Last Day of School = Teachers Gifts.

Dressed up metal drink caddys from Target.

I don't always have time to make something completely from scratch but I do have time to put together some pretty things and make a handmade card and attach a pretty ribbon to let our teachers know just how much they mean to us. Teachers are very important people to our family. They spend more time with my children some days than I do. It's important they know how much our family appreciates them. We shared some of our family favorites with our teachers to help them celebrate the start of summer vacation. The teachers loved them.

Two bottles of our favorite sparkling lemonade, 1 bottle of flavored Italian syrup and a tied hand bouquet of flowers wrapped in newspaper made up the perfect gifts for two special ladies in our life this past school year.

It's been a good year. Kaia and Blake have both had some bumpy days - recently in the last few days. One has been a victim (somewhat unintentionally) and one has inflicted pain that resulted in a victim (again somewhat unintentionally) but it happened and I've dealt with both. Both very emotional. Both involving school principals and/or vice-principals. Not the best way to end the school year, but positive lessons learned all the way around.

My only beef left with one school is how the Vice-Principal dealt with Kaia's situation. The VP told Kaia that what she did was mean-spirited (not exactly the best words to explain what happened) and then went on to tell her that the VP believed in karma and what goes around comes around and Kaia will get hers. Dave and I were furious and shocked. We couldn't believe an adult in this teaching capacity with middle school children no less, would use such teaching methods.

What an opportunity that VP missed to teach a child about compassion, empathy, and the old adage 'do unto others' instead of 'an eye for an eye'.

We handled the situation very differently here at our house. While there was no excuse for what our child did (AND...I have never claimed that 'my child' wouldn't be 'that child' -- because I knew it could happen sooner than later), we taught the lesson in the way described above. We also told our child that forgiveness was available and that a heartfelt "I'm sorry" could be accepted and a friendship mended. And, it was.

So there ends our school year. It has been a bumpy road at times, but we have also been so blessed with some very amazing and kind teachers. And, we wanted them to know just how special they were. So we told them so....in the note attached to the drink caddys!

We are looking forward to summer vacation. I have lots planned to keep us from being too lazy and watching TV all day.....now let's see if we can actually put that plan into action without feeling 'too busy' all summer too!!

I'm linking this post up with the very sweet Cindy from Skip to My Lou for Teacher Appreciation Month!