Friend Birthday Gift Ideas

We are in a season where we go to a lot of kid birthday parties.  It can get expensive!  

We have figured out a formula for gifts that won't break the bank.

If it's a classmate or a casual friend, we try to stick to a budget of around $15.

If it's a best friend or a long time friend, we shoot for $25.

The kids LOVE to shop for their friends.  They will stroll around a store or scroll through Amazon to find the perfect gift for their buddies.  Not all kids open gifts at their parties, but my kids really enjoy when they do.  It's so fun to see their friends get excited about the gifts they give.

Fletcher is ten and a fun gift for ten year olds is $15 in cash + a couple of fun candies to try.  Or if he knows the friend well, he enjoys personalizing the gift - a mini basketball hoop for the friend that loves basketball or a fresh set of art markers and coloring books for the art loving friend.

Leo is six and he loves to give crafts, toys, oversized stuffed animals, etc.

Sams has some really good toys for $15-20. We recently purchased this set of Play-Doh foam for $15 at Sams.  It went to an artsy little girl in his class and then we worked together to make her a personalized key chain with her name on it.  The key chain looked so cute on her gift and was a big hit immediately at the party.

Right now Sams has a couple of versions of this set, bath toys, sticker sets and some really awesome books.  I'm going to stock up to have some things in my kid birthday stash for those last minute invitations.  I love when we have a couple weeks notice for a party so that we can shop on Amazon, craft for that friend and enjoy shopping for them.  But we can pull it together faster with a quick stop in Sams.

I always have the kids write cards to their friends.  I love seeing them write something sweet on the inside.  I really like playing with you.  You are awesome at football.  Thanks for being such a good friend to me.  You get the idea.  Have your kids write one nice thing/one compliment to their friend in their card and it'll be precious.

We buy our cards in bulk at Dollar Tree or sometimes the kids will make their own cards.  Olive enjoys making cards for her friends personalized with their latest inside jokes.

I hope you feel motivated to enjoy shopping for your kid's friends and making gift giving fun!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday and Happy October!  I love Fall so much.  The best parts of our week were:

1. Thank you coffee!  Our administration treated us to a coffee delivery to thank us for all the extra things happening at school last week.  They sent us an order form and gave us a delivery time and date.  It was wonderful!  I'll take an iced coffee delivery every morning, please.

2. Olive loves all things Peanuts so I knew she'd love this Snoopy Halloween sweatshirt.  All the Snoopy stuff at TJs and Marshalls is so much more affordable than other stores.

3. Quarterly BFF dinner date!  We celebrated some birthdays and got caught up on life.

4. The Chicken Critter Salad from Texas Roadhouse is my favorite salad ever.

5. Turtle Ice cream pie by the slice is the perfect treat.

6. My bookclub book for October is The Burning Side.  I LOVED her first book The Bright Years and this one was just fine.  Good characters.  Interesting story line.  But I didn't love the way everythign wrapped up.  It's a solid read.  I would just have written the ending differently.

7. Rainbow clouds!  We parked at school and found a glowing rainbow cloud greeting us.

8. Leo outgrew his shoes overnight so I took him shoe shopping.  By himself.  He was thrilled.  And of course he put on the shoes, walked in them and then ran down the aisles of Shoe Carnival to make sure they'd be fast enough.  Long live slide on Nikes.  This time he requested matching Nike swoosh socks.  6 going on 16.

9. Leo has had a lot of friend birthday parties to go to lately.  The most recent was to a friend's family orchard to a fall day of fun.  The little girl gave pumpkin favors.  It was precious.  The perfect Midwest Fall birthday party.

10. My favorite fisherman!  I headed over to the lake to hang out with my favorite fisherman.  He loved the company and was happy to show me his fishing skills.

I hope you have a great weekend!  See you back here on Monday.

Linking up with Momfessionals

Flag Football Season 1

Leo has been asking to play football for years and this season his dreams came true!  The Colts flag football league at our school started in first grade.  He was so excited to get to play.

Leo learned so much, played hard and was sad to see the season end.  He had an awesome coach that nicknamed him Big Dawg.  And he encouraged Leo to play in beast mode which always got him pumped up.  His coach was encouraging, gave Leo good feedback and made sure the boys always had fun.  It was so much fun to watch him learn and grow in a whole new way this season.

Leo loved wearing a jersey, loved playing defense, got faster as the season went on and was so proud when he'd complete a pass, catch the ball in a game, score a touchdown, pull a flag or hike the ball well.  He did not love playing in the SUPER heat or wearing a mouth guard, but he powered through and was excited to show up to every practice and game.  I really enjoyed seeing so many of my former students on the football field.  It was awesome to reconnect with so many former families.  I'll always be cheering for their kids!  It was fun to see his team work together to play well.  The whole league's mission is to teach the kids the fundamentals of football, work as a team, grow in your skills and grow closer to God through sports.

Leo is pumped to practice in the off season to make sure he's ready to play again next year.  We can't wait to cheer for him!

Good coaches makes all the difference!!

I'm so proud of him for trying something new and for doing something that was hard!

Grandparent's Day

Last week was a doozy!  We had 2 field trips, 3 sick days for 2 different kids, football, rearranged plans and then we ended the week with Grandparent's Day at school.  I'm happy to have managed it all.

My parents and Kevin's parents were able to head to school to visit both boys in their classrooms.  It was so sweet to see our whole school filled to the brim with grandparents.  I think I heard the final number was 1, 700+ grandparents visiting grandkids at all of our campuses!  WOW!

They got to visit first grade, fifth grade and me in kindergarten!  My parents.

Kevin's parents.  It was a fun afternoon for everyone!

I'm so thankful that everyone was happy and healthy enough to attend a really fun day at school.

Lucky to Have a Sick Day with You

Leo came home from school on Monday and kept saying his mouth hurt.  He was sluggish and cried easily.  I couldn't see anything wrong in his mouth, but it was obvious that he didn't feel good.  

I was on high alert as all working moms would be during the school week.  We kept a close eye on him all evening and night.  I made a game plan with Kevin since my day the following day was the lightest, easiest to miss.  He'd help get the kids to school, I'd pick up and stay home with Leo if needed.

I stayed up late to write emergency sub plans for my assistant (really just added in all the extra details to my own plan book in case she was the one teaching the following day), woke up early to call into work since Leo didn't sleep well, sent texts to my team, email all the people and make sure my school day was fully planned out so that I could give Leo my full attention at home.

5-7am was stressful, but we did it!  Olive wasn't feeling great.  Leo didn't sleep well and woke up worse.  They both stayed home with me.  Fletcher wasn't thrilled to miss out on staying home but he went to school with Kevin doing drop off.  We rearranged pick ups.  And worked on all the chores/projects at home that needed attention.

I ordered a grocery delivery to stock up on popsicles, sore throat medicine, cold stuff and some favorite foods to be delivered in the morning.

We watched movies, snuggled and enjoyed a day at home together.

Leo looked at me and said "I'm so lucky to get to have a sick day with you!"  That was a good reminder for me to take the sick days even if they are a lot of work and that I can still do a job that I love and be the kind of mom that I want to be.

I got a glimpse of what the cats do all day.  We line up our backpacks at night, but since we were all home the cats took advantage of the cozy sleep spots.

Thank goodness for grocery delivery.

I surprised Fletcher with fun field trip lunch options for his field trip the next day.

It was the first day of Fall so I made sure to make this staple snack mix.  Olive managed her school work and I helped Leo work on his.  I kept close tabs on my school emails and parent app messages.

I delivered hot chocolate to cozy snuggle spots.

And finished the day with homemade cookies and running back to school to get Fletcher.  I did a quick reset of my classroom, got my Wednesday basket ready to go for the following day, set out morning work and got my classroom ready for the following day.  Then we headed home and it was time for taco night.

Thinking of all my mom friends finding themselves in similar boats this Fall and Winter.  You can do it!