hello readers- remember me?

I know you are all thinking that I fell off of the face of the earth. Guess what-- I haven't! I have been getting back into the swing of things and now I am promising to be better about keeping you informed. Hmmm- let's see what I haven't told you (or if I have, enjoy the repeat news).

1) We have a third teacher now in the Blue Class. It is my Friend Kate. We are all having a BLAST to say the least. It totally rocks!! Here is a picture of super fun Kate at the Dollar Tree.

2) In my class this year, we have a million little boys and a handful of little girls. Everyone is adjusting nicely.

3) My school had the staff pool party which I helped to organize. It was so much fun and most everyone came. It was a great time to connect with the other faculty and their families. Here is a picture of me and my coteacher Leah's baby Elliot.

4) I made cinnamon rolls from the bread starter. I was practicing and tweaking the recipe for the cinnamon rolls I am making for Mr. D.'s family at the mountain house this weekend. The rolls were yummy. I hope they like them.

5) I had a birthday! Guess what Mr. D. surprised me with...

It is the Canon SD (my initials) 1100. So blue, so cute! I have vowed to read every word in the owner's manual and really know how to use it. It is so exciting. Maybe one day I will even be able to put a video on the blog. So far I have taken a hand full of photos. I will have to post some soon. I can't wait to take some this weekend on vacation!

6) Brady-- sweet Brady! Mr. D. and I are tired of Brady having so many blankets. The conversation went something like this on Saturday.

Mr. D.: Does he need all of the blankets?

Me: I don't know, I think he likes them

Mr. D.: I never see him use them.

Me: Well, then get rid of one or two

Mr. D.: which one??

Then we devised a plan that we would line the blankets up on the wall and then see which ones he dragged to his bed. The deadline for the blankets was today (trash day). As of when I went to work, there were no blankets on his bed. I got this pic texted from Mr. D. after I got to work.

The subject line was I guess we need more time. So, none of the blankets went out with the trash today. I guess we are keeping them... for now.

7) My class is HARD! I am hoping to take some time and really focus on it and to try not to feel as lost as I do. I have SO many things going on right now. I feel like a juggler trying to keep all of the balls in the air.

8) The aquarium is going along. We have lost a few friends. We have gained some more. I will post the pics of the new fish later on. Stay tuned!!

I've decided

This new aquarium hobby of mine is just a series of returns. I hate making returns to start with, much less when you are dragging a dead fish in a zip lock bag across town. AAARRRRRGGGG!!

Thursday 13: thirteen people I talked to today

1) Mr. D.
2) Meghan
3) Julie
4) Camille
5) Kate
6) Leah C.
7) Kelly
8) Roz
9) Angelica
10) Ms. Betty
11) Cookie (some people call her Courtney)
12) the cashier at walmart
13) the cashier at the salsa store

update

So much has happened since I last blogged.

*I went to a Pampered Chef party at a co-workers. I truly LOVE the products of the Pampered Chef.

*I went "home" with Meghan and saw her parents- ate 1 incredible grape, bought 3 shirts and helped her babysit.

*I ate lunch with Tiffani~ who I am ashamed to say I never see anymore.

*I bought and tried the entire Pantene line of Volume Products. I must say it really works!! Here is a picture of me with the insanely crazy volume I achieved. This is just with the shampoo, mousse and root lifter. Luckily I was able to tame it down to something more normal. This is me on the 1st day of school. I have a class of boys this year- 17 to be exact, with 5 sweet girls sprinkled in for good measure. Things are going great!

*I had to take the dead guppy back to the store-- and sort of bought a whole bunch of fish while I was there. Here is the text pic I sent to let Mr. D. know that we had new arrivals. We now have 2 red wag platys - which are Meghan's (she gave me the guppies back).

She named one Phelps, but hasn't named the other one yet.

We have a yellow guppy to replace the dead guppy, plus 2 blue guppies (one for Parker and one for Caleb. Also, the boys haven't named them yet).

Then we have Memzie~~ I fully expect that by the time most of you read this, Memzie will be in that great ziplock bag in the freezer waiting to be returned. And last but not least, this fish without a name. I can not go into it here, as I know I have young readers- but here she is anyway. ~On another fish related topic, Meghan and I had sushi for dinner. It was so so so so so yummy!!

~ After the sushi- I made 28 of the cutest pool party reminders ever. I can't wait to give them to my coworkers!!! Pool-A-Palooza is our staff social to "dive" into the new school year!
~Oh- and I start my class tomorrow-- YEAH!

50 days...

I have waited 50 days for this moment-- packing my new back to school teacher tote. My mother in law, Linda bought it for me when she was visiting in June and let me go ahead and have it for my birthday (this week). I have waited very patiently and tonight I will be packing it for school tomorrow. YEAH!!

the teacher becomes the student

I FINALLY registered for my class. Starting on Wednesday I am enrolled in a 6 week course on learning to write grants. I am actually very excited- if for no other reason than that I get to go shopping for a new notebook today!!

scenes from my classroom

These last 3 days have been insanely busy but here are the picture of our classroom taken last night before the back to school bash. I think it looks great. This picture is in the main room. From far left to right you can see math,

cultural, science, our paper sorter and pre-language.And on the other side from left to right you can see art, sensorial and math.
This is showing off my favorite new area in our class- the book nook. You can't really see but there is the cutest little shag rug under the chair. You also see in this picture the handwriting table and the language shelf. This is in the back of the main room. You can see math and that big chart is my new graphing question of the day. I am very excited about this!!
My oh-so-cute apple cubbie tags.
This is the front room. We now have practical life and music in here. On the back wall you can see our little extra clothes bags. My class room is actually "L" shaped.

A lot of hard work and effort went into this transformation. We are so excited about MONDAY!!