saddle up yer horse

Cuz there was a country-style school carnival on Friday night. The kids were beyond excited about this. Heather gave me an update everyday for a week how close we were to Friday night.


As you can see, these two cowgirls stood in line forever to have their faces painted. Great job! No little heart on the cheek for these girls ~ they want the full-on drama!


It was hot. Maybe Africa hot. But the kids had a great time and came home with tons of prizes they won from the games. I can't tell you how much it thrills my heart to see Stephanie and Heather enjoy themselves so whole-heartedly. They were in charge of their own tickets and made their own choices about how they would spend them. I only said no to the cake walk.

All the kids at the carnival seemed to be having a really great time!


Greg lovingly obliged his wife and spent more hours out in the heat than he wanted to after a whole day out in the heat working for the Purple.

Heather's spin art

As part of the staff, I was supposed to sign up to work a booth for a little while. I talked Suzanne into signing up for the spin art booth. Another 2nd grade teacher also signed up with us. Ha! That was a mess! Thanks to one lovely young lady who didn't follow my directions and wildly squeezed the paint bottle with all her might, my newest (and favorite) school shirt is not dotted with lavender paint ~ that won't come out. Greg was leaning over my shoulder for this one and he got splattered too ~ on one of my favorite shirts of his. He wasn't as peeved by it. He says it's not his favorite and not my shirt. But I told him I'm the one who looks at him & its one of my favorites. Good point, he says.

I'd do this booth again next year, though. Besides the splatters, it was fun. Next time, no favorite shirts.

Stephanie's spin art

Thankfully, our booth was in the shade. Greg was intrigued by the spin art and the technique. He spent a lot of time by the booth ~ in the shade.

Each class was responsible for preparing a basket for a raffle. The students bring in stuff for the basket and the baskets are raffled off. The baskets were themed. My class did a movie night basket with DVDs, movie tickets. candy, popcorn, etc. I bought four raffle tickets with the intention of letting everyone in the family pick a basket they'd like to win. In the end, I put all four tickets in one basket ~ not really expecting to win. Because I just usually don't.

Flip Video

But at the end of the night, this little baby came home with me. It was in a basket with scrapbook stuff. I was so surprised I nearly peed my pants! It will be fun to use at home, but I was really wanting it for school to help the kids produce their own little Reading Rainbow shows that I learned how to do when I took an imovie class a few months ago.

The rest of the weekend was spend doing laundry and science fair projects. More on that later.