Etta's Holiday Party- 2012

Etta's class had a party just before they got out for the holiday break. As the Room Mom, I'm responsible for pulling the party together, but I really didn't have to do much more than ask for parents to sign up to bring food because the teacher had also planned a little circle time "program" with the kids that took up about 25 minutes or so. Oh, and I brought jingle bells for the kids' shoes. The kids LOVED that (well, most of them did. There were a couple with sensory issues who weren't too thrilled with the idea).

Etta was so cute during the party. She seemed excited to see me in HER environment. She kept waving at me and leaving the group to come over and talk to me. I had to bring Daniel with me to the party because Mel woke up sick that morning. I wasn't sure HOW I was going to make that work since it was nap time and I had not tried to "wear" Daniel in WEEKS! In the end, I was able to strap him to my back and hope he didn't get too fussy. He actually did pretty well! He started to fuss a couple of times, but the other moms were awesome and kept handing him toys and wiping his snotty nose for me. At one point, I handed him a Rice Krispy Treat and he loved nom noming on that (and getting it ALL over the back of my shirt). We survived and Daniel passed out hard on the drive home and I was able to take him up to his room and he took a pretty long nap.

So, back to the party...

The kids did circle time and sang some Christmas songs and Etta has asked a million times to watch the videos that I took that morning. (For those of you who get these blog posts in an email, just know that if you aren't going to the actual blog to read, you may be missing out on videos like this one.)

After their cute little performance, we had a fun snack! There are only ten kids in her class and three of them are on gluten-free diets and at least one is also dairy-free. I tried to make sure we had "fun" food that would accommodate those kids as well.

After snack, we moved back over to the circle rug and Etta's teachers gave all of the kids a little gift and then all of the kids participated in a book exchange. The kids brought a wrapped, gender-neutral children's book and then we put the books in a pile and let them take turns choosing one to open.

Then, I had Etta pass out the gifts from her to her teachers and therapists (we gave them candy-filled Tervis Tumblers with lids and a Starbucks gift card. Her lead teacher also got some personalized note cards.) and we packed up the wagon and headed home. It was a fun (and exhausting) morning! Great way to kick off our holidays!