PreK says

Monday:

5 year old girl: "My tummy hurts."

Me: "We are going home very soon (10 minutes). Make sure you tell Mommy when you get home."

5 year old boy: "My mommy says your tummy hurts when you poop is hard."

Me: "....................."

Today:

After a crazy first half of our morning it was time for snack. We were having a special extra sugary birthday cupcake snack, when the fire alarm goes off.

Me: "Boys and Girls put everything down and get your coat. We need to quietly walk outside." (or something like that)

Most of the class: "What about my snack? I'm not done with it."

Me: "We will finish it later."

[kids try to put their coats on with cupcakes in hand]

BIG.SUGAR.MESS

I suppose when emergencies arise, grab the sugar and the sweets!

Daydream

I took this picture while we were in Atlantic City for a half marathon. I loved the curves of the building not to mention the variations in color. :) 

Christmas can't be very far away...

One thing about my husband that you may not know is that he has 4 brothers. 3 older and 1 younger so that makes him #4. This past year the oldest brother and his wife (married for 10 years with my 2 nieces) came up with an idea for a family Christmas present. Genius right? Each brother (& wife) compiled pictures of the events from their past year and had it printed into a book from Shutterfly. It's a great family yearbook to look back at the past year.

We could have even turned it into a calendar.

The other great thing about Christmas?
...lights? (love them, but no)
...family? (love them too, but no)
...food?  (yumm-o!, but no)


Cards. Who doesn't love receiving all the extra mail for a month?!? Now I combine my love of photography and the excitement of Christmas cards all at the same time!! Usually it takes me forever to choose just one design . I'm the kind of person that would choose variety. Luckily Shutterfly offers tons of choices to pick from. When doing some initial browsing, here are my criteria:


-Say Merry Christmas because I'm traditional like that
-1-3 pictures
-something that tickles my fancy :) 


like this one:

Now if you want to get in on the Christmas fun you can!

Share on Twitter or Facebook: Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly http://bit.ly/sfly2010 

Who new a drawer could be so beautiful?

For months, my spices were randomly sitting on a drawer/shelf and we would have to search through them all to find the bottle we were looking for.

Now after cleaning out very expired bottles that we never used my spice drawer/shelf looks like this.

and a close-up you say??

It's a drawer of beauty.
Organized.
Clean.
Semi-categorized/semi-color coded.
Space to grow.
Ahhh, I'm ready for more cooking and baking. :)

October's First Adventure

Let me start by saying the first time I ever went camping was in 2007...in December...in the SNOW.  I really had no idea what I was about to be doing.

Am I going to be cold?

What will we eat?

Are there going to be bears?

and of course...I'm a girl so I asked...

 please don't laugh

Where/How do I pee?

My family growing up never went camping. My husband on the other hand was in boy scouts. He camped lots more than me. So I was asked a few days ago if I wanted to go camping again. Sure, why not. I survived in winter, I can do the fall. 

This time was MUCH different. How?? Well where do I start.

Weather: Snowy, icy vs. clear sky, dry

Temperature: 20's/Teens vs. 40s/50s

Experience: First Time vs. Second Time

Others: Me & 2 guys vs. Me, 2 guys & my SIL

I will leave you with these pictures.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day/night to be outdoors sitting by a fire. (Even though I remember being awake a lot during the night, I must have slept enough that I'm not crazy tired right now)

I did that?!?

Me: "What do you want me to bake?"
Hubs: "What?"

Me: "What do you want me to bake next?"
Hubs: "oh......."

Me: "I've already make blueberry pie, apple pie, chocolate chip pumpkin cookies...any requests."

Hubs: "How about a cake?"

Me: "Okay, any special kind?"

Hubs: "You can't go wrong with chocolate"

Enter Barefoot Contessa's Chocolate Buttercream Cake

I'm so proud of myself that I made this...entirely from scratch...on a school night?!?!?
Yep, on a Thursday night I was baking away. I enjoyed myself thoroughly (too bad we don't really enjoy the icing--it is sadly not our thing)


Now what to do with all that cake....
and what to bake next....(after our weekend adventure that is...)

September 24, 2010

We officially became a puppy free house.

Our littlest mutt turned 2 [human] years old. I've been told at that age they are no longer considered a "puppy". I feel like he is so much older than that because we stopped feeding him puppy food around 8 months.

We've come up with some strange nicknames for him over the past years:

Nitter-boo

Stinky-Butt

and my personal favorite: Nutter Butter :)

A new favorite

With everything that's been going on around here,  I stopped for a little while and looked through my pictures on my memory card. Low and behold I found this gem.

Baby Boy...

it's your 2nd Birthday!
Even though you're not a puppy anymore..

You are still my Nutter Butter :)

On this day.....

8 years ago...it all began.

and on this day 4 years ago...I said YES!

September 13, 2006

I would reminisce a little more but I'm exhausted from a rough day...and I want to relax a little bit. :)

My Zoo

Without any more hesitation here is my new little world.

It's my first real classroom that is ALL.MY.OWN.

I can put my stuff in MY DESK.

I can put my books in MY CABINETS.

I can put my supplies around MY ROOM.

and I LOVE IT.

Day One: I moved in some things, but you can see the carpet bookshelf and tables that were in there.

Day Two: Furniture arrived and was assembled. A wee little kitchen on the right, more shelves, a sand table, and easel. what fun!

Day Seven: Yes seven...fast forward. not the completely finished product, but considering it has already changed since school started, it's not too far off.

What do you think? Would you like to come to preschool?? It's lots of fun! I can't wait to share with you what we are doing. My kiddos are so.stinkin.cute

umm hi????

I don't even think I know where to begin except to say Hi and wow and I'm sorry! I was going to look back at what I last posted (since I truly don't remember...yikes!) but now I've started typing and I don't want to take the time to do that. I think it was something about moving and not having internet? Sound close? If not--ohh well

I am officially 2 weeks into school and coming up on 2 months in this house. It's been crazy and yet at the same time I just have to share with you how happy I am. So many puzzle pieces to put together for you...but I will do my best to get there.

I don't have many...okay no pictures of this house. But I do have this...This was what just one of our rooms looked like the day of and the days after our move...

Can you say wow! Just looking at this picture---I cringe. I think the picture would be much worse if I was standing next to those piles, and if you knew I'm standing on a floor that is at least a foot taller that the one that those boxes are sitting on. :)

I have a post all ready for tomorrow about my new classroom. :) I can't wait to share that with you. Hopefully I will be a more frequent visitor from now on. I had 1000+ posts in my reader, but that's only because it stops counting at 1000. I'm sure it was thousands more than that. hahah

And we're back!

Finally after 12 days we have internet. What an ordeal. Seriously. A few days before we moved, I sat down with the hubs and we finally figured out what to do about cable and internet. I'm not sure what cable providers are like where you live, but we have one option--otherwise you need to go with a satellite provider. Normally it wouldn't be an issue, and any smart person would just go with the cheaper version. However I have a Philadelphia sports loving husband---that means Comcast.

So we took ALL of the prices and added them all up and found out that if we got DirecTv instead we could save ourselves over $1000. Yes, that is ONE THOUSAND dollars over the course of a year. How awesome is that?

Now that meant we could get a double deal with an internet company, Verizon, and really save money. So we signed up and waited...and waited...and waited. Here's how it went:

• Day 1: Ordered Online
• Day 2-4:Waited and started moving
• Day 4: 1+ hour phone call to find out that our order wasn't complete and our modem wasn't shipped--Got another order submitted
• Day 5: waited
• Day 6: waited
• Day 7: 1+ hour phone call--still no modem--again was never shipped
• Day 8: waited
• Day 9: 30 minute phone call to check on order--Shipment on schedule
• Day 10:arrival of Modem!! HOORAY! Connected and it doesn't work
• Day 10 cont'd: 1+hour phone call & scheduled technician appt. between 8am & 2pm
• Day 11: Waited for technician---who never ever showed.
• Day 11 con't: 1+ hour phone call---no answer, no solution
• Day 12: cancelled verizon in 15 minutes and signed up for CLEAR
• Day 13: While enjoying internet through CLEAR, received a call from Verizon that there was still no solution to our problem. (So thankful I am done with them)

Stay tuned--Now that we are back online, I have lots to share and update about the move :)

ugh...

...day 10...

still no internet

:/

It's Time

We are doing this...

because Saturday we start moving boxes. I will most definitely probably be m.i.a...for awhile (not sure when we will get internet again). Hopefully I'll be back with lots of pictures (probably of an insane # of boxes) hahahah :)

Ooooh's and Ahhhh's

Despite the fact that I've had a rather rough day, this past week was a VERY exciting and momentous week with 2 very big events.

Numero Uno:

I started and finished my first quilt!

I was invited to a small baby shower last week and I really wanted to give quilting a try..so I thought why not start with a baby size...perfect! I started by picking my fabrics. The gender is still a surprise, so it had to be neutral (but I didn't really want yellow & green). These were my choices (with the brown on the bottom). I also was originally looking for different patterns, rather than just different colors...oh well!

I have to be honest and say I got ambitious...okay tired when I was cutting the squares, but this was the beginning of my sewing adventure. I chose to use a patchwork style with alternating vertical and horizontal lines. That way A) it didn't have to match up and B) I really liked it :)

From there it was a lot more sewing straight lines. I didn't take any more pictures until the end. I wanted to do free-motion quilting, but it turns out I don't have the right quilting foot for that. So I chose to stick with the square shape and make a spiral square for my quilting pattern. After adding a brown border and beige dot binding I ended up with this. It's not perfect if you look close enough (in person) but it will hold together and at a glance it's really not that bad. The momma asked me to "autograph" it and add the baby's name once he or she is born. Of course, I said ABSOLUTELY! After all it could be the first of many to come ;)

In other news, another very exciting event happened.

Are you ready....wait for it...wait for it...

I got a JOB!! and not just any job...a TEACHING job. I had 2 interviews in a matter of a couple days and was offered the job in less that a week. I've been hesitant to share this news here, just because there is some family who does not know yet--they will find out tonight or tomorrow morning. 

So want some details maybe? I will be teaching preschool in the morning (3s & 4s) and kindergarten in the afternoon. It's at a semi-local christian school. I'm very excited to get back into the classroom. [sidenote: this means I don't have much more time at Rita's--WAHOO!!!]

And #3 (not so much a big event yet), but we have a moving date. The current residents will be out by noon on the 24th. So we'll start cleaning that afternoon and maybe start moving Sunday or monday...yippee!!!

It's too hot to think

I don't have too much to write about at this very moment [it's 101° outside].

Yes it's blistering, take your breath away, sweat instantly...H.O.T. I feel as though I only have enough mental capacity to post a photo challenge picture. This is one of my favorite pictures I've taken [though I do have a large number of favorites]. I love the angle, composition, and the colors/black & white. Plus I don't think I ever shared any pictures from this wedding.

Happy 4th!

Although I live in a small town, right outside the only city in our county, we happen to have some of the BEST fireworks in the nation (or so say they say). I can't speak for other places, but ours are quite good. Anyway, we always have a week long carnival called Community Days. It's really more of County Days because people from ALL OVER the county and surrounding counties come. It goes from Sunday to Saturday and ends in fireworks. Here is a picture I took at last nights fireworks...unedited because I'm currently without software :(

A Perfect Day

[I didn't get a picture of the second cart...but there was one-a big one]

It held the boxes that will eventually become this:

and in the process of looking for this picture, I found something else on sale on Saturday, so we might be taking ANOTHER trip :)

New Endeavors

Now that we are moving, I'm getting excited about doing all those wifely duties again. Okay, well one to be exact...cook. I've always had the option while we've been here to cook whenever I want. However, I very rarely (if ever) chose to use that option. I think I've also enjoyed not having to decide what I was going to make and I never had to take the time to make it! I've decided to try to learn how to cook. Not just reading recipes, but to really cook. You know, be able to look at your cabinets & refrigerator and just throw things together and have them come out delicious.  I want to be able to do that

However, along with learning to cook, it means we will actually have to purchase our own food again--all of it. That means endeavor #2 is to do some serious couponing. I hear of people that save TONS of money through coupons. I want to be one of those.

Hopefully I'll be able to actually make progress on both of these things and share the journey with you! I'm excited to say the least :)

Round 2...on a Friday

This mornings post was unexpected, so I thought it would only be fair to finally and fully fill you in on what the true big announcement is.

Sadly, and I'm sorry to disappoint but it is no baby. No pea in a pod...yet.

My big news is nothing that we are purchasing...it's more or less as opportunity that God has provided for us. A family in our church is moving and was unable to sell their house. Knowing that we would be interested in moving out, they offered to rent their house to us.

Sadly though, we couldn't afford it. [insert much sadness here] With no real jobs on the horizon, it doesn't lend very well to paying rent along with other bills. 

Despite this my official announcement is....

we are still moving! :)

In order to help them and help ourselves, it's been decided that we will split the house and the rent with Greg's younger brother and his new wife (they are getting married a week before we move). [this is where you will kindly keep all rude and un-nice comments to yourself please]. We all know this isn't an ideal or normal situation. We know it's bound to have some issues. BUT we have had enough of living in an attic with 95% of our belongings in a storage unit 2 miles away. 

We are moving to this house:

and yes...this house has an awesome garden, full of growing zucchinis, cucumbers, tomatoes of all sizes, mint, raspberries, dill, parsley, rhubarb, green beans, etc.

We are house sitting while the owners are on vacation, so I am already benefiting from the oh-so-plentiful garden.

I'm sorry this has taken so long, lots of stuff has been going on around here. Like how on earth we are going to replace this car when our money is already going to that house up there.

**Us trying to unload all of my hubby's "stuff" from his car to mine

We are praying that God led us to this position because He has bigger plans for us than we can see. While he hope and think we are making the right decisions, there is no way to be sure. The next month or two could be great, bad, or a little bit of each. I guess we'll see what happens...