Classroom Winter Party

My two middle children are in the same class together. Their school believes in multi-age classrooms, so Emma (who is in first grade) is in a class along with her big-sis Kaylin (who is in third grade). I love this concept. It works on so many levels!
Anyway, I am the party coordinator for their class of 53 kids (there are two teachers and the classroom used to have 48 kids but because of budget cuts the classroom grew). The two teachers make this job extremely easy for me, and I love them for it! They are easily accessible if I have any questions and are very flexible!
This year for the classroom winter party, they decided to have stations. This was such an amazing idea. We had four groups of kids rotate between the stations and it went very smoothly.

Here is the Bingo station. The kids love this game! The classroom is called "Ohana Center" (Ohana means family in Hawaiin) so I found this site that allows you to design your own bingo cards. The time allotted turned out to be perfect. Almost every kid was able to get a Bingo! We gave them cherry candy-canes even if they didn't win.

Emma was all set to win B-I-G!

The second station was a penguin craft that I found where the kids trace their shoe to make the body of the penguin. This stations ended up taking up the most time, but the kids loved it! I should also explain that it was school spirit week and it was "Crazy/Random, Day" on the party day, so the kids were all dressed crazy and random. One of the teachers walked around giving out mustaches for people to wear. Totally random!

Cousin Luc with his almost finished penguin. He is so good about smiling for his Auntie's camera! Thank's Luc!

Kaylin working hard on her penguin. She made a beak that could open and close.

Here are some of the penguins! They turned out so cute and each one very different from the other!
We had pipe cleaners and beads set up for kids to make candy-canes, wreaths, pencil toppers...

and apparently bracelets. :)

The last station was sugar cookie decorating. You can't really tell, but the kids put mountains of sugar on top of the cookies.

She had to open wide to get the entire mountain of sugar in to her mouth. Most of it fell on to her plate, though.

Sugar lips! Hahaha!

The little sisters (Pay and Livi) got to decorate cookies too!

They got way into it and I had to take off for a few to go check on some other kids.

When I came back, I noticed that all of their toppings had frosting on them but were on the side of their plate still. Turns out they were decorating, then scraping the toppings off and licking the frosting, only to start all over again! Silly girls!

After the party, the kids went to recess and a small nature walk. When they returned they had a healthy snack of pretzels, satsuma's, berries,and juice.

I was so happy to find that out of an entire classroom of 53 students, my two girls sat together with a few other friends to eat their snack. :) Hey! Turn around Kaylin!

Ah! Much better! Thank you!

These two got to hang with the big kids all day and had a blast! Next year they will both be in kindergarten, down the hall. ::Sigh::

O Christmas Tree

The first weekend in December we pulled out all of our Christmas stuff and spent the entire weekend decorating and playing outside in the cool, crisp, December air. It was a beautiful, sunny weekend. Perfect for doing some yard work, riding bikes, and putting decorations up outside.

Biker babes!

Such a good man. It was about 20 degrees outside, and we spent the morning doing yard work, so Dao had to spend the afternoon putting up Christmas lights.

On your marks...get set...GO!

For the first time ever, Dao and I sat back on the couch and let the girls decorate the tree, all by themselves.

They are just getting so big.

The girls are so proud of themselves for decorating the tree without any help! (The big kids did help move the ornaments around, because the little ones put 5 ornaments on one branch)

I love our school

Last month, I attended one of our school/parent meetings (like PTA). The assistant principle shared with us an idea and project that the entire school was going to undertake.
Below is part of the letter that we received last week.

"Dear Families,

This year students are participating in a school-wide service project, which includes a financial donation to Heifer International (heifer.org). In brief, Heifer International takes monetary donations and uses these funds to help people in our world struggling with poverty. The money is often used to purchase an animal, which can support a family or community. Once this animal has been raised and produces offspring the family gives at least one of the offspring to someone else in their community to "pass it on" and benefit the larger community. Heifer International is also involved in a variety of other humanitarian projects around the world.



The money that our school raises for this donation will (hopefully!) come from each individual student. Our hope is that each student will EARN (at least) one dollar to contribute to the school's collective donation. This will mean that as a school we could contribute at least $700 to serve a family/community in this world through Heifer International. Our thought is that by having each student earn the one dollar it will take on deeper meaning when it comes time to give this money away to help others in our world.



School centers and advisories have begun developing a plan for earning one dollar per student. Funds can be earned with each student doing something different or everyone in a center doing the same thing to raise funds. It's up to each center or advisory to determine the best way to earn their funds. Please take a few moments to talk to your son or daughter about their center's plan...."

So this weekend, my little Emma, spent most of Sunday creating books. Each one is different and they are all really special. My fave is the one that is called "Some people are different". She drew pictures of people that are short, tall, smart, some are girls, some are boys. Oh my! The books are too cute! Then she tells me that she has decided to sell them for $1 each for the Heifer project! She wanted to go outside and sell them, but I convinced her she could do it from inside (Where it is much warmer!) I am one proud Mama!

I love the school that my kids go to!

Turkey Hangover's & Crafty Fun

A couple weeks ago, Dao's sis, Goo Goo (Auntie) Xuan and her boyfriend, Dan, came over and brought some crafty goodies. I totally forgot the name of the clay they used, but you shape it up and bake it. The girls were so excited!

Even Ye-Ye (Grandpa) got into it. He made some fancy flowers.

Dan teaching some different techniques. :)

Some of the creations that everyone made. Please notice the lightsabers and penguin theme.

Dan and Xuan are so cute. They made these little penguins. Xuan made the big one and Dan made the little one (notice the Kanye glasses). Dan tied them together, and made them into a necklace. Thanks Goo Goo Xuan and Dan! We love you!


Turkey Day

The bird.
My Mom does the turkey every year, and it never fails to be delicious.

The BEST gravy EVER!!!

Dao does 10 lbs of potatoes every year! They are super creamy. I think Kaylin eats about 5 lbs of it during the week. She can't get enough.


Dan made this super yummy dish of brussel sprouts and apples it was so good. I have never liked brussel sprouts before, but this was so good!

Stuffing.
Straight from the bird.

Auntie Robin's Sweet Potato's. Yummy!

Dishing up.

Round one for Xuan!

Emma wanted to get dressed up so bad. We didn't eat until 5pm, and I told her she had to wait until 4pm to get dressed up. Poor thing asked every 5 minutes if it was time to get dressed. She loves to get fancied up.


After we were full and the turkey hangover was kicking in, we put on an episode of Glee. Goo-Goo Xuan, Dan, and Goo-Goo Linh had never seen an episode! Everyone cuddled up on the couch, to watch. Good times. :)

Goo-Goo B and Uncle Rob were in Europe on their honeymoon (for 3 weeks!) and were missed this year!

Turkeyshoot U11 Champs!

Last weekend was the Turkeyshoot tournament! Teams sign up from all over the area and play 3 and if you win those you play a 4th game. The winner of the 4th is the champ!

Haley is #3.

The girls were not used to the large full size field, so the other teams had an advantage. For some reason, the club that we play for has these girls playing on small fields still? Well, I'm hoping that will change, cuz it took our girls a minute to figure out how to cover the field. They did it though!



The last game was a nail biter! At 1/2 time the coaches had to do a little pep talk. It was 0-0 until about 5 minutes left in the game, when our MVP, Missy, scored a goal!


When the game was over, the little sisters were so excited, the hugged Haley until she fell over. Then it was pig pile time!


The proud papa with his girl! He never got to play soccer when he was a kid, so he was living vicariously through her!

After the game we headed straight over to the awards ceremony. The coaches got this enormous trophy, and called each of the girls up to get a medal.

The back says, "2009 Turkeyshoot champs"! Haley wore it to school the next day, she was so excited!
We celebrated at Azteca after the ceremony.

Actually, Haley went with her team mates, and the rest of us went home. The girls were done (if you know what I mean)! They were whiny and grumpy, so we didn't want to ruin Haley's fun. After we got settled at home, Dao went to meet them at Azteca. I made him take my camera, and he actually took a few pics for me! Thanks, Honey!

Congratulations, Blue Angels!

New Moon

Last night I left my house at 6:30 to go stand in line for a 12:01am showing of New Moon (the second installment of the Twilight swaga).

New Moon was not my favorite book of the series (Eclipse is my fave!), and the book really had me yearning for Edward throughout. Me, I love me some Edward Cullen, so I wasn't sure what to expect for the movie.

I have to say, after watching it, that New Moon is way better than the Twilight movie! Seriously, Chris Weitz did an A-mazing job! The vampires don't look like they have white chalk/paint on their faces, the wolves looked believable (their digital), and the flow of the movie was right on the money as far as the book goes!

I thought Kristan Stewart did a believable job portraying Bella. This movie was intense for me emotionally ("Edward....Don't gooooo!"), and Kristen did seem to grasp the hell that Bella was going through.

Of course Rpatz was not in this movie very much, but the scenes with him in it were...magical (lol). No really, I loved watching Edward and Bella together. Not too many of the awkward pauses that Twilight had, which made me very happy.

Know what else made me very happy? Taylor Lautner with his shirt off...in the rain! Yes, I know the boy is not even legal yet, but dang!

Anyway, I want to thank my peeps, Sheree, Heidi, & Tita for coming with me last night. Thanks ladies!

P.S. We went to the Cinebarre to watch it, and it is for ages 21 and over only! Hahaha....no teenagers around (only a few crazy drunk ladies)! We sat in the back row, in the middle and drank sangria's and latte's! Loved it!