Catching up on December

I have been really bad at my blog posts this month, but it is for all good reasons! There was just SO much going on as I am sure you can all agree on that!

Here is a catch up on what Holland and I have been up to the past few weeks.

Hollands sister graduated with her Masters in Education! She has been working SO hard and not only did she get her M.Ed, but she also has two kids and a full time job! Any one of those tasks is a lot to handle, but Allison did amazing at all three which is not so surprising if you know her. She is one of the greatest people I know and gives her full heart into everything that she does.

Allison and her Husband, Kevin. 

The Bailey Family

Future Aggie graduate! :)

 We celebrated all of Allison's hard work at the Gribbles house in New Braunfels.  We decorated, sat around and relaxed, walked down to the river and played with lots of sweet little babies.

Raya and her cousin, Katie. 

Baby Michael. 

Another thing we did this December was prepare for Christmas.  At school, my students put on a Holiday concert, we made homemade ornaments for the kids to give to their families and we sang a bunch of jungle bell rock and the most favorite song for my class was Feliz Navidad. It was really funny to hear them sing it. It sounded more like "Marie Namipah".

I tried to take on a task this year of making many of my Christmas gifts. There were stressful times but in the end they all turned out amazing. My favorite project was these etched glass baking dishes. Believe it or not, finding the dishes was the most difficult part! I got the idea off interest and put my own spin on it and instead of using amor etch acid I used Martha Stewart etching cream from Michaels. This was the most expensive item at $25.00 but I made 7 of these babies and I still have half a bottle left !

All you need is
*glass to etch on
*exacto knife
*contact paper
*etching cream
*Old paintbrush

I found the more you "clump on" the cream the better the end product.
How to Etch Glass Step by Step instructions

My Kinder Team with their presents! They all loved them :)

This year, I went extremely simple with my wrapping. I only spend 3 dollars on some green raffia for my ribbon and a few dollars on the plain brown bags. My mom had a HUGE roll of butcher paper in her garage that I stole to be my main wrapping paper.  I printed pictures from people face books so I did not have to purchase labels.  Everyone seemed to love this twist on gift wrapping! I plan to do this again next year.

My cousin PP and her husband visited for a week for Christmas. My days with her were limited since Holland and I spend Christmas out east with his family so we made it worthwhile and got to open presents a week before Christmas!

Although Billy looks very serious, he and PP loved their I Tx TX shirts and were very excited to get to wear them back in Chicago!

For my birthday a few years ago, one of my best friends, Allison gave me a necklace like this. Except it had a map of Amsterdam because that was one of the cities we traveled to together in Europe!  It is called a "Where The Heart is Necklace".  The jeweler uses recycled materials to create these beautiful necklaces.  I contacted her about making a San Antonio one for PP and she was very excited to! Check out her shop!
 Bowie And Franchesca Shop

For my sister, I used a shadow box and decorated it with paper and stickers and Holland drilled a slit at the top so she can drop all her movie and concert tickets in there. Thought it was a great way to show off all the tickets. She is crazy about movies, popcorn and country music. 

 Last but not least, I spend a good chunk of fortune on Hollands present this year. I got him a Go Pro camera.  He had already figured out what it was because I told him how much I had spent and he already had his suspicions.  This is a camera that you can strap to yourself to do crazy stuff- PERFECT FOR HOLLAND RIGHT?!  We used this camera on our ski trip and boy did he capture some amazing stuff. I have just finished a video of the pictures from our trip to Vermont, but there is going to be an entire separate video for the skiing part!

I hope that you all had an extremely great Holiday! We are heading up the Lake House to bring in 2013! I will post the ski videos soon!

Mama said my shoes could take me ANYWHERE!

 You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their shoes..... where they goin'..... where they been........ -Forrest Gump

Well I have been having issues with my left foot. It has been going on for the past three months and after seeing two podiatrists and having my chiropractor readjust it two times I went and bought some NEW SHOES!!! - Per request from my dr. I saw her when I was 7 or 8 years old when I fractured my right foot so it was funny to see her reaction today when she saw me today.

She examined me and told me I have some plantar fascia tendonitus blabidiblah. My diagnosis had way too many syllables to remember and I was just glad she knew what it was!  I got wrapped up in this fancy pink bandage to take pressure off my tendon and a letter for work stating that I need to be excused for wearing tennis shoes to school for the next 6 months.  I looove me some shoes other than tennis that is for sure. We will see how this goes!

The foot wrap- have to keep it like this for 3 days! I think my big toe looks funny all pulled down. 

Hannah loves her momma's stinky "broken" foot.

I havent gotten a new pair of shoes in over three years! We will see where these take me. Hopefully away from having to see doctors for my foot- what a way to make you feel old!

Thanks mama for the early Christmas present :).  

Texas December

ITS DECEMBER!!! I cannot believe Christmas is literally around the corner.  Especially since this past weekend we got to experience 80 degree weather. It was really entertaining to go to Michaels and Garden Ridge and see people buying everything to make their homes wintery while wearing flip flops and shorts. 

 I have only bought ONE Christmas gift. I am at a loss for everything else but have come to the conclusion that I may just make all my gifts.  I feel like it means more and is cherished unlike a store bought item. I dunno, maybe its just me? I made my cousin in california an ornament out of her wedding bouquet that I caught in October All you need is dried flowers and a clear ornament and VOILA! INSTANT AWESOME GIFT TO KEEP A MEMORY FOREVER!

Before Thanksgiving my mom and I went to Hobby Lobby and I purchased some paper mache brown ornaments. I have been in love with these since I worked at the GLBT resource center and we bought oodles of them to decorate for our Spirit Tree.  EVERY YEAR since then Hobby Lobby runs out. Probably because they start setting up their Christmas Section in July.  I grabbed up four of them and they are REALLY inexpensive.  I think they were half off(like everything in HL) and they were only a buck or so each. I used some scrapbook paper, modge podge and printed pictures from my printer from home.  I like the antique feel it shows in the pictures.   It got tough only getting to choose four but I wanted to get pictures that meant something to Holland and I. I put a picture recently taken at the lake house, from our trip to Canada, leisure diving this summer and a mountain Holland and I hiked in Colorado. I want to keep this tradition going every year!

 I wrote something on each ornament so that way when I get old I can hopefully still read my handwriting and say "oh yea, Holland. Remember this when we were young and could climb a mountain? and "Oh remember that time we went to Canada, eh?

I have been seeing all these pinterest crafts you can do with kids.  Yes I have 20  kindergarten students but I would much rather test these things out on my dogs first because they cannot complain and I can hold 'em down and force them to do what I want ;). They cooperated greatly and kept thinking I was feeding them somthing!

 To make the salt dough, I used 4 cups of flour and a cup of salt and poured water little by little until it was mixed enough. Probably used about a cup and a quarter of water total. Once dough is mixed you can roll out and cut out or shape circles and put print in. I used a straw to make the hole for the string to hang on the tree.  I baked at 300 for about an hour.  Really based on thickness, just bake it until it is firm.  SO EXCITED to hang these babies on my tree!

ITS SO PURDY!

 Now I know all you crazy people up north get snow and its all magical but I bet I can make you jealous with what Holland and I had this past weekend. We kinda had snow.... it came from our tree.... well the tree that is kinda funky looking now.

Our tree in front of the house we have been renting for over a year has been slowly going downhill. Part of it fell last year into our neighbors driveway and he was trapped in his house for a day.  Ever since then I have been talking with the landlord to chop down the other loose limbs!  He came on Saturday with a chain saw and two helpers and now I can sleep through a storm without fear of a tree coming through the house and landing on my furry children(YAY!!!). However, there was a HUGE mess and tons of wood chips all over the roof and yard so Holland and I synergized together to get the job down faster. Holland got on the roof and made some snow for ten minutes and we had our own Texas Winter Wonderland.

Our house looks kinda small with Holland standing on top of it!

Look at that! Makes you want to make a wood chip angel doesn't it?!

Two hours later and our house looks fantastic! Looking forward to the next few weeks at school and crafts with the kiddos.  I am excited to see and ski on REAL snow in just three more weeks!

How Pinteresting!

So I have been reading all of my friends status updates on Facebook saying what they are thankful for for Thanksgiving. I am thankful for all the people in my life and my good health and I could go on and on and on. Lets get down to business....  I am SO THANKFUL FOR PINTEREST!

Pinterest has either totally limited by creativity or just made me spend so much time and money on projects because I cannot help it and I want anything and everything that looks efficient, adorable and crafty in our house.  With the extra time on my hands this week, I have been pinning like a mad woman. However, I was able to actually do some of these pins since I had time! These are by far my favorite finds this week!

Okay so ladies and gents- you know how when you paint your nails and you stay sitting and refuse to do anything that may smudge or mess up your polish? I do! I came across this pin and really I thought "No way does that work!".  So I tried it! I painted my nails with the color coat and then put on a clear coat, immediately sprayed Pam, yes PAM COOKING OIL on both my hands, counted to ten then washed my hands. HOLY MOLY IT WORKED! It looked like I went to the nail salon to get my nails done!! Truly amazing.

For the link on Pinterest follow this: PAM ON NAILS!

Holland and I are renting an older home. I have been wanting to regret the tub but refuse because we down own this house.  There has been this ridiculously gross ring of mold around the tub that I have scrubbed countless times but nothing happens.  I just gave up and have dealt with it for some time now UNTIL I CAME ACROSS A PIN ON PINTEREST!  This blog said that you get the long strings of cotton from Sally's(the kind you use for perms) they are about 2 dollars a bag for 10 feet of cotton. One bag is enough to line your tub.  You soak the cotton in bleach(holland advised me to mix the bleach with water so I did half bleach/half water).  Line the cotton around your tub, you can use a q tip to push into the edges. Leave over night and VOILA!! THE MOLD IS GONE THE MOLD IS GONE!!!! This was like an early Christmas Gift to me! The other point I would make on this is to use some latex gloves so your hands done get all bleachy!

For Pinterest Pin:   Getting MOLD out of SHOWER


Okay so Enough about oil and nasty mold in the showers, I made my first Christmas Craft!! I saw this at Hollands cousins house last year and have been wanting to make one every since.

For Pinterest Pin: Clothes pin Wreath

You only need a few items- clothespins wire hanger, wooden beads and fun scrap book paper. Cutting the paper was the longest thing to do for this project. I put on a movie and just cut cut cut!

The finished product!

 On Friday I got busy to decorating for Christmas! I am still unsure about putting up a tree because we will not be here for Christmas day but I WANT TO PUT UP ALL OUR ORNAMENTS!

 Our elf on the shelf! Hopefully he doesn't make as much of a mess in our house as Bleu does!

Turkey vacation is over. Four weeks until We are off to skiing in Vermont for Christmas!

Twilight!!

I am saddened (with the rest of the world) that the Twilight Saga is now over!!! For the past 5 years, I have dreamed about Twilight, always waiting anxiously for the next movie to come out!

 I was a sophomore in college when I heard about the books.  Once I got a hold of the first book and flew through it, it did not take much time for me to read the other three.  LUCKILY, all the books were released when I discovered them so I did not have to wait for a book release! I read all the books before the first movie came out.  I went to the first midnight showing with three of my best friends, Allison, Jessica and Deanne.  We made it like we had a date with Edward. We were all so excited to meet Edward as he came to life on screen from everything we had read from the books. I CANNOT express how awesome it is to fall in love with a book and then watch it come alive in front of you.  Yes, the Twilight movies have gotten mixed reviews, mainly people saying how ridiculous they are and how terrible the acting is. To me, it did not matter. I WAS IN LOVE WITH IT!! I saw the first movie seven times..... yes 7 times in the movie theaters.  I was living in College Station and the movie tickets were $4.00 and I was obsessed. The obsession grew over the years and if you really know me, you know how much I love this series! 

After the first movie was released, my friend Allison made me a new profile picture for my Facebook. I put it up in celebration of the second movie coming out!! Even though Edward is hardly in it I was still pumped!!

My cousin got me a life-sized Edward for Christmas and he stayed with me and scared me all the time!! Hannah did not like him, I agreed with her that the real Edward would be better!

My friends and I would stumble upon the most hilarious Twilight Spoofs and we would laugh so hard together. This by far is my favorite. Funny Twilight Spoof 

This twilight spoof started the jokes of the vampire teeth with fingers.  Also phrases like "Get on my back! We're going for a VAMPIRE RIDE!"

This was at the Eclipse Midnight showing.  My mom and I got there 6 hours before the movie started!!

Spring 2010 Spring Break in Canada looking for Edward

For my 22nd Birthday my mom got me Twilight plates for the cake!! :)

For the last movie, I felt the same excitement to go see it. Since I am a real adult now I did not go tot he Midnight showing but went to see it Friday evening after work.  My friend Sarah pick me up so we could go wait in line to get a good seat! Holland and Jon met us later.  Sarah and I ordered the most AWESOME VAMPIRE MOVIE DRINK EVER!! They brought my drink when I got up to go use the rr and when I got back there was blood, I mean sangria all over the table.  Luckily they brought me another one no charge.

My by far favorite moment of the last movie was the very last scene when Bella moved her shield so that Edward can finally read her mind. I was balling like a baby. Literally, tears streaming down my face.  Holland told me to get a hold of myself and I tried but it was like a time warp watching all the old scenes of them together. It finally hit me that this was over.

 My friend Jon was hilarious with his comments at the end of the movie. If you have seen it- you know at the end when the credits roll and they were showing every single actor/actress that had been in the films? People in our theatre were clapping and Jon was like "um, is this graduation or something? Then we were standing outside the theatre Jon said there was a specific line Bella said that was just sooo Cheesy. I knew EXACTLY what line.

Me: the part where she says no one can every love anyone the way that I love you?!"
Jon: Yea, I lost it at that point.
 Me: MEEE TOOO. Well I lost it in a different way....


I loved the books, I loved the movies. I just LOVED it all.

p.s. The soundtrack is AWESOME.  Got mine at Target for 10 dollars! go get yours!

Thankful for Teaching

I am unsure of when I truly decided to become a teacher. Up until I was a senior in High School approaching graduation, I wanted to be a nurse. Then, my thoughts took a different turn as I decided I wanted to teach. FOR ANYONE who says that quote" Those who can, do and those who can't, teach" Feel free to come and sub for my class ANY DAY!  There are many things I CAN do and teaching, thankfully is one of them :).  

This is my second year teaching kindergarten and OH. My. Goodness.  So fun, exhilarating, exhausting, fulfilling and giving all at the same time.  There is nothing like the moment you have your first out of body experience when your classroom is chaotic, you have 20 five year olds demanding for your attention all at once and you kind of float up in the air and have an out of body experience.  At the end of the day, I shake every one of my students hands and I am anxious to see them again tomorrow.  Every day(or week) I look back and remember how far they have already come from the beginning of  the school year.  

Bottom line. I am thankful for my job, for my colleagues and for my students.  With every job comes challenges but in the end, it will always make you a better person and in my case- it makes me a better teacher! 

These past weeks have been SO much fun. The kids have been so engaged in our lessons on capacity, they are SO excited every time they see a popcorn word they recognize and they are pumped about all the Fall Holidays we have been talking about and celebrating. On October 1st they all came into school thinking it was Halloween. I remember when I was younger and my teacher showed me the calendar and I was so bummed to realize it was the VERY LAST DAY. My class still was excited ALL month. We counted down how many days until Halloween and we made jack o lanterns we measured pumpkins and we heard about their spooky plans. We are now onto Thanksgiving. Thankfully, they are still very excited and we have been doing some really cute crafts. 

Today, we made some sentence strip pumpkins! All you need are the following:

*Sentence strips cut into half

* metal brads

*Hole punch

*green construction paper

*green pipe cleaner

*markers/crayons

We first talked about what Thanksgiving was and how it is a time of the year where you reflect on what you are thankful for. I explained to them that we can be thankful for people we have in our lives, things that we have or simple things like good health, food, pets, freedom etc.  

I wrote down ahead of time the students name and left a blank for them to write their thing they were thankful for in. I wrote what they wanted on post its so they could copy it down and for some kids I highlighted it so they could trace over.  The answers I got were hilarious. I think one of my favorites was " I am thankful for popsicles". Seriously, everyone always forgets about poor popsicles!

I gave each student a blank sentence strip as well to color in so the pumpkins would have some color. I advised them to use "fall color like green, orange, yellow, red and I got pink, blue and what I like to call "classic Kindergarten Pumpkins" I still LOVED the way they came out. These will be table decorations at our school Thanksgiving Feast!

One you have your sentence strips( I made a pumpkin for each table so 8 1/2 strips) hole punch each end and put brad through and pull paper out slowly to form pumpkin. Twirl pipe cleaner around them and attach with construction paper  leaf.  

Thankful for McDonalds!

I had three students say they were thankful for me! Way to make me tear up! 

Capacity!

In Math, we have been learning about capacity! We did the best lesson ever to introduce capacity. We gathered all the students in our common area and had them estimate how many mashmallows each kinder teacher could fit in their mouth.  Two of us used the small marshmallows and the other two of my team members used the large marshmallows. The kids were SO great with their estimates. They were so engaged and counted along as we put the marshmallows in our mouths.

Deiley got 79 small marshmallows in!

I got 70 small marshmallows in!

Gurka got 4 large marshmallows!

Ramirez for 3 large marshmallows in!

Tomorrow we are doing our second Thanksgiving project. A Turkey hat!!! Hopefully they will turn out as well as our pumpkins did!

What are you thankful for today? I am for sure thankful for this cool weather! Breaking out my boots and scarves for the week!

Have a great week everyone!