So, we all know that this week is school prep for us here in Idaho Falls/Ammon. I’m stressing out about it even though I’m totally prepared!! I have all the supplies bought, the backpacks and lunch boxes ready to go and new outfits for the first week! Woohoo! So, why am I still a little bit nervous? Maybe it’s because I’m always nervous the first week of school?

When I was going to school I was always nervous on the first day. I’ve noticed over the last 5 years that no matter what grade they’re going into I’m really excited, but also have those first day/week jitters for them as well. Who knows what the future holds and I’m a worrier. I worry that Jonas won’t make friends, even though he’s the BEST at making friends. I’m worried that his handicaps will get in the way of school life and having fun and keeping up with the other kids. I’m worried that Brynnan will be so eager to please Jonas’ old teacher who is now his first grade teacher, as well, that she won’t like him. I know that’s ridiculous, but I seriously worry about that kid being too excited and too helpful. LOL He has a habit of telling everyone EVERYTHING! And spending all day with a kid like that drives me crazy most days, I just hope having other kids around will help him be a little more mellow. That is the case for him. He’s more mellow and shy at school than he is at home.

Anyway, I kind of got off on a different subject than I had planned on… Since I am so stressed out I thought it would be good for the kids and me to do some fun prep for school. I get emails everyday from craft and organizing blogs. One of the ones that I read is called  Mom on Time Out. She had a post about going back to school and staying healthy through the school year. Something I really need to read about because my kids get sick ALL the time!! I liked the post and am now considering including wipes in my kids’ lunch, not necessarily Wet Ones because they’re often the expensive ones, but some kind of wipe, none the less.

One of the suggested posts under that one was for back to school picture props. I clicked on it and immediately fell in LOVE with the idea!! I thought it would be fun to involve the boys in the little art project so we got started.

First, I got on my laptop and made the shapes for 1 and 2 in my Silhouette Studio program.

Here’s my 1 and 2. The font I used was Adobe Carlson Pro.

Here’s my finished stencil.

I put the stencil on the back of the cardboard I was using just in case I messed up. I didn’t want to be able to see the black lines. I’m a horrible tracer so you never know when my pen is going to slip. lol Make sure if you do it this way that you flip your stencil backwards so the number will be facing the right way!:)

The traced number 1.

Once I was finished cutting out both numbers I was really sad that the Cameo couldn’t cut out cardboard!! It would make life so much easier for projects like this!

I let them pick out the paint they wanted to use. Brynnan’s favorite color is red so I thought that would be the one he’d choose. Well, that was one of them, but he is also the lover of 100 colors, as he says, so he used almost all of the paints I have, which isn’t very many.

Jonas watched on very attentively:)

I didn’t have purple paint so Jonas chose red and only wanted to use red.

Jonas was a very serious and dedicated painter:)

I love this picture with Brynnan in the background!!:)

Such cute and FUN boys!! I love them so much!:)

Here are the finished projects!:) I was glad they had so much fun doing this!! Brynnan is already talking about when he makes his number 2 for next year! He says he wants to make it only one color, but for now he loves his ‘100 colors’ number 1:)

I can’t wait to take their pictures with these numbers to remember what grade they’re in! Stay tuned next week for those first day photo ops.

Thanks for stopping by!!