About Me

My photo
I'm a mid twenties girl. Who has the cutest two boys ever. I'm married to the best hubby ever (aka the Man). I'm also a teacher of sixth grade with a masters degree in Education. I'd rather be busy than bored. I love things bright and beautiful and my family means the world to me.

Blog Archive

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Our Christmas in Pictures

We had a blast. Lots of laughs and good times with our family. I love having the little ones around, they are hilarious opening gifts. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday and have a great New Years.











Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas,
 from our family to yours! 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas today!

 

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

What I Wore Wednesday

Where did this go? I mean there had to be almost three weeks in a row I kept on. Well followers, this is what happens-


I go from one of these put together, somewhat coordinated "teaching" outfits- to this beauty!
 
 The first thing I do after getting home and dropping my stuff I go to the bathroom right off our bedroom. To save time, I usually never put my work pants back on. I head for my comfiest! I like being comfy, LOVE IT!
 These happen to be The Man's pants that I fold over, oddly enough instead of being turned off at the sight of his wife wearing big man pants with a slouchy butt, he digs it. Being that we live in the frozen tundra up north, wearing is most often less than 20 degrees, I'm a big fan of the layers.

So this folks, is where the outfits have gone. To the embarrassing comfy, warm, and less fashionable styles.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Early Release? Yes, please.

We are literally getting dumped on again today, so to protect our begging , nagging, complaining, weather watching students we had an early dismissal- YEAH! So I packed up some easy papers to grade, which will most likely stay in my bag tonight and headed home- safely- to pick up my cutie!  A picture of the dumping, yep, you're looking at over 2 feet of snow already.
Now, that's not all from today but the last two weeks. Don't fret, I took the picture for our entry window, no cold toes or nose necessary.


I finally had some time so I got some pics of the decor around our house.
 I love these trees! They fit perfectly in our entry way without being in the way. Although I need something good to hang on the wall. Since we don't have a mantle and our fridge is covered with Tucker's art (yep that's his head) I've been hanging our cards off the island. Is your island a catch-all too?
I put our Willow Tree Nativity set in our dining room and my ornament decor took over the bookshelf. I'm dying for a fake mantle as there's no way to actually add a fire place. Our tree is missing a topper. We had one that I made a few years back but I'm just not digging it. I've yet to find "the one" that shouts, "Put me on your tree!"

Well, I'm off! The dryer chimed and I have presents for my paras to wrap. Enjoy the week friends.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Just a few q's

 I'm supposed to be grading right now, but as you can tell its not happening. I found this while blog hopping and thought I'd give it a go-

1. What time did you get up this morning?
  6:10, The Man left to plow at 4 and I didn't sleep well after, plus I did a mini shift at Gap

2. How do you like your steak?
Medium Well 

 3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
 Due Date- I laughed SO hard

4. What are your favorite T.V shows?
Bones,  Grey's, Private Practice, Brother's and Sister's
 
5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
Right now I am very happy to call my home. It has been good to me.

6. What did you have for breakfast?
Pop tart

7. What is your favorite cuisine?
Homemade anything


8. What foods do you dislike?
Tomatoes, I'm actually very picky when it comes to food

9. Favorite Place to Eat?
  With my husband, anywhere

10. Favorite dressing?
Ranch -- no question

11.What kind of vehicle do you drive?
Impala SS

12. What are your favorite clothes?
Comfy pants and old swim meet shirts 

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance?
 I haven't gotten to explore out west very much, I'd love to see the mountains, Yosemite, and anywhere around the world

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full
Half full-- always 

15. Where would you want to retire?
Where ever my family is 

16. Favorite time of day?
In the morning when I cuddle up with someone then wake up my favorite little man

17. Where were you born?
North Carolina

18. What is your favorite sport to watch?
the one that isn't on

19. Who do you think will not tag you back?
This survey was stolen from another blogger

20. Person you expect to tag you back first?
See above answer

21. Who are you most curious about their responses to this?
See above... really?

22. Bird watcher?
Enough to make sure I don't hit one with my car

23. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Both

24. Pets?
Not anymore  
 
25. Any new and exciting news that you'd like to share?
Christmas is coming soon

26. What did you want to be when you were little?
  Paleontologist

27. What is your best childhood memory?
  When my brother used to pick on me

28. Are you a cat or dog person?
Dog, never planning on having a cat

29. Are you married?
  you bet

30. Always wear your seat belt?
always

31. Been in a car accident?
a couple, but not serious

32. Any pet peeves?
slow left lane drivers

33. Favorite pizza topping?
Sausage

34. Favorite Flower?
Gerber daisies

35. Favorite ice cream?
vanilla with peanut butter cups

36. Favorite fast food restaurant?
Subway

37. How many times did you fail your driver's test?
Didn't

38. From whom did you get your last email?
Someone from the school probably 

39. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card?
Target
 
40. Do anything spontaneous lately?
Not really

41. Like your job?
Love it- even the "bad" days

42. Broccoli? Cauliflower?
Broccoli

43. What was your favorite vacation?
I won't say our honeymoon, but a family trip when I was little to Florida

44. Last person you went out to dinner with?
The Man 

45. What are you listening to right now?
Charlie St. Cloud, and Tucker eating chips

46. What is your favorite color?
Green, Blue, black, white, grey, pink

47. How many tattoos do you have?
 

48. Coffee drinker?
  Starbucks gets too much of my $$, but I'm getting better at making my own

49. How many children do you have?
1 for right now

Time to actually grade! 

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Secrets for Sharing

I saw this idea over at Babbling Abby and had to jump in with my own.

  • I secretly have a countdown on my computer at school for Christmas break. I've had it going since Thanksgiving. 
  • I secretly would love to drop major bank one day on an extraordinary handbag.
  Isn't it pretty? And more than my mortgage!
  • I secretly want to take a day off each month to stay at home and craft. Not clean, but craft.
  • I secretly have to make a list for everything! Grocery store, cleaning, tasks for the school day, upcoming things, an ongoing gift idea list- you name it I've made a list for it. (this might not be such a secret has my husband finds them all the time)
  • I would secretly love to quit my job and work for Vera Bradley. They have to have testers right? I could try a new bag a day and give my feedback. 
  • I rock out in my car. I rock HARD!  My graduation present/ wedding gift from the Man were speakers for my car. I appreciate all kinds of music and sing along to all of it! (again, this may not be a secret for the morning commuters)
  • Speaking of cars, I secretly am a car drooling, speed loving car junky. Now, I can't name a car by looking at it, but I can appreciate their beauty. And I will never go back to a V6 after having my V8, as Maverick said it, "I feel the need for speed."
So followers, any good secrets you'd like to share?

Saturday, December 4, 2010

So very thankful.....

*I thought I had posted this but seeing as I haven't posted for 10 days I obviously didn't. Better late than never.
 
This year has brought about some great gifts, for which I'm thankful for everyday.

  • I am thankful for my boys. The Man "gets me" like no other person in the world. I've grown so much with him and feel more and more comfortable with myself because of him. 
  • This little guy is what makes me smile everyday without fail. 
  • Our parents, Tucker has such loving and involved grandparents that love spending time with him. The Man and I are so grateful to get out every now and then for the night and they help us do that.
  • I'm very thankful for my job. I love, love my students, we have so much fun and I can say that everyday even if only once we laugh.
  • I'm grateful for our house we were able to build this year. We have our own space, that we've made a home together.
  • Health wise we all had a great year, there is never enough gratitude for that!
  • I've really explored the blogging world this year, even though I'm not blogging everyday I enjoy hearing how other mothers, teachers, and women live their lives. 
Thanks so much for a great year! Happy Thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Giving thanks!

I've been working slowly on my Thanksgiving post and thinking of what I'm thankful of. Yes, I'm sure many others are doing the same things, but there's nothing wrong with following a good trend. Today's morning question (we have one everyday on the board that my students have to write a very short response to- its an easy way to take attendance and learn about your kids) brought about a wonderful answer.

The question was, what are you most looking forward to over break?

I got standard answers of sleeping in, no school, no homework, turkey, hunting, and things like that. One student, such a sweetheart, put:
"Giving thanks for everything I"m blessed with throughout each year- especially my teacher and friends."

Melt my heart it was so sweet. When I had a moment I slipped a note on her desk saying that I felt blessed she was in my class and I was thankful for her and her classmates everyday. The boy sitting next to her read it and I overheard him say, "I bet she's serious too." Lovely :)

Monday, November 15, 2010

Today was a great day!

I've been hoping for a day like today. We had a busy day, but got a lot accomplished. All the students (including my "stressor") had a good day. Smiles and laughter all around. An even better part would have to be that I just finished grading their test over the novel we've been reading and they ROCKED it.

Just had to share that after my "rant" the other day. Here's hoping for a repeat!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Christmas List part 1

As the holiday catalogs and e-mails come rolling in I have flashbacks to being a younger, care-free, mortgage free, greedy Christmas list making girl. Since I missed the Wednesday outfit post I thought I could share some of the items I'm loving. Please feel free to pick one and send it to put under my tree. Yes, I realize we're absolute strangers, but tis the season for giving right :)

Starting with Gap: (Thank goodness for the discount!)



I'm a huge lover of scarves and winter vests. A super easy combo that keeps me cool when I'm running errands and don't want to fuss with a bulky coat. I think the dress and skirt would be cute with a black turtle neck and tights.
* Today we had our store meeting for our Holiday season, let me just say I volunteered to work more so that I can afford some of the things I saw.

Next stop would be Old Navy:

 A girl can never have too many ruffles. NEVER!

And to round out the brand Banana Republic:



Hopefully the Man takes a gander at this post :)





Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Teacher Rant

I hoped not to do this. I thought I could avoid it. But being that I like to think of this as some type of online journal I would like to take a quick moment to vent. About today. About teaching.

I love, love my job. No questions about it. I love being around my students. The last week has just felt extremely trying. My team mate has no problem with put-downs. She won't directly say it, which is almost worse, she infers that you don't meet her standards or that you are doing something different from her, which is CLEARLY wrong of course. I am not a confrontational person. She is much older than me, she's about 10 years older than my mom. Deep down I know that talking with her might be of benefit for me, but I don't feel that any good would come of it. So I'm working on letting it go.

I have a student, honestly 1 out of my 24, that is really stressing me. I've gotten e-mails from his mother about how much he hates school, he feels I hate him, that all I do is yell in class, and treat him completely different than anyone else. After some discussion with the mother through email and a 1-on-1 talk with student it has been realized that he isn't being honest with either one of us. Once mom realized this she canceled a face-to-face conference with all of us and is now putting the student in therapy. I am at the point where I'm documenting any interaction I have with this student within two hours of the interaction so that I can go back if need be to recall what exactly occurred. Luckily after talking with some school personnel they're going to step in and require that mom come in.

Today we struggled with linking and action verbs. Tomorrow I'll re-teach, we'll re-visit our work and we'll try again.

I just got an e-mail from a parent that his son's test was graded incorrectly. The answer for #5 was graded incorrectly. But I shouldn't worry because he went through the rest of the test and checked for any errors- there weren't any. He was also kind enough to add, "If you'd like me to look over your answer key before you grade other tests I'd love too. Science was my favorite." I kid you not. 

I've decided 7 days of yuckiness is enough. Tomorrow will be good. I'm not going to read a single parent e-mail during the day :) I will stop doubting my teaching abilities and continue to work with my students the best way I can. Thanks for letting me vent, I feel better.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Just some randoms...

  • I haven't logged onto to blogger since Sunday evening. I haven't read any blogs, checked any coupon or sales, and feel like I'm missing a lot. Is that sad?
  • Tomorrow I have an meeting after school with a student and his mother. Apparently he's been telling his mother I yell at him, hate him, and when I talked with him today he had no idea what I was talking about. He mentioned that his mother likes to exaggerate. It's going to be a oozy!
  • Up here in the frozen tundra its cooled down to 40 degrees for the next few days, but by next week we're back in the 50's. So weird, I feel like winter is going to come in with a vengeance.
  • Today we did "Candy review". I asked questions, if the student got it right they got a piece of candy. Finally we are rid of one bucket of candy at our house. This is clearly an example of how horrible a teacher I am.
  • The b-day party went fabulous! Our neighbors are awesome at dressing up in costumes, plus the kids had a fantastic time.
  • Tucker is in LOVE with his bunk beds, he lasted about 5 minutes in the top bunk on the first night and has spent the rest of his nights in the bottom bunk.
  • Report cards are due tomorrow afternoon, hence the blog missing.
  • I'm hopefully back, with pictures to come this weekend.
  • Happy Friday all!!!!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

What I wore Wednesday!

Actual weekend shots this time. I skipped including pics of my stay-at-home in my sweats days. Our four day weekend went by too fast but it was much deserved after two full nights of conferences, a jam packed work-day with two parents who just wanted to stop in to say hi (for 45 minutes EACH!). Don't get me wrong, I like having a relationship with my students parents but when I just had a conference with the same parent the night before for a half hour (the same as everyone else) I don't think I should have to give up another 45 minutes of my work time to discuss the same exact thing. The second parent that stopped in thought his wife was "sugar coating" his sons academics- goodbye another 45 minutes. I shouldn't be complaining that these parents are invested but at the same time some of us teachers live for an un-interrupted work time. I've heard they exist :)

Conference Night
Top: NY and CO button-up
Bottoms: Gap Trouser

 Comfy Sunday
 Top: Gap Open Cardigan (LOVE!)
Tank Lands End Canvas
Pants: AE Boyfriend
Shoes: Target Converse ($11)

 Denim Friday!!!
Top: Gap Favorite T (a staple all year)
 Tank from Mossimo at Target
Pants: Express Editor

 Work Day/ Make-up Conferences (Bleh!)
Top: Gap Boyfriend Sweater (old)
Gap Favorite T-shirt
Pants: Old Navy Khakis (these fit kind of weird, something about them)

 Saturday Errands
Top: Old Navy T-shirt
L/S Gap Favorite T
Scarf: Gap Outlet
Pants: Gap Sexy Boot

Sorry the days are so crazy! I just noticed how messy they are.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Just tryin' to get stuff done.

Tucker's 5th birthday is Friday night- that's 5 more days of prep. I am taking a personal day Friday from school just so I won't feel rushed trying to get the last minute things done after school. While I love the idea of seeing everyone and hanging out for long periods I also didn't want to lose our entire weekend to the party by throwing it on Saturday evening. Like typical Cali I have my festive list made with tasks labeled by day:
I'm super excited to make these colorful covered pretzels from Baked Perfection


Of course we'll have Oreo truffles but I plan to use some white chocolate and use orange food coloring to make them look like pumpkins.

And these look so cute and yummy!!

I've been blog stalking these lovely ladies all month for great ideas and they did not disappoint:
 Tatertots and Jello
Just a Girl
Be Different Act Normal

I'm excited the party is finally here but of course worried about everything! Will the kids have fun, will they like to activities? Will the parents enjoy themselves? What will they think? Of course the Man swoops in with his thoughts of, "Who cares? We're feeding them and providing entertainment for the night!" Gotta love a man's idea of a party :)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

What I wore Wednesday!

Yep, you bet, I'm a day late again :)

Running late simply outfit day
 Shirt- Gap
Pants- Old Gap flare
Necklace- NY and Co

BEST DRESS UP DAY EVER
Top- White tank Gap
Pink tank Old Navy
Pants-PJ bottoms Old Navy
(I did have a fleece zip up too but left it in the car)

Amazingly similar to another outfit
 Top- NY and Co
Cami- Express (live by these)
Pants- Gap Trouser

Flower Child Cami Day
Cardigan- Gap
Cami- flower from Old Navy
 white cami- Express
Pants- Old Navy

Last week was homecoming so there was a lack of outfits being that I wore school apparel a couple days. Hope that explains the PJ's, I live for those two days each year during our homecoming weeks, I was so comfortable but the kids were a little sluggish. I'm linking up to the Pleated Poppy this week, be sure to check out all the cute outfits.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Freeze!

So I gave a hint about an upcoming change in our house a while back. Now that things are actually in motion I figured it was time to share. When my hubby grows up, he wants to be this guy:
Okay, so this guy precisely, but same line of work. When I first met the Man he mentioned how in high school he had always wanted to be a cop but at that point in his life he wasn't ready for that responsibility. Flash forward about 10 years. We get a new neighbor who happens to be a cop, who loves his job, and is literally one of the best guys I know. We hang out a lot and heard some about his work but I didn't think too much of it.

We also discovered that my school liaison and husband went to high school together and he his best friends with our neighbor. Small world for sure. The Man spends more time talking with these guys, after attending some "game nights" with their "group" of guys I can tell something is up. He does a ride-along with our neighbor and I knew the wheels in the Man's head were rolling. Up to this point the Man has been going to school for IT (information technology) and would be graduating in May.

But now he's dropped his classes and transferred to a different local college- thankfully much cheaper! Starting in January he'll be going to school during the day instead of at night. Unfortunately none of his previous credits will be transferred (don't even get me started on that) so he'll be starting from scratch.

We haven't told our extended family yet, just our parents know but we're pretty excited. I've told a very good friend of mine and I've talked with our two "cop buddies" enough to have complete confidence of my husband. One person asked if I was worried that this was just the Man going after a different dream and then changing his mind, but really I think this is a great line of work for him. All I can hope for is that he's safe and loves his job no matter what.

Anyways, that's our news. So, for any cop spouses out there, any advice?