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Young, Wild, & Three Birthday Party Theme, Decoration Ideas, and Family Photos

June 3, 2017

My favorite picture from the day! The anticipation!!

Aniston turned 3 in March and I’ve been meaning to share her birthday details with you. I LOVE planning parties for my two girls. I had so much fun with her “Some Bunny is One” party which you can find by clicking here:

Some Bunny is One – Aniston’s First Birthday Party Decor and Easter Craft Ideas

Her 2nd birthday party was a “Tea for Two” theme which I will go back and blog about soon.

I was planning to have a “Wild One” party for Heidi so I decided to use a “Young, Wild & Three” party for Aniston so I could use some of the same decorations.

I bought the girls a teepee from Amazon. This was a fantastic decision. It served as a place for photos to be taken, a birthday present to both girls from us and decor for both of the parties. In fact, we liked it so much that we have left it set up in our living room and have no intentions of taking it down anytime soon. I researched forever before deciding on this one. You can click on the photo to head over to Amazon. It was around $80 and I was happy with the one I picked out.

I also purchased some lights… these were a little tricky the first time but then we had it down. They are so pretty! (Again, click the picture to see them!)

My friend Lindsey came over to take photos of the girls since Heidi was turning one and Aniston was turning 3 around the same time. And let me just tell you… it is next to impossible to take a picture of 2 children their age with both smiling. Luckily my husband was not afraid to act as goofy as needed to try to get the right picture. I wanted to use these on the birthday invitations so we took them about a month before the parties. Here are just a few of my favorites. 🙂

I ordered my invites from ETSY. Aren’t they cute???

I designed the back myself quickly on the Walgreens Photo website and was happy with the way they turned out. I was able to print about 20 invitations pretty inexpensively that way and pick them up in a few hours. I let Aniston tell me who she wanted to invite and she only named family members. We have a huge family so it took her a while just to name the immediate family members. I decided to roll with that and let her worry about a “friends” birthday party later in life! 🙂 I think at this age less is better for the child and not too overwhelming!

Loved how this summed up Aniston. 🙂

Okay, back to the party. You can find a ton of stuff to help you plan a party like this. Hobby Lobby had lots of cute stuff but I ended up returning quite a few things and using simple decorations.

If you are planning a party for a toddler I want to urge you to think about their nap time. For me it always works out best to plan the party to start right as they would normally be waking up from their nap. I love doing it this way because the child is in a good mood and you have all of that time to rush around getting ready while they are sleeping away!

Aniston has dropped her nap so the timing didn’t matter too much. I chose 4:30 so I knew that Heidi would be awake and I could serve Aniston’s choice of pizza, cake, and ice cream. I didn’t want to start too late and run into the girls’ bedtime routines.

One of the easiest things I always try to do is create their age on my pantry door using photos. The guests always love to look at pictures while they are mingling and I think it really helps celebrate how special the birthday girl/boy is. I try to incorporate pictures of the people who will be at the party.

Any pictures that don’t fit on the number are used to decorate the rest of the party area. I take TONS of photos of my girls so there are no shortages of pictures around here!

On the mantle, I placed a couple of framed pictures of Aniston and hung a feathered garland. (I got the feathered garland from Amazon and will link it below.) I thought it added a nice touch to the party.

You can click on the photo to go through my affiliate link. I was happy with this one and after the party I wrapped it around the teepee where it is still hanging!

Another thing I ordered from Amazon was a plain white dreamcatcher to hang on the teepee and added some ribbon I got from my mom. I wanted to order a white one so I could change out the colors as needed. It was really beautiful and inexpensive. It was around $10 when I purchased it. Just a tip… make sure to read the specifications about sizes first. You can get an idea for the size of mine from the pictures and I thought it was perfect. I found several other ones on Amazon that I almost purchased but later realized they were pretty tiny. You can click on this photo to see the one I decided on.

I know this picture is a little dark but you can get an idea of how the living room looked. We just twisted some streamers around the fan and I set Aniston’s baby albums on the console beneath the tv.

If you turned around backwards, you would see this view:

I hung a gold A I grabbed for a couple dollars from Hobby Lobby. Dustin and I laughed after filling it with helium. It wouldn’t stay up at all so we might as well have filled it with air. It was much smaller than I was imagining, but worked out fine hanging above the island.

I like to pick up some plain plates and napkins from the Dollar Tree or Walmart and mix them with one other set of decorative ones. I let Aniston use a gold Washi tape to decorate the cups. She loved doing that! I also like to stick the party invitation in a frame somewhere near the food table.

I forgot to say how excited Aniston was about this party. She talked about the big day for weeks and weeks. She had every little detail planned out in her mind. She is such a sweet girl and genuinely thrilled for anybody who has a birthday so she was especially excited about her own!

We have the cutest little children’s boutique in Manchester called Sprout’s Children Shop. I bought her birthday dress there along with the crown headband. (You’ll notice that Heidi had a matching crown headband that went along with her “one” outfit in the pictures above.) The sizing on Aniston’s dress says 12m – 5T. Sounds a little crazy but you can see that on a 1 year old it would be like a long/poofy gown and on a 5 year old it would be a short dress. I had to have it and will probably have each of the girls wear it a few times to make sure we get our use out of it!:)

These are some of my favorite pics from the day!

Let me know what you think in the comments! I would love to hear about your money saving and unique birthday party ideas!

Big Brown Bear – My First Leveled Reader & Tons of Activities

June 1, 2017

So… years ago I ~~had~~ (okay I STILL have) dreams of being a children’s author. I attended several conferences & workshops and wrote at least 10 manuscripts. At one of the conferences I went to, there was an editor looking for leveled readers. I wrote several and now, many years later, I’m dusting them off and finally seeing them in print with the help of Chirps Graphics. (SHE IS FABULOUS!)

I created a new resource for TPT that includes this leveled reader and tons of activities and wanted to share a little more about them here. If you want to check out the resource in my store, you can click on the product below.

See… I told you Chirps Graphics is amazing! I love her illustrations!

With my kindergarteners we started by looking over the words on our word wall which are of course included in this resource!

Ya’ll! I almost cried when I read the class book to my students and they started reading it by themselves. They were so excited that they were reading and even my struggling readers gained so much confidence with this text and it was so special to see a story that was just a thought in my head years ago go to a manuscript form and FINALLY a printed form for students to enjoy. If you don’t follow me on Instagram – please add me! You can see a video of my students reading this to me!

So… after reading students the class book, I gave them each an individual reader. There are colored and black & white printer-friendly versions included. I printed the large class book in color and laminated it to use every year. Then I printed the ones for my students in black and white.

The students I created this book for should already recognize some beginning and ending letter sounds, have print awareness, and may tell a story from memory. They may invent text, can detect rhymes, have some syllable awareness, and are aware of the relationship between letters and sounds.
This and the other leveled readers I have written have between 32-100 words, predictable sentence structure, predictable story and spelling patterns with simple vocabulary and mimic speech. The most important thing is that these stories have word repetion which helps students build fluency, comprehension and a love for reading. In order to ease frustration, I have avoided compound words and contractions.

My kids loved coloring “Big Brown Bear”.

The next day students worked on rearranging letters to complete the book with the words “like” and “me”.

Later we created these adorable headbands. I loved how creative my students were!

Isn’t she adorable???

Each day we revisited the text. My students were so proud that they could read it by themselves.

I overheard one of my struggling readers exclaim, “I CAN READ NOW BY MYSELF!!!”

I included printable where students will finish the sentence to say what Big Brown Bear likes to do with each of them. They loved them!

There are lots of other activities like a labeling worksheet…

I also included activities to assess comprehension – like this sheet where students will color in the words or pictures that Big Brown Bear likes.

We did the cutest craftivity where students color in a picture of Brown Bear holding one of the writing templates… but of course, I forgot to take pictures!

I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine did. It was truly magical to see all of those struggling readers get so excited about reading! I created this resource as our year was coming to an end, but next year I plan to use this earlier… maybe in October. It could work for any month but I love the idea of giving my students confidence in their reading abilities early in the school year.

You can grab the resource by clicking on one of the pictures below! As always, I love to hear from you whether it be in feedback on my TPT store or in the comments below. Thank you for your support! Happy Teaching!

Home Depot Kids Workshops – An Unbiased Review

May 3, 2017

I know I called this an unbiased review, but I might should mention that I have a special place in my heart for Home Depot. We have a smaller Home Depot about a mile from our house and I absolutely adore it.

It all started back when I was single and living by myself in the house that formerly belonged to my grandparents. It needed some updating and over the course of a couple of years I visited that Home Depot a lot – A LOT – A LOT!

Everyone there was always friendly, knowledgeable and willing to help me. I’ll never forget the time I decided to install a tiled backsplash in my kitchen and they told me to take the wet-saw home with me to complete the project. Although they knew me from seeing me in the store, they didn’t even take down my name and number… just let me walk out of there with it!

Anyways, I had heard about the kids workshops and wanted to give it a try so we went to one in April. The kids were going to learn how to build a bunny basket. I signed Aniston up about a month earlier and had the time it started marked on my calendar. Totally unnecessary. At my Home Depot you could come anytime so you didn’t have to worry if you wouldn’t be there at the starting time. I was so happy when we walked in and they had all of the supplies ready for us and free snacks and drinks. Aniston was thrilled!

We brought along her cousin Whitney and they each worked on one. I loved that each of the products came with detailed instructions, stickers and everything you would possibly need.

Aniston wanted to use the hammer. I let her with very close supervision! 🙂

Once we had the pieces assembled, it was time to add the paint! Aniston LOVED this part!

As we were working, families were walking up and seeing the projects and joining in! It was a very laid-back event.

There was a pre-made sample if you wanted to follow their painting tips or you could paint it whatever colors you wanted. We went with our own unique creation! 🙂

We painted the inside of our basket too!

We were so pleased with the finished product! Aniston wanted to show it off to everybody! We will definitely be signing up for the Home Depot Kids Workshops in the future.

If you are interested, you can click here for more information!
Home Depot Kids & DIY Workshops

What about you? Have you ever attended the kids’ workshops? I would love to hear about your experience!

Organize Your Classroom – Easy Ideas and a Helpful Resource

April 26, 2017

I’m excited to introduce a new resource that I recently uploaded on TPT. These editable black and white labels are perfect for organizing your classroom. You can click the picture below to see them on TPT.

I have these glorious shelves above my cubbies. Don’t you love the word glorious? Ha ha. I really do love them though but they have always looked like a mess no matter how hard I tried to keep them organized.

Like this… ugh….

and this… yuck….

I had previously tried to organize them with monthly labels. I had centers and activities that went along with August placed above that label and so forth. The whole system just wasn’t working. I realized that the easiest way to fix this was to get some matching tubs from the Dollar Tree. Of course, they were just a dollar each.

I laid 33 tubs out on the floor and started removing all of my activities from their original boxes. (Unless they were super nice or wooden ones which I stored elsewhere.) I placed each activity in a plastic storage bag and labeled them appropriately. Then I put like bags together in each tub. This helped me figure out exactly what labels I would need and how many tubs I would need for each one. I spent a lot of time working on this during the kids’ indoor recess time and they loved to help me wipe out the old containers and sort.

I have always used primary colors in my classroom so I wanted some simple black and white labels to place on them. After a quick search, I couldn’t find what I was looking for so I made some using my favorite KG fonts. I think I’m a little addicted to her fonts! 🙂

I’m finished and so proud of the final look. It makes me smile every time I look in that corner of my classroom!

Anyways, I love how they turned out and think they will work in a variety of grade levels. I included every label I could think of for supplies and centers, but made them editable in case I forgot something you needed.

How much better does it look now? I am slowly adding the labels to supplies around my room and so pleased with the final result.

You can click on the pictures below to grab your own set!

Let me know in the comments how you organize your classroom!

Some Bunny is One Decor Ideas & Easter Projects

April 16, 2017

I’m starting a new blog series for Moms with birthday party ideas. I’ve thrown 5 birthday parties for my girls and their cousin Rex (Aniston’s first- third, Heidi’s first and Rex’s third). I LOVE decorating for parties and making things myself so wanted to share some of my favorites. I saved almost all of the decorations from Aniston’s first birthday party and pull them out to decorate for Easter. I think that you will already have most of the supplies needed to make these items at home.

The theme of the party was “Some Bunny is One!” I knew that I wanted to incorporate Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabit as much as possible.

I had bought a pink bunny costume more for dress up purposes months prior for a couple of dollars so I dressed Aniston up and took some pictures of her. Loved how this turned out!

I had Katie from Katiedid designs make the invitation and then I had them printed on Vistaprint for a really low price. They have great deals for printing. You just need to make sure you have enough time to wait as the shipping can be on the slow side unless you pay a fee.

I LOVED making my coffee filter cabbages! I was really proud of how these turned out and three years later they are still in really good shape.

I tried several versions of this craft and my favorite and the easiest by far was the version you can find here:

Silo Hill Farm’s Coffee Filter Cabbages

All she used was a styrofoam ball, acrylic paint, coffee filters, and some straight pins. I had all of those items in my craft room. Some of the other versions I tried used wax and pink filters and those ones just didn’t turn out as realistic as this one.

Another thing I did was make carrots using twine and some fake sprigs of green leaves. I just positioned the sprigs in the middle of some newspaper and bended the paper around them to resemble carrots. When I got the shape I wanted I wrapped them with masking tape to hold it and then wrapped them with twine. After that I just painted the string or twine orange. They were cute and I’m still decorating for Easter with them.

I wrapped green silverware in orange napkins to resemble carrots. You can see them if you look closely in the baskets below. I drug our old ladder in to decorate with and loved how cute it turned out. Can you imagine how pretty this would be at an outdoors party???

I used those cabbages, carrots, Beatrix Potter books, birdhouses and watering cans from my sunroom to decorate. I didn’t have to purchase too much for the party because I already had so many decorations at my house and we collect the Beatrix Potter stories.

Try to think of items you already have like gardening supplies, potted plants, etc.

I sell burlap wreaths and table runners so I had lots of burlap laying around to decorate with. I had spray painted several pictures from Goodwill with chalkboard spray paint for my wedding so I pulled one of those out to make this sign. The “carrots” in this picture are actually bags of cheese puffs tied with a green ribbon. I found the bags on Amazon. These weren’t the exact ones I used but I think these would work great and they are adorable!

A lady from my church, Kathy Carney made this fabulous cake. We were so pleased and she executed the vision perfectly…. even better than I had imagined!

I made fun treats to go along with the theme. I grabbed a pack of ten small potting plants at the Dollar Tree and stuck pictures of various Beatrix Potter characters on the end of some little sticks to be the food labels. I threw a little bit of grassy material on top of the pots. (I already had almost all of this on hand.)

My favorite were the donut holes! They really resembled little acorns and were so easy and cute! Here is a very simple recipe!

Heat nutella in the microwave for about 30 seconds then stir. (Heat longer if necessary to get the consistency you want.)
Dip the donut hole in the Nutella then dip it directly into a bowl of chocolate sprinkles.
Lay them on wax paper or a cooking sheet. When they are completely cooled, add a pretzel stick for a stem. So easy and so yummy!

The chocolate covered strawberries are just white chocolate with a tiny bit of orange food coloring. A few minutes before the party started I had my husband frantically helping me make the bunny ear cupcakes. These did not turn out too great but they would have if we had more time. The idea was really cute. Slice a marshmallow diagonally, dip the inside gooey part in pink sprinkles and place them on top of the cupcakes. Voila! Makes them look like bunny ears! Doesn’t he look thrilled?

We also put marshmallows in a bowl to be the bunny tails, carrots in some little cups of ranch, and made a punch. I cannot for the life of me remember the recipe for that. The carrots were popular and I wish I would have added more around the edges!

We had to have some chocolate dirt cupcakes as well and I thought these turned out so cute!

I also followed a direction for Oreo balls and just added a little green food coloring to the white chocolate. I put these in green cupcake liners to resemble cabbages. The fresh berries were also popular with guests. This was just a bowl with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries and a little sugar on top! (As if guests weren’t getting enough sugar at this party!!! :))

If you’ve been taking the popular “monthly” pictures of your baby, I think a banner is the perfect place to display those. It is really fun to look at the baby’s progression through the 12 months and if you haven’t shed any tears yet, you will when you look at all 12 of these! We always did 2 pictures. We took one of her with the belly stickers on our rocking chair and another of her laying on a desk calendar with the date circled. (These were so fun and different from the typical belly pics!) I just hung them from some twine I stretched across the doorway. (I mounted the pics on some scrapbook paper and attached them with clothespins.)

When Dustin and I got married, I had covered cardboard letters with sheets of moss to spell out “Dustin and Hilary”. (I bought the letters and moss from Joann’s and attached it with hot glue.)

Anyways I just rearranged the letters and added an O to spell out Aniston on the fireplace. I added a string of lights under some white fabric also left over from the wedding. I also put little stuffed bunnies inside any watering cans I had. They looked so cute with just the ears sticking out.

I pulled a wheelbarrow in and threw some burlap on top to hold the presents. (She got spoiled!!!)

I loved this little banner I ordered from an ETSY seller made using a recycled Beatrix Potter book. Her store name is Domum Vindemia if you are looking for one.

To make the high chair banner, I picked up a 1/2 yard for 4 different fabrics. Then I cut a small snip to the width of how wide I wanted my strips to be and tore it the rest of the way down the fabric to give it a frayed look. I wrapped them around a large piece of ribbon and tied them around the chair. I added this to an old wooden high chair and loved how it turned out. (Years later I pulled this same high chair garland out and used it for Heidi’s party. I will put that post up soon and you will notice that our house looks much different. I have since painted the fireplace, switched out the picture frames, and changed the rug.

If you have baby albums to set out, this is the perfect time to do so. The older your child is, the more fun it would be for guests to flip through the baby albums.

I also provided little index cards (I had taped Beatrix Potter characters to them.) and asked guests to fill it out with a memory or a wish. You can see that I set out tea sets as decoration along with the book sets.

That’s a little “bunny bottom banner” I had bought from Hobby Lobby. You may notice the large Peter Rabbit in the photo above. He was my big splurge for the party. I found him at Pottery Barn and just had to have him. I did use a coupon but it was still more than I would normally pay. However, he is very large and looks so cute in Heidi’s nursery now that I’m so glad I went ahead and bought him.

We were so pleased with the way the party turned out! As you can see, Aniston loved her cake!

Our friend Andrew had given her the little bunny ears and my mom had made that beautiful dress and I thought both were perfect for the party!

Looking for more party ideas? Head over here to see the “Young, Wild, & Three” party I put on for Aniston’s 3rd birthday!
Aniston’s Young, Wild & Three Birthday Party

What do you think? Would you try any of these ideas for your child’s birthday party or to make some fun Easter decorations or food? Let me know in the comments!

A Love / Hate Breastfeeding Relationship – the Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

April 13, 2017

The Snuggle is Real Ya’ll!

Breastfeeding can best be described as a LOVE/HATE relationship. I’m more on the love side of breastfeeding now. This may be because I will be weaning Heidi soon as her one year birthday just snuck up on us. I definitely wouldn’t call breastfeeding easy. It can be really rewarding and enjoyable if you can hold on long enough. In fact, if you can make it through the first month, you can make it through a year! I had all kinds of trouble with breastfeeding and wanted to encourage any moms who are thinking of giving up. You can do it! (And if you don’t or are unable to- that’s okay too!)

9 Months In & 9 Months Out with Aniston!

When I was pregnant with Aniston, I remember my mom telling me that I should have no problem breastfeeding. Something along the lines of “Every mother in our family has been able to breastfeed without problems.” So there you go. The stage was set – should be all downhill after the birth… right? WRONG!

Let me divide this post appropriately into the love/hate sides of the matter.

We were both a little overwhelmed by that experience!

LOVE – The Connection

Aniston had no interest in breastfeeding for hours after her birth. (Looking back now, I wish I would have requested that she laid on my chest for as long as possible and I think that would have helped matters.) I tried unsuccessfully to get her to latch throughout the afternoon. That night, the sweetest nurses had taken her to the nursery for a few hours so Dustin and I could sleep. I was totally conked out when all of a sudden I sat straight up in bed – looked over at Dustin and said “It’s time!” I think it was around midnight. I phoned the nursery and asked them to bring Aniston back to me. “She’s ready to eat.” I told the nurse. The nurse assured me that they could bring her in an hour or so and that I could rest. “That’s okay. Go ahead and bring her please. She’s ready to eat now.” I replied. I could not believe that from across the hospital, I was so in tune with my baby. Sure enough, when she brought her to me, Aniston latched on and started drinking away happily for the first time ever. I cried tears of joy. “My first motherly instinct! I am a mother!” I told Dustin who was looking back at me through half-shut eyes.

Breastfeeding gives you the ability to connect with your children in a way that is completely impossible without it. I could be miles away from Aniston anytime during her first year and know when she was getting hungry. I could sense her hunger coming on. I was the ONLY provider of nutrition for her or Heidi for the first 6 months of their lives. That is a really neat feeling and one that no one else could ever experience. God designed us to be with our children and to feed them. He gave us special signs to know when the baby is getting hungry and hormones that release in breastfeeding mothers to make them even more anxious when they hear their babies cry. That is amazing!

LOVE (and a teeny bit of hate) – Forced time

If you make the commitment to breastfeed your child, you are sacrificing hours upon hours upon hours of your time. You are also committing to being with your baby or possibly your pump every 2-4 hours. I’ve had friends take a vacation about a month after their baby was born…. without the baby. That is not happening if you are breastfeeding and to be honest- I wouldn’t want it to. I cannot for the life of me imagine being away from my child when they are that young. Heidi is a year old and we have never spent a night away from each other. I’m proud of that. I have really loved how connected I feel to both of my girls. But… it would have been nice if I could take a long break to do some shopping by myself without worrying about a pump or a hungry baby. I’ve had a couple of friends who spent a night or two away from their child with a pump in tow and I think this is great if you need a break and can work out all the logistics. I just never wanted to deal with lugging a pump or storing milk at a hotel, blah, blah, blah. Plus, I still can’t imagine not putting Heidi to bed. Regardless- if you breastfeed – you are making every bit of nutrition for your child and committing your time to your child AND that’s the way I think it should be! If we went on vacation… so did the baby!

Colorado!

HATE – Engorgement

Breastfeeding went fairly smoothly in the hospital until I got home and my milk came in. My boobs felt like basketballs. They were rock hard and absolutely huge. I remember Dustin walking in and I was just sitting on the couch looking miserable, no doubt. “Those are the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen. Like bigger than Dolly Parton’s!” I probably shot him a death stare but it was so true. You could eat dinner off of them if you needed to. I could not even attempt to lay on my stomach or even on my side because of the enormity of them. I was severely engorged for at least 72 hours. It is a viscous cycle. It makes it difficult for the baby to latch when they are so hard. If you take a warm shower and attempt to release some milk, you will feel better and baby can latch again, but you’ve just sent a message to your boobs that you need more milk. I walked around with cabbage leaves in my robe praying that visitors would stay away until I could at least put on a normal shirt. (They didn’t and I felt extremely awkward.)

HATE – The blistering/ initial pain

For the most part, breastfeeding was easier with my second baby. Heidi latched on as soon as they gave her to me after the birth. She laid on me skin to skin for close to 3 hours. They held off on everything so that I could have that first initial contact with her. I am so grateful that I had the chance to bond with her for so long as soon as she was born. I didn’t get as engorged or leak as bad with Heidi because it seemed like my boobs had pretty much figured out the routine. BUT this time around I developed blisters. Those things are SO PAINFUL! Every time that Heidi went to feed I would squeeze my eyes shut in preparation for how bad it would hurt. It took a couple of weeks for them to heal. Even if you don’t develop blisters, it is still painful when they latch on for the first couple of weeks or so. My husband was super supportive and would run to the store for lanolin or cabbage leaves as needed. 🙂

9 Months In & 9 Months Out with Heidi!

I have since found this cream that I loved! You can click on the picture to see it on Amazon.com.

I never tried these but they were highly recommended by several of my friends if you are thinking of giving up from the pain! They can also be helpful if your baby is having trouble latching.

Breastfeeding helped Baby Heidi fight off that awful RSV!

HATE – The leaking

Oh, the leaking. After the engorgement settled down, I continued to leak profusely all day every day for months. And months. And months. I don’t’ think that most people have this problem but for some reason, my breasts just didn’t figure out the schedule. I had to sleep on folded towels to try and keep the bed dry. I used the disposable breast pads because they worked the best and changed them constantly. I could be at the grocery store, eating dinner, at church or where-ever else, look down, and see wet spots on my shirt. I could hear a baby cry and start leaking. It was super annoying and extremely embarrassing.

LOVE- The weight loss

If you continue to breastfeed, YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT – possibly a lot of weight. When I first got home from the hospital, the weight came off pretty rapidly and then I got stuck. For me it was about 5-10 pounds over where I wanted to be each time. At least, I thought I was stuck. I started writing down my weight once a week or so on a sticky note in my bathroom and realized that even though I thought I was stuck, the weight was still coming off slowly. I was not watching my weight or dieting at all. I have been a vegetarian since college so you can call that some kind of diet, but I was eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted and still losing weight. Breastfeeding burns a lot of calories. I have also read that when the baby is between the ages of 3 months and 6 months, moms lose the most weight. This can be attributed to the baby being bigger and wanting more milk, but they are still too young for solid foods. This was also true for me. With both girls and no dieting, I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight or smaller before they were 9 months old. It takes 9 months to gain it, give yourself 9 months to lose it before you freak out. Your stomach will not look so strange and EVERYTHING else will go back to normal. (Or close to normal:)) Another benefit of breastfeeding is that your uterus will contract much quicker than if you choose not to. Experts estimate about a month sooner.

Eventually your body will go back and you will be lugging a different kind of weight around!

LOVE – Money saved!

I don’t think about it too much, but breastfeeding saves you tons of money! When Aniston was 6 months old, my supply had run out and she took about a bottle a day of formula. I just couldn’t keep up with her even though I was pumping twice a day at work. Anyways, once I had to start supplementing her I really noticed how much money breastfeeding saves you. Formula is pretty expensive and they can go through it quickly if that is their only source of nutrition. I’ve read that breastfeeding saves you approximately $2,000 per child per year! That’s pretty good. That number also doesn’t take into account that formula fed babies may need more visits to the doctor and medication which brings me to my next point….

Breastfed baby… 2 weeks later!

LOVE – The health benefits

Formula fed babies tend to have more ear infections, diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses. They also lack the antibodies that breastfeeding mothers produce to fight off viruses and bacteria. Breastfed babies have fewer ear infections, risk of diabetes, cancer, or other diseases. Breastfed babies are also less likely to die of SIDS. Formula fed babies are more likely to become obese later in life. Just this paragraph is enough to make you want to breastfeed your baby. We all want the very best for our babies! There are also health benefits for us Mamas. Breastfeeding reduces your level of stress and the chance of developing postpartum depression. Studies have also shown that breastfeeding mothers have a lower risk of developing certain cancers.

Happy 6 Month Girl!

HATE – The lopsidedness

So… this probably won’t happen to you, but it did to me. One of my boobs decided to give up a month into Aniston’s breastfeeding journey and about 5 months into Heidi’s. (It would have happened much earlier with Heidi if I hadn’t been prepared and did everything I could to try and keep it going.) No matter what, if you are breastfeeding your boobs go through multiple sizes a day depending if it is time to feed or not. Well… when one side decides to quit, that side is about two sizes smaller than the other. Thank goodness when I finished breastfeeding they equaled back out. 🙂 Until then, I had to try to find bras that were in between the two sizes and hope they would work and bathing suits to cover the awkwardness. Oh, yeah, that leads me to another point!

HATE – The awkwardness

Breastfeeding and pumping can be extremely awkward. I never could master that cover. I used it multiple times but it was always hanging right in the babies face and who wants to cover their head with a blanket while they eat dinner? I’ve marveled at mothers walking around with the baby in the carrier and breastfeeding them so easily. I’m a hoarder of baby wraps and carriers but I still could never get this to work. I found myself feeding while sitting fully dressed on public toilets. Ew! I’ve had to breastfeed in my car and sometimes I just yank it out in front of whoever when the baby won’t stop crying. I have nothing against mothers breastfeeding in public, but I just felt strange. Pumping seemed even more awkward to me. I did not want Dustin to see me pumping. There is nothing attractive about your nipple being pulled in and out of that machine. Its just one of those things that I feel like should be done in private. I felt like a cow anytime I was hooked up to it. Even though at school I kept my classroom door locked with a large sign that read “DO NOT ENTER” complete with a cow and a glass of milk – I still had 3 different people come in the room while I was pumping. I dove under my desk every time. AWKWARD! Another good lead in to my next point…

The difference a year can make!

HATE (and a little bit of love) – The Pump

If you did need a break for a little bit or if you are working, the pump becomes your best friend… sorta. The reason I have a little love for my pump is because it allowed me to work as a kindergarten teacher while breastfeeding for a year with both girls. I pumped as often as the baby would eat so when I first returned to work, that was 3 times a day. Finding the time to devote to pumping is extremely difficult. Thankfully I had some teacher friends who helped manage my class for me whether at recess or in their classrooms. Without them, I’m not sure what I would have done. It is a huge commitment, takes up time, and like I said before a little awkward. With my first baby, Aniston, I just couldn’t figure out how mothers were breastfeeding and finding time to pump extra. By the time I had Heidi, I knew how to do this better but I really hated pumping extra to try and build a supply. I was proud of myself for having about 50 bags when I went back to work. Some have way more! Either way that stuff was liquid gold. I shed a few tears when my husband accidentally left one at room temperature for too long. Crazy but its a lot of work. Breastfeeding moms know what I’m talking about!

You can click on the picture to see the pump that I recommend on Amazon. I did get a free pump through my insurance both times I had a baby, but it did not compare to this one by Medela! I sold the other two at consignment and kept this one. You might want to check with your insurance first and see if you like the one that is offered to you. If you aren’t getting anything when you are pumping- it’s probably not you. It’s probably the pump.

LOVE – The Convenience

Once you get past the first month or so, breastfeeding becomes incredibly convenient. No washing or sanitizing bottles, warming up milk, running to the store for formula, etc. I didn’t have to lug around a huge diaper bag with bottles, bottle warmers, formula, etc. Once I started supplementing with formula I realized how much more convenient it is to just breastfeed!

No huge diaper bags around here!

First week at home! No makeup and milk drunk baby smiles!

LOVE/HATE – The allergies

We noticed that our easy baby Heidi was not so easy anymore sometime when she was around 4 months old. I’m sure part of this was that 4 month sleep regression but she also had some dry spots and would scratch herself so hard that she would cut her skin. It also varied from day to day how she seemed to feel. When she was around 5 months old she seemed especially cranky one day and I got worried that she was still hungry even though she had just finished breastfeeding. I quickly made up her first bottle of formula and fed it to her. She drank it pretty quickly and immediately started choking and breaking out in hives. I had no idea what had happened. She was gagging over and over. I was home alone and absolutely terrified. I called my dad, sister, and mom all of who are in the medical field for advice. I gave her some benadryl and after a couple of hours she settled down. If my dad wasn’t an ER doctor I would have driven her there myself but just followed his advice over the phone. The next day we saw an allergist and confirmed that she had developed a milk and egg allergy. We were shocked as we have no history of allergies in our family that we know of. The allergist told me to switch her to soy formula. When I told him that I wanted to continue breastfeeding he explained doubtfully that the only way to continue was to cut out all dairy and eggs. That’s the path I chose. On the LONG drive home I tried to think of things that I could eat and the best thing I could come up with was cereal with soy milk. I had several frustrating days where I couldn’t think of a thing to eat and would end up nibbling on this or that. It seemed like every single label I looked at had milk in it or egg. I had to figure out if any of the ingredients were even processed with milk or egg because that also could cause a reaction. I had to make sure everything I ate had no butter, cream, margarine, etc. I’m not going to lie. I missed cheese pretty badly. Since I was a vegetarian, I relied on cheese quite a bit to add flavor or keep me full. Even though it was a pain and I could eat basically nothing at our Thanksgiving dinner that year – I’m so glad that I stuck with it because Heidi went right back to her happy self and I educated myself on all of the things that Heidi could and could not eat. I basically lived the life that Heidi will have to live until she outgrows her allergy so I’m pretty glad I put myself through it.

So there you go… let’s see… the total is 7 reasons to love breastfeeding and 7 reasons to hate it! 🙂

I’m declaring LOVE the winner as the “Love” reasons strongly outweight the “Hate” in my opinion.

Did you have the same love/hate relationship? Let me know in the comments!

Gruffalo Crumble & The Gruffalo’s Child Footprints Activity

April 11, 2017

I’m pretty sure that out of all of the activities we did with our Gruffalo book study, these 2 were my favorite. If you haven’t already, you can grab my resource on TPT by clicking on the product cover below:

I reread The Gruffalo to my kids. If you haven’t purchased this book, it is available on Amazon for a low price. You can find it here:

Next we moved on to The Gruffalo’s Child. This book is the perfect addition to the first. We don’t spend quite as long on this one but it pairs perfectly with the footprint activity I’m about to show you & I would still consider it a must have in your classroom library. You can grab it here if you like:

The DVD is available here. I own the DVD and it is mesmerizing. At the time I’m writing this post both movies that go along with the books are available free on Amazon Prime so you may want to check there first.

And here’s a link to a double feature of The Gruffalo & The Gruffalo’s Child if you are unable to find it for free. At the time I write this the double feature is showing up for less than just The Gruffalo so I would definitely grab this one. (Amazon prices can change so quickly that I’m not sure if this is true for you. That’s why I included both links.)

So back to the classroom! We read & discussed both books by Julia Donaldson. (Isn’t she amazing?!?! In another life I had dreams of being a children’s book author so she is a personal hero of mine!) I really emphasized the Gruffalo crumble part. We mixed up the ingredients. I had forgotten one and we had to travel down to the cafeteria in search of it which really just added to the excitement.

You can find the recipe & this printable that students fill out while you go through the process of making it as part of my resource on TPT. I loved having them keep up with me using the worksheet so they didn’t get too rowdy. They LOVED the Gruffalo crumble. They all kept telling me that I was the best cook ever. Trust me, my husband would beg to differ.

We snacked on our Gruffalo crumble while we watched The Gruffalo’s Child on Amazon Prime. Even though I own the DVD, it’s much easier to just pull it up on Prime if it’s still available.

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The next day we got started on our Gruffalo Footprint measurement activity. I was actually observed that morning & think this lesson is perfect for an observation. The kids have to use all kinds of problem solving skills to figure the whole thing out.

We reread The Gruffalo’s Child & I spent a little extra time discussing the footprints & tracks in the snow. Students studied the ones in the book. I then brought in measurement. I told them that the Gruffalo & all of the characters had stopped by our classroom. I asked them how we could use measurement to determine which footprint belonged to each character.

We discussed length, standard and nonstandard units of measurement, & how to properly measure an object. Even though it seems like a simple concept -they will not measure correctly without thorough explanations. I demonstrated for them first. Then I asked them to help me measure students in our classroom using craft sticks. They LOVED this! We measured different parts of their bodies & compared to see which part was the longest. I left the materials out for them to revisit this concept later. You should have heard the giggles when they were seeing who was the tallest during choice time.

There are so many higher order thinking questions that you can incorporate into this type of lesson.

“Why does ‘what’ we measure influence ‘how’ we measure?”
“Are standard or non-standard units of measurement better? Why?”
“If I (the teacher) measured the classroom using my shoes and one of my students measured the classroom using their shoes, would we get the same number?”

The night before I had made footprints using play-doh. I had originally planned on doing this outside. I thought it would be really fun to make the imprints in a muddy area and for the kids to walk around the playground looking for them. However, it poured the entire day before. In fact, our school dismissed early due to weather conditions. So the outside idea wasn’t going to work. I made sure to have a track or print for each character including The Gruffalo’s Child. I made the mouse one so tiny that it was almost impossible to measure. You can look through the book for ideas on how to make each print look.

I had the kids close their eyes and I walked around the room setting up the play-doh imprints. Then I handed each group a bag full of their supplies. The bag contained a magnifying glass, “tents” to set beside each print with a guess about which animal it belonged to, worksheets to draw, label, & measure the footprints, and a ruler. I had put a different shape on each bag and the contents so I knew which group did what. For example, three boys might have been in the star group. I labeled the bag with a star, the tents had a star on the back and the worksheets had stars. I wanted to be able to quickly identify who had understood the concept and who still needed work.

I was so pleased with how the whole thing turned out. They loved it!

They were able to easily identify which print was the snake’s and the owl’s. I didn’t anticipate that this would be such a great lesson on comparison and problem solving. They really had a difficult time deciding between the Gruffalo, Gruffalo’s child, and the fox.

Eventually I brought them back together and we discussed which character would have had the largest footprint. We also thought about which characters would have had claws, toes, etc.

I just loved how this turned out. Sadly our unit on The Gruffalo is coming to an end. I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine did! Please let me know how it works in your classroom.

If you missed the other posts, you can check them out here:

The Gruffalo Activities on Pencils to Pigtails’ Blog
The Gruffalo Craftivity on Pencils to Pigtails’ Blog

Grab the resource in my store by clicking the craftivity below!

The Gruffalo Craftivity

April 11, 2017

I LOVE THE GRUFFALO! Seriously, I really love The Gruffalo story by Julia Donaldson. She is such an amazing author and has my kids totally mesmerized with her stories. I am so proud of this resource I made to go along with a unit study about this fantastic book. I spent so long making sure I included every fun and engaging activity I could and it meets many state standards. You can grab it by clicking on the product cover below:

(Not in the mood to read? You can also watch a free video explanation of my resource on TPT by clicking below!)

Gruffalo’s Activity Explanation Video

Back to the blog, if you don’t have the book yet, you can grab one on Amazon by clicking on this photo. It is totally worth the investment! I use the library for many of my book studies but this is one that I would definitely want in my classroom.

That Gruffalo is just so cute I can’t take it! I didn’t mention this in my last blog post but there is a movie that goes right along with the book. I love that my students have rarely seen it and the animation is fantastic. Its around 30 minutes- perfect for the end of the day. I recently made my husband sit down and watch it. He argued that he didn’t have time to watch it but then got totally sucked in. At the time I wrote this blog post, you can view the movie free if you have Amazon Prime. The DVD is so fantastic that you won’t regret buying it if you want a copy for yourself. You can click on the picture below to purchase from Amazon.

My kids were thrilled when I told them that we would be building our own big Gruffalos. The template is in my TPT resource. We started by painting the body. You could always cut this out on colored paper or just let your kids color it instead of paint. I never mind getting messes out in my room though.

I wasn’t too worried about the kids smoothing it out because I just thought the strokes made it look even hairier.

And now.. the finished products! They are so adorable and the kids were SO PROUD!!! Remember that you can grab the templates for these in my TPT resource by clicking the product cover above.

We completed several writing assignments. These are all available in my resource on TPT. The kids really loved this one in which they had to design their own Gruffalos. (This was actually color word practice disguised as a fun activity:)) I included 4 different versions of this so you could work on more advanced descriptive words as desired.

The kids were able to choose what colors to write and then design their own Gruffalos accordingly on the other page.

There are some other writing prompts included as well. I asked my students to tell me about their favorite part in the story. You could use whatever prompt you like with the included writing page.

(The Gruffalo is brown but he has whiskers.)

(My favorite part is when the mouse says walk behind me.)

(My favorite part was when the fox went in the underground house.)

I included some descriptive words that are perfect for a hallway display. The template for this huge Gruffalo is not included. My awesome assistant Mel came up with him. Even the “poisonous wart on the end of his nose” is 3D! Anyways, you could get a similar effect by projecting a picture of him on the wall and creating something like this. If you don’t, the wall cards would look cute around your class’ Gruffalos.

This hallway display has gotten lots of “oohs” & “aahhs” from the younger students. Something about the display just makes me happy!

In the next blog post I posted pics of our “Gruffalo crumble” & measurement activity! You can click the pics below to head to the next one.

If you didn’t get a chance yet, you can click on the picture below to read my first blog post about how I introduced the book, the puppets we made, and our homemade play dough Gruffalos!

The Gruffalo Activities and Puppets

April 11, 2017

I am thrilled to share my latest resource on TPT with you! I worked on this product for a long time to make sure it contained every activity I could think of for a really fun unit about one of my very favorite books: The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. You can click on the product cover below to go to my TPT store.

If you don’t have this book yet, make sure you purchase it immediately! This kind of book will fascinate children for years to come. I can’t wait to share it with Aniston. I’m going to wait until she is just a little bit older. 🙂

You can find it on Amazon here:

My kids LOVE this story. If you are looking to increase student engagement- Julia Donaldson’s books are the way to go! The unit I made for TPT is jam-packed with exciting activities for kids and I’ve pulled in as many state standards as possible.

I always begin a unit study by holding up the book and going over all of the key components. This helps students focus on what is important. Then I ask students to make predictions about the story with a shoulder partner.

This book is a great way to talk about characters. Even though it seems like The Gruffalo would be the main character – it is actually a clever little mouse.

I read the book to my kids. You could hear a pin drop in my room. Make sure to read with expression. The kids love that- especially when you get to the “Gruffal…. Oh!” part!

We talked about the characters and used the templates from my resource on TPT to make paper bag puppets. You can print the templates on colored paper or allow the kids to color them first. This is a sample of what they should look like.

I loved that the animals are made out of some basic shapes and it was fun to watch my students try to figure out how to put them together. They spent much of their indoor recess retelling the story with the puppets and that will fill this teacher’s heart!

The next day I wanted to retell the story and add a little excitement. I decided to pull out our theater and crouch behind it. I retold it using the Gruffalo puppet that I had purchased on Amazon. He’s pretty cute and has all of those wonderful components that the book mentions. You can find him by clicking on the picture below.

I used the owl that I often use to monitor hallway behavior. (He sits on my shoulder as we walk down the hall. I spin his head to watch all of the kids and they are always on their best behavior!) You don’t need this for The Gruffalo story but in case you are interested in getting one. I bought this one and love it!

Then I told the students that I didn’t have a fox, snake, or mouse puppet so other puppets would help us out. It went something like this, “Introducing Bear – playing the part of the mouse!” They erupted in giggles so I can continued. “And Dog – playing the part of the fox!”

I gave it my best go. Throughout the day I had students spend time retelling the story using our puppet theater. So. Much. Fun!!!

The next day I brought in all the ingredients for “Gruffalo Play Dough”. You can find this simple recipe in my resource on TPT. It uses cocoa so our entire room smelled amazing! This is a no cook recipe so it was easy to make in our classroom. The finished product was the perfect amount for my 18 students.

I gave them each a handful and some random materials like foam shapes, felt, buttons, etc. They went right to work creating their play dough Gruffalos. I loved that this required them to think back to all of the descriptive words that Julia Donaldson uses.

I really loved this one! He was thinking ahead to the cover of The Gruffalo’s Child.

Some students made flat versions. Some made 3D versions and others just recreated his face. I let their imaginations go wild!

The next day we worked on the Gruffalo craftivity! Click on the pics below to head over to those posts!

St. Patrick’s Day Fun Continued

April 1, 2017

We had so much fun on St. Patrick’s Day in my classroom! I’m so glad that I was able to finish my new resource and get it uploaded in time to enjoy it with my students.

Click on the cover above to grab one!

I always send home a family project idea and for the month of March, students were to build a leprechaun trap. They LOVE to make these and have so much fun showing them to their classmates when they bring them in. The night before St. Patrick’s Day I stayed up late making sure I had enough clover snacks for each of my kids. You can view instructions for by clicking here:

Easy St. Patrick’s Day Clover Snacks

I told the kids that the leprechauns usually come by when no one is in the room so I would eat in the teacher’s lounge before picking them up after lunch. (During that 30 minutes, I ran to the room, pumped, ate a bowl of soup, sprinkled glitter all over their traps and in my room, set up the room to look as if the leprechaun escaped out of the window, and put plates with the clover snacks on each child’s table!)

When I picked them up, they were all saying, “Did he come? Did the leprechaun come to our room?” I nonchalantly said, “Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t had time to go by there yet!” 🙂 A little white lie never hurt anyone.

The kids were thrilled to see that their traps had been messed with and that the gold had been spread everywhere. They ran through the room and were so excited they could hardly complete their sentences.

I had written a note on the board something like, “Hee! Hee! You didn’t catch me! Enjoy the treat!”

They loved their little shamrock treats.

They were so precious discussing the leprechaun as they munched away!

The kids had fun finding their “golden letters” in the vowel hunt printable (part of my resource on TPT).

Later in the day we painted the leprechaun’s beards orange or red using plastic forks. Kindergarten kids love to paint and any way that you can put a little spin on it and use some different materials is fantastic.

I loved how these turned out. They would be cute on a bulletin board, but since we already had our rainbow twirlers up, my students just took them on home. These cute printables and so much more are all part of my resource on TPT. You can click on one of the pictures below to grab one.