happy valentine's day...

Today was our son's first Valentine's Day at school and wouldn't you know it, it's not a big holiday here in Australia at all....(just like Halloween isn't).  Nevertheless, we didn't let that deter us and we did it up, "American Style".  We made all the kids in his Kindergarten class, his teacher, the office staff, and even the Lollipop Man (school crossing guard) Valentine's Day cards.

Of course, this was not my original idea...it's from Pinterest and that one is much better.  We made an edited version (to suit my limited crafting skills).  It was a fun project for him, since he loves using the computer and we picked the colors, fonts and clip art together.

Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day!

1st day of kindergarten

Today was our son's first day of Kindergarten!  He seemed ready and pretty excited.  We seemed nervous, anxious and a bit sad (the husband cried, but I held strong). 

 All the schools in Australia require the kids to wear uniforms, so I wanted to show a bit of his personality through his backpack.  I'd bought a patch of the Hawaiian state flag on North Shore before we left and added a little Aussie flag and his initials, but the fun part was pulling out a couple of my husbands military uniforms, from back in the day, and using some of his old patches.  Adding cool patches to his bag throughout the year will be a fun project for him.

my husband made the little Dr. Seuss inspired check list for him this morning...

I had his name embroidered on the back of his hat.  All the kids are required to wear their school hats when they're outside (which is a great habit to learn).  If you don't have your hat you can't play outside at recess.

We even read Oh, the Places You'll Go, by Dr. Seuss, before he left for school this morning.  An idea from one of our friends...she reads it to her son on the first day of school every year and I thought that was a great tradition.

Happy 1st Day of School to my big boy!!