dad.

L - Lunch.  The same everyday at school, Diet Coke, pretzel sticks, and yogurt.

M - Marge.  My mom who shares a house with us.  Sometimes she talks way too much for my taste, but I know there will be a day when I will miss it.

N - Nine O'clock.  I love that time because it is when I go to bed and read for an hour.  It is my time to be still and reflect.

O - Oscar.  The code word for a lockdown in our school.  I pray we never have to hear that word for real.

P - Pray.  I love to teach my little ones to pray.  There is such power in prayer and I want them to know that power that we all have in prayer.

Q - Quiet.  I love peace and quiet most of the time.

R - Real.  I am always trying to keep it real.

S - Soliana.  My sweet Soli, I love her more that she will ever know.

T - Tizita.  My sweet Tizita, I love her more than she will ever know.

U - United States.  The best place in the world even if it is a bit messed up right now.

V - Voice.  I wish I had a better singing voice, but luckily my Preschoolers do not mind.

W - Weights.  I have been using the weight machines at the Y.  I like it.

X - X-ray.  Hope I don't need one any time soon.

Y - YMCA.  So glad we joined the Y thanks to Mal.  Makes me accountable to exercise.

Z - Zoo.  I love a zoo.  No place better to take the girls.

There I did it.  

I may have to do it again soon.

It was fun.

Another Busy, Fun filled Weekend Comes to a Close

This is the weekend that I had hoped to take the girls on our annual pumpkin patch trip to Waldvogel's in Beaver Dam with the girls.

The weather, however, had different ideas for our plans.

We woke up to a cold, rainy Saturday with no promise of an end to the rain, so we came up with a different plan.

We met the girls and Courtney up in Fond du lac at Schreiner's Restaurant.  My mom and dad used to stop at this restaurant often on their trips up north.  My mom tells about one time when they pulled into what they thought was Schreiner's.  (I am still not clear on how this mix up actually happened)  My mom and dad walked in and my dad proceeded to order two bloody marys.  Well, he was quite surprised when  the waitress told him they did not have any alcohol at the I Hop.

Yep, they had walked into any I Hop thinking it was Schreiner's.  My mom seems to say they both had blue roofs and that explained their confusion.

We all just laugh about the story.  My dad can still make us laugh years after he died.

Anyway we had a great lunch and told the girls the Ken story.

Courtney left to go home and we took the girls to the museum.

We thoroughly enjoyed this museum.  It is smaller than other ones we have gone to, but the girls found lots of things to do and seemed to have a really good time.

One of their favorite spots was the pizzeria where John and I were there customers over and over again.  Random kids were also serving us, we were definitely overfed.

There was also a transportation with a bus, a train, a plane, and a few boats.

Another taught kids about physical activity and had stations where you did exercises.

After the museum, we went to a cute little ice cream shop about ten miles south of Fond du lac, Kelly's Creamery.

The ice cream was so yummy and the flavors were so unusual.

We took the girls back to Oshkosh, did a little shopping, and had dinner at Fazoli's before heading home to Watertown.

It was a fun Saturday.

Today, (Sunday) I went to a Holy Henhouse Workshop with Pam Wilke at our school.  It was an interesting presentation and it was good to spend time with Pam.

Now it is quiet time to relax and get ready for another fun week.