Matthew's Preschool Graduation

It's official, he is headed to kindergarten next year....waaaa. It was heartbreaking to send Tyler, and it will be heartbreaking to send Matthew. Off to be educated and instructed by another for a majority of their days. I have to keep reminding myself that its good for them, and for me. But it brings a twinge of sadness.

I've done a homeschool preschool swap for preschool with both boys and for the past 3 years I've done the Busy Bee Preschool curriculum written by one of my friends. This year, she happened to be in my group. It is a great program based on President Hinckley's "be's" and I love the "bee" mascot. I was in charge of graduation, so we did a little party at our house today and I was happy it turned out pretty well. I first taped a bunch of "bee" cards around the house. For the kids to find and gather. I found this card game (Bee Attitudes) at a church book store by the San Antonio temple a few months ago. Here are the cards:

We then made a scrapbook page with just 4 pictures taken throughout the year and the kids signed each others page. Then we gave them certificates and hats (Michael helped me assemble last night) and took some pictures.

Here are the 6 kids in our group:

Here are the moms/teachers (collectively, we have 23 children--wow). Then, I got out my "special treat" that I spent most of the day on Tuesday making. A variation on my cake truffles, found on the Bakerella blog. She made it look so easy, I had to attempt it! I like that they look like mini cupcakes. Here is my truffle with the BEE on top:

Now here is how I made the bee's (really, I don't tackle crazy obstacles, but when I saw on Bakerella's mother day post how easy she made those flowers look, I had to do this for the bee's). Matthew and Alyssa even helped me.

I took a photocopy of my bee's and put it under wax paper and with my wilton bottle and melted chocolate inside, I traced the bee with the brown. (Alyssa took this shot)

Then Matthew colored in the yellow part on the bee (notice the concentration tongue sticking out).

Then I put white on the wings and we chilled them. Matthew didn't think these blobs looked much like bee's......

...when I showed him the other side, he said, "Wow, those really ARE bee's!" Look at that smile on his face! He was very excited. I then attached them to the truffles with a dab of melted chocolate and voila!

To make these truffles a bit different, I first put the balls into a mini cupcake tray (chilled them, removed them) and then dipped in other colored chocolate. I used the Wiltons chocolates for the first time to coat the outside (used almond bark before) and I liked the lighter flavor. 2 friends who had had previous truffles said these were my best batch yet!

My boy is growing up....