Kayla's Garden

The pattern.

Tyler got up early before school one morning and drew a picture. He showed it to me and I thought it looked nice. Then he told me it was a pattern for a quilt. (A few days later he drew another one that was a variation of an American flag, in case the baby was a boy.) Tyler was more excited for the ultrasound then he was for Christmas. He found out Kayla was a girl on Christmas Eve. Christmas day was a Sunday. Monday morning we were at the fabric store looking at material. We made a few changes (like we used fabric that had flowers printed on it, so some of the flowers are different than he originally planned) but the finished product looks pretty close to the pattern. Tyler picked what part of the big flowers we would cut down to make them look different, he helped cut the fabric, and he arranged everything and then pinned it down. His Grandma Gibby sewed the flowers on applique style, bound it and did all the the quilting in the pictures. I've since quilted the stems and leaves. He calls it "Kayla's Garden." Now I just need to convince Tyler to let me enter the quilt in the Cache County Fair.

Kayla's Garden

Flowers, butterflies, and the back.

The lady bug and caterpillar.

The cocoon and sun.

13 Years on the 13th

Thirteen years ago there was fresh snow on the ground. It was chilly, but not too cold for pictures. (And those pictures were taken with a film camera.)

Thirteen years ago two best friends were married in the Bountiful Temple.

Thirteen years ago the cake at the reception smeared across the floor. (If you were there, I bet you remember it...)

After dinner tonight we will celebrate with a cake and the kids. Lee heard of the fun idea to treat our anniversary as the "birthday" for our family. Sounds like a good reason to have cake. (And of course, I'll make chocolate covered strawberries!)

PTA in February

This week we had the Valentine Manners Social. We set up tables and decorations Monday night. Tuesday I spent ALL day at the school. I had neighbors set up to watch the girls, but Lee decided to switch days at work and he stayed home. That worked out well because Andrew ended up sick and stayed home too. Each class (well, it was really two classes at a time) went to have a manners lesson in the Little Theater. One teacher was Ms. Manners and the other teacher was Ms. Un-manners. The teachers were pretty fun for the students to watch. The one I stepped in and saw was when Superintendent Garrett was being Mr. Un-manners. He was hilarious. He ate his cake with his fingers, flicked water at the other teacher, knelt on the chair, used his sleeve instead of napkin, threw the napkin at Mrs. Kelley, and kept wiggling around. Then the kids went into the cafeteria and we served cake, and red Kool-aid. We kept 72 seats always set throughout the day. We had 15 different shifts of classes. As soon as the kids left from one group, it was a mad dash to set up for the next group.

After school Tuesday, and after we cleaned up the Valentine's Social, we set up for the Book Fair. The girls got to go play at the neighbor's house and Lee came to help us. We set up in the Little Theater this time, so we had to carry the book carts down the steps.

Parent Teacher Conferences were Wednesday and Thursday. We opened the Book Fair during the conferences. We stayed open until 8pm both nights!  We earned over $1700.00 in books for the classrooms and Media Center. I had some great helpers! We worked late and cleaned up the Fair Thursday night. Lee came and helped then too.

And here is the estimation jar. None of the students guessed it exactly.

Because it was Parent Teacher Conferences, the PTA also provided dinners for the teachers on Wednesday and Thursday. I didn't help much with that because I was in charge of the Book Fair. They served large sub sandwiches with chips one night and the huge hit was the Chinese buffet. We have some great teachers at Woodruff.

December 2011: Season's Readings

December 2nd was the Woodruff "Buddy Read". It turned out awesome! I had some amazing Cache Valley Celebrities (and Santa) come and read story time style. I also turned the event into a book swap. I had 800 books donated to the PTA for the school and everybody that came got to leave with at least two books, more if they brought some to swap. We even served popcorn and hot chocolate.

October 2011: PTA Book Fair

I ran the PTA Book Fair for a week. We raised about $2500.00 in books for the school classrooms and Media Center. We do an estimation jar during the fairs. I turned that project over to Tyler and Andrew. The theme was "Reading is out of this world," so they made a rocket. Can you guess how many packages of Star-bursts are inside? (None of the students got it right.)

The Scholastic truck.

Estimation jar.

Gem Jar Date

Emma has a gem jar. When she makes good choices, she gets to put in a gem. When she makes bad choices, she has to take a gem out. (Time outs were not working for her, she needs to SEE consequences, good and bad.) She has to/gets to tell us what the gem is for (ie: washing off the table, getting jammies on fast, or yelling at dad, throwing her shoes, etc.) and puts in or takes out the gem herself. It is amazing to see how much a little glass rock can make her understand her own behavior.

Emma worked really hard and filled up her jar. So, as a reward, she got to pick something to do as a date with mom or dad. She is a smart girl and picked "both!" She also got to pick what she wanted to do. She went back and forth a lot about this. She finally decided, and feeding the ducks just barely won over going to the fun center.

 Not  a single duck ate any of the bread she tossed. Luckily, she didn't mind, and then we played at the park.

The key (besides remembering to use the gems) is lots of praise. (The three positives to one negative rule!) Andrew and Tyler have both wondered about also earning gems. This was a little bit hard to figure out. I finally came to the conclusion that the gems are like a treat or sticker type of reward for potty training. They are only used for a little bit to establish the correct behavior. I did tell Andrew and Tyler they will have individual chances to go on special activities (they don't want them called dates) with mom and dad, but they don't need the gems.

"My mom is the PTA."

I overheard a girl telling her friend that she couldn't go home yet (even though it was after school already) because, "My mom is the PTA." I thought I would share some of what you do in the month of May if you are the PTA.

It actually starts at the end of April with the Woodruff Wildcat Run Fundraiser kick-off assembly. I'm not sure why women wearing crazy clothes and dancing around gets kids excited, but it does! They even joined us in a conga line. Maybe it's okay I don't have any pictures of this event.


Then we decorate doors for Teacher Appreciation Week. Lee helped me decorate the two doors I was in charge of this year. We did Tyler's third grade teacher and the school SLP (speech teacher). Both teachers will be moving and not teach at Woodruff next year. They will be missed.


Mrs. Corry's door is suppose to look like a book with book rating forms, like the ones she used in class, on it. It matched the book that she got on the last day of school from the class that had a list of reasons why each student thought Third Grade was Fabulous.

Ms. Holt's door said, "No matter how you say it Ms. Holt is /Gr/eat". It had different synonyms of the word great all over it.

Then we spent two weeks counting money daily from the fundraiser and delivering bookmarks, shirts, water bottles, and tickets to the swim party and dinner with our Prize Patrol shirts on. The kids did a great job. They almost doubled the school goal!

Lee took off work so I could spend a Thursday and Friday in Provo for the Utah PTA Convention. In reality it was two days filled with classes, meetings, and networking, but I don't have any pictures of that. I only have this picture of us in the hotel with chocolate masks on. I don't have pictures of being picked up at six in the morning or the other retreat type things we did, like dinners at Brick Oven and Applebee's, soaking in the hot tub, making bracelets, and playing the card game Spot it! It was an information packed weekend.

I popped into Tyler's class a couple times to take individual pictures of each student and a group shot of the class. I even sent the camera to school with Tyler a couple times so he could take pictures at recess. He did a good job of making sure he eventually took a picture of everyone and even had someone take a picture of him. I made a book. (I had help getting pictures from Mr. Corry too.)

We started setting up early the morning of the Wildcat Run. We had a great turn out from parents and the community. We set up volunteers throughout the route to help cheer on our runners and make sure nobody made a wrong turn. We actually had two fourth graders break the school record. The new school record for one mile is 6 minutes and 12 seconds.

We cut Old Grist Mill Bread and made McDonald's punch for the runners to have after they crossed the finish line.

Lee, Emma, and Andrew ran the Kindergarten Dash.

We passed out last year's prizes to the kindergarteners, since they didn't have a chance to earn them and we didn't want them in PTA room taking up space.

Lee ran with Tyler in the third grade race.

I was running around doing lots of different things. For part of the time I was helping at the finish line. Lee took a picture of me and Mrs. Corry.

Andrew wanted to run the full mile, so Lee and Andrew ran with the fifth graders. (Lee also ran with the second grade too.)

Doug, our Modern Woodmen representative, came up from Ogden and ran several of the races.

After the run we had a needed girls night out and stayed and talked at Chili's until closing time.

We had 30 students earn the Star Dinner. These students raised at least $100 during the fundraiser. They got to go to dinner and have the teachers serve them. I didn't think to take a picture until after it was over and more than half of the teachers had already left. We decorated with star balloons and I made gift packages with star shaped sunglasses, Starburst candies, and a cool glow stick straw. It was great! The kids loved it. Golden Corral printed the tickets wrong and we got creative while we waited the extra hour, just in case someone else came.

We had about 150 students come to the reward for raising at least $50. We had fun with lots of pizza, crafts, limbo, musical chairs, a candy toss, and a bounce house.

Then we walked the students about a mile East to the Aquatic Center.

We handed out 600 free snow cones at the Woodruff swim party. We had to stop when we ran out of cups.

We hosted the fifth grade graduation party with water games, lots of cake, and more snow cones.


I distributed the sponsor donations that I was in charge of. We passed out Texas Roadhouse kid meal coins and also delivered the check from Modern Woodmen.

We delivered ice cream and Mrs. Corry's book during her surprise birthday party the last day of school. I delivered the rest of the ice cream to the office staff and other third grade teachers and had them also sign her book.


I have great plans for next year. Do you want to be the PTA?