The best cutter ever!!

I am loving this handy pizza cutter!!  I've been using it to cut everything from French toast, sandwiches, and pizza into bite size bits!!  

End of another year of Religious Release Time

So only 2 more weekly meetings with the Release Time kids at my church. It is truly bittersweet, because each kid is unique and special to me. But also, we are moving to another house at the end of this school year, so my time at Release Time will be coming to an end indefinitely.
So after a little shopping this weekend, I think we are going to have a fantastic class session tomorrow making necklaces!! All the supplies for 20 kids were under $25. Cross charms. Screw tight clasps (last year we just made them long enough to tie - I think this idea will work better for the long term). And black hemp cording.
Here's to new beginnings!!

Custom baby shower party favor

 

We have a baby shower coming up soon for my sister-in-law. So I searched OrientalTrading.com (http://www.orientaltrading.com/api/search?Ntt=47%2F2234) for party favors, and found the perfect one!! A cookie cutter that included a recipe card that allowed 2 lines of custom writing.
Once they arrived I realized they did not come with the blue ribbon, so the next stop was the local Ben Franklin craft store for ribbon. There happened to be a mini Bowdabra (fancy bow-maker) on clearance and that made things way more convenient and pretty rather than tying 24 shoelace type knots.
Next on my list was to find little mini pacifiers to tie into the bows. But no such luck!! But at the local Wal-mart I did find little cross charms which I decided to tie in to the bows. I think it made it look more complete.
Once home I had to try it out!! It is time consuming, but super easy!!

First I cut my bow wire to about 12 inches. This is what is used to tie the ribbon.

 

Next, you lay that bow wire in between the plastic holders - length-wise and you start the ribbon.

The bow maker is so simple - simply slide the ribbon inbetween the pastic holders.  It's on a springlike compression, so it squeezes in and stays in place.

 

Use the little slider provided to scrunch all the ribbon down.  Then use the bow wire to tie a simple knot.  I then slid on the cross charm and tied it again in what will be the back of the bow.

Then I simply put one end of the wire on each side of the cookie cutter,

slid them through the little hole in the recipe card,



and did a simple knot on the back.

Only 18 more to go!!



Summer Reading

Our summer reading materials showed up today!! 

We ordered the 42 book set of the Magic Tree House by Mary Pope Osborne.  My daughter has really enjoyed reading these in her kindergarten class, and hopefully will continue over the summer!!  We ordered ours from Scholastic Book Orders - all 42 for $65.  We are also going to sign her up for the Magic Tree House passport at http://www.magictreehouse.com/. 

Scholastic Summer Reading

It's hard to think of it being summer already.  It's only May 1st and it rained most of the day, on the other hand, gymanstics, dance, and religious release time have all ended as of last week.  But Scholastic started it's summer reading program today!!
So I just got done signing up my 5 year old, and my 2 little sisters as well.  With all this talk of the "summer slide", I thought what a better way to encourage the kids to read then have a challenge and reward system for our kids.  Today we also submitted our book order for the complete Magic Tree House collection for some summer reading. 
One of my memories as a young child was having all the Dr. Seuss books and having my dad read to me.  So hopefully I am creating those same type of memories with my kids!!  :)

Below you will find the link to the Scholastic Summer Challenge:
http://www.scholastic.com/summer/

ABC Bible Verse Flash Cards

I previously posted these ABC Bible Verse cards on Pinterest, and had someone ask if I had all the Bible verses written down.  Long story short, I somehow deleted the post from my cell phone accidentally. :(  So this time I thought I would document the process and include the Bible verses along the way...



So first I searched the Internet for "ABC Bible Verses", "Kids ABC Bible", etc.  I found a lot of hits.  From there I found the verses I liked best for my kids.  Some, I did not like a lot, so I have an app on my phone called "YouVersion Bible" that I used to do searches in the Bible for specific words.  (If you don't have it, and are looking for a good Bible app, I would definitely suggest it.  )  For example, the letter Z - verses I found included the word Zion.  Well Zion does not mean much to my kids, so I searched for Zeal, Zealous, and actually found a verse with the word laZy. 



I typed each of these up in Word using font Kristen ITC for my little ones and Script MT Bold for my 5 year old that decides she wants to write in cursive.  9 cards print per sheet - 3 sheets per set (3.66" h x 2.83" w). 

The next step was to print on card stock (make sure to change your printer setting to card stock).  Our store did not have much of a selection, so I ended up with the 4 hyper colors, but my kids don't seem to mind!

After the printing was complete, this gave me a perfect excuse to buy a laminator.  I just went with the cheapest Scotch laminator, and I proceeded to laminate. 



Cutting was the next step.  I trimmed all the laminate so that the cards were mostly the same size.  I also cut from the end of the alphabet backwards, so that the pile is already in alphabetical order when it's stacked. 



After cutting, it was time for the single hole punch.  Just to make sure the cards didn't rip, I added the reinforcement label stickers.  This also lined up the hole punches nicely.  Then added the book rings to the set. 



The ABC Bible Verse sheets are: