Things are busier than ever around here! We have had so much fun making (and eating!) heart shaped treats, wearing red and pink, and celebrating Valentine’s Day in a big way. Today we said goodbye to “Alleluia” in chapel as we get ready for Ash Wednesday and Lent next week. The Kindergarteners are busy getting ready to celebrate the 100th day of school tomorrow, Mrs. Loftin’s class is going on a bear hunt and having a teddy bear picnic, the Pre-K’s have blasted off to outer space, and the 2′s are happily singing and clapping to new songs in music – and that’s just today!! Another day in the life of St. Matthew’s Episcopal School!!

A few reminders about some upcoming events:

-Registration forms for the 2012-2013 school year are due back tomorrow, Friday, February 17. If you have not already registered your child for next year, please do so by tomorrow. We will go to our waiting list to fill remaining spots.

-La Noche class book project orders are due tomorrow. There are order forms in the office if you need them.

-La Noche is March 2. Invitations will be arriving soon, but make sure you’ve got your sitter lined up. It will be a great night!!

-The children will celebrate La Noche Day at school on February 24. Look for a flier with all the details.

-Please mark Saturday, March 31 at 10:30 on your calendars. Our first St. Matthew’s Day of Service will be a wonderful chance for your family to work together for the benefit of others and to teach your children the joy of serving others. We will finish the morning up with a picnic in the courtyard.

-NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY! Enjoy your long weekend!

We will be hosting a series of Open Houses this month for parents interested in sending their child to St. Matthew’s. Join us on  Thursday, January 19 or Wednesday, January 25 at 9:00. We will gather in the church sanctuary and attend chapel – a true highlight of our week here at St. Matthew’s! We will then hear from our Head of School and some current St. Matthew’s parents before we break into groups for tours of our classrooms and campus. Following the tour, there will be a reception and Q&A time. Please  call the school office at 345-3040 and let us know which day you would like to come and if you have any questions.

We will also hold a Kindergarten Open House the evening of January 31 at 6:30. This event is for current St. Matthew’s parents interested in our Kindergarten,  as well as those new to our school.

We look forward to seeing you here at St. Matthew’s and sharing what makes St. Matthew’s such a special place to learn, laugh, explore, and grow!

December is here! With it comes Advent, the season of hope, anticipation, and readying ourselves for the birth of Jesus.

We at St. Matthew’s are busy, busy, busy getting ready. Our halls are filled with trees, stockings, candy canes – and lots and lots of glitter. Our entryway is filled with the Heavenly Host; each child has made an angel to help proclaim the Christ Child’s birth. Pageant practices are in full swing and we have begun the Christmas story with the Annunciation in chapel. It is truly a magical time!

We hope you will join us for the many opportunities we have to celebrate the season:

Dec. 2 – Pre-K to “Holiday Heroes” at Zach Scott

Dec. 6 – Kindergarten to The Nutcracker

Dec. 8 – St. Nicholas visits chapel

Dec. 15 – 9:15 – MTTH 3′s pick-up pageant

Classroom Christmas parties
(times vary)

Dec. 16 – 9:15 – MWF 3′s pick-up pageant with parties to follow

11:00 – St. Matthew’s Christmas Pageant

12:00 – Dismissal for Christmas holidays

We look forward to seeing you here at school! Merry Christmas!!

On a cool fall morning, the Pre-K and Kindergarten tribes gathered in the courtyard for the annual St. Matthew’s pow-wow. The children arrived in full Native American attire and shared traditional songs and  blessings with their parents and guests. All month long, the tribes had been preparing  for the pow-wow, making their drums, shirts, papooses, breastplates, and headbands – all while learning about the many different Native American peoples who populated this land. The pow-wow is a true highlight of our year here at St. Matthew’s and is the perfect way to begin our Thanksgiving celebrations. Thanks to all the teachers for their hard work in preparing for this special day!

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, November 30 at 9:15 for our fall parenting workshop hosted by the Parents Council. Bethany Prescott will speak to us on “Playful Parenting”. Let Pattie know if you will need childcare.

We at St. Matthew’s wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We count all of you and your children among our many blessings and are thankful to be a part of this wonderful school community!

We have just wrapped up another wonderful week at St. Matthew’s! In addition to all the wonderful learning and playing and growing that make up our days, we had two special events.

We blasted off to outer space at our Book Fair and found so many treasures. I think everyone found a wide variety of fantastic books and other treats. We will all be very busy reading for a long time! Our teachers are looking forward to using the proceeds to purchase additional books and classroom equipment for their classes. Thanks to all of you for shopping (many of you more than once!), manning the store, bringing grandparents, helping set up and clean up. A HUGE   thanks to Jennifer Freas and Michelle Bush for chairing a fun, busy, and wildly successful Book Fair!

Then, on Friday, golfers teed off our 4th Annual Angel Invitational Golf Tournament benefiting the St. Matthew’s Financial Assistance Fund. It was an absolutely gorgeous day at Lions and our golfers relished the chance to be outside and enjoy the fellowship of other St. Matthew’s parents. The foursome of Jamie Froedge, David Cuellar, Bill Willette, and Frank Hartman were the tournament champions! Congratulations! and many thanks to all the golfers and to all our wonderful sponsors: 
Frost Bank
Rockbrook Capital & Cowden Capital
UCS/ Ben and Leslie Wells
New England Securities Corp.
Journey to Wellness Author Larry Simons                        
St. Matthew’s Board of Trustees
The Johnny Mansour Family
The Proud Grandparents of Tinsley Munford
Jacque McCall in Honor of Cade McCall
The Scott Family
The Schultz Family
The Trichel Family
The Cuellar Family
The Aycock Family

Our In-Kind Sponsors:
GolfSmith
Inviting Affairs
Whole Foods

Lunch Sponsors:
The Tavern/ The Slover Family 

Closest to the Pin Sponsors:
Frost Bank
Dudley Simmons
Brett Shanks
Craig Falls

And a great big thanks to Tournament Chairs Malia and Steve Aycock! All of their hard work resulted in a great day on the course and huge benefit to our Financial Assistance Fund!   

A huge thank you to everyone for making Fall Fest 2012 such a smashing success! It was a beautiful evening with a little something for everyone – dinner, entertainment, pony rides, games, bake sale, face painting, the Big Kahuna, and more!! I was so happy to see so many “alums” back to join in the fun – Homecoming, St. Matthew’s style!

Special thanks to Laurel Simmons and Laura Weenig for their leadership, hard work, creativity, careful planning, and good humor! Thanks to Bridget Aboel-Nil, Cynthia Smith, Laura Cox, Melissa Smith, Caryn Abraham, Carol Webb, Pattie McDonald, Debbie Noack and all of you who worked a shift, baked some goodies, donated toys, hung lights and lanterns, set up tables, and came and enjoyed the evening. Fall Fest cannot happen without all of us working together! I also want to thank Dudley Simmons, Grant Weenig, Jason Bagshaw, Ashleigh Lind, and Sami Aboel-Nil for working until the very end to make sure we were cleaned up, packed up, and locked up! And thanks to our fabulous teachers for the wonderful pumpkins, for coming out and supporting our school, and for the thousands of things they do for the children of St. Matthew’s every day!!

I hope you all have your calendars marked for Friday, October 14 – Fall Fest at St. Matthew’s! It is the perfect way to kick-off Fall with the whole family. Our wonderful chairs, Laurel Simmons and Laura Weenig, have a fabulous evening planned with something for everyone!!

Highlights this year include:

-Pumpkin Raffle – This year, the class pumpkins will be raffled instead of auctioned. Raffle tix are $5 each or 4 for $15. The more you buy, the greater your chance of winning your child’s class’s fabulous creation! Many of them are already on display. You, of course, may enter the raffle for any of the pumpkins.

-Yummy dinner from Austin favorite PTerry’s! Dinner includes your choice of hamburger, cheeseburger, or veggie burger, fries and a drink. Can’t beat it!

-The Holy Smokers from St. Matthew’s Church are once again smoking some delicious briskets for us to sell at Fall Fest. The briskets are $50 each and come with the Smokers’ own homemade bar-b-q sauce. Order yours today!

-New activities this year include the Choo-Choo Train inflatable for our littlest children and the Big Kahuna for our bigger guys.

-Wristbands, raffle tickets, dinner tickets, and briskets  are for sale in the entry hall each day until next Tuesday. Stop by the table to make sure you get everything your family needs for a fabulous Fall Fest 2011!! You may also purchase these at the door that night.

-Special thanks to our Fall Fest Sponsors: The Cuellar Family, the Marks and Esaias Families, The St. Matthew’s Board of Trustees, The McCall Foundation, The Scott Family, UCS/ Wells Family, The Thurman Family, The Webb Family, The Trichel Family, The Mounce Family, The Aycock Family, The McKallip Family, The Nash Family, The Abraham Family, The Wesbecher Family, Sofia Wesbecher’s Grandparents, The Way Family, The Falls Family, The Browning Family, The Bartley Family, The Munford Family, The Cook-Ippolito Family, The Kim Family, The Gilbreath Family, The Casaubon Family, The Bernard Family, The Bagshaw Family, The Nield Family, Caroline and Thomas Simmons’ Grandparents, Marjann Cooper – Amelia Bullock Realty, The Ellis Family, The Holmes Family, The Mattox Family

Sponsorships are still available!

-We are still collecting toys and stuffed animals for the ever-popular stuffed animal walk. It is a true Fall Fest tradition!

-Plan to stock up on yummy homemade treats at our Bake Sale!!

What a magical evening for your children – and you! See you there!

A big thank you to our wonderful St. Matthew’s community for the generous outpouring of support for St. James Episcopal School. It was so much fun to see our Kindergarteners unloading boxes and boxes of play-do, journals, pull-ups, paints, and all the other school supplies you donated. Your gifts will free up much needed funds for St. James to allocate elsewhere and will be put to use immediately by teachers and children alike.

We had so much fun visiting St. James. Our Kindergarteners made lots of new friends on the playground and we all enjoyed singing some favorite chapel songs together. The children knew many of the same songs and taught each other some new ones. It was a day to remember!

Again, thank you for supporting our fellow Episcopal school. Stay tuned for more opportunities for service as the year goes on!

Kindergarteners with their new friends.

Come celebrate St. Matthew’s Day at our annual Ice Cream Party hosted by the Board of Trustees. Join us on the playground this Sunday, September 25, from 3:30-5:00 for some cool treats from Sweet Caroline’s and lots of fun with your St. Matthew’s friends. Bring the whole family!