I made it.

This past week was one that I wasn't particularly looking forward to. It was a week filled with book fair, mileage club and grant team review with the United Way. I had scheduled myself around 32 hours of volunteer time. I am just happy to report that I made it through the week and I didn't lose my mind in the process.

As my first year as book fair co-chair, I was kind of unsure about what I actually got myself into. We had set our goal higher than we had in the past and we hoping to be able to attain it. Well, we kicked that book fair's ass!! $500 over our new and improved higher goal! Being able to tell the teachers that they had more money per student than they expected was AMAZING!

The kids at school have been rocking mileage club. (*For those of you that are unsure what exactly mileage club is... we set up a course that is 1/4 mile long. Every lap that is run is tracked by a hole punch in a card. Once a child reaches 5 miles, they receive a small plastic foot or toe token. There are special prizes along the way- certificates on their lockers, water bottles, special toe tokens and pencils.) Our kids are KILLING it!! Not only do we have 300 of the 325 kids signed up, but our average miles per student is over 5 miles higher than the program average. I am honestly so proud to be a part of this program and love being able to watch our kids being healthy.

Grant team was really cool. I was able to sit down and watch the entire grant process deliberation and awarding. I was asked again to join the community investment committee which is yet another huge honor. :)

I finally feel like I am finding my place in this community.

A Muppet themed party

In 48 short hours, Arabel will officially be 4 years old. (How in the heck did that happen by the way?? I never approved this growing up stuff she has been pulling lately.) We had a gathering with family yesterday. I don't typically go all crazy with themed decorations and everything, honestly it seems like kind of a waste unless we are having a ton of kids that would appreciate that type of thing. Adults just don't get all excited about paper cut outs of characters the way kids do. Well, Arabel declared last week that she loves the Muppets (love is an understatement, we watch a Muppet movie at least once a day.) She wanted a Muppet party. The problem?? THERE IS NO MUPPET ANYTHING to buy in the stores. Seriously, NOTHING. It was up to this mom to try and create something out of nothing. Here is what I did. (I apologize for the lack of pictures, the party was a blur I only managed to get 4 pictures of the whole thing.... sucky mom.)

I bought a (Kermit) green plastic tablecloth. I prefer using plastic as it is super easy to clean up and after having 20 people in my house, I am all about ease. The standard size that they sell was a little long for my table, so I chopped one of the ends off and used it to cover up the area of my counter I used for food. I made little signs to put in front of the food with our Muppet themed food names... The Swedish Chef's Meatballs (swedish meatballs in the crockpot), Miss Piggy's Pink Lemonade Spritzer (pink lemonade and Sprite), It's Not Easy Being Green salad (simple green salad with dressing on the side), Fozzie's Funny Bean Dip (7 layer bean dip), Pigs in Space in blankets (mini pigs in blankets made with cocktail weenies), and Rainbow Connection cupcakes (rainbow cupcakes with cool whip and sprinkles). I bought pink and orange cocktail napkins (think Scooter orange and Miss Piggy pink.) I decorated with a couple animal print bandana's I happened to have around the house. ("Animal print"... get it?) We also played the Muppet movie and Muppets Take Manhattan while people were here. It wasn't overkill on the theme but lots of people commented on how cute it turned out.