It has been my pleasure....

I cannot believe the year is over.  It went so fast.  This will be my last blog and my last newsletter as the DCE PTO president.  Wow!  I wanted to take a minute and thank the 2011-2012 board for all of their hard work.  You are amazing in every way.  Everyone always went above and beyond what was asked of them.  DCE is so lucky to have such a great group of parents, who are so willing to give of themselves. It was a pleasure to get to work with each and every one of you.

I will miss writing these newsletters more than anything else.  They were a way of keeping me focused and organized.  I am sure that Roya will enjoy it as much as I have and she will do a great job.

I wanted to give 3 special "thank yous", here in this somewhat public forum.  I would like to thank Rosie Stevens. Rosie has been the most wonderful treasurer that DCE has ever had.  She is my sounding board and the first person that I contact when I need advice or can't figure out how to solve a PTO problem.  She is the most kind and understanding person that I know.  You cannot begin to imagine the amount of time that Rosie has put into the PTO without complaint.  The last 2 years would not have gone nearly as smoothly without Rosie.  Thank you.

I would also like to thank Bryan McLain.  I doubt there is a principal anywhere who cares more about his school than Bryan.  The trust that Bryan has placed in me has meant so much to me.  I think we are so lucky to have Bryan as our principal.  He always has an open door and an open ear to hear what we think.  He champions our school, our teachers, our students and our PTO like no one else would.  I hope that he will stay at DCE for many years to come (at least the next 3!).

Lastly, I would like to thank my family.  They supported my decision to take on this full time unpaid volunteer job.  Every hour spent at the school or working at home was an hour that could have been spent with them or working for our home.  Believe me, they suffered a few times because of it, but they never complained.  I am so blessed to be able to stay at home and I believe that my job is to make the lives of my family the best they can be.  Since my children spend the majority of their daily awake hours at school, that means that I believe it is my job to try and make that school the best it can be.  I am so grateful that my husband understands and my children like seeing me up there.  I am a very lucky person.

Thank you for reading these newsletters and blogs.  I hope that they have helped you in some small way.  My personal goal for the last 2 years was to better the communication to our parents and to make PTO meetings and the PTO more welcoming.  I hope that I have succeeded.  Thank you for helping me.

Lisa

Wonderful day!

A HUGE thank you to all the volunteers, coordinators and teachers who made Field Day 2012 a great success!  It could not have been done without your help.  It takes quite a lot of people to make that event happen and it went off without a hitch!  A special thank you to Stacy Sanford and Allison Flynn, our field day coordinators.  They did a GREAT JOB!  Another special thanks to Coach L, who is superman during field day.

I think I had almost as much fun as the kids, although at the end, I was so exhausted I could hardly stand.  Colton took a nap after school which he has not done since he was about 3.  YEAH FIELD DAY!

I hope that each of your children had as much fun as mine and that they will keep the memory of that day special with them as they move onto the next grade or chapter in their lives.  It is a day that is all about the kids and all about having fun.

Thank you!

Field Day- THIS FRIDAY!

I cannot believe that it is already time for another Field Day.  The year has flown by so quickly.  I am amazed.  If this is your first DCE field day, let me give you a few pointers (or some for those of you who have forgotten what to expect)....

1.  VOLUNTEER!  This is a GREAT day to volunteer.  It is so much fun.  If you have a 5th grader, you will not want to miss the afternoon shift.  If you are a dad, this is the perfect time for you to join in on the fun.  See the newsletter for how you can sign up to volunteer.
2.  Please DO NOT follow your child around on Field Day!  If you have been assigned to walk with the class, great.  If not, please go work an area.  We need so many volunteers to make field day work.  It is always disappointing to see so many moms following around after their children instead of helping out where they are needed.
3.  Have your child wear SUNSCREEN, a swimsuit (one piece for girls or bikini with a swim shirt over it), water shoes (NO FLIPS), their field day shirt (or DCE shirt) with some sort of quick dry shorts (athletic shorts are always good)!
4.  Have your kiddo bring a bag with a change of clothes (DON"T FORGET UNDERWEAR), a towel, extra sunscreen and shoes.
5.  Make sure your child eats a healthy breakfast.  They could start their morning on the track and you don't want them feeling ill at 8 am and missing the rest of the day.
6.  Don't forget to send a sack lunch for your child.  You do not want them purchasing in the cafeteria (sack lunch only) unless they have to do so, as those lines are ridiculously long and your child will be rushing around getting their food rather than relaxing.
7.  If you are volunteering, don't forget to order yourself a lunch, see the newsletter for info.
8.  Don't forget to make your 50 WATER BALLOONS!  These need to be dropped off on the way to school.  If your child is a bus rider, it would be great if you could drop them off on your way to work or there will be people helping them get them off the bus.  The cheap balloons made for water are the best kind.  Regular balloons DO NOT POP!

Ok, I think that is about all that I can remember as of now.  Field day is one of the kids favorite times of the year.  Let's all pull together and make the 2012 Field Day this BEST EVER!

Thanks and see you Friday,
Lisa

Amazing FAMILY!

I cannot tell you how excited I was to look out and see all of the teachers, administrators, parents, students and siblings last Friday night.  We had a fabulous turnout.  It looked like the kids had a wonderful time and it was so nice to see so many happy families spending time together.  We looked like a big, huge family.  It made me smile.  That wasn't the only thing that brought a smile to my face, according to the social event coordinator EXTRAORDINAIRE, Julie Albright (and her WONDERFUL TEAM) it looks like we raised over $7500!!!!!!!!  Everyone had fun and we made a fantastic amount of money for the school.  It doesn't get any better than that.  Luckily, the weather held off until we were mostly done with cleanup (thanks to everyone who pitched in to help).  What a beautiful night!

Thank you everyone who supported the evening in any way.  A special thanks to those teachers and administrators who came and played with us.  It was really nice to have your support.

Lisa

Spring Carnival and Social this FRIDAY!

This Friday is our school carnival and social.  If you have not yet been able to attend one of our school socials, this is your chance to rectify that error.  They are SOOOOO much fun.  This one is sure to be a great one.  There will be games, a teacher item auction, food provided by Papa Murphys and much more. These socials are a great way to get to know parents of the friends of your child, as well as their teachers and administrators.  It is relaxing and fun for everyone.  

I really hope that you can all attend.  I look forward to seeing you on Friday.

Lisa

I cannot believe that I am one of "those" people.  I thought, I wouldn't be the one.... Well, on Thursday morning, I became.... THE ONE.  My mac crashed.  It crashed BIG!  Me and my mac don't do things halfway.  I know this isn't really a DCE issue or school concern but for me, it is simply all I can think about at this moment and if 1 person chooses to do better because of this blog, then this post was worth it.  I was the proud owner of a very fancy 2.5 year old mac.  I LOVED IT.  It had never been moved, spilled upon, dropped, banged or anything.  Yet, the hard drive failed.  I did not backup.  I did not back up.... OH NO. 2.5 years of pictures, videos, files, momentos LOST.  Not to mention the things I need to make PTO run more smoothly.  ALL GONE!  After a quick trip to the Genius Bar, I was told, they would be happy to replace my hard drive at no cost, but I would lose everything.  My only other option according to them was to take my mac to one of 2 places in the DFW area who might be able to help me recover my data for a fee.  I called both and headed to the less expensive of the two.  After arriving in Arlington, I was told, "it did not look good."  You are KIDDING ME!  He said they had been known to work miracles and I needed to be patient.  It would take 3 days to hear back.  Today is day 4.  NOTHING.

I am trying to practice what I preach with my children and not get too upset before knowing the results.  Maybe, they were able to recover it.  Maybe, they won't charge me $2000.  Maybe...maybe....maybe.  As your children get older, more and more of their lives will be on the computer.  Please, back up often and regularly.  Do not make my mistake.

One sad momma, trying to be patient and hopeful,
Lisa

Slating the new PTO Board

Well, the last 2 weeks have been pretty busy for the PTO nominating committee.  We were tasked with slating the board for the upcoming school year.  We didn't receive many nomination forms, which made our job significantly harder.  I think that at this point in your time at Denton Creek, each of you has seen how vital a role the PTO plays in allowing DCE to function.  Without PTO support, there would be no field trip buses, no library or office aides, no programs or educational programs, very little technology and certainly not the smart boards and touch carts in every classroom or grade.  I could go on and on.  Honestly, school is different today than when we were kids.  Without your support to PTO, DCE could not do many of the things they do now.  Putting together a great board of officers to guide the PTO ship is imperative.  I was very disappointed that we didn't have more people filling out the nominating forms.  That being said, I THINK WE DID IT!  It looks like we are going to have a great board to start the new school year.  I am very excited about some newcomers and think everyone is going to do great.

We will be voting on the new slate of officers at the PTO meeting this Friday.  I think that we have a speaker from the district on technology as well.  This meeting will be very important to the future of PTO.  If you can attend, we would appreciate both your support and your time.

Hope to see you Friday at 9:15,
Lisa

Spring Creek Bbq Night TOMORROW!

Tomorrow evening is our springtime Spring Creek Bbq night.  Spring Creek will donate a portion of all proceeds for this evening to DCE.  In the fall, we made $1200!  This is HUGE.  You can either go and eat at Spring Creek anytime between 5-9 or you can stop and get your food to take home.  Many of the teachers will be working shifts throughout the evening.  I love this fundraiser because we can raise so much in such a short amount of time.  In the fall, we can use these proceeds toward a technology matching grant and we can end up receiving $2400 towards technology.  WOW!  A great way to make our money go further.

Thank you for all you do.  See you at Spring Creek!

Lisa

Vista Ridge

Wow!  Our first year to compete in the Vista Ridge "My School is Cool" contest and we came in second place for the first half.  We received $1500 for turning in receipts.  Parents were not asked to spend an extra penny on anything, but if you happened to shop at a mall store, you were asked to submit a copy of your receipt and the school received $1500.  THAT IS HUGE!!!!  I am so proud of the parents who supported the contest.  If you helped by turning in receipts the first part of the year, THANK YOU and keep it up.  If you didn't during the first semester, now is your chance.  The prizes for the spring semester are HUGE.  The winners will split a $15,000 pot.  WHOOHOO!  I want a piece of that action.

Keep up the good work.  Way to go DENTON CREEK!
Lisa

Field Day

For those of you who are new to DCE, let me talk about Field Day.  This year Field Day is scheduled for May 18.  The day will begin with a pep rally and the 5th grade girls will do a May Pole program.  Then they will be off and running (literally).  There will be 6 stations that each grade will rotate through set up all around the campus.  The stations change a bit each year, but will probably include a water balloon war station, a wet bounce house/slide station, a track and field station, a snack station with a DJ and so much more.  As you can imagine the success of this event requires an enormous number of volunteers.  BUT IT IS SOOOOOO FUN!  There will be 2 shifts.  Parents can either sign up for one shift or offer to work both.  I have always worked both because I don't work during the day (other than all this fun volunteering stuff) and I LOVE field day.  My husband, Tim, just works one shift so he can spend the rest of the day at work. I have worked many different positions in my 7 years at DCE for Field Day.  I have been in charge of one, which was GREAT and I have been in charge of various stations.  If you work the full day in a station, you are sure to see your child's class come through at some point and you can eat your lunch with them.  It is a lot of fun.

I have to mention one thing that drives me batty!  There will be one person assigned to walk with the class from station to station.  This is an important job (one of the most) but easily handled by that one person for whom it was assigned.  However, I always see about 5-8 parents trailing around behind their kid's classes from event to event.  Ok, sweet, but not really helpful.  I promise your kid is going to have a blast regardless of if you are standing there or not and we need you to help in the other events.  So, try to keep that in mind.  If I see you wandering aimlessly on Field Day, I am going to try and put you to work!  This is for the kids and is absolutely their favorite day of the year.  Dads, this is the best event for you to volunteer.

So, all that being said, please sign up to help during Field Day.  The kids need your help to make it a success.

Thanks and see you there!
Lisa

Another spring break is over :(

I can't believe that another spring break is behind us.  It goes by so quickly.  We have 13 more weeks of school left in the year.  WOW!  13 more newsletters and blogs and then I pass the torch onto a new pto president.

Our family had a very nice spring break.  We had soccer on both weekends (competitive soccer can be quite a beating) and were able to rush to New Orleans during the week for a jam packed week of culture and food.  I am not planning on eating ANYTHING for about a week to cleanse.  Just kidding, but they do make some good food there.  The kids had a nice time and we were able to shelter them from most of the not age appropriate things that can be seen in the french quarter area.  We finished the break off with an overnight visit from some of our closest friends from Tulsa.  They are the only family that we know that has children exactly the same age and sex of our children.  It was great.  A perfect way to end the week.

I hope that each of you had a wonderful and relaxing vacation.  I hope that the children are refreshed as the next few months of school are jam packed with activities and testing testing testing for our 3-5 kiddos.

Get one more good night's sleep.  See you bright and early tomorrow :)
Lisa

PTO Meetings

We have our March PTO meeting this Friday at 9:15 in the science lab in B hallway.  We will be discussing the spring social, the success of the auction, upcoming events, and the slating of officers for next year's PTO board.  If there is anyway that you can attend the meeting, we would love to have you.  I understand that many of you are working during this time, so we will continue to upload our minutes and budget numbers to the newsletter for your review each month.  For those of you who do have the time to come, we try and finish the meetings within an hour and Mr. McLain fills us in on DCE happenings.  I always learn something new.

Hope to see you Friday,

Lisa

The Great Escape was a SMASHING SUCCESS!

Last night was the auction.  It was AMAZING.  A special thank you goes to Lisa Evans, Stacey Chiang, Brenda Craven, John Clarke and Bryan McLain for attending and representing the faculty of DCE.  I hope they had a blast.  I know Stacey and Joe did.  Joe was my personal Craps (the gambling game) coach.  It was so much fun!  The dinner was provided by J Macklins.  It was delicious.  The gambling was fun and I think enjoyed by everyone who participated.  The auction was the best part.  As in year's past, Melissa Raetzman was a lot of fun to watch.  She gets very excited and is extremely serious about that parking spot.  Nobody better park in that girl's spot.  She paid a LOT of money for it.  I hope you guys have enjoyed that Roll Tide sign in Loop B, because it is staying.  The Monroe's were not letting that one go.  I managed to win a casino raffle item with my Craps money and Colton will be the owner of the West Playground sign next year.  GO SOONERS!

All in all it was a wonderful night.  Sheila Pensotti and her team did a great job.  I hope everyone had as much fun as I did!

Enjoy....

It's AUCTION time!!!!

I can't believe it is already the end of February.  Life is FLYING by this year.  This is the third year in a row that we have had our annual ADULT ONLY DCE Dinner and Auction.  It has been such a huge success.  Compared to the carnivals that we used to do, we make 3 times as much money and use about 1/5 the amount of volunteer hours.  That is not to say that those of us working on this thing aren't working, it just doesn't take quite as many of us to pull it off.  Now, we CANNOT have a successful auction without a lot of wonderful parents to buy tickets and attend.  The auction is this Saturday at the beautiful Grapevine Springs in Coppell.  This is the senior center that was built using our tax dollars and this place is GORGEOUS!  The food will be provided by J. Macklin's.  There is a casino for fun entertainment, music (provided by my ipod playlist....the pressure....), a silent auction, a HUGE gift card raffle, Casino raffle prizes (including a $750 Stella and Dot jewelry collection... can you say, WHOOHOOOO), a festive live auction, a cash bar and lots of friends to chat with all night long.  Babysitting has been arranged at the YMCA.  You have no excuses.  BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW!  There are only a limited number of tickets for sale.  When we run out of space, we can't sell anymore.  YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS!  We are taking credit cards this year for all the expenses including the bar.

Ok, you say you can't come because your child has a party.  Send your husband with the kids and come on!  Last year, we had several moms or dads who came by themselves and had a great time.  What if you absolutely cannot attend, please buy some gift card raffle tickets and check out the online auction.  The online auction bids will become the starting bids the night of the event, so there is always a chance that you can still be the winner even if you can't come (last year we had 4 online winners for various items).

Here are some pics from last year...

I can't wait to see you Saturday evening!
Lisa