Behind the Scenes of PTO

If you missed my first look into why I am involved with PTO you can read it here For the record, I am sharing this information because it is apart of what I do with/for my family.

 No, no, don't worry, my kids did not hit the toy jackpot! These are some of the prizes I organized for Alexander Elementary School's big Fall fundraiser, a Walk-a-Thon. Students raise money to help support all of the awesome things PTO does throughout the year and as a reward the students got to have a fun "party" afterwards.

 Here is the stuff most people don't realize...my dining room looked like Chucky Cheese threw up all over it and I didn't bother cleaning up the mess for weeks! Yep, I said weeks. I volunteered to handle the prizes and everything that went with that. I worked on things a little bit every day, but by no means did I give up time with my family. I might have lost the use of my dining for a bit, but I wanted things to be organized so the Walk-a-Thon would run smoothly.

There was a little bit of everything crammed into my car. Infatable guitars, tons of other toys, stuff to make slime, 6 boxes of Twinkies, whipped cream, coolers, a ladder and somewhere in there I managed to fit to drive all of this to school. I am a Tetris master when it comes to packing tons of stuff into my car (No children were harmed in the taking of this photo!)

 So during the fun part of the night, our awesome principal volunteered to be taped to the wall!

The kids LOVED the Silly String war area!

 Sadly, not a lot of kids knew about the "goodness" that Twinkies possess. They were leery of the Twinkie eating contest, but soon discovered Twinkies are good...yet maybe too much for tiny tummies...oops!

 It was fun watching the kids trying to beat their friends at eating Twinkies.

 Just incase that wasn't enough sugar...we also had cotton candy!

And last but not least, we had another awesome teacher volunteer to have his students slime him if they raised money for PTO! Needless to say EVERYONE wanted to watch this! Although, he claims it wasn't bad, I had to do the clean up after this...that was not fun! A plunger is a good thing to have on hand when trying to clean up slime using a sink.

Megan, and soon Joey, are very lucky to attend a school filled with great teachers that will do just about anything to make Alexander the best school possible. I love being a part of PTO, we have a great (but small) group of us that work hard to make things fun for all of the students. So here is my shameless plea...if your school has a PTO, go to a meeting. You don't have to volunteer to do anything, but if can help with brainstorming ideas or know of anything that has worked for other schools, any PTO would LOVE to hear it. If your school has a PTO and you have no desire to attend a meeting and can't volunteer or simple just don't want to volunteer (we understand that completely) bring your kids to the events, they will have fun...plus those extra smiles and giggles we hear really make all of our hard work worth it! All of us on Alexander's PTO all said while cleaning up, "did you hear the kids...did you see the kids...Ï think they loved..." and that is why I will continue to be apart of PTO, making kids happy is will always be worth the time I spend working behind the scenes on PTO stuff.
Stepping off my soapbox now, I just have a feeling that most people think PTO is something stiff and boring, it's not, our group is made up of hardworking, sarcastic moms that just want their kids to attend a fun school...and yes. Megan and Joey were there, but I was busy running around everywhere. They were having a blast hanging out with Mark!