A couple of years ago our school decided to do away with school fund raisers ... you know the cookie dough, popcorn, gift wrap, candle fund raisers where you purchase $60 worth of stuff and if you're lucky your kids school gets 20% of the sale! So instead of all that, they have a family fun walk fund raiser where 100% of the money collected goes to the school. This year the girls were very excited about the possibility of collecting the most money in order to win a pizza or popcorn party for their classrooms.
Once we collected from the grandparents and of course us, we started to look to other places where we might be able to bring the girls a little extra cash for their school. GR wasn't comfortable simply asking his co-workers for donations, and frankly neither was I. Neither of our Dad's would take order forms to work with them, so why break the tradition now? But I know his co-workers enjoy yummy treats, and so I thought maybe just maybe if we made some treats and asked for a small donation, we might be able to get the girls a few dollars to add to their sponsorship envelopes. Last week we tested the waters with 11 of Alyson's Scones ... Cherry Chocolate Chip and Cherry, Golden Raisin with Orange Zest. By 9:30 they were gone, GR had collected nearly $20 and people were asking for more!
With the request for more, and the girls still a far cry from winning any kind of party for their classes, I whipped out three more batches of scones (Cherry Chocolate Chip, Orange and Golden Raisin and White Chocolate Apricot) and a batch of Monster Cookies for GR to take in this morning. Once again we asked $1.50 for each scone and $1 for a bag of three cookies. By 11 he'd sold 19 of the 24 scones and by the end of the day all 12 bags of cookies were paid for. So the girls now have $60 ... $30 each, to add to their envelopes for the school fund raiser. Can you believe it! I am overwhelmed by how generous everyone was and how willing they were to support the girls and partake of our humble treats.
And although I don't think their classrooms will win any grand prizes, they have had a good time with it, and they are planning their Thank You notes for Papa to take in and share with everyone who supported their efforts.
And I think I see a family pizza & popcorn party in our future ... picnic style on the living room floor.
Sunday, 23 September 2007
In our family Sunday's can be a hard day to celebrate a birthday, but despite a full day, I think the kids and I managed to make it a special day of celebrating Papa.
While Papa slept in (a rare treat on Sunday mornings), the girls made special birthday art projects while Sam helped me make a special birthday breakfast of sausage and French toast. Sam is very quick to remind me every time I bring the eggs out of the fridge, "I am very good at cracking eggs, Mom. Grammy taught me! ... Let me crack the eggs, Mom, I can do it!" He cracked all 10 eggs for me and there wasn't a single shell! Pure perfection!
Last week when I asked GR what kind of cake he wanted it took him a couple of days to give me something more than "chocolate." Saturday night while we were out with friends, (more on that later) he said he wanted a chocolate pie ... any kind. So at 11:00 when we got home, I surveyed the kitchen and headed to the all night mecca of food and birthday stuff to see what I could find.
I came home with a Chocolate Fudge Torte as my - you can never have too much chocolate cake, back-up birthday cake and resisted the intense late night urge to purchase all things chocolate and passed up a beautiful, Boston Cream Cake and Chocolate Mouse Pie. I also came home with the "ingredients" to make an Oreo Cookie Pie which I managed to almost get assembled (thanks Love for finishing your pie so I could shower!) along with breakfast before dashing out the door for a Ward Conference.
GR's evening birthday celebration was very simple, and I'm grateful he didn't think it was too simple and feel slighted. For dinner we had one of his favorites - steak, mashed potatoes, sweet corn and glazed carrots - and our chocolate cake/pie sampler (both were excellent!). We also had a dinner guest to share in the celebration. For the last week, GR has wanted to have a friend over for dinner and schedules just wouldn't work out until today. And I'm so glad! It's always nice to have friends to share these little family celebrations with. It was a fun, simple evening with good food, good friends, good conversation and a healthy dose of the kids corny jokes. Here's a recent favorite:
What do the letter A and a mouse have in common?
Happy Birthday my Love!
Saturday, 15 September 2007
GR has been working insane hours at work for weeks now, and there is little end in sight. Consequently, we aren't seeing him as much as we typically do when his work hours are "normal." For months he's been looking forward to helping set up a huge $15,000 worth of product fireworks display for 9/15. Then his work schedule went haywire, and a regional, all-day Boy Scout training for church also popped up on the calendar for the same day. It wasn't necessary a decision he liked making, but I'm grateful he choose to go to the BSA training and hang out with us afterwards instead of going and playing with friends and the fireworks.
After a quiet evening at home, and everyone taking mandatory naps, we loaded the kids in the car 30 minutes past bedtime and made the 45 minute drive along county roads to the "blast" site. The show started at 10pm, lasted 18 minutes and was amazing! We had amazing seats ... right in their safety zone - it's good to be friends with the people in charge - 100 yards or so from where they were shooting them off. It was so loud, but one of the best shows we've seen in a long time! As we had hoped, Alex fell asleep in the car and for the most part, stayed that way the entire time! What a blessing! And I survived church the next day - yet another major blessing!
