School Paperwork Storage

I found this great idea online to store all the paperwork that kids do at school.  Brayden has been coming home with tons of things and I know he'll have lots more projects and artwork he'll want to save in the future. For now, I am just saving everything but I'll have him go through his folder at the end of the year and decide what he really wants to keep. And for really big projects that are too large to fit we can just take a picture of them and then stick the picture in the folder (if I can really be that organized!)  You can go to THIS blog and see where I got the idea and she has all the file folder tabs and papers you can print out free. So nice and easy! 

Pre-K thru 12th grade 

I'm going to put Brayden's school picture each year on the front of this once we get them back :) He had them taken last week, but he told me he had gym right before pictures so it'll be interesting to see how they turned out! I'm sure he'll be nice and sweaty!

And I went ahead and just made a set for Tyler since he'll be in school eventually. I put a folder in there to keep all the toddler artwork my kids have done too since they seem to always be drawing things. Ty is currently in the circles drawing stage where he just draws tons of circles on his page.  Not sure if all kids do this but I totally remember Brayden doing it too around the same age. 

 I do need to take back the plastic hanging folder bins because one is already cracked and I've only had them a few weeks! We definitely need something more sturdy with all of our moves. Not to mention it needs to last them through 12th grade and beyond.  Maybe I'll have to get ones like she has on her post if I can find them somewhere.

Love these Ideas!

I have a hard time sometimes coming up with lunches for my boys.  I kind of feel like I give them the same things every day. So I loved this idea I saw on this website.  What a great idea to use muffin tins for lunch. It's the perfect portion sizes for toddlers I think.

We've been making them this week and the boys have been loving lunch time. And it makes me think of what healthy things I can come up with to fill each circle. The website has so many creative ideas to try and really cute ones for holiday lunches and monthly themes.

It took me awhile to find 6 cup muffin tins, but I eventually found some at Ross and they were only $5 each.

 These are 2 of our lunch creations

And I have to just say I love the neighborhood we are living in right now.  Someday when we settle down, I definitely want to be in a family oriented neighborhood like this one.  It seems like they are always coming up with neighborhood events like campouts, get togethers, etc. Once a month, you can sign up elementary age kids for a night with the "book cook" at the town hall.  It's completely free and last night was a dinosaur themed one which of course Brayden loved! They did so much fun stuff for 2 hours and there were a few really cute ideas that I want to remember. They'd be fun for a dinosaur birthday party or something.

• Take a balloon and blow it up and put one of those little 'grow in water dinosaur capsules' in it (the kind that turn into little foam animals).  Then paper mache the outside of it so it looks like an egg and let it dry. Once it's dried and hard, pop the balloon inside and put the whole paper mache egg in some water. When the egg dissolves, the kids find a little baby dinosaur inside..  We hatched our egg today and it was very cute!

• They took brown paper bags from the grocery store and put one on each foot.  Then the adults duct taped it around the ankle and all the kids had big dinosaur feet stompers.  Then they let out a bunch of balloons, turned on some dinosaur music, and they had fun stomping on all the balloons and dancing to the music.

Here's part of the dinosaur stomp.  You could bring younger kids at the end for the stomp so Tyler was excited to join in. It was so cute!

My little brother Kyle flies here tomorrow, followed by my sister Kelly, so I am REALLY excited to spend lots of time with them! It's hard to say if I'm more excited about their visit or Brayden.  He has been counting down the days for the last few weeks! Yay for visitors :)