Young Party of Four

I haven't done a Friday Favorites post in a few weeks. We have been super busy with the end of school rolling around which is also the end of Girl Scouts (sort of - as the main things coincide with the school year) and dance is wrapping up here in the next month so other things have gotten in the way of this weekly post. BUT, I wanted to do a quick post about some teacher gifts that we put together this year because I have been asked about them. This won't be a long one but may be a fun idea for a teacher gift if you need one. This is something I first saw a few years ago. Probably even before we had kids and I have since seen a few variations of it. We tend to go with the "Bucket of Sunshine" option, though I have seen boxes and bags as an option. We like buckets because sand buckets are super common around here. Especially in the summer. The idea is basically this... grab a yellow bucket. Fill it with yellow items. Write a personalized thank you note. Give te...

I just realized that it has been almost a month since our last blog. We have been so busy in the last couple of weeks, that blogging definitely took a backseat to everything else we have going on. I can't believe we are almost to Christmas. Christmas!! Eek! Ever have one of those weeks when it seems like the week was so very long and yet flew by in the blink of an eye all at once? That was this last week for us. Monday of this week seems like it was forever ago when we think about the fact that Kenzie was in school, yet when we think that my parents were in town for 5 days, it seems like they weren't here for more than a few hours. Crazy. This last week we celebrated Thanksgiving. This is always one of my favorite holidays. I like it for many reasons. One of which is the time we get to spend together as a family. Steven usually takes off for the week of Thanksgiving. We have our families over for dinner on Thanksgiving Day. My parents usually get a timeshare for the long week...

When Will's birthday was approaching we talked with him about what kind of party he would like to have this year and it wasn't long before we settled on a Cars theme. The kid loves anything and everything with wheels and a motor. So, when we were thinking of themes, cars were on the top of his list. Being that the Cars 3 movie came out in the last few months (which we all saw together in the theater so it was mega-exciting for Will), and was super popular, there were plenty of ideas out there and it was really easy to find decorations related to the franchise. As is customary in this house, planning started at least a month in advance as we like to split up the cost of a party over time and it gives us more time to create some things along the way. Will was super excited this year to see us buy things or make things along the way. This was the first year that he was really into his own birthday party. The first year he truly understood what was going on and that the party was h...

Honestly though. Can anyone say that without singing it? I certainly can't. Since Fall is here now (believe it or not despite our 100 degree heat index the last couple of days...) we are quickly approaching Christmas season and for some reason this song has been stuck in my head. Which lead me to thinking about how I have some "favorite" things right now. Thought I would note some of those because I like looking back at old blog posts a year or more later and seeing what was going on with us at that point. These big coloring page books are awesome! They can keep a kid busy for ever and a day if they are into coloring like one particular kid I know is right now. Kenzie is turning into quite the artist lately. It's so funny that as the kids that hated coloring until she was almost 3 and a half or so, she is so obsessed lately that if we give her an extra minute, we can always find her coloring. She gets easily distracted by it. She will often disappear into her room t...