Penny War and Pet Adoption

Zeplin's school is hosting a "Penny War". It's a brilliant idea and a positive way to get the children involved with helping their school and fellow students who needed extra reading help and supplies. ...wonderful, this is, unless you have a 1st grader who hordes his coins and is VERY ADAMANT about collecting and spending on his terms.

I confess, I didn't expect too much. 

As Zeplin and I looked at the instructions together, he excitedly told me about the buckets already filling-up at school, and I explained to him that any money he donated from his spending I would match. His spending, as in, money he had to have had previously earned.

I truly did not expect him to go for the big ones: dollar bills.
Pennies, I could see that....
Nickels, dimes, just a couple of quarters.
All of these would have been acceptable and appreciated, but would not have surprised me.

He is a generous kiddo.
And kind.

Yet, when the 4 dollar bills hit the comforter and the quarter, nickel, and three pennies, I found myself pleasantly surprised.

When he declared, "this is what I want to donate", I asked him if he was certain. He had saved nearly $6 and was willing to part with the majority of it, I wanted him to understand what he was saying.
"Yes", he responded, "and you can double this!"

Together we counted out $4.33 from my change jar and added both of our groups of coins and bills together. $8.66. We were both excited to see it all together, there on the comforter. One of the clauses to the Penny War was that penny rolls counted as double points: one 50 cent penny roll then became equal to $1 in the war. Feeling the excitement between us, I asked Zeplin to help me count out my pennies until we had enough to fill a roll.

Zeplin with the painted bee rock 

he hid in the tree. #creativeoverload

Overjoyed with his willingness to give so freely, I volunteered to donate the penny roll on top of the $4.33 I had already contributed.

$9.16. All because the coolest 1st grader I know has heart!

Demetri's school had a silent auction not long after Zeplin's school had the Penny War. The silent auction was impressive because there was so much to see and bid on, and, never having had attended one before, I was overwhelmed with how exciting about how well put-together it was. The school raised a lot of money...including the $176 toy chest someone hand-made and donated! I am frugal by nature, but did end up bidding on a collection which included a wicker basket and three children's books, a burlap pillow with a stenciled moon on it which read, "I love you to the moon and back", and a 6 foot ruler with the markings on it for measuring and charting your children's growth.
It was similar to this one:

It was a gorgeous collection...and I almost won it. But didn't. Boo.

At the auction, the children enjoyed choosing a pet to "adopt". They even signed official documents on which they named their stuffed toy and promised to love it forever.
It was precious.

Here are the big kids with "Smiley" and "Little".