Ahhh...Summer?

Hi y'all, I know I have kind of slacked on posting.  The last week of school is always crazy, but it is done and it is officially summer at my house (at least on the inside).  In Northern California, we are normally in the 90-100 degree temperature range.  Well, this month (yes month), we have had maybe 5 sunny days.  It has been rainy and thunderstorms for way too long.  We even had 4 tornadoes touch down 10 miles from my house a couple of weeks ago.  Tornadoes?  Here, pretty much unheard of.  Well, I just had to get out my weather vent. They say today was the last of it, and temperature should be warming up to the 80's.  I personally would like it a little warmer to heat up the pool, but I will take whatever sunshine I can get. 

Now that summer is here I have more time on my hands and some fun things planned party wise.  I also am enjoying quality time with my son. 

Until next time, here is a picture to help keep my motivated with this very unmotivating weather we are having.

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Free Froggy Thank You Printable

I have mentioned that I am a teacher and I am very fortunate to have some great parent helpers.   Every year I make them a little thank you gift and this year I decided to make a little frog thank you printable tag to go on each bag.  We are the first grade froggies in my first grade class, so most things have a frog on them, even the gift tags. I am also a big fan of kraft (paper, bags, etc.), so I put each item in a kraft bag and just added my little frog tag.

I love the chevron print right now, so I decided to incorporate it into the tag.  What's inside the bag?  Well, I can't tell you just in case a mommy volunteer is reading this post.  BUT, I am giving away the printable if you would like to use a frog thank you for any reason.

Feel free to download it here for personal use.  I punched them out with a 2-inch circle punch.  If you are sharing it on your blog, please link directly to this post, not the link.  Thanks a bunch and enjoy!!

Carnival Game Ideas

I thought I would stick with the carnival theme.  I am so excited to go to our Silver Dollar Fair and Carnival this week.  Some of the things I am looking forward to:

1.  Eating a corn dog and some funnel cake (calories don't count)

2.  Riding the merry-go-round with my son (he rode one for the first time last year at Disneyland and still talks about it).

3.  Walking through and observing the farm animals.

4.  Walking through the carnival game area.  I am hoping to get some more inspiration.


Here are some great homemade carnival games I found on Martha Stewarts web site.  You can find her carnival party planning ideas here.

Fish out of water game

Spray Away Game

Clothespin Drop

Ball Toss

Wish me luck with finding some wonderful inspiration at the real carnival later this week.

Clown making

I love circus and carnival themed parties.  We are going to have a carnival party this summer here at our house and our annual city carnival is coming to town this week, so I thought I would share some fun ideas I have found.  I am always looking for fun ideas to do with my preschooler.  Well, I came across this great photgraphy web site, Katherine Marie.  She does some great themes with her kids each week and blogs about them (and take gorgeous pictures of them.  I found this build a clown activity that was so clever:

You can find more info about the clown theme here.  Summer is almost here and I plan to refer to her site for many fun ideas this summer.

Not only is this just a fun preschooler idea, but a great carnival/circus party activity.

50 Days of Summer Fun

12 days, that is how many working days left before I am on summer vacation.  I love the many lazy days of summer, but also like to have things to do...especially with a preschooler at home.  So yesterday I came across this great idea from the Crafting Chicks blog.  She made this poster with 50 ideas of things to do over the summer.  She made it digitally and had it developed into poster size at Costco.  Well, I decided to do the same.  I'm planning to hang mine up on the playroom, it will help me stay accountable this summer.  Besides the idea from Crafting Chicks, she also share the digital file so you can make your own (which I used),  You can find it here on this post of hers.  It was so easy.  All I did was added my own 50 things and it is at costco waiting for me to pick up.  Here is my version (literally hers with just my "things" added):

Crab Party

Happy Monday everyone.  I have a busy few weeks ahead with the end of school, but I am still in party planning mode.  I am working on a 4th of July freebie that should be ready to roll out here within a week.  In the meantime, I thought I would share this wonderful crab party from Tomkat Studio.  I have always loved the crab theme, and what a great way to tie in a pool party.

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Such a fun theme.  I feel like I should be at the beach... soon enough I guess. 

Strawberries

I am very fortunate because I live where some delicious strawberries grow in abundance.  We can always get the sweetest, juiciest and yummiest strawberries this time of year.  There is this nice man who sets up a stand daily just down the road from my house.  He knows me by name now.  I thought I would share some fun strawberry finds for you today.

strawberry handprint art: source
strawberry bouquet: source
strawberry hat: source
The strawberries with chocolate were from Pinterest and didn't have the source listed.

I also love these from Garnish:


I may order some of these just to have for gift packaging. Well, I hope you have a wonderful day and are lucky enough to eat a strawberry or two today!