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Monday, August 27, 2012

Menu Monday!

Well, I am on my way out the door for the First Day of School! Um. Yay?!?? {PS-it is SOOOOO freaking early!! I don't know if I can get used to this?!?!}

But first, here is what I've been cooking recently for Menu Monday!!! :)





And last night, I made this:


Travis likes everything I cook (he better!) but he especially LOVED this! It was a very easy one-meal dish; no need to make any vegetables sides!! :) Score!

Ok, so that's pretty much it for the dinner recipes! With school starting and everything, I haven't had time to make dinner every night! We did grill out one night, but I don't have the recipe for that! I think Trav just mixed some sauces and spices and put it on the pork chops! Hahah! He just makes stuff up...and it always tastes so good! 

But, I do have 2 more recipes to share with you! First, here's what I've been eating for breakfast (in my car at 6:45 AM) every morning! 


These are so good and keep my tummy from growling at 10 AM!

And last but not least...I strongly suggest making this guy ASAP!!!


Ohhhhh yes. It is as good as it looks and lasted no more than 3 days in our house (we are pigs)!! Plus, it's kinda healthy, so I guess that justifies eating it so quickly!

Depending on how bad my class is this year, I may or may not be making this pie weekly! :)

Happy Monday!!! :)

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Classroom Tour!

Well, I finally have my classroom ready for my 20 second graders coming Monday!!!
Well, it's almost ready-we shall discuss that in a bit!

But first...

The hallway bulletin board!

Here is the view from the door:

I know it looks a little plain (or at least, it does to me!), but I am planning on putting stuff up as we learn things....don't want to overwhelm the kids on the first day! :)

Behind the door: hooks for backpacks and owls to keep track of stickers earned for good behavior!

Classroom jobs:

I am doing the number system this year where each child is assigned a number. Last year, my classroom was basically a revolving door--I lost about 12 students over the course of the year, and gained just about as many! So I was constantly erasing and re-writing names on EVERYTHING. This way, if I lose or gain a friend, I don't have to go around and fix the names on everything! Their numbers are on pretty much everything: jobs, hooks, behavior clips, textbooks, etc! Hopefully this will make my life a little easier!

 Bathroom corner...YES! I have a bathroom in my room this year!!

Behavior Area of the board...all 3 things I got off Pinterest! (DUH!)

On the left is my behavior system this year. Each student has a clip that will be in green at the start of every day. They can move their clip up or down depending on their behavior. I am really trying to enforce positive behavior, so I like this plan because there are three levels to move up to! (Last year, I just had blue. And I always forgot to move kids up to blue. Oops.)

Next is the reading area. 
That's my fish carpet from Donor's Chose! GREAT website for teachers to get things for their classrooms!


{another view...after I put up border-THANKS JEN!-around some sections of the board!}

Next is the kidney table where I will meet with small groups (you can't really see it in this pic, but it's there!), and our Visualizing and Verbalizing structure word cards! V/V is this program my school does in grades 2-4, so it is a new thing for me this year!! 
On the shelves to the left are textbooks--again, a new thing for me this year!! 


On the other side of those shelves are more shelves, where I keep all of my teacher books and supplies! On the top are my daily tubs, where I put materials for each day that week.


{of course, those are wedding pictures in the bottom left corner!}

Here is my desk area! 
Last year, I had my desk facing the window, and I didn't like it because if I was ever sitting at my desk (HAHA like that ever really happened), I couldn't see what was going on in the room. Now, my desk faces everything! :)


The view from my desk:

On the other side of my desk: files, fridge and MORE teacher manuals and materials!

Math Wall:

Lucky for me, the teacher who was in this room last year left up ALL of her bulletin boards!! So I decided just to leave up her Math words, too!! Such a time saver! :)

Next to that is the word wall...also left up from last year. It's blank for now! :) 5 words per week will go on it, starting Monday!


I saw this poster on Pinterest, and really liked it:

I teach in a Title I school, where so many of the kids have difficult home lives. I thought it was important to put this up, so they can feel "safe" at school. 

Another view of the front of the room (the THINK poster is also from Pinterest! Seriously, how did people set up their classrooms/teach before Pinterest?!?)


Ok, so that WOULD wrap up the tour....BUT...I decided FRIDAY (aka yesterday and first day of school is Monday) that maybe I should turn on my SmartBoard to see if it worked. Guess what? It didn't! I frantically called the tech guy into my room and he basically told me that whatever is wrong with my SmartBoard (he explained it to me, but I don't understand all of that stuff...something with a bad wire that runs through the wall?) is like a MAJOR problem and I could be without my SmartBoard for like a month! (Good thing I didn't wait till Monday to see if it worked!)

If you're not a teacher, let me break it down for you: 90% of my lessons are on, or involve using the SmartBoard. It's like a doctor working without a stethoscope, an account working without a calculator, a football player without a football. In other words, it is HIGHLY essential. 

Fear not though friends, because we figured out a way that I can use my SmartBoard! I now have this old school projector hooked up to my laptop. It is super ridiculous, ugly and in the way of everything. But, it will project the SmartBoard slides onto the non-functioning SmartBoard screen, so at least the kids will be able to see everything. (It still sucks though, because we can't write or move anything around.) 

So here's what it looks like now:

Anyone want to bet how many kids bump the cart its on?!?!? UGHHHHHHH. 

Please come fix my SmartBoard ASAP people!!!!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Wedding Wednesday: Do's and Don'ts

Happy Wednesday!!! 
I'm going to practice being bossy 
(in order to get ready for my second graders coming on Monday!
by telling you what to do and not do if you are planning a wedding!!! 
{Coming from experience, obvi! I want to share these tips before I become consumed with school and forget them!!!}

*DO plan for an hour more than you think you will need to get ready. Getting pretty takes time! 
And getting stressed is not pretty!


*DO prepare your shot list for your photographer and update it often. 
This is where I went wrong...I made an awesome list, but then forgot to update it with all of the cute photo-ops I pinned on Pinterest!
Some examples of photos I didn't get:



Ok, so maybe that last one I could still take with my mom and grandma....but the others? NEVER. AGAIN. Tear!
 Sooooo, make sure on that paper, you have EVERY photo you want!!! ***Oh and you will not be looking on Pinterest the day of your wedding!!!! It needs to be on the paper in your photographers' hands!!!!

{P.S. This, in no way shape or form, means I am not happy with my wedding pictures!!! I just love them so much, I wish there were 1204828 more! HA!}

*DO  plan to wear a semi-cute outfit to get ready in the morning of! There will be a lot of pics taken during this time and you don't want to be caught in crappy sweats!!! 


*DO save some of your meal from the rehearsal dinner to eat the day of!!! Or plan for a yummy meal to get catered in! We needed to meet a minimum $$$ at our rehearsal dinner, so in order to do that, my genius MOH made the suggestion that we get a bunch of my favorite salads made to go!!! One less thing I had to worry about, and I'm never too nervous/busy to scarf down a Mexican Chopped Salad from Cantina!!!


*DO make sure to get around to all of your guests during the reception. Easier said than done!! We did fine on the first half of the room, and then they made us sit and eat....by the time we got to the second half of the room, some people had already left! :/

*DO EAT. Everyone says it...and I remember thinking, "Of course I'll eat! I eat all the time! I'll be starving!" But honestly, if the sweet people at Bentley's had not grabbed Trav and me and put us in our chairs, I can tell you now--WE. WOULD. NOT. HAVE. EATEN.
{Here's proof! See us?! Eating???!}

*DO invest in a wedding planner and videographer
1. I wish we had a videographer. I love the pictures, but a cute movie would have been nice, too.
2. I may be Mrs. Wedding Planner Extraordinaire; however, it would have been nice to have a little sidekick to help me at times, and to have someone help the drunk guests light the sparklers, so we didn't come out to this:
Bahahah...yes those are unlit sparklers. Luckily, my brother's very intelligent (and sober) girlfriend finally got them to light! Thanks Angie! :)
Just little stuff like that, it would have been nice to have a wedding planner for!

*DO have some alone time for you and your new hubs during the day. We had a last dance for just the two of us (while our friends were trying to light sparklers, see above). It was so special, and while we have no pictures of it, it is something I will always remember. 
I highly recommend this to anyone planning a wedding!!!!

*DON'T feel pressure (from photographers or anyone else) to do a first look. We didn't do one, and I am SOOOOO glad we did not give in to the trend!! It was so special to see each other for the first time while I was walking down the aisle with my dad! I think I would have totally regretted if we had done a first look!


*DON'T yell at your bridesmaids! Be nice!!! They have spent a lot of money to be a part of your big day!!! 
(I didn't yell at mine....I don't think....I'm just saying, be nice!)

*DON'T be a big drinker. You can put down the wine glass while dancing. It will be ok.

Oops. Sorry I'm not sorry.

Well that's all I got!!! 
I'll need to remember all of these for our vow renewal next year (HAHAHA, I kid)!!!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

A {mini} Home Makeover!

Wellll, friends. Travis and I have been super busy these last few weeks of summer getting some new things for our house...because we've only lived here for 6 months. 
(I was kinda busy earlier this year teaching children not to pee their pants while planning a wedding!  No time for la casa. Sorry, I'm not sorry.) 
So now, we're just now beginning to "decorate." Although I'd hardly call it that...we still have A LOT of work to do! But our little house is starting to come together!!!

You may remember our dining room set that we bought with some of our wedding money...well I finally put all of the china/platters/etc. in the hutch and here is the finished product:

You like?!

Moving on to the next room (because this IS a home makeover, not just one room, silly), I give you the new canvas picture I bought to go above the couch:

Nothing maj, but I like it....this room still needs a MAJOR overhaul!

The entryway also got some new thingys (courtesy of Home Goods, I probably went there every other day--no exaggeration--over the last few weeks!)

Moving on to the family room...here is the photo wall I just put together with all of our fab wedding pics! Plus this guy FREE from (where else?!) Pinterest! Go get one!! Quickest, easiest, cheapest DIY project EVER!


I also added some accents to the mantle, including honeymoon pics!


Next to that, some of you who have been to my house in real life may remember that we had yet another tv, for all of those times Travis needed to watch two sporting events simultaneously. (I was too embarrassed to ever post a picture of that on here!) Well, I am happy to report that our family room is no longer a sports bar and the second tv has gone upstairs into a spare bedroom!!! In its place are some cute shelves with (you guessed it) more pictures!!


(and, yes, those would be our wedding cards, still in the birdcage from our wedding)

Now we go upstairs--oh yes, there is more!!!
We had been wanting a king size bed for a while, so we decided to get one when Macy's had a huge mattress sale a few weeks ago! We also had so many gift cards from there, that our mattress ended up costing us less than $800!! :)
We also snatched up all of our furniture for this room from Ikea when the Hemnes series was 20% off! 
Just call us bargain hunters :) 
Although, I'm pretty sure next time we buy 5+ pieces of furniture, we will buy it from somewhere that doesn't make you assemble it all yourself! I heard plenty of choice words from Mr. Carpenter while he was putting everything together!! 

The duvet cover is from Pottery Barn...I had wanted it since forever, so I caved and bought it....and the 3 matching Euro sham covers that sales lady told me I needed to buy. I'm such a sucker. Sales people love me. 


Here is Trav's dresser... 

and mine... 

and then a close-up of our wonderful bed linens...you can barely see those darn Euro shams, but they were worth it, I promise!! :)

We still obviously need to paint the room, and get some curtains. But I am happy that we have the major stuff (furniture and a color scheme) done!!! 

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Wedding Wednesday: A Peachy Brunch Wedding

This past Sunday (yes, Sunday), I got to help out at a wedding that my girl, Page, was coordinating!

The wedding was at an amazing new venue called Brakefield at Riverwalk. It was SO nice! 
The wedding was at 11:30 AM, so the food served at the reception was brunch food: fruit, muffins, french toast, shrimp and grits...YUM!!! I loved it because it was something different!!

The wedding also had a peach theme, which Page did some amazing things with.... 

{Note the peach centerpieces and the escort cards with a peach stamp on them!}

{Mason jars of peach jam-homemade by Page-were the favors! I tied on all of those tags! They say "Spread the Love"....get it?! Haha}

{the gorgeous cake}

{escort cards, with the peach stamps, arranged by yours truly}

{outdoor lounge area}

{Page made the couple these cornhole boards as a wedding present!}

{The main room}

{The centerpieces and table numbers}

{Gorgeous bouquet!}

{The menu...yummy brunch food!} 

{Mimosa/Bloody Mary bar! So cute for an early wedding!}

The bride also wore a peach-colored dress (it was gorge), but unfortunately, I didn't get a very good pic of it! 
I am so glad I got to help out with this wedding!!! 
It was super fun!! :)