Starting off the school year with a BANG

Okay, it wasn't a literal bang.  Well, there were some of those, I did have 4 boys with me yesterday after all. We were privileged yesterday to have an opportunity - the boys and I got to spend the LAST DAY before school started with my niece, Little Lou (7) and nephew Bugsy (5).  We decided to do it up right and with my boys (ages 4, 2.5, and 10 months) have a party!

Because we had a back to school party, Manasseh was convinced that we HAD to start homeschool today. Or last night would be even better.  He just couldn't WAIT to start preschool and is looking forward to the rest of the week's adventures in preschool.

Here it is - our back to school party (on the cheap):

We started the day with tie dye.  I didn't get ANY pictures of this because I handled the dyes - Elizabeth, I want pictures.  Cost for 6 shirts and 1 dress?  Less than $10, the dye was about $5 on clearance after Halloween - the clothes ALL came from Salvation Army, most were half price.  I like Salvation Army!

While Azariah slept, I took pictures of the "big" kids.  Then a "quick" trip to Walmart and a local thrift shop.  Okay, you know that "quick" with 5 kids ages 7 and under is not really very quick.

While I made a special party lunch, the kids decorated frames.  Bugsy and Manasseh painted.

Little Lou chose a frame with stickers.

Cassius wanted to use markers on this frog frame.  Total cost for the 4 frames was less than $2 on clearance at various times through the year - they were cluttering my craft bin.

While we were at Walmart I printed 1 picture of each of the "big" kids.  It was super easy to crop them and add words to them on the "instant" machine (by the way you can't do this until after 9am and "instant" means about 5 minutes).  They're not the greatest quality either.  These cost 28c each.  Can you spot the error?

Lunch - Totinos pizza - these kids ate like birds, I bought 2 but they only finished 1 tiny pizza - price? $1.36.  Cantaloupe - $1.50, they ate half, bananas and carrots from my sister's fridge.  And - they drank water.

Azariah enjoyed pizza too.  He was pretty messy by the end of this dining experience.

My boys need naps after lunch.  We put in a $5 Walmart movie and all the boys laid down for an hour (mostly).

More super cheap and easy projects - I had 2 old tshirts that were destined for the donation bin.  Cut into strips they made great braided belts.  We picked up a couple of old belts at local thrift stores so we would have buckles.  Grand total of this project?  About 55 cents.

Little Lou's belt has the coolest buckle!  She was able to do most of the braiding herself.

Bugsy needed more help.  His buckle wasn't as cool - it's hard to find cool boy buckles sometimes.

Little Lou had enough tshirt left over to make a quick bracelet!

We spray painted wooden blocks (about 60c for the set at the thrift shop).  Once they were dry Little Lou and Bugsy used Elmer's glue and water to Mod Podge their pictures onto the blocks.  Total cost for this project was close to $1.50.

Perler beads are fun and use so many great skills.  Manasseh and Little Lou both spent quite a bit of time with them.  I bought a big container of them for $3.33 on clearance at Hobby Lobby.

Our final project was bleach pen shirts with "broncos" on them.  I am a terrible artist.  Little Lou helped me design a bronco head (this is their school mascot).  The bleach pen was the most expensive part of the project - about $2.50 at Menards.  The sweatshirt was 40c and the tshirt was about 20c.  

Sweatshirts take longer to bleach than tshirts - much longer.  Little Lou's shirt didn't turn out quite as bright as Bugsy's.  We'll do another one for her (in purple) as soon as we can find a shirt.

That's it.  Our back to school party.  What did you do to get your kids ready for school?  Have they gone back yet?  What other great ideas do you have that we can add next year?

Back to school with Rubbermaid: Review

Once in a while we get the opportunity to review something that we are going to use nearly every day.  I love those products that we can really get a lot of use from that don't end up just being clutter in our house.  Rubbermaid frequently has that kind of top of the line, every day use, smart products.

Randy packs his lunch for work just about every day.  Usually I send leftovers from the meal we have eaten the night before.  Sometimes he gets sneaky and buys a cheap frozen veggie pack instead.  It's hard to find just the right containers that will fit into a lunch sack neatly and not topple before he gets into work.  

Once in a while he walks to work and I get concerned about his foods being in a sack for an hour while he is on the way with nothing to keep them cool.  

Rubbermaid has a new lunch system designed to address just these problems!  The containers fit well together so they stay in place in the lunch sack - AND - it comes with a "Blue Ice" block that fits perfectly together with the containers.  They can be stacked in a variety of different ways to make things just right for you.  They also fit perfectly into their LunchBlox Lunch Bags.  

We tested the "Sandwich Kit" shown above and believe me, it fits more than a sandwich (that's good because I very rarely send sandwiches to work with Mr. Crum)!  I can't wait to pick up the salad kit from the store and try it in his lunches as well.  

I love the size of the containers.  The sandwich container easily holds a slice of pizza and a few cheese sticks with room for plenty more.  It can hold burritos, or a small salad, or.... whatever.  The medium container is perfect for a LOAD of veggies - this lunch had steamed cauliflower and Mr. Crum said that there was too much for him to finish it all.  I wanted to add some type of dip to one of the small containers but there just wasn't need for it in this lunch.  

For those concerned about carrying lunch with them, I recommend Rubbermaid LunchBlox.  You know they're going to last, Rubbermaid has high quality products.  They are just the right size for a healthy lunch - or a not so healthy one, as shown above.  The Blue Ice is a wonderful addition to a lunch kit as well.  Thanks Rubbermaid for another fantastic, user friendly design!

**Disclaimer: I received a product free for the purpose of review.  All opinions are my own.**