A Great Guy, TV Debut #2, and A Tag of 8

I have to take this time to let the whole world know just how great my hubby is. This week he has gone back to his normal shift at work which means he is supposed to be there at 7AM. I love this because it means he gets home at a reasonable time (5:30ish). The past two days he has gotten up and showered before me. Then he fixes the two of us breakfast and comes and wakes me up. Yes ladies, I've had breakfast in bed two days in a row. He acts like it is nothing because my breakfast is a bowl of cereal and a glass of chocolate milk. But babe, this little thing you've done the past two days has been incredibly special. Do you cook an elaborate breakfast? No, you do something even better. You take the time to think of me. But I must say after two days I'm spoiled. :) I could definitely get used to this.

Change of subject... Remember back in December & January when my student council participated in a local TV station's Stuff the Sleigh contest? We collected toys for children in our area and decorated a POD. We won the decorating portion of the contest and were awarded Breakfast with Tom, the weather guy. It was a lot of fun so when one of the members came to me about Tom's latest contest, I signed us up. This time we have collected cereal. The contest ended Friday and for the past two days I've had 461 boxes of cereal sitting in my room. I've barely been able to get to my desk. PODS came by today to pick up the cereal. They informed us that we had A LOT of cereal. So much in fact that just by looks they thought we would take 1st or 2nd place for middle school. We are so excited. I am taking four students (the top cereal bringer for each grade) to a Wrap-Up party Thursday morning. We will be eating breakfast with Tom at Golden Corral from 5-7AM. This means I will be making my 2nd TV debut. They will announce the winners at breakfast. Crossing our fingers that we win. If we do we get breakfast with Tom again at the Weather Garden at the station.

And now for a tag. Jennifer tagged me for this 8 Things thing. So here it goes.

Here are the instructions for 8 Things:
* Mention the person that tagged you
* Complete the list of 8 things
* Tag 8 of your wonderful bloggy friends
* Go tell them you tagged them

8 Things I look forward to:

Weekends
*June 2 - Summer Vacation
*Teaching Social Studies next year
*Meeting Baby Averitt & Baby Weaver in November
*My own Babies - I look forward to every part of this - getting to tell my hubby and my mom & dad, watching Drew be a daddy, being a mommy, - the whole shabang
* My scrapbook desk finally being finished
* Sundays
* Seth & Ashlee's wedding
* Reach the final step of Dave Ramsey's Financial Plan

8 Things I Did Yesterday:

Made breakfast
*Had breakfast in bed with my hubby
*Laughed at my students' performances
*Hot bath
*Watched TV
*Read my book
*Laundry
*Gave a Science Test
*Finished Ashlee's birthday present

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:

*Sing
*Buy a new wardrobe
*Go on the Newlywed Game
*Disney world with my fam and Andrew's fam
*Have the ultimate classroom
*Go to Hawaii with my hubby (without flying would be even better)
*Send my hubby to New York for Shaun's wedding
*Know what my furbabies are thinking :)

8 Shows I Watch:
*Newlywed Game
*How I Met Your Mother
*Jon and Kate + 8
*18 and Counting
*90210
*Reba (reruns)
*Gilmore Girls (reruns)
*Friends (reruns)


Now I tag.... all of you!! Go ahead and play. I look forward to reading your answers.

The Popcorn Ball and Journey Kids

Friday night, Student Council hosted The Popcorn Ball for grades 6-8. This was the first time I have ever been in charge of anything like this. And while it was a bit stressful and tears were shed, it was a lot of fun. The Popcorn Ball is a dance. Why is called that? That is what my kids came up with. We wanted a theme and we wanted something different. We tossed around several idea and this one seemed to be the easiest and the cutest. It's biggest contender was Boogie Night. Boogie Night lost due to its decorations consisting of boogers. I actually liked this one, but the girls thought it was gross.

Anyways, we stayed after school Friday to decorate our cafeteria. The kids did a wonderful job. The place looked great!! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera there with me to take any pics. :(

The dance started at 7:00. I wish you could have seen these girls. Oh my!! They were dressed to kill. They had their hair all done and their dresses were beautiful. I think I hosted a middle school prom. They were that dressed up.

Andrew came to help me out and brought my camera. I took a several pics. Below is a picture of one of the decorations the kids made. I thought they did an awesome job on it.



One of my students loves to make cakes. She always does an awesome job - both on the appearance of the cake and the taste. Her cakes our unbelievably good. I keep looking for an event where I need a cake so I can hire her. Here is a picture of the cake she made for us.



I also took several pictures of the kids getting their groove on. I don't feel comfortable posting those without permission though, so you will just have to take me word that they had an awesome time.




Now for Journey Kids.... Today was my Sunday working with Journey Kids. At least for a while. We work a month at a time and then rotate. I have really enjoyed my month. It has been such a blessing to spend time with these precious little girls. God has taught me through them. I will definitely miss this time. However, I've also missed being in the service and am looking forward to being in there again.

Get Rich Quick Scheme

Lately I have been thinking about ways I could make a little extra cash. Who isn't these days? Anyways, every day I have a new idea. I wanted to get an outside opinion on today's idea.



I made this to hang in my living room a couple of years ago. It was super easy to make. It is just scrapbook paper and chipboard (sort of like cardboard). The most expensive part was the frame because I chose to buy a nice frame.

I had my computer at school and during some down time a few students wanted to see some pictures of Liberty and Liam. As I was showing them pics of the dogs, I ran across this picture. The girls loved and were all asking me to make them one for their room. Ding!! Light bulb.

I can of course make them match anything since it is scrapbook paper. They can be as crazy or as plain as you want.

My question is how much would you be willing to pay for something like this. Like I said, the cost varies based on the frame. This is my favorite idea for extra cash so far and I guess I'm just curious if it is even worth pursuing.

Power Teaching Works!!!

Last summer while searching for ideas to use in my classroom, I came across something called Power Teaching. I won't go into it because there is a lot that comes with this. I have used bits and pieces of it all year and have absolutely loved it. It is a great way to get students interacting and using vocabulary. If you know a teacher tell them to look it up on Youtube. I've seen it used in kindergarten classes all the way up to college classes.

Okay, back to the point. One part of Power Teaching is that after you introduce a new term, you have the students turn and teach the new term to their neighbor using gestures. They continue teaching until you call them back to attention. When you call them back to attention, all you do is simply say Class. All students immediately say yes, stop what they are doing and you have their attention again. You make interesting my changing the way you say class. The students must respond in the exact same way you said class. So if I say Classity Class, the students say Yessity Yes in the same tone I used. It is lots of fun.

So, for the past few days I've been sharing this with the other teachers at lunch. I knew it worked because I saw my students using their gestures to help them remember things during Benchmark last week. Well, our math teacher tried it today. I was so excited that she did. She is a math teacher and because of that the students do not care for her. She was telling us about today and was just so super excited that it worked. She had their attention immediately. We were laughing so hard because she was just so amazed and excited. I am so happy that I was able to share this with her and that it worked for her. After lunch, I talked to a few students and they were so excited that she was doing this.

One of the sixth grade teachers said that she would like to try it but felt it was pointless now because we are so late in the year. I told her that I had read testimonies where teachers didn't start until March or April and it turned their year around. She is going to try it tomorrow. I am just so excited.

They are also amazed at my technological abilities, but I must give Andrew credit there. He teaches me how to do it. I use power points in my classroom for note taking and that amazes them. I have plans to teach one teacher how to use power point. When I told them I used my cell phone to get online on my laptop, they said I should teach a technology workshop. This just made me think, Andrew could really make some extra money doing this. He is the real technological genius. :)

But in all honesty, credit must be given to all the members at proteacher.net A website every teacher needs to check out. It is a discussion board. I spend hours on there getting more ideas and thoughts than I possibly know what to do with. And then of course, credit goes to God. He has provided me all these things to be able to do this with including the ability. I am so thankful that he made me a teacher. I love my job!!!




I was going to give you the downside of my day too. I made a student cry. :( But since this post has gotten quite lengthy, I'll save that one.

The ABC's of ME

Thought I would let you in on a few more details about me. I'm in need of blogging inspiration and am sadly a sucker for these kinds of things. :)


A - Age: 25

B - Bed Size: Queen

C - Chore you hate: Dishes

D - Dog's name: Liberty Belle & Liam Bailey

E - Essential start your day item: Toothbrush

F - Favorite color: Pink

G - Gold or Silver: Silver

H - Height: 5'3"

I - Instruments you play(ed): Piano & Clarinet

J - Job title: Middle School Teacher

K - Kid(s): Liberty & Liam

L- Living arrangements: With My Husband in our house

M - Mom's name: Patty

N - Nicknames: Wifees

O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Nope

P - Pet Peeve: Students standing at my desk to ask to go the bathroom when they have four minutes between class to go.

Q - Quote from a movie: "Yep. Daylight savings time. My idea."

R - Right or left handed: Right

S - Siblings: I have a younger brother, a soon to be sister-in-law, and lots of brothers and sister-in-laws

T - Time you wake up: The alarm goes off @ 5:30 but it is normally 6:30 before I crawl out of bed.

U- Underwear- Yes I wear them.

V - Vegetable you dislike: All of them

W - Ways you run late: Lay in bed too long

X - X-rays you've had: Teeth, Chest, Arm

Y - Yummy food you make: Cupcakes

Z- Zoo animal you always visit: Giraffes

Feel free to play!!

Three Less

Well, Andrew now has three less teeth in his head. :) He is handling it very well. I did just fine at the doctor's off although I did get a little nervous after they took him back.

We have changed his gauze twice now and I do not do well with this. I see those bloody gauze and immediately feel like I'm going to throw up. Guess that why God made me a teacher instead of a nurse. :) He just took his first pain pill and dose of antibiotics.

As of right now, we are both laying in bed taking it easy. I figure you will find us doing this all weekend. :) Praying the bleeding stops soon. How long does that normally last?

Thanks for your prayers today for the both of us. We appreciate it.

Yesterday and Tomorrow

Yesterday was Liam Bailey's birthday. At least it is the day we claim to be his birthday. We know he was probably born sometime in April, but we don't have an exact day since he was found on the street as a puppy. Andrew and I decided the middle of the month would be as good a choice as any so we chose the 15th.

He of course had no idea it was his birthday but we celebrated all the same. He got lots of love yesterday and last night for dessert he got a birthday ice cream cone. Don't worry it wasn't that much ice cream. I held him and let him lick off the cone for a few minutes to get a good picture. I'll post those later. Then I put him down to make Lib a cone too. I broke off the bottom part of the cone and put them in their bowls. Liam Bailey ate like all the ice cream at once. We looked up and he was just chopping on this huge ball of ice cream. From the look on his face, he had to have had puppy brain freeze. :) I felt bad for him, but it was pretty funny. :) So my little guy is one now. He is a big boy. LOL!


Now for tomorrow - my big guy is going under. Yep. Andrew's oral surgery is tomorrow morning at nine. Pray for me. :) Seriously, he isn't worried at all and I am glad for that. I worry about and then I tell myself that is silly. There is no need to worry, people have this done all the time so I quit worrying. Then I think if I don't worry then something will happen so I start to worry again. It is a vicious cycle. In the end, I know he will be just fine. I just hate that he is going to be in pain. I pray that he handles this as well as he thinks he is going to. I want the pain to be tolerable.


So, if it seems that I have left the blog world for the next few days, don't worry. I'm just trying to be a good nurse.

Have a good weekend!! Love you all.

Monday Mayhem

I feel like I have so much to blog about today. I can only hope that this all makes sense.


1. I will start with yesterday. Easter. Not the most beautiful weather for Easter Sunday, but still definitely a great day. It rained all day here. That didn't damper any of the fun and praising that happened. We started the day with church. Remember that I'm working with the kids this month. I have to admit that I was really bummed about having to do this on Easter. I really wanted to be in the service today. I don't know about service, but let me just tell you that God was definitely in the Journey Kids room. I had six of the sweetest little girls in the world. And oh my did they all look beautiful in the Easter dresses. We started with three songs. There is nothing sweeter than hearing those little voices singing songs. One girl particularly though, on the slow song, had her hands raised to her God and was singing so loud. I'm really surprised they didn't hear her in the nursery and in service. Towards the end of the song, with her hands still raised, she quit singing and was just talking to God. I couldn't help it. Tears definitely started flowing. Our lesson was about Thomas needing to see Jesus to believe that he had risen. I got to have two live baby chicks for this lesson. They were so cute and sweet. The girls loved them. Great lesson, Sara. :)

After church, I headed up to my Mommom's for chicken and dumplings. And I don't care what you say, my grandma makes the best chicken and dumplings. :) They are so incredibly yummy. I was able to visit with them for a couple of hours before heading back to have more yummy food with the in-laws. WE laughed, loved, and celebrated Andrew's birthday. Let me just go on record here and say that I have the absolute best in-laws in the whole world. No lie. I love them bunches. I could right many posts on the entertainment of the night - Jackson Luke dancing and making out with his mommy (he's one) and me spanking the nephews. Aww. You should have been there. :)

Few pictures from Easter





2. Project 365 - I'm behind. Like more than a week behind in pictures. Part of me says I'm too far behind and it won't be legit to take pictures now for all those days so I should quit. Plus my life isn't that interesting. It will be the most dull book ever. But I feel like I'm a looser if I quit. I'm breaking a commitment that I made to myself and I don't like that either. So I ask, if you were in my shoes would you quit or go back and take pictures?


3. That classroom of mine. We started testing today. Boring. While my students are testing I tend to daydream and brainstorm ideas for next year. Today's focus was classroom set up and decoration. I have seven round tables in my room instead of desk. I was thinking I would like it if I had tablecloths. Then because I will be teaching some social studies I thought - How could would it be if I could find some fabric that had maps on it and turn that into table clothes.

I also want to set up a little comfy area for kids to read. I want some carpet and lots of big pillows.

Both of these things can be made. If only I knew how to sew. So then I thought, how fun it would be to spend a couple days with my sweet mother in law this summer making these things while getting some sewing lessons.




Well I think that is all my thoughts that I wanted to get down. If you are still reading this, thanks. :) Happy Monday.

No Treats Necessary & Easter Eggs

My little brother and his fiance came down this afternoon so that I could take some pictures of them. It was so nice to do a photo shoot where a bag of treats wasn't necessary. I normally just have my dogs as my objects so people were nice for a change. :)

Now I do not claim to be a photographer at all but I think I got some pretty good shots of them. Here are a few of my favorites. I'm open to constructive criticism as I really do enjoy taking pictures and want to get better.









Last night Andrew and I colored Easter eggs when he got home from church. I haven't done this in forever and had a good time doing with my husband. Although I must tell you I wasn't not crazy about his egg decorating. He made one look like an eye. That is just weird to me. Either way here is a shot of our eggs before and after.

Worship

When I hear the word worship, I immediately picture a group of Christians standing singing songs. I think we all have this picture of worship. We even classify certain songs as worship songs. Well what makes a worship song? Is it the words? Is it the tune? Is it the style of song? What is it?

Sunday, Alex preached on worship. I missed his sermon because I was working with Journey kids. After service, I asked Andrew what the sermon was about. He briefly told me the sermon and then to be honest I forgot about. I honestly hadn’t thought about worship since then.

Until today. We have a Christian Council at school. This group of students meets during lunch once a week to pray and spend a few moments in the Bible. The teacher who normally holds these meetings is gone this week and she asked me to let them meet in my room. I was honored to do this.

Anyways, they invited Gary in to do their devotional today. He is student pastor at a local church. Guess what he talked about? That’s right. Worship. He shared a story about his buddy in high school.

His friend, Josh owned a Ford Mustang that he cherished. Josh owned every Ford Mustang magazine there was and read each of them front to back. This guy lived Ford Mustang. He knew everything there was to know about his car and was constantly buying new accessories for his car.

Gary then asked the kids if they could show him where the carburetor was in a car? A few them raised there hands and said yes. He then asked if anyone could show him where the muffler bearing was under the hood of a car. Three students raised their hand. They swore up and down they could point out a muffler bearing. He then proceeds to them that no one in this room could show him the muffler bearing because it did not exist. He made it up. The kids of course loved this.

Then came the hard question. He asked if anyone in the room would be able to tell if he made up a scripture and claimed it to be in the Bible. They all had this very thoughtful “Oh”. He asked if we had read the “magazine” from front to back. Do we know everything in it? Do we study the scripture?

Worship is more than a certain style of music. Worship is more than music. Worship is a state of mind. It is an attitude. Today I’ve just been thinking about what I’ve been worshiping. It sounds crazy to say that I worship my computer and television, but I guess I do. I spend time playing on the computer and watching television instead of spending time with God.

Worship is something that can happen anywhere at anytime. It is something that should happen a lot more frequently than just on Sunday mornings. I know that I have been guilty plenty of times of standing in church on Sunday morning singing a song, but thinking about other things. Having the words of a “worship” song come out of my month is not enough. It is not worshiping my God who is definitely worthy of my worship.

I challenge you to really think about worship this week. I know I definitely will be. Think about who or what you worship. Think about how you worship. When do you worship? Where do you worship? With whom do you worship?

The Weekend is Here!!

The weekend is finally here. This has been one of those weeks that has flown by, yet at the same time crawled by. I'm not even sure how that is possible. It's like the individual days go by quickly. It's 7th period and time to go home before I know it. But the week as a whole as been long. Does that even make any sense?

Anyways, as it has gotten closer to Friday I have become more and more exhausted which in return makes more and more ready for the weekend. I have been torn about my weekend plans all week. Andrew is going to Osceola for the weekend to help his dad. At first I thought I would go see my mom & dad, but decided against that since I will be driving up there next Sunday after church. Then I found out that Sara was going with Cary to Osceola, so I thought I would tag along with Drew. But today, I have just felt very tired and in need of me time.

So... after much debate I have decided to stay home and send Drew to Osceola without me. I have big plans of reading, reading, reading, watching girly movies, reading, hot baths, and did I mention reading? :)

My nephew, Cody, is playing in a basketball tournament tonight and tomorrow which happens to be at my school so I am going to go out tonight and watch him play. After that, I am coming home and don't really plan to leave my bed other than for a hot bath.

I also plan to look over my lesson for Sunday. April is my month to teach Journey Kids at church. I am so excited about this opportunity to serve. Those little ones are too cute and say the craziest things. Most week it is a class full of spirited little girls.

Oh and I must share. Jill & Alex went for their first ultra sound yesterday. They are definitely having a baby. They got to hear the heartbeat yesterday. God is good!!!!

So there are my big plans for the weekend! What are you plans?

Happy Birthday Andrew!!

Today is my sweetie's 28th birthday. In his honor, today's post is 28 of the many things I love about him. They are in no particular order.


1. He is a child of God.
2. He can put a smile on my face despite how my day has gone.
3. I believe without a doubt that someday he is going to be the best daddy to our children. I love watching him with kids.
4. Just in case he doesn't know (HA) he is incredibly smart. I would even venture to say that he is the smartest person I know.
5. I love that he is a dreamer, that he has big ideas and that he becomes very passionate about his interest.
6. Although I often accuse him of having no compassion, he is a tender hearted guy and I love that he isn't afraid to cry.
7. Believe it or not I even love that he is a very logical person. I need that from time to time. :)
8. I love that he makes up songs about everything, even if they aren't always so truthful. :)
9. He works very hard to support our family.
10. He listens to me go on and on about the things I enjoy doing and he even helps. He can write lesson plans and scrapbook with the best of them.
11. Family is incredibly important to him. I love that he celebrates and he shares pain with your family.
12. My favorite sound is him sitting in the back bedroom praising God with his voice and guitar.
13. He volunteers and does so much to help our Church..
14. He can grill the most yummy burgers ever.
15. He embraces my irrationalities and loves me anyway.
16. It doesn't matter what I seem to break, he can always fix it.
17. He's a hottie! :)
18. I tend to grind my teeth while sleeping and this drives him nuts. He is so sweet when he is telling me to stop doing it. He just rubs my cheek and talks to me with very sweetly.
19.He drives always. I hate driving so I love that he always drives especially on long road trips.
20. He challenges me.
21. He has a great knowledge of the Bible.
22. All those wonderful houses! He enjoys designing our dream home on his computer. I love getting to hear about his designs and ideas.
23. He understands my need to have the latest Karen Kingsbury book and he indulges me.
24. He also understands my need for me time in a hot bath every night and again indulges.
25. One of my favorite times with him is our dancing time. These are random moments when we hear music playing (any kind of music) and we stop what we are doing to dance.
26. Wifees. That is what he calls me and out of all the names I have, that one is my favorite.
27. He protects me in small crowds. He keeps near by because he knows crowds totally freak me out. Can't handle them.
28. He is not the most romantic guy in the world. I know that seems like not such a good thing, but it is who he is and I love him for it. Plus, it makes those sweet moments even sweeter.


I love you pookie!! I hope you have a great birthday.