End of the School Year...Finally

In Western New York, some of the schools are out, and some are going to the end of the week.  Our's is out!  Coming from the west, it feels like school should have been out weeks ago, but I'm just glad it's finally here.  I always have a hard time coming up with a cute idea for teacher gifts at the end of the year.  

Maybe all my good ideas are gone by then.  Maybe I just don't have the energy left to actually make the gift, or even think of one.  Maybe there's too many cute things on Pintrest that it's impossible to narrow it down.  Whatever the reason, I found myself two days before school was out with...nothin.

Last year my friend Jenny made super cute aprons for her kid's teachers for end of year gifts  It seemed like a great idea-I totally copied it.  I made my son's teacher this apron.  I had Stephen help sew it with me; he did the ruffle.  It turned out really cute.  I kind of wanted to keep it, but I didn't.

He wanted to take something for each of his aids, helpers, nurses, specials teachers, office workers, etc.  So we made a bunch of cupcakes too.  We mostly made regular cupcakes, but did a few in jars too.  He didn't want the bus driver's cupcake getting mushed in the bus.

We made some little toothpick toppers for them that just said thanks for a great year, and had his name on the back.

We did chocolate cupcakes with some vanilla frosting and some blackberry frosting, and a raspberry or blackberry candy on top.

We took some with us to eat after we went out for lunch; they only had a half day.  They turned out pretty good.  There weren't many crumbs left over.

For Father's Day, we made the same cupcakes in jars, but with cookies and cream frosting with mini Oreos on top.  Little jars just make everything cuter huh?

Our boy scout troop had a dessert auction to earn money for scout camp and high adventure camp.  We made a bunch of s'mores cupcakes in jars for it.

I also made some of these cute rainbow cupcakes that I saw here that were adorable.  Mine didn't turn out quite as cute as hers, but I only used four colors instead of six.  They all turned out great, and looked really cute in little baskets together.

Strawberry Picking

Last week for playgroup we went to a local U-Pick farm for opening day of strawberry season.  It was a beautiful day tucked between a lot of rainy ones.  It was sunny and perfect for picking strawberries.

Stephen was still in school, so it was just me and the three little ones.  Berkeley had a fun time being the leader.  She wanted to show us which rows to pick from. She kept telling us to follow her lead.  We would pick for a minute, then it was time to move to a new row.

Tanner liked just walking up and down the rows holding a berry in each hand.  He didn't like eating them as much as I was expecting, but he didn't want to let them go.

Brady invited a friend from preschool, so they had fun picking together and comparing their haul.  He picked the most of any of us by far.

There was a small area on the farm that had chickens, goats, pigs, and donkeys to check out.  Tanner was way impressed with the chicken running around.  He kept trying to grab it's beak.  I'm a little surprised he didn't get pecked at all.

It was a fun day.  We ended up with quite a lot of strawberries, and have enough jam to last until we move I think.