{if you give a mouse a cookie}

In honor of Read-a-Thon week, the kids at Gerard's school were supposed to dress up as a character from a book today. He decided to be the boy from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Joffe Numeroff.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this book (are you living under a rock?) the boy looks like this:

Here's Gerard. I think it's a pretty good likeness, if I do say so myself!

{another shameless request}

OK, Gerard's school also collects Box Tops for Education. If you happen to have any box tops around, we'd love for you to mail them to us instead of just throwing them out! For a complete list of products that participate, click HERE.

Thanks!

{read-a-thon}

This year, Gerard's elementary school is doing only ONE fundraising event. They have moved away from catalog fundraisers (thank g-d... do we really need any more expensive gift wrap and candy?!?!?) and have started doing a pledge based Read-a-Thon. Here's how it works:

• Students obtain pledges for reading based on per-page or a flat donation. Kindergarteners can have parents read to them.
  
  
• Students read and record pages read from September 13 - September 21. Money must be turned in by Monday, September 22. (Make checks payable to [*our town name*] Elementary PTO.)
  
  
• Students will receive a bookmark just for participating and one "Book Buck" for every $15 raised. The "Book Bucks" can be used like cash to purchase books during their Winter Book Fair.
  
  
• Students can earn prizes based on how much money they raise.
  
  

If you'd like to make a pledge, please let me know. Gerard will really appreciate it! Oh, and Big Gerard says that if you pledge a large amount you become part of Gerard's Platinum Club and you will receive one autographed picture of (little) Gerard.

{gerard's birthday week}

We celebrated Gerard's birthday -- again -- on his actual birthday, which was the 10th. I went in to school for his little celebration with his class and then we had cupcakes at home. Here are just a couple pictures:

You'll be happy to know that his week-long celebration is really a month-long celebration (hey, you only turn 5 once, right?).... We're having his "friends" party next Saturday. He really wanted a Sonic the Hedgehog theme this year, which has made things pretty difficult for me since they haven't made Sonic the Hedgehog birthday party stuff for about 15 years. I've had to get creative. Be on the lookout the week after next to see what I was able to come up with!

{happy birthday!}

Happy Birthday, Granpa G! We hope you have a great day!!

{happy birthday, grandma andrea!}

Happy Birthday, Ma! We all hope you had a nice day, even though you spent most of it flying home from sunny Arizona....

Here are some pictures from my parents' and Debbie's visit....

Grandpa is such a good sport. He just so happened to have packed his bathing suit just in case Gerard wanted to play in the sprinkler or with squirt guns. What a good sport!

Grandma bought Morgan her first bracelet from Fortunoff's. It's never too young to start enjoying jewelry!

We went to a local baseball game. Here's Gerard with one of the mascots:

We celebrated Gerard's 5th birthday and Grandma's 60th. He got a 4-wheeler and couldn't be happier:

finger-licking good!

And both Gerards got haircuts this weekend. Doesn't he look cute?!

{first day of kindergarten}

My parents and sister were here this weekend, and I'll post some of those pictures when I have a chance. In the meantime, I thought I'd share some photos from Gerard's first day of Kindergarten. He seemed to really like it, he's excited to go back tomorrow, he enjoyed the bus, his teacher was nice, the kids were nice, but he "didn't remember anything he did today". Typical.

Our traditional "in front of the front door" pictures:




Getting on the bus:

The bus pulling away:


I secretly followed the bus to school. Here he is getting off the bus:


The bus home:

Check out his first day of school pictures from last year and the year before HERE.