celebrating back-to-school {sharing ideas}

Our week was far from the perfect, fun, back-to-school week I would've imagined in my head.  Actually, we've never really had a back-to-school week before, so I have nothing to compare to.  But regardless of what week this was, it wasn't a great one (for a few days anyway). So the bar has not been set high.  Monday was plain awful.  Tuesday was a bit better.  And Wednesday we decided to celebrate! 

We tried to get donuts at the donut shop.  But silly me, you can't show up at Drubers after 9am on the first day of school for the whole town, and expect to get a donut.  There were 3 donuts in the whole place left.  And the guy in front of us took one of them.  So we headed to the grocery store to get donuts for the park. 

We at lunch at the little pavilion near our house (something my kids always beg to do but I never seem to make time for, especially with Gavin). 

And read lots of "The Kissing Hand".

We did make-your-own pizzas for dinner and added some fun details to make our soon-to-be Kindergartner feel as special as we could.

I absolutely loved this back-to-school party over at eighteen25.

   I pulled this off in a matter of an hour probably. So not a lot of prep at all. The only thing I bought in advance was the sentence strips and stuff to make rice krispies.  I loved the idea of the rice krispie cake, SO easy during such a hectic time. We aren't too much into cake at our house anyway,  and as much fun as I have making cakes for the kids' birthdays, I really didn't want to start a tradition and feel pressured to keep something up that takes so much time. So I opted for this simple version of a cake.  It will be easy to duplicate in other years if I want. I used the free printable for the banner on the cake, the straw toppers, and a little quick tag that I stuck on some pencils. In the Walmart dollar bins I found packages of sentence strips that were perfect for this table setting.  I even went back to get more for future parties. It will be so fun to always write the grade they are going into on a strip for their table setting. And then I stapled another, with her name on it, around her jar.

 We also gave her her first REAL bible at dinner.  She's been wanting one so badly.  She always asks when she can get a bible without pictures.  We knew she needed one for school, so we waited till this night to give it to her.  She was so excited she asked if she could read a story out of it.  After she found out it was a little more difficult than she thought, she opted to ask if we could just read the Proverbs that corresponded with the date.

Before school on the first day we had a pancake breakfast.  I prepped it all the night before, knowing I tend to run out of time ALL the time when trying to get places in the mornings.  Oh man, is this new routine going to kill me.  When we go camping we store our pancake batter in an empty ketchup bottle, it stores easily and is so easy to squeeze out on the griddle.  So I made the batter the night before and the ketchup bottle made it super easy and fast to cook the pancakes the next morning.  And of course, we had to have cool whip, strawberries and sausage.

Then it was picture time! I am not all that creative on my own.  I get inspiration from others (aka copying).  Isn't that what all these lovely ideas online are for anyway?  Surely people don't post these ideas hoping no one uses them. I think it's awesome to be able to inspire each other with fun ideas we'd never think of to do on our own.  Parties, picture ideas, ways to celebrate...I definitely need help in these areas most of the time.  I totally understand not copying things that you're not supposed to copy (for legality purposes), and giving credit is definitely important.  But other than than, copying is the best!  It may seem like lots of people are doing the same thing right now, as we see the pictures being posted and blogged about.  But in the scheme of things, in 20 years when you look back, you won't remember that 5 of your friends did the same thing.  You'll just be glad you did it, because the memories are so sweet.  So copy away.

Since some of you asked, here are the details of the back-to-school photos. 

I got my First Day of School printables from How Does She - they are free and super cute! It's nice to have cooperative children for early morning photo shoots. I'm guessing it won't always be like this.

Last year for preschool I started the yearly "Favorites" photo.  I almost forgot about this, so I'm glad something sparked my memory so I could make sure to set up one of her pictures to be able to add the font to the side.  I just used Photoshop Elements to add the font.  After creating the file last year, it was super easy this year to just replace the photo and adjust the font as needed.  I saw this idea on Pinterest last year and then a friend did the same thing for her boy starting preschool too.  She was even kind enough to email me her psd file. Thanks so much Laura - I love that I started this tradition.  The font I used the for the title is School Script Dash and the rest of it is in Chalkdust font.  You can google them both and download them for free.

Check out this link with a whole list of first day of school picture ideas and printables!

Awhile back someone told me about the idea of videoing your children as they climb into the car after their first day of school.  So I set a reminder in my phone, because I was SURE to get distracted with how excited I was just to see her, that I'd forget.  It was so fun to ask her how her day went and questions about what she did.  She loved that she was getting videoed, and these will be so fun to look back at!  As long as I always remember to do them!  (although I'm wondering how this will actually work with multiple kids wanting to talk at the same time.  Oh well, I may just have to go with it).

(I'm not really posting the video (it's too long I think), just a screen shot)

When I picked her up we headed out for a mommy-daughter date to Applebees.  It was so fun sitting there and having lunch with my little girl who seemed so big!  We even bought desert.  Now that's a big deal.  I don't think we've ever bought desert before.

We ended the night roasting marshmallows with our friends. 

The day was perfect.  Our girl is a school girl now.

Monday I'll put her on the bus (and supposedly not follow the bus to the school). I'm definitely a bit nervous about that. 

As I processed everything this weekend, I realized I approached this day with such anxiety, and now it's over in a flash.  She's off.  I thought about all the time she's had here at home.  The time I've had to mold her and teach her, and help her to grow up.  And I know my job is far from over. As sad as it was to watch her go today, it was also exciting.  It's hard watching our babies grow up, but it's so amazing to see who God is making them to be. I'm thankful for all the time I had with her at home.  And now it's time to cover her in prayer more than ever.  Letting go, and trusting God with every aspect of her life.  It's so hard.  But it's so worth it.  He created her and he has big plans for her life.  I can't wait to see them. 

Here are 3 of the verses I am using to pray for Taylor in this new season of life.

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

Proverbs 22:6

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left,

your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying,

“This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21

"Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart." Proverbs 3:3