Back to... something!

I usually do a big "school cone" (made out of a piece of poster board and tissue paper) at the beginning of the typical school year - but, this year, that was just NOT going to work out with what I had to give to the kids. Last year, they got an assortment of school supplies, treats and a nice weighted jump rope. All that fit nicely. This year... I chose another "treat" that would encourage some physical activity that I found and brought back some fond memories of my own childhood!!

What to do... what to do?! Don't all kids like the joy of OPENING something up? And basically they were going to get a "grab bag"... so, I went the brown paper sack route.

I was mostly out of tissue paper, so I used some very fancy and EXPENSIVE plastic grocery bags as the tissue!! Turns out these plastic bags will be recycled many many times in their useful life.

Bud 11 5/6 :: Branch 10 1/3 :: Blossom 8 1/2 :: Bump 3 3/4 

Good grief... they are all just getting so blasted big! I have decided I need to make some kind of a growth chart. Some of these kids wake up in the morning and look like they grew several inches over night!

And when I said, "OK" you can have your sack... mass chaos ensued -

with plastic bag tissue flying!!

There's old "Bark" and she was sleeping but seemed to notice the commotion - maybe she got hit with a bag!!

SCOOTERS!!!!! :) (I bought one on Amazon - it says a set of 6 red scooters. THAT did not happen. I got one red scooter for $14.99 and am a "prime" member so shipping was free. I had asked about the scooters before making the purchase and was assured yes, 6 would arrive and if not, I would be refunded back for 5 scooters... So, when only one arrived, I contacted them and was refunded back $12.49 for what would have been the cost per if 6 would have arrived. Confusing. Anyway, the price for the scooters is a bit better at RainbowResourceCenter and I had a few things to order to put my order over their $50 limit gets free shipping! So, I bought the other 3 from them.) We have a big garage and a partially finished basement, so there is still plenty of concrete to scoot about on around here whether it is too hot and humid or too cold and windy or too rainy. This scootering should be lots of fun!

Then there is Branch, who was pretty sure she knew what would be in the sacks... pencils, pens, paper,  sweets, BUT - I got her!! She will be learning calligraphy this year and she just found her new set of calligraphy pens!!

And my Bump... his first mechanical pencil. He thinks he got PENS!!! :) I'm glad they erase!

The treats were picked up and I was quickly abandoned and squealing was heard throughout the county as scooters raced round and round the work table in the basement.

EVERYONE (yes, even ALMOST 12 year olds) think that these scooters are great fun. And 12 year olds think that negotiating with younger siblings is great, too. "... if I have 3 of these at once - or even just 2 - I can really have some fun on my belly!!!" Yes, I am totally patting myself on the back for choosing a fun action packed toy that all the kids are enjoying together!

Even the little guy can play and keep up. I might not be patting myself so hard on the back if and when fingers and toes get ran over, here... but, for now? TONS of fun and the kids doing it together is making me a happy mama!

After all that excitement and the kids were all scootered out and ready for lunch, we made some sandwiches and mom unleashed another exciting surprise... I said "Yes" to a movie lunch. I had a new exciting dvd to love this year and many more years to come!

I bought this last week on Amazon for $7.99. It has gone up $2 already in just a week! We saw several episodes of Liberty's Kids from the library when we were down in Oklahoma. We watched all that they had and checked them out on more than one occasion. The treekids begged me to purchase the whole series. A year ago, the same series - also all 40 episodes - cost nearer to $60 and had different packaging.

The same $60 set is still available, but we'll see how the $8 version goes!! The first day of anything... school, lessons, sports, moving, unpacking, is always naturally filled with tons of excitement. So, why not capitalize on it and go BIG!?! Right?!! So, fun - fun - fun it is filled with today!

What do you do for your kids for back to school time - even if they go away to school, do you do something special with them to celebrate new beginnings??