The Beach!

Edward has to go out of town for one of his CPR re-certifications, so the kids and I decided a trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house was in order. We hadn't been there since Christmas! As with most visits, we hit the beach.

It was a perfect beach day with it being partly cloudy, but warm, and the water was unexpectedly warm!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Teacher Appreciation Week is the beginning of May. I was very involved in this due to being on the preschool board and wanting to show my appreciation to the kids' teachers. So, there was a lot of thought and prep to the week.

I made strawberry jam for all the preschool teachers and then Madison and Luke's teachers.

Finished jam

I baked bread to go with all the jam. That took quite awhile, but it was so worth it!

Some of the bread and jam ready for the preschool 

Madison and Luke took these to their teachers on Monday. Madison and I wish we would have thought to get one for her AIG teacher, haha.

They took these notecards in on Tuesday.

These bookmarks went with Wednesday's notecard gift. 

Thursday, they took in candy.

Madison picked out the box of chocolate. Luke has a teacher and a teaching assistant in his class.

The jam and bread then went in for Friday.

I was also at school Friday to serve the Teacher Appreciation Lunch...Chinese food for the Chinese School!!

Onto the preschool...

Out preschool has a Room Mom for each class and then two of us )myself included) are on the board (the rest of the board includes church members). We started planninn a couple months in advance for the week and asked for monetary I donations from the parents to purchase the items.

Monday, we did a beach bag.

The beach bags had a towel and Tervis tumbler.

Alex's class with Renae getting her bag

Tuesday, we did a basket of homemade goodies. We had canned soup, homemade bread, and jam. 

"You're a Soup-ER teacher."

The soup mixture was really neat and a homemade mix.

Girls in Alex's class

Wednesday morning, we had a breakfast for the staff. It is a good thing we are all Officer's Wives used to hosting events like these. I had all of the white serveware/platters.

It was a great breakfast!

We also had these flowers ready for the staff. The four-year-old classes signed their pots, but we wrote in the names of the kids in the smaller classes. I was so excited to find these pots!!

The shovels were an added bonus...my clearance shopping at Targrt pays off sometimes!  I thought these were awesome when I found them 75 percent off!! One of my friends is super crafty and made the flowers on them. 

This is what the four-year-old class flower pots looked like...so sweet!

Thursday was our grand finale, year awesome grill baskets!!! I found the baskets at Target (yeah, the day I bought all this, the total was over $350...). One if the moms put the teachers' initials on all the baskets. See, group effort...I am the good shopper, but others have a talent for decorating.

These were so fun and totally awesome. One of the moms sells Pampered Chef, so a couple of months before, she did a Pampered Chef party for our preschool and used the proceeds to buy Pampered Chef grill rubs for each basket . We found the tool sets at Target (part of my big purchase day), and then we found the napkins, colorful fill paper, and lighters at Dollar Tree.

The girls had a picture the day before. So it was ironic the boys had a picture with the grill baskets.

Great week, but so busy and tiring! I am extremely grateful for all of those who teach my kids and all educators! As a former teacher myself, I know how tough of a job it is!

New Carpet!!

After three years in this house, the seven-year-old carpet had to go. It was builder-grade carpet in bad shape. We have been looking at carpet for awhile, and we finally figured out what we wanted. We have a big house with a lot of hardwood and tile...so, not too much carpet , right? All four bedrooms have carpet, along with the stairs and playroom. Considering our rooms are big, we still had 2400 sq feet to carpet!! It was a huge job that took two days and a lot of workmen, but it was all worth it.

They started in Luke's room.  Ahhh, new padding...

Installed and furniture is being brought back in

Jonah instantly went and curled up in the corner.

Our master bedroom...they worked out all the creaks in the floor, thank goodness! Those were driving us nuts, but screws instead of nails keep creaks out of the floor!

Done!

It is hard to tell, but this is the nasty, old carpet on the stairs. We are not sorry to see it go!

Charleston

We spent the last half of spring break in Charleston. Aunt Jennifer came to visit from Alaska, and on the way to the beach, she stopped to see all of us at our house.

We had to take Nana and Aunt Jennifer to our favorite local ice cream shop.

Then, we went to the beach. We met up with the rest of Edward's family.

The girls 

The boys

It was cold and windy on the beach.

We spent a lot of time playing games.

Using the hammock

Building castles

Eating

Playing cards

Edward, with his sister, mom, and brother 

Our last night, we got a ton of seafood to have our own cookout.

Edward and I stayed up past midnight to finish the 1,000 piece puzzle.

Our last day, our family went into Charleston.

After an awesome meal at one of our favorites, Hymans, the kids were given free ice cream. 

We had a great time!