My classroom...

So here is a little before and after of my new classroom.

Originally it was just a storage room. The director decided to split up an overflowing class into two classes and thus Ms. Deborah and Ms. Amber's Young 2's class was born.

We were told that as the year progresses, we will be able to add more to it :)

On the ordered list is a new bookcase for the reading nook, a new rug for the reading nook, and multicolored cushions for the reading nook. lol. It seems as though the reading nook needs a lot of work, right!? Hopefully those things will arrive before school starts.

So here is what the room looked like on Wednesday...photos taken after we removed a portable wall.....

And here are some after pictures...

On my wish list...

1. a puzzle holder with extra puzzles
2. uniformed storage containers for diapers and wipes
3. storage containers filled with art supplies
4. additional window clings
5. color and number posters

...to get started. Yay for those cute little two year olds that will be joining our class soon. I look forward to this school year!!!

Sooooo, I got a job...

Wednesday morning, I woke up, made the kids breakfast, packed their lunch, set out their clothes, supervised their showers, teeth brushing, and hair brushing, and kissed them goodbye and watched them walk out the door.

I sat down with my husband, who was on graveyards and happily ate my cereal bar, and thought about what I had planned that day.

An hour later, I was employed. I wasn't even looking for a job, but God had a better plan!

The preschool that my children used to attend posted a request for substitute teacher on Facebook. When I called to say I was available, they told me they had opened another 2 year old class and wanted me to be one of the teachers.

Ideal job...I love the age group....I love that preschool....the hours are 8:30 to 12:30...I can still be at my kids' school for all my PTO President duties....and it provides us with an additional paycheck.

Drawbacks: my co-teacher is out of town until Monday night, Meet the Teacher (that's me!) is Tuesday and Wednesday, and my classroom was the storage room for the last two years.

I showed up yesterday and spent about 6 hours working to clean it out, borrow equipment from other rooms, get the floor plan ready...and then went back for almost 6 hours today. Still not finished. But I am so close.

I wish my co-teacher was in town so that we could plan out our calendar of activities, write our parent letter, and get our schedules ready. It would really help to have an extra pair of eyes for arranging and decorating the room. Can't wait until she gets home.

Hopefully I can get it my room finished tomorrow so I can post some pictures, and then I can work on the paperwork over the weekend. School starts Sept. 6!!!!!!

LEGO JEWELRY

So seriously, this is the cutest thing ever!!!!

My friend, Crystal, has begun making Lego accessories. Not just necklaces and earrings, but bowties, hair clips, rings etc.

Lookie what I got....

Major adorable lego necklace!!

My boys have already been checking out her facebook site and are begging for something done for them in those cool Star Wars light sabers. Caleb wants something he can clip on his backpack :)

If you are looking for something really cute and totally unique, go check her out on etsy at Creations by Crystal.

Friendly reminder

Our house is the 2nd street from our school. I can stand at the corner of our street and watch the boys literally walk into the school.

But now that they are 8 and 6, it is time that I stop hovering so much and trust them to be a little independent with somethings. (Although I still won't let them pour their own milk because 3/4 of the gallon will end up of the floor guaranteed.)

So this year, my boys are walking to and from school. Walking to school, it would just be them...all the way to school. But coming come, they will be with a big group of walkers and a teacher to the first street and then walk the rest of the way together.

We have practiced the rules, taken the route several times, and I thought everything was ok, until yesterday, Jansen runs into the house after Caleb crying that Caleb was hitting him on the way home. Caleb's reason was, "I don't want him to walk with me."

After several minutes of explaining that brothers stick together and watch out for each other, and both the boys' eyes were glazing over...

I made this...

1. Go straight to school

2. Stop at each corner to LOOK BOTH WAYS before crossing the street.

3. Do not talk to strangers!

4. Stay together!!

It is attached to the door to the garage. The door that they go out of to walk to school.

Simple. Visual. Read it everyday before leaving the house.

First day of school

Today is the first day of school for my boys. They are growing so fast. This year, Caleb is in 3rd grade and Jansen is in 1st!!! Even though I am completely excited to have a little time for myself to go grocery shopping alone, go to the eye doctor, or get a hair cut, I am a little sad that they are one year closer to being adults.

Nothing sappy, just a few pictures at the house, and a couple in their line at school :)

Houston Texans Ribbon Wreath

In honor of fantastic football season, and my desire to have my Texans make the playoffs this year...Because it is our year!! I made a football themed ribbon wreath.

Ta-da!

It's a styrofoam circle (bought at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon), 6 rolls of half price ribbon, and my hot glue gun.

Might I say...OUCH! I burned my thumbs sooooo bad this time with hot glue, but the pain was totally worth it.

Here is an up close look of the ribbon...

LOVE it!!! I think it turned out beautiful.

Linking to:

Ready for Fall

This past week has been a mad, chaotic lesson on researching companies you might use for school services. Craziness!!!

But it is honestly amazing how my feelings can change in such a short amount of time. Once the ball started rolling for school activities in preparation for the first day next Monday, I was done with summer. DONE!

Done with the beach, palm trees, sprinklers, popsicles, sandboxes, bubbles, slip-n-slides, shorts, tank tops, and most importantly the heat. We are in a major drought. It was 106 degrees yesterday, just like almost every day over the summer...with NO RAIN!!! We have mandatory water conservation and I am just over it.

I am ready for Fall. I am ready for jeans, sweaters, and hoodies. I am ready for pumpkins, cool breezes, autumn leaves, and warm soups. I am ready for school to start again!!!!!!!

The power of CONTACT...

This is the power of contact.

I am not a fan of reaching out and touching someone by phone. It almost makes me break out in hives to actually use the phone. That's why I love technology!!!! Texting, blogging, facebooking, twittering, emailing...that is how I get stuff done.

Yet again, we have overextended ourselves and we are looking for relatively painless ways to cut back.

I coupon...but not crazy coupon. Usually, we buy generic, but there are some things that we don't like to compromise on. Dog food, laundry detergent, certain cereals, yogurt, and hair care products especially. So I used the power of the internet, took 5 minutes, and shot my favorite companies an email to voice my opinions on their products and request some additional coupons. It worked.

And on my most recent grocery trip...a trip that would average about $150 for a 2 week food supply.....I spent $92.09! That is a personal best!!!! Progress is good. I won't become one of those couponers on TV though....that gives me butterflies in my tummy (and not in a good way!) But if I can continue that, we could save about $116 a month on groceries.

We also bundle our cable, internet, and phone services....and as much as we use it, the bill was still more than we were wanting to pay. I don't have the time or desire to sit on the phone and wait for some person half way across the world to pick up the phone because my call is very important to them. So I got on the company's website and logged on to their chat feature. In 10 minutes our bill was reduced by $35 a month for 6 months on a promotional deal with no strings attached. No changes to our service and all it took was a quick chat session.

So just to recap...this week, I adjusted 2 things on our budget and reduced our bills by $150 a month. :)

Ask and you shall receive....it's a good thing.

VBS

This past week was VBS at a local church....Sports Themed. The children could choose from Dance, Cheerleading, Football, Basketball, or Soccer as their free activity of choice.

My boys chose football and basketball...which shocked me beyond belief. But they really had a great time. They both came home raving a

bout how they learned so much and had so much fun.

Only one tiny problem....Caleb came home with a completely swollen and red eye.

And here's the fun part. His communication skills are not as advanced as we need them to be so when asked, he couldn't tell me what happened.

Mom: "Did you get hit with a football or with someone's elbow or leg?"

Caleb: "Well, I think so, maybe."

Mom: "Do you think you got bit by something?"

Caleb: "Well, I think so, maybe?"

Mom: "Does it hurt, or itch?"

Caleb: "Well, I think so....both." and then..."Mom, coach told me my eye was hurting."

Mom: "I think you mean you told the coach your eye was hurting, right?"

Caleb: "Well, I think so, maybe."

So since that was completely useless, we headed straight for Urgent Care. Turns out, he had some kind of bite or sting...maybe by a spider. He had a puncture mark right under his lash line, but there was no stinger or anything left. We left with some Benadryl, a steroid, and an antibiotic as a precaution. Thank goodness!

Trash to Treasure footstool

Last week, I saw this poor little stool on the side of the road, and instantly thought, "Oh Boy! I can do something with that!!!"

Well, I picked it up and then drove around for a week with it in the back of my car. Seriously, once things get in my car, they rarely make it out. It's like a black hole or the Bermuda Triangle.

So, I added a coat of Betsy Ross House Brown that was left over from the vanity remodel, some batting from an old pillow, and leftover fabric from our bathroom curtains.

Another free project :)

Mini bunting cake

My parents' 44th wedding anniversary is next week! Holy cow. 44 YEARS???!!! That is amazing to me.

So the boys and I decided to whip up a quick cake to celebrate.

Enter the mini bunting cake. The Tom Kat Studio has a free printable for the mini bunting and has several different options of colors. I chose the dark colors since we were making a solid white cake.

Fun twisty straws, a little embroidery thread, and the cutie cute, cute flags, and it turned out really nice.

I used my parents' last name and the year of the wedding, 1967!!!!

How cute are my boys? So proud of their cake.

Sweet potato vine and stick trellis

The end of the month marks the end of our summer long science project....The Sweet Potato Vine Science Project. I know, totally original title. You're welcome :)

Here are our results....

The first 3 weeks....a whole lotta nuthin'

But the last few weeks it really started taking off...

It was difficult for the children to wait 8 full weeks to see the results, but each day they would wake up and run to the window to excitedly look at it's progress.

Now here is the fun part. We get to plant it and watch it grow even more.

If you are going to plant a vine type plant, you have to have a trellis, right? Well, my friends. With school coming up, our vacation, football tickets, and truck savings and such....I have $1.96 in my account. No lie.

So here is what we did. I found this container and river rocks that we weren't using.

I coated the container with some leftover green paint and let it dry for a couple of days.

While it dried, the boys and I made the chopstick trellis using a little bit of hot glue.

When everything was ready, the boys planted it with a little river rock at the bottom and more at the top for decoration.

We stuck the trellis in and it now sits outside on our bistro table.

New truck...

After months of scouring the ads, looking online on Craigslist, and saving, we found a truck that looked like it had everything the hubs was looking for.

We got with our credit union today to get the ball rolling, and made some phone calls for a few trucks that caught the hub's eye on Craigslist. It's a good thing that no one called us back because I took a chance to look at our local Ford dealership. The first truck we saw looked too good to be true!

It was in our price range, had almost all the things Josh was looking for, and looked great. We made a quick phone call, loaded up and headed out for a test drive. Josh fell in love with it, but drove another truck just to make sure.

We discussed our plan while driving it and decided how much we wanted for our trade in and how much we were willing to pay. We were ready to drive a hard bargain.

So when we went in to discuss the price, I was nervous. Josh and I were fully prepared to walk out without a vehicle although it was obvious that Josh would have cried the whole way home. :) But seriously folks...this could not have gone easier. The dealership gave us more than we expected for our trade in, and came down to exactly what we had planned on paying in our minds. I have never had a car buying process go this smoothly. I was preparing for bluff, I call your bluff, wait maybe not, run around kind of day...but nada.

Josh drove it off the lot with a huge smile on his face and exactly what we were hoping to pay for.

So here it is...a 2008 Ford F-250 King Ranch Super Duty truck in Metallic Copper.....

We are hugely and abundantly blessed.