Two Year Old Pre-school Program

It's been a while since I posted.  I guess having a toddler who is out of school and a baby at home takes up more time than I thought.  I have a lot of catching up to do. We have had several end of school year activities, a big "3" birthday party, some experimenting in jam making and canning, and several summer activities.  Plus Alle is growing up quickly!

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Olivia has been in Two year old pre-school all year.  She has learned so much and has loved it.  The pre-school only had a 2 year old and 3 year old class for this past year.  They are adding a 4 year old class next year that I am excited about because Olivia can go all three years to the same preschool.  Also Olivia's 2 yr old teacher is moving up to the 3 yr old room for next year.  We all love Mrs Dedi!  :)

Olivia loves Mrs Dedi!

For the program all of the kids had something to say in the microphone.  Olivia's part in the program was to be the first one up to the microphone and say "welcome to our program".  I struggled to get her to practice saying her lines for about a month and she would only say then a few times.  I was nervous that she just wouldn't want to say them.  But I was wrong!  Mrs Dedi called her up to the microphone and she said in her cute Olivia voice "welcome to our program".  I was so proud of her!  But the unfortunate thing is that Clint recorded up to the point of her walking to the microphone and then it stopped!  We don't know what happened but we will be getting the official video from her Granny soon and hopefully you can see and hear her on that.  

Before she got called up to do her part all the kids walked in the chapel holding hands and sat on the mini-bleachers up front.  A few seconds later Olivia saw us sitting a few rows back and yelled "Mommy! Daddy!" while running to give us hugs.  That started the mutiny as all of the other children yelled and ran to their parents in the audience!

They sang some songs, Olivia chewed on her dress, each child had something to say, Olivia and her friend almost got into a cat fight, they got up to wander around and run to parents throughout the program, ... All the fun things you would expect from two and three year old pre-k! At the end each child said their name into the microphone, got a diploma, and went to their parents.  Olivia did a great job saying her name but then ran to the wrong parents before she found us!  It's not like she hadn't ran to us several different times during the program.  Clint and I laughed pretty much the entire time!

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Video highlights: The entrance and the mutiny, Olivia almost saying her part, stomping, the fight, running to the wrong parents:

Custom Bleached Shirts

We are planning on working on different fun projects throughout the summer and this week we made custom bleached shirts for Olivia.

What you need:
-A shirt
-Freezer paper
-Bleach
-Spray bottle or water gun
-Cardboard
-Bucket or something to put the shirt in and get wet
-Rubber gloves (optional)

We couldn't find any plain colored shirts in her size so we got two tank tops from walmart.

1.  Draw on the wax paper what you want on your shirt... letters, shapes, designs.  Then you put them on your shirt wax side down.  What is under the wax paper will remain the color of the shirt and what is sprayed with the bleach will turn a lighter color.

2. Iron the wax paper onto your shirt (wax side down).  Make sure your iron is on medium heat and the steam is not on.  Iron for a couple of minutes until the wax paper is stuck all around the edges.

3.  Put a piece of cardboard inside your shirt so the bleach wont bleed through

4.  Fill your spray bottle or water gun with bleach.  You can cut the bleach with some water if you would like.

5.  Now spray your shirt!  Make sure you are not spaying into the wind or dripping the bleach onto your self.  The shirt will look better in only a portion of your shirt is sprayed instead of the entire thing and it also looks different if you spray a light mist or if you drip a lot of the bleach in one spot.

6.  It took several minutes before I could tell the bleached portion of the shirt turning.  And I left the bleach on the pink shirt for about 15 minutes.  It may just depend on what kind of shirt it is.

7.  When the shirt gets to the color you want it then put it into some water and swish it around.  The paper will probably start to peel off.  I went ahead and took all the freezer paper off at this point.

8.  After rinsing off your shirt put it into the washer machine before wearing.

I think they turned out pretty well.  The pink one does not look as good and the letters bled through.  I'm not sure if that was because I didn't iron them on as well or because I left the bleach on too long... or both.

The next day I found a brown shirt from Olivia's room and traced an elephant onto the wax paper.  I really like how this one turning out.  It started turning colors almost immediately after we sprayed the bleach.  It could have been because of the color of the shirt or maybe because we were out int he middle of the day and the sun was hot!  Either way I like it a lot!