Summer, Summer, Summer Time!

Leighton finished school on Thursday, June 6th.  I felt like that whole week was dedicated to the end of the school year (and that is one of the reasons I started getting behind on my blog posts!) because there were many things I was trying to get done for the staff and Leighton and I was also trying to stock up on things for the summer in order to avoid having to take both kids shopping with me!!  However, I think what took up most of my energy and attention was just how emotional I was feeling about it all.  Who knew?!  If you remember, I was a wee bit emotional about his first day of school this year as well.    Guess it isn't surprising for me to end the year that way, too!

We were just so incredibly happy with how the school embraced our whole family and showed so much dedication and attention to Leighton.  And his teacher was so amazing to him.  And the Kindergarten teacher who welcomed him into her room each morning.  And the librarian who was as excited about his reading skills as we are. And the principal who Riley made a very special connection with and who is one of the few people she will actually allow to pick her up and hug her.  So saying goodbye to this school was hard.  We were all so strongly emotionally connected to the school.  The community spirit of that school is so lovely, and I just hope that we are lucky enough to experience that again at Leighton's (and eventually Riley's!) new school.

To show our appreciation to the school staff and faculty, I baked up some goodies to deliver to the staffroom, just as I did at Christmas.  I made some homemade oreos that I had also made 2 years ago.  This time I paid closer attention and made the cookies smaller as directed, which made the sweet cookies a more manageable size!  These are so fabulous.  I highly recommend them.  I also made snickerdoodles.   I had never heard of these cookies until a student brought them for her birthday treat when I was teaching in Manhattan, and I am thankful to her family for introducing them to me!  I made the trusty brownie recipe passed along to me by my sister and tried out a new addictive find - coconut banana bars.  They came out looking NOTHING like the photo, and it's really no surprise since the photo shows coconut IN the bottom cake part YET the recipe only calls for it in the topping, but they were very good, so I didn't care.  Roy was a pretty big fan of these ones, but all he got were the ugly edge pieces that I trimmed off.  I should treat the guy to a full recipe one day soon!  I had planned to also make homemade nutter butters but ran short on time and energy.  I have made these a few times, but not for a while.  They are so so so so sooooo good.  So good.  Did I mention these are good?  Now that I think about it, why didn't I make them first?!?!

While I was focusing on baking, Leighton was making cards for some of the teachers.  I only helped him spell one name and he did all of the rest himself.  We were really impressed with how he individualized the picture or message in each card to make them so personalized.

For the faculty and staff:

For the K teacher:

For his two classroom teachers:

For the librarian:

For the teacher of the Spanish Pre-K class:

I also sat down and wrote out some lengthy and emotionally charged letters to several people at the school - Leighton's teachers, the principal, the librarian, and the magnet coordinator.  Each of these women made such a huge impact Leighton and our whole family's experience at the school, and I really felt I had to let them know just how grateful we were.  I know that teachers appreciate baked treats and purchased gifts, but heartfelt letters can sometimes thank them in a way nothing else can.  I hoped by doing all three, I might be able to convey our thanks!  Leighton and I went a little early on the last day of school to hand out the cards and gifts and I carried my camera around but didn't end up getting some of the photos I wanted to because I kept forgetting.

I did manage to get these of Riley the last week of school as she got on her back pack like a big kid and ran to give hugs and kisses to Leighton and Daddy before they drove off for the day.

And after school, we were able to get a few of the ones I missed.  But not all of them.  Darn.  Too busy chatting, fighting back tears, and giving lots of hugs goodbye.

Leighton had asked me many (many, many) times to make him a cake for the last day of school just like I had for the first day of school.  At first I refused since I was baking cakes and cupcakes for my cake decorating class so regularly, but then I realized just how important it was to him to have that something special to mark the occasion, so I obliged.  I have been wanting to make a Kit Kat cake for a while, so decided this would be a great time to try it out.  I was experimenting with different ways to place the Kit Kats and learned a lot for next time (for anyone curious, my experiments taught me: 1. if your kitchen is warm, you will get finger prints all over them, so put them in the freezer for a few minutes first, 2. if you break each bar into the 4 individual sticks, you can get the nice rounded shape that all the photos online have but up close you can see the jaggedy break marks, 3. breaking the pieces by hand and cutting with a knife still give jaggedy marks, 4. if you leave all 4 pieces together, you can almost fit 8 bars around a 6 inch cake so you could do a UFC octagon cake for a big fan, and 5. if you are going to go through the expense of a Kit Kat cake, make the top plain or simple or monochromatic because it will totally be overlooked if you do something totally fun on top!).  I saw some pictures online of a beach scene and knew I had to do it to mark the beginning of summer fun.  It was really fun to make and decorate.  My cake was considerably smaller than the inspiration photo, so I had less on mine, but the total effect was still the same.  I used dulce de leche in between the layers of the cake and underneath the sand on the beach.  Yummy!

Happy last day of school, Leighton.