First Day of School! First Day of School! (Almost. And a Giveaway)

[This giveaway is now closed. Thanks for playing}

Some kids have finished a week of school, some start this week and some start in the coming weeks, but there’s no denying it, summer vacation is winding down in Indiana.

Monday night we took MaM to her new school to see her classroom and meet her teacher, and she was mightily impressed with the classroom library. There were easily 500 books on the shelves, including a shelf full of the Magic Treehouse Series, which she loves, along with the Rainbow Fairy books, which she also loves.

After that meeting, I went down to the Fox’s Montessori school for their orientation and was delighted that the first thing they had us do was make a little something for our kids. The teachers had cast plaster of Paris in shallow bowls, and stuck a paper clip in it as a placecard holder. The parents all got to decorate their child’s place card holder for lunch with paint and ribbon- isn’t that fun? Then, instead of giving the parent orientation talk, I got to listen to it (and nod my head vigorously at all the good parts).

Unfortunately, both kiddos are under the weather, and MaM actually missed her first day of school. It was kind of devastating. I’m hoping with one more day of rest, she’ll be ready on Thursday.

When she does finally get back to it, I have a few surprises for her, including a couple of fun things sent to me by my friends at Hallmark. Their Back to School Confidence Care package features items from their Kids Encouragement collection,  including greeting cards from their kids collection, little lunch box notes, and a recordable storybook . The lunchbox notes are my absolute favorite- this set of 50 notes have sweet, funny, inspirational sentiments, and few to help on those rough mornings when getting out the door wasn’t easy. I plan to keep them with the lunch making supplies and use them as much as I can!

Aren’t they cute?

{The Giveaway}

I am giving away a Back to School Confidence Care Package with the same items to one lucky reader this week. If you, or someone you know, is getting kids out the door for school, please enter to win by leaving a comment about your favorite thing when it comes to back to school. Be sure to fill out the email field in the form so that I can contact you if you win!

The second way to enter is to cut and paste this tweet, and then leave an additional comment telling me that you did, “I entered to win a Hallmark Back to School Confidence Care Package from @Gotchababy and you can too! http://wp.me/pVbJS-DO”

Comments will be open until Friday night around 9pm. The winner will have until 9pm Sunday night to respond to my email, or I will pick a different winner.

Disclosure: Hallmark sent me my own Back to School Confidence Care Package, and I was happy to give another one away. My opinions on the products are expressly my own.