Back to School!

Our kids are starting back at school today, and I set up a little something to get everyone excited:

I used props from around the house to pull this together, and used some Lawn Fawn dies to add some fun, crafty touches.



I rolled red fondant into little apple balls and placed a toothpick stem and die-cut leaf to make an easy cupcake topper! The school-lined paper cupcake wrapper adds to the look.

These decorated milk bottles are my fave! They look like cut apples, thanks to the little raindrop-turned-seeds die (from Spring Showers.) I also added a stitched leaf to each straw, which adds a nice pop of color!



I made a flash-card banner, using Louie's 123s and the Large Stitched Journaling Card.

To make the plus signs, I just cut my own strips of paper and adhered them together.

I used the set-up as a backdrop for my kids' back to school portraits:

I can't believe Sofia is starting grade 6 today! She is looking forward to being on top this year ::wink::



Thomas begins grade 4. This kid is a munchkin. I want to ruffle his hair and straighten his glasses. Always.

Maia is a bundle of excited nerves for today - she's always apprehensive to start something new, but she gets a real desk in grade 1!

Happy back to school!

♥.

a crafty break: back to school photos

If you follow me on instagram (mom2sofia), you may have seen how I spent my last day of summer vacation. I helped style a little vignette with my favorite photog and friend, Tanya Zaleski.  She brought the desk, and I filled it out with a few items I had around the house... you know, like the big giant apple and the Milton and Shakespeare texts from my English Lit days.

Here are my kids!



This is Maia's 3rd and final year of preschool. Every year until now, the teachers have had to peel her from my body and distract her with promises of toys so that I could slip away.  My heart couldn't take it. Thank goodness this promises to be a better year.



She wakes up excited for school now, with a smile as big as the one in the photo. She lights up my life.



Thomas is in grade 2 this year! I swear this kid only grows lengthwise. I keep trying to slip him extra servings of fat, but to no avail. When I woke him up, at 6:15am, for his first day of school, he shot up and high-fived me. Way to start the year off right.



I slipped a treat bag into their lunchboxes yesterday, with a crafted tag on it. He came home and said thanks, mom! but my friends said you shouldn't have made that for me because I was embarrassing myself.

I guess we're at that age now?

Sofia is off to the 4th grade! What a difference a year makes. Last September we weren't going back to school - we were in the hospital where Sofia was being operated on both knees. Having missed the first few months of school back then is making this year's experience that much sweeter.

I am so proud of this kid.  Every piece of her is a burst of beautiful.

♥.

School days!

I can hardly believe that the kids will start school tomorrow morning.  I'm writing up this post now, because I won't have the chance to be near a computer for the next few days....

Tomorrow marks the first day of school for Thomas, a missed first day of preschool for Maia, and a double-knee surgery for Sofia.

In passing, we've already started to receive get well cards and packages for Sofia.  We haven't shared them with her yet, but you've made my heart swell, and I know that you will brighten her day when she opens them...

For now, I thought I'd share the back to school photos I took of the kids last week.  This is my third year posting these back to school photos of the kids on the blog.  It's unreal, when I go back, to look at how much they've grown (click and click to see what I mean.)

Sofia will rejoin her peers in 3rd grade sometime in November if everything goes well with her rehabilitation.  Until then, a tutor will come in a few hours a week and I will take on the role of homeschooling mama.  This will be a very different back-to-school time for all of us!

My Thomas is growing up so fast!  Something happens between kindergarten and 1st grade to make them look so much older: he lost his chubbier cheeks, and demanded cooler hair-cuts.  (the verdict is still out on that one, but I do the best I can!)  He is minus a front tooth, and looking forward to learning how to read this year so that he "can do it myself because you don't want to read my star wars books, like, 100 times, but I want to." Sorry, buddy.  ha.

I'm still having trouble getting Maia to cooperate with the camera, but I can't get enough of those yummy cheeks.  She wouldn't give back the giant pencil and scribbled on my "complete works of Shakespeare." harrumph.  Maia will be starting back at preschool with a new teacher, and without any of her friends from last year.  For a kid who shies away from change, this is a big deal.  When we talked about it, she resolved to "tell Marlene that I'm nervous, and she will hug me."  I think she'll be just fine.

The backdrop for our little photo-shoot was simply a doodled frame on our chalk-wall, and some bookprint apples, with the color sponged on.  The book pages are so thin that I was able to cut 4 apples out in one pass.... yay!

♥.