Back to School Mom’s Brunch

I am not one of those moms that spends the whole summer wishing the kids were back in school but I have to admit that there are a lot perks for Stay at Home Moms when the kids are in school.  Like the fact that the only dishes in the sink or crumbs on the counter are the ones I put there.  😉  And the quiet – oh the quiet house!  The kids are ready for a change too, even if they wouldn’t admit it.

It feels like summer has barely begun, yet already Back to School preparations are on the radar.  I’m seeing signs go up in stores and ideas being pinned on Pinterest.  I even got out the calendar yesterday and counted up how much time we have before the kids are back in school – 5 weeks!  It’s going to be here before we know it.

True to form, I usually do my best to add a few special touches to the first day of school.  I make special muffins or pancakes for the kiddos for breakfast, make sure they have something fun in their lunchboxes, and pull out the last of my husband’s award winning chocolate chip cookie dough from the freezer so they have fresh from the oven cookies when they got off the bus.  However, what I personally look forward to the most is my annual Back to School Mom’s Brunch! (photos are from brunch last year)

This is a tradition I started back when my daughter first started Kindergarten.  I knew I would be a little sad to see her growing up and wanted a way to celebrate the milestone – and to distract myself.  It served its purpose perfectly and I have had a casual Mom’s Brunch every year since.  I don’t go into full out party mode – the point is to keep it casual and just enjoy some time with the ladies without (most of) the kids running around.  I set aside the first day of school for myself with no real worries about the To Do List so brunch can go on as long as we feel like it.  I think a couple of years a few of us were still sitting around visiting until it was time to meet the afternoon bus 😉

I do Mom’s Brunch potluck style so prep work on my end is minimal though I do like to add just a little bit of fun to the food display.  A few weeks before school started I ran across this great Dr Seuss printable (here) and with our big moving date looming in the near future I knew that a Places You’ll Go theme was exactly what we needed last year.  In keeping with the chalkboard style I printed out a few more school-type signs (ran out of time though so only one made it onto the table – the fun flags and water bottle labels will have to get their turn another time.  You can find those printables here).  Then I added a few maps to round out the Going Places idea.  The maps themselves were road maps of the states – one for North Carolina (where we lived at the time), one for Utah (where we were moving to soon), and the others were the home states of some of my friends.  And yes, my friends did actually notice and comment on the fact that their states were included.  (See?  The details DO matter!)

I know – I should have taken the covers off the dishes and the coffee cake wasn’t even out of the oven for this photo but hey – when you have to decide between taking beauty shots for the blog and actually participating in your own party… 😉

Happy Back to School Everyone!  I hope this year is a wonderful one for all!

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