Crock Pot Gumbo

I have said it before and I will say it again, I love my crockpot! I especially like it while teaching during the year because I don't have to stand over the stove and cook! It is nice in the summertime because you have more time to prepare and cut ingredients and not rush. A few weeks ago, I made crockpot gumbo! I found the recipe online here:Crock Pot Gumbo

I had never made gumbo before and the reason I wanted to try it was because we had so much okra from our garden. We had other ideas for it such as breading them and frying them up then Holland suggested okra. I was quick to get on the computer and find a recipe that I would not have to hover over and babysit for hours and Voila! Here is the finished product.

Okra on steroids, not really but they look like it!

The recipe says it takes 20 minutes prep but I feel like it takes almost 40-45 minutes. you have to cook chicken and the sausage and cut all the veggies up. Maybe I just cook like an old lady or I just take my time. I would never make it on one of those cooking shows where you only have 30 minutes to cook and plate a dish. **Also, I did not put in shrimp like the recipe calls for, Holland is allergic to shellfish at times. He totally would have eaten it though but I do not want to have to use the EpiPen on him just yet!**

After hours of cooking it smelled awesome! I made some white rice to serve it over and some french garlic bread. Everyone loved it and it makes great leftover too.

Leader In Me

The Leader in Me is an innovative, schoolwide model that emphasizes a culture of student empowerment and helps unleash each child’s full potential. -Leader in me Website! 

 Check it out!

Today I met up with some of my coworkers to get the ball rolling on transforming our school into a Leader In Me School!! It was so great hanging out with everyone since we have not seen each other since the last day of May! We had a meeting at the end of the year where we brainstormed ideas and typed out all the quotes we loved about being a leader. The leader in me program/organization focuses on 7 habits of healthy, happy kids.  Some things include: Being proactive, putting first things first, beginning with the end in mind, synergizing, sharpening the saw, think win-win and begin with the end in mind.  My Kinder Team and I started to paint inspirational quotes and pictures in our common area where the students wait for us to pick them up in the morning. We were hesitant to start but as my friend Lindsey said" Anything on these walls is better than nothing!"So True! These beige walls look WAY better with some color on them!

We are going to try and find some "shatter less" round mirror to put in the faces so that students can see themselves. We have no mirrors in the bathrooms or in the classrooms in our area so we thought they would enjoy that!

Each Kinder Teacher (there are 4 of us) is going to nominate a student each week who exhibits positive leadership in the classroom. We want to put their picture along with a little questionnaire about who they think is a leader and what being a leader means to them.

I LOVE this quote. We used to hate this area by the restrooms and now we love it!

It is important to all of us that these inspirational quotes are everywhere to serve not only as visual reminders to the students but also to the teachers as well. 

Who would have thought that a projector would still come in handy these days?!

We still have a large amount of work ahead of us but it all starts with a small group of people and change can and will come. I cannot wait to see the look on the students' faces when they return for school in August. More pictures to come as we get more done!

They're SO FLUFFY!!

Left to right: Snow, PanChan, Chance, Anne and Spec

PUPPIES PUPPIES PUPPIES!!!!!!! Seriously, you could be having a terrible, horrible, no good bad day... You know what I would prescribe you if I was a doctor? HOLDING A PUPPY! All stress and anger would diminish in a matter of seconds and your heart would start melting like a stick of butter. They are all just absolutely precious!!!It is crazy to think that I was there a month ago waiting for them all to make their appearance....

just a few hours old and Spec was still in Sadie at this point!

Sadie with her only girl pup, Anne. 

Feedings have become a little more crowded! Look at all that beautiful fluff!

Holland and I have tried to go by as much as possible to watch them grow and change. They have gone from looking like little guinea pigs with their eyes closed to these beautiful little things. Let me introduce them to you!

Spec, Male Blue Myrle. 

 Spec to me has my favorite colors! I usually refer to him as Sadies "mini-me",  He is also the little cryer. When we visit he peeps his head over his pen and begs for a human to carry him. Once he is held all is good in the world and he is at peace. This was the last puppy to be born that survived! Sadie had 3 puppies that were still-born but Spec was the last one out!

PanChan, Male Black Tri. 

 PanChan has been pulling at my heart strings lately. Holland has been in love with him since day one. If we were to pick a dog, I believe this would be the one that made it back to the house with us. He just has this awesome calm but playful personality. It also looks like he has on a white jacket! I am currently trying to talk Hollands brother, Whitney into taking this one!

Chance, Male Red Tri. 

 Of the eight deliveries that Sadie did within the 30 hours after going into labor, Chance has the most spectacular story. He was the first born but he was delivered in a separate room of the house(with none knowing!) and soon after his delivery Sadie gave birth to two more puppies. Chance was found with all the birth materials still attached to him and a blue tongue. Hollands parents are unsure of how long he was alone but they quickly took him to Sadie to get warmed up. When I got to the house he still had not eaten and was not attempting to attach to get some food. He came around and nursed like a champ and in the end, had a second CHANCE at life. Chance will be staying at the Lawrence household as their second Aussie. Lucky guy gets to stick with his Momma for the rest of his life :).

Snow, Male Red Myrle.

Snow is the runt and although he had to fight off the rest of the litter to get fed, Hollands parents let him get fed all by himself so that he could put on some extra weight. He is SOO sweet. He always lays on your chest and stays very still. He has beautiful blue eyes and will make a great addition to the family he gets with. (If he makes it out of Hollands moms grip... I think this is her favorite even though she will not admit it!)

Anne, Female red Myrle. 

 Remember that picture at the beginning with Sadie!? This is her!! The only girl pup and boy is she tough. She is no doubt going to have to be a running dog. She already chases her mom and Mr.Whit around the house and she is SO playful. Beautiful blue eyes and great markings too.

Puppies discovering shoe laces!

Holding these little balls of fur is so relaxing. They are getting so big so fast though! Every time we go over there is another milestone. They have awesome people taking care of them and their momma is spectacular and watching over them. It is pretty funny to see Sadie interact with them now that they are ready to play and get rough.

 We had a wonderful weekend! Hope you did too. Off to bed, nighty night!

July Love

I love the beginning of July because it is a time where I get to help celebrate two awesome people in my life, My mom and my sister, Vanessa.

Third of July
We celebrated my moms birthday at the lakehouse last weekend.  Her actual birthday is on July 3rd but she is so awesome that we celebrated all weekend as well. My mom got her wish of finally having our own broil at the house and MY OH MY was it delicious. GREAT IDEA MOM!!

Fourth Of July
For the actual Holiday of July 4th. We had dinner with our friends Jon, Sarah, Dan, Megan and Josh and then we drove downtown to watch the fire works. WOW. BEST. FIREWORK. SHOW. EVER.  It lasted about 20 minutes but I swear there was always at least 3 fireworks exploding at all times. I am always amazed by fireworks. It does not matter how often you have seen them, but when they come on everyone just stop and stares at the dark sky and everyone says stuff like "Oooh, look at that one" and "oh my gosh!, so beautiful!" Noone is worried about checking their phones or talking too much to the person next to them. They really are beautifully entertaining.

Eighth of July 
Today my sister hit the big three two! We had a really relaxing day at my parents house. We laid by the pool, swam, barbecued,  chatted and listened to the Kardashians playing in the background (Thank you dad!).

Yummy fajitas!

Vanessa and Dawn and Stella the chi weenie. 

It is good that the fourth of July always falls between my sister and my moms birthday. It is perfect because fireworks describe both of their personalities. They are both strong, colorful, loud and always entertaining to any crowd they come across. They are also both very hyper and I am 99.9% sure that my sister got all her ADHD genes from my mom because she never sits down.  They both have hearts of gold and they are both very forgiving.
 Life with both of them is fun and always an adventure and I look forward to many more years of celebrating their birthdays with fireworks in between. Love you both so much!

Fearless!

Our friend Sarah had her birthday celebration at Paintball Knights today! She ran the idea by us a few weeks ago and wanted to make sure we would go and play. I played paintball MANY years ago and I had not been back since. I figured I should give it another try and we would be playing against people we knew so it would make it more entertaining.

We thought it would be awesome! I was not even really nervous about playing until I had the sun beating down on me and a mask covering my face and paintballs flying towards me! The first few games I was SO sneaky and I ran to the nearest barrier and stayed there and attempted to shoot the other team members. I took my first paintball in the arm and it stung but it wasn't that bad after about a minute... must have been the adrenaline running through my veins!

I started to notice that all the other people on my team would fire off towards the other side of the field while they ran to their barrier at the beginning of the game. About game 3 is where I became more ambitious and decided to try this tactic.... However I ended up just shooting my friend Jon right in the back of the neck while he was about 8 feet away from me! ** I did not use this move for the remainder of the day**I felt terrible and kept apologizing and Jon tried to make me not feel bad because he knew it was an accident and he just said" You know, I have always wanted to know how it felt to get hit so close and it really isn't that much worse than when you get hit from far away.." Poor Jon even got hit in the mouth, luckily he had a mask to protect him though!

Jon and Sarah 

Holland and Dan

We had an awesome time at Paintball!! My favorite games were capture the piñata!!! We all got a few battle bruises to show how tough we were today!

After paint balling we were so nasty and sweaty and well...covered in paint, so we went swimming at Sarah's neighborhood pool.  We played geronimo where one person stands outside of the pool and everyone else holds onto the ledge in the pool and people take off swimming and the person outside of the pool has to try and catch them. We started diving off the diving board and jumping in and then the guys just got a little crazy and started doing flips. The girls decided to make it a competition and we gave the guys titles for each round like: Biggest cannon ball, longest dive, smallest wave, etc. etc. AND THEN IT HAPPENED! Megan suggested leisure diving and then that consumed the rest of our time at the pool. Do you know what leisure diving is? Take a look at the best pictures captured of today.

We were all laughing hysterically and all the guys I am sure are sore from this because they literally did this for about 30 minutes straight and it just kept getting better and better each time. It then transitioned from leisure diving to free leisure diving.

We had such an awesome day, but we are REALLY tired and a little sore. Motrin here we come! Thank you Sarah for letting us be a part of celebrating your birthday! We always know we are going to have an amazing time with you wherever we go. :)

P.s. How cool do we look with our purple and red bruises?! A little painful but totally worth the fun!