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!

Weekend Rewinds

Fall is here and thankfully, weekends have been going by slower than usual. They are still over within a blink of an eye. However, lately I have felt so relaxed and refreshed and ready to conquer the next week. I have appreciated the fall-ish weather for Texas. I will take the 85 degree temperature and attempt to throw on a scarf and boots! I am so ready for San Antonio to hit those really chilly nights.  

Some Highlights from our Fall weekends. 

1) Finally purchasing pumpkins! We got our pumpkins last weekend before Halloween.  I am OBSESSED with Fairytale Pumpkins and I loved the baby white ones I found.  We did not carve any pumpkins. I have found that just leaving them as is makes them last SOOOO much longer. 

Hannah and Bleu with our Pumpkins on the porch.

2) BAKING! I have been baking so much lately and I love it. It distresses me, even though I make a total mess in the kitchen. I love the smell of a house when you walk in and something has been baking. Last weekend I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies and this weekend I made Hollands grandmas recipe for Banana Bread. YUM.

3) Coffee with mom. Last Friday I had coffee and a lemon bar with my mom at our favorite stops, Local Coffee and Bird Bakery.  It had been one of "those" days and it was so nice to just sit and vent for bit, eat a lemon bar and move on.  My mom got both of us coffee mugs with a "B" on it. She told me it can stand for Bruns but it also can stand for Beautiful. I love her, she always knows the right things to say. 

4) Gardening: Holland and I officially started our Fall Garden a few weekends ago.  We have our herbs in the garden still but we planted Broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, swiss chard, romaine lettuce, cabbage and mixed greens.  Everything is growing very nicely. It is nice to have new plants in the beds to tend to.

So, you see that space in the front of the bed that looks empty? That is where we planted our romaine seeds that look like this now.

5) Last but not least- getting woken up on sleep in days by these two adorable faces.

This is my side of the bed and as you can see it is VERY narrow. It is hilarious to watch Bleu turn around.  They both know their momma wakes up way before their dad does! 

SNUGGLY TIME! 

When I die, I want to come back as one of my dogs :)

Two weeks until Thanksgiving Break! Whoop!

CALIFORNIA FINDLAY WEDDING!

Last weekend we traveled to California for my cousin, Michelle's wedding. I do not think it could have been a more perfect place, time and EVERYTHING in between to get married. The first thing I yelled to her the day of the wedding was "ITS A BEAUTIFUL DAY TO GET MARRIED!"

Her and James(her new husband!) worked so hard to make this day special not only for themselves, but for their guests. James' parents cooked the delicious food for the event and from the moment we arrived James and Michelle were non stop hard at work. They were hanging lights, directing people where to set up certain things all up until the hour of the wedding.  I could feel so much love and dedication that James and Michelle had towards one another. Their friends also showed this same love and enthusiasm for the marriage of their two friends. I was SO excited to help set up and be there to celebrate one of the most important days of anyones life.  Congrats to James and Michelle Findlay!  I had way too many pictures to post them all on the blog. So here is a Findlay Wedding Video 

                                                 

Unexpected Halloween

Let me start off by saying, I LOVE FRIDAYS. However, I am sure MANY of you understand that after a long week, sometimes all you want to do on a Friday is put on you pajamas and sit on a couch and watch all the shows you missed. With the cold weather last night Holland and I decided to be adventurous 25 year olds.  Instead of putting on pajamas and watching shows we were going to go to a movie. Believe me, these days that is adventurous for us. We have both been so busy, tired and just overwhelmed.  Going to a movie sounded like a mini vacation.

On our way to the movies we got into contact with our friends, Jon and Sarah. Sarah said there was a Halloween cover band show playing and that maybe we could get dinner and we could decide if we wanted to go. Immediately my brain was like "YES, lets go be social!!!" We arrived at Jon's house and my brain was so fried that it literally took me 5-7 minutes to realize what the show really meant. "HALLOWEEN COVER BAND SHOW". It never crossed my mind in these moments since the phone call that 1) People will probably be wearing costumes. 2) Oh wow.... Holland and I don't even have costumes......3) We are going to be THOSE PEOPLE that look like they just aren't fun and don't dress up...... I walked up to Holland after seeing clearly Jon and Sarah has their costumes ready and I said "I don't know if we should go..... we don't have any costumes.... sadly Holland agreed and we really became ashamed that the Halloween weekend had creeped up on us without us knowing.  We were on the fence on if we should go or not. Sarah, Jon and his mom were pulling out costumes out of this magical closet with really the best costumes EVER. Holland had a lightbulb moment and remembered he had a lederhosen that I got him for his birthday last year and then Sarah's eyes got all big and she said "JONS MOM HAS A GERMAN GIRL OUTFIT!!!"

With a little tweaks and a quick swing back by our house we were on our way to celebrate Halloween weekend.

Jon and Holland being friendly and sharing a drink. 

Sarah the Snail!! Loved her DIY costume!

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 It was the most unplanned thing we have done in a while and I am very glad we did. We got to go see some other peoples great costumes and we got to listen to cover bands that sang songs from the movie Labrynth!!  I hope every one has a very fun and safe Halloween Weekend! :)

Super Bryce is 4!!!

I seriously cannot believe how much this boy has grown up over the past four years! Holland and I are so lucky to have seen Bryce go from a tiny baby to a handsome young man. It really doesn't feel like over four years ago Hollands sister called and told me she was having a boy. Shortly after we were making the nursery sky blue and painting all kinds of farm animals on the walls. It sure has been fun to watch Bryce experience and fall in love with so many things like chop-choo trains, dinosaurs, space and now SUPERHEROES!!!                     

Holland and I went shopping with his mom before heading to Pflugerville to celebrate Bryce's birthday this past weekend and ever since Bryce and his sister Raya were babies, I am the crazy aunt that buys them clothes instead of toys.  Not because I don't want to be fun, but because I know his parents, Allison and Kevin will appreciate not having as many toys in the house and clothes are essential! Plus, let's face it I love to shop for clothes! Even if it is not for myself :)  So at Target after we had made our picks of outfits we went down the toy aisle. 

me: Oh, look Holland its a Thor hammer! That is pretty cool. 

H mom: Yea Bryce really wants one, but I told him his mom said no. 

Holland:(Grabs the Thor hammer immediately) "Then I am getting it for him!"

We then decided that it made no sense whatsoever to get the Thor hammer without the awesome Thor costume and Bryce was ELATED. Allison, not so much. She has already stated that we will get our payback whenever we have kids....but look at how AWESOME HE LOOKS!!

Bryce's Birthday cake! 

Bryce SO excited about his Thor hammer. Jumbo-obviously very excited to make Bryce happy, even if it makes his sister upset!

Thor made holland fall down and go boom in the bounce house. 

Oma with all the kids in the bounce house. 

Bryce's Birthday was filled with tons of friends from school, soccer team and also family. It was fun to see all the kids and adults get involved with the superhero theme.

                                             Everyone was very excited about cake time!

MMMMM the cake is so good!

Seriously, how handsome is he?!

Bryce testing out his spider web gift on his dad. 

Look at that smile!

 After friends left, Bryce gave us a costume show with all his costumes. He did say that he was going to be Thor for Halloween though! I love his spiderman pose!

Time flies when you are having fun.  I know Allison and Kevin both feel that way.  SO much has happened in the past four years and I Love that when Allison went to the grocery store she bought a "3" candle instead of a "4". I know she is holding on to these years like precious gold!  Life is all about the experience and making memories to last a lifetime and that was for sure done this weekend at the Bailey house.  WHOO HOOO on first birthday party at the house! Thanks for having us to celebrate Bryce's special day :)

Baby pictures of Bryce, Just for Fun! :)