Take that _______ out of your ______

I wish I had started a tally of how many times I would say "take such-and-such out of your such-and-such!" Who knew? Those of you who have or have had 5 year-olds before maybe would have known... but me? I have been a little surprised!


Take that .... crayon, shirt, plastic fish, library book, piece of carpet, glue, backpack strap (the list goes on and on) .... out of your mouth, please.

Take that .... crayon, shirt, plastic fish, library book, piece of carpet, glue, backpack strap (the list goes on and on) ... out of your nose, please.

Take that .... crayon, shirt, plastic fish, library book, piece of carpet, glue, backpack strap (the list goes on and on) ... out of your ears, please.

....out of your pants, please.

.....out of your shirt, please.

....out of your shoes, please.

Really, I've been impressed with a couple of the combinations I've seen!
Sometimes these kiddos really crack me up.

Keep praying as we move into week 2!

Just keep planning

Slept in - check!
3 hours of e-Instruction Training - check!
2 ENTIRE weeks of social studies lesson planning for the Kindergarten team - check!

Plus Bryan and I knocked out all of the laundry that has continued to accumulate at an alarming rate these last couple of weeks. And he vacuumed.

Whoop.

My plan for the rest of the weekend includes trying to get all of MY lesson plans done for this week and even some of the next week if possible. Our grade level divides up the lesson planning by subject, so Social Studies HAD to be done, but I still need to take everything the other teachers put together for ELA, Math and Science + my Social Studies stuff into an actual plan for each day. I think you'd be a little surprised at how long lesson planning takes - at least for a newbie. I'm hoping I get quicker at it the more I do it. In addition to the plans I also have to prepare the materials needed for each lesson. Poor Bryan's really learning what it means to be the spouse of a teacher!! :) He very sweetly did some coloring for me yesterday, haha. He's also an expert pencil sharpener!

We're about to watch Braveheart and eat some pizza, yumm. I think this is the first time I've truly felt this much relief that it's the weekend! Phew.

I'm Alive!!

... and so are all of my students!

SUCCESS.

This week was a little rough, as I was told the first week of a brand new Kindergarten class would be, BUT I love them already and I think each day will continue to get better. Especially now that we truly have curriculum we can start adding to our day instead of mostly just rules/procedures and busy work. (Yuck.)

My team of fellow Kinder teachers have really been helpful and I've got some other mentors throughout the school that have been checking on me each day to give kind words, encouragement, a pat on the back or some much needed (and asked for!) advice. There are some incredibly amazing people that work at my school. In fact, I'm about to go get some margaritas and mexican food with one of them to celebrate the conclusion of week 1! :)
(A strawberry margarita almost always makes things at least a little better!)

AND.... Bryan's done at Brazos Technology! He's officially a Houston-dude. He's been such a wonderful help and encouragement to me this week. He deserves some bragging on :)
He has an interview next week so keep your fingers crossed.

I have some hilarious school stories to tell already. Have you heard of the show "Kids Say the Darnest Things?" Oh my goodness, it's so true. They are so funny without even meaning to, and I love it. Unfortunately I also have some not-so-good stories already too, but those aren't much fun so I prefer to think about the really positive (or at least funny) bits of each day.

Week 1 out of 36 can now be checked off!

14 going on 15

I got another new student today, and he's a handful. I was getting my class semi-settled and they were falling into some sort of basic routine with our rules and procedures and along came Mr. Tough-Stuff. If you see a Kindergarten teacher in the next few days, throw your arms around them and thank them for the fairly thankless work they do :)

I work in a pretty difficult school setting. We are a Title 1 school which means our student (and parent) population is really different from the schools most of you reading this (and I) came from. I have 13 African American and 2 Hispanic students. One of the other kinder classes is almost entirely Asian. I think there may be 2 Caucasian students in our entire grade level composed of 6(!) classes. (It's a pretty big school.) This in itself isn't that different, but adding the economically disadvantaged issue into the equation makes it MUCH more difficult. These children need to have a different set of rules, attitudes and behaviors to survive in their world. They HAVE to be tough and they feel the need to be defiant and act like nothing you say matters because that's how they have to be in their home lives.

But they're 5 years old. They need love. And many of them REALLY need an authority figure.

I happen to be an authority figure, so it works out well. I also have their best interests at heart. Unfortunately I also happen to not have a CLUE how to teach Kindergarten!! But given the circumstances, I'm learning VERY fast. I'm pretty sure I'm learning WAY more than they are right now!

I feel like I need to give 2/3 of my class major kudos for how far along they're coming though. We've got our alphabetically arranged line finally working!! Now if only we could work on not shoving or kicking other students while in line...

I have had one student making some pretty bad decisions. I have my first parent/principal/teacher conference tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous. I also have my first principal observation tomorrow which makes me really nervous. I'll just do what I'm doing and hope they have some very good advice on how to make it better!

Pathetic admission for the day: I cried.
It took me 4 days to get there though!! I kind of feel like it's a victory. And it waited until the students were officially gone, so that's another victory.
I know the other Kinder teachers are struggling right now too. This is the toughest part of the school year and I know I will survive. Keep me in your prayers!!

Anyone wondering if Bryan is still around since most posts are all about me?
He's good! In fact, he's great :) He's been the sweetest husband ever this past week. He's working hard on finishing all he needs to do since tomorrow is his LAST day at Brazos Technology! Can you believe it? The month has gone by so fast.

More news once I actually get some good sleep this weekend!
Plus, I need to finish my lesson plans for tomorrow :/ Eeek.

First Day of School

Such a simple title for such a CRAZY day.

I am almost completely out of energy and it's getting late (and I don't have my lesson plans for tomorrow finished yet!) so this will be short and sweet.

Today was a bit rough, as was expected. It definitely could have gone much worse, and I'm so grateful that it didn't. I said continuous prayers throughout the day for wisdom, patience and understanding, and I really think God was there for me today because it was a completely new experience for me! I would like to point out that I didn't lose any kids and they ALL got home the way they were supposed to! (Victory!)

So far I have 13 five-year-olds (which I believe is PLENTY), however, I think I may be getting a few more tomorrow, or some over the rest of this week. It was really interesting to get a feel for the dynamic my class will have this year. I have a couple of students who stand out for various reasons already:
One who literally wailed all day long. Not just cried, but screamed for about 5 hours.
One who is kind of a class bully. She's a 5 year old that's almost as tall as I am and almost as big, too. She also isn't sure how she feels about authority.
One who is the most hug-crazy boy I've ever met - and extremely vocal.
And one who is the sweetest, most polite, and advanced Kindergartener I think I've ever met!
There are many more and I look forward to seeing their little personalities shine through over the next few weeks.

I did decide one thing was MAJORLY necessary for tomorrow: A seating arrangement!!!

Trust me, tomorrow will go better because of it. Some kids should NOT be placed together!

Then I came home and Bryan had bought me flowers!!! This is the first time he's ever done that, because of my allergies. But he took the time to go to a florist, explain the problem and she helped him put something together that hopefully my skin or nose won't react to.
How sweet is my husband!?

He also left a very kind and loving note, which I loved just as much as the flowers. I love surprises and this made my day about a billion times better.

That's it for now!
Pray for me tomorrow!

A is for Adorable!

Yesterday just about wrapped up my time prepping the classroom before school starts! I was panicking, so once more my Mom came to the rescue :)
(Thanks, Mom! You're the best!)

Here is the library center:


On the left (across the cabinets) is our Reading Wall & on the right (whiteboard) is our Word Wall and in the center is the "teacher station" where my computer is plus all of the equipment to work the Starboard:


On the left is sort of my desk and the small group center, on the wall is where we will display student work and below that is our technology/computer center:


This is where all the carpet time happens! On the left is the flip chart, in the middle is the Starboard, the director's chair is for our Read-Aloud time, and then on the right is our math center/calendar time:


And finally, here's a photo of as much of the room as I could fit into one shot:


I realize I'm missing some chairs at that one desk, I promise I'll fix that ASAP.
I'm going back to school for just an hour or so today to finish putting their names at their seating arrangement and a few other odds and ends. Getting pretty close though!!

MeMaw Evans also stopped by yesterday to see the room and help me cut out name tags among other things. It was so good to see her and receive her help - thank you MeMaw!

Classroom Prep Madness

I'm weary to the bone, but the last two days have been EXTREMELY productive, so I feel like I shouldn't complain :)

On Wednesday my Mom joined me at school at 3:30 once our In-Service day was technically over to help me get a move on in my classroom. Our administration kindly allowed us to stay until 11:30pm (if we needed to), so I thought it would be a good day to stay (much) later than usual. My classroom was mostly empty (except for the furniture arrangement) when we started, so we got a ton done. Then my fabulous husband showed up around 5:30 with his nice height to help us hang up the butcher paper and borders on the higher hanging bulletin boards and also (thankfully) to help me set up all 4 student computers.

Check Bryan out in the very, very, very tiny but cute Kindergarten chair :)



And here is my Mom being her awesome self and hanging up letters for my Reading Wall:



And because I usually don't end up in photos, here's a picture one of them took of me finishing off a bulletin board (proof I do things too!):



And here is the final product so far!! (Although it looks pretty different after today):



It's coming along nicely! We left around 9:20pm.

Today (which I'm almost positive is Thursday...) we attended meetings and then had the afternoon to get together in our grade level groups and then to work in our classrooms and get a ton of stuff that isn't done yet, done. Does that even make sense?

So I was able to really start getting organized! There is very left to do to finish off the classroom by itself and I have everything I need to finish it (although I may need to borrow another set of hands from either family or co-workers one more time). But I have a ton of other stuff left to do: lesson plans, parent letter, conduct folders, Tuesday folders, etc etc etc.... yes, it's a very long list :( And a very intimidating one at that! However, there is still tomorrow afternoon and Saturday when things can be done! Yay!

Can't wait to show y'all finished classroom photos!! Those kiddos are showing up on Monday whether I'm ready or not, so I better get ready. (And get some sleep!)

Movin' on up!

Well ladies and gents, I'm now a Kindergarten teacher!

I was asked to move into this (thankfully full-time) position yesterday afternoon because another teacher resigned. They hired someone else to take the half-time Pre-K position I previously had.

I. am. stoked. :)

This change has lots of positive implications. I'm now considered full time, which means full time pay (yay!), and this will count as my certification internship (again, yay!) so that I will be fully certified this May. I get my own classroom which is actually quite large because I'm in the corner classroom (very cool). Plus I get to work with 4 other teachers (one of which is also new to Kindergarten, although she's taught Pre-K before). All in all, this is GREAT news.

I saw my new classroom for the first time today, and the former teacher(s) left stuff all over, so I'll have to sort through all of their stuff, figure out what I want to keep and what I want to get out of my room so I organize it in such a way that I won't lose my mind over it. I don't handle stuffed cabinets very well!! How am I ever supposed to know what I have like that? So that's what I'll be staying after in-service all week doing! Today was devoted to trying to find a furniture arrangement that works with the required spaces and enables myself and my students to move around the room easily and safely. I think I'm almost there!

Since I am now full time, my internship officially starts!! (And so do the payments - shoot!) Once a candidate finds a job or goes full time, my program assigns a former teacher/administrator that has usually retired to be their supervisor. My supervisor called me this afternoon and plans to swing by tomorrow to visit with me about his expectations, and to see how I'm doing so far. I look forward to working with him - and my assigned campus mentor! Isn't a support group a wonderful thing? I hope I develop a positive relationship with all of them, since they may be my rock in the storm this first year.

In other news: Bryan has been working remotely this week and reports that it's going "pretty well." It's a little different, but I think he enjoys not being around all the phones and commotion of the office. It's so nice to have him home!

The Power of Prayer!

Two fabulous things happened today:

1. I'm now FULL-TIME (whew!)
2. And I get my own classroom!

The reasons for these 2 things are actually not allowed to be told until after today, so I will give full details tomorrow! Thank you, Lord. And thank you for all of the prayers that I would be able to work everything out with the new job.

I am so relieved and so excited!! Yay!

The rest of the week of training

So sorry I've been so remiss with my posting. It's been really hectic in the Evans' household lately. I think I left off this past Tuesday I believe with New Teacher Orientation day 2.

Well, Wednesday was pretty much identical .... another day of listening to a speaker and taking notes. However, that night I met up with my friend Laura for dinner at Olive Garden! It was really nice - the food was great and the company much appreciated. We got to talking (as women tend to do) and didn't leave until 9:30, which is actually my bedtime when I have to get up early in the morning. Well worth the late evening though!

Thursday morning was a little different, because it consisted of several mini-workshops with different speakers (much more enjoyable than a solid day of a single workshop). Thursday afternoon we were supposed to go to our own campus and our administration would have some sort of orientation or something for us. Mine didn't, though. So I walked around the school, familiarizing myself with the layout and visited with some of my co-workers as they set up their classroom. I also rummaged through my classroom just to see what all was already there and what I would need for the following day. After our mandatory day was over, I found my new favorite teacher store right by Willowbrook Mall. I have to make SO many name-tags for my students (because if they lose them, I have to be able to replace them) so I had the teacher store laminate them for me, for 25 cents a foot. It was a good decision because Mom came over to our apartment that night, we had dinner together and then listened to music, talked and cut out the hundreds of little name tags together! (THANK YOU, MOM!)



In case you were wondering what the different shaped/colored name tags mean, we are required to use certain colors to signify the ways my students will travel home. I found different shapes that also signify the same thing, except for car riders. With them, I just drew a little car at the top of each star:

Yellow (Bus) = Bus riders
Red (Star) = Car Riders
Green (Apple) = Day Care
Brown (feet) = Walkers/Bike-riders

Then, on Friday, Mom & I got up bright and early to go take a look at my classroom and get started with some setting up! This is what the classroom looks like so far:





You may notice that there is only one bulletin board that we hung up. This would be because I found out I'm sharing my classroom with the bilingual pre-k teacher at our school. When we finally got in touch with each other I found out she had pretty specific ideas of how the centers should be put together and where it should be arranged. I can understand that there is probably a strategic way to best utilize the space, but I was REALLY disappointed to get there and not really be able to work on anything. I really, really want my own classroom, but that will only happen this year if we get a whole bunch more pre-k students registered. I've been saying many prayers that I go full-time, and I'd appreciate any that you may be willing to say as well.

Since there wasn't a whole lot I could do, sadly, Mom and I eventually decided to leave the school rather than just sit and stare. When I got out to my car though, and we started driving to Ihop for brunch, we quickly realized the the A/C in my car wasn't working! Oh, no. We stopped, ate, and then went back to the teacher store to finish getting the remainder of my stuff laminated, because we figured we may as well be productive and cut out little buses while we wait at the mechanic. At this point in the day I was so frustrated with so many things that Mom also suggested we splurge and get pedicures - which we did! Thank goodness the girl I had knew what she was doing because she was actually able to help my toe out! (It's been messed up since moving to Houston - badly.) Thank you again, Mom :)

It was just what we needed. Then at the mechanic they diagnosed the problem and said my A/C Compressor was in terrible condition and dead. I also needed an oil change. He gave me a quote, and I was disappointed by the amount (almost $1,000!), but there's no way I want to drive around Houston in the heat indexes we've been having lately (upwards of 110 degrees) without A/C in my car, so I decided to go ahead and get it fixed. It's now blowing cold air again, thank goodness.

That same night Bryan came home!! He's now officially moved to Houston, although he'll be working remotely for Brazos Technology for 2 more weeks. I'm SO glad to have him home again. He made Mom & I margaritas and they were amazing.

Saturday morning I got up bright and early to attend yet ANOTHER training ... that (drum roll, please) ... it turns out I didn't need to attend at all because of the grade level I teach!! I was pretty annoyed, because who wants to get up at 6am and get dressed up on a Saturday when they don't have to!? They said that since I was already there, I may as well stay for the morning session on learning how to use the Starboards, but that there was really no point in me coming back after lunch for E-Instruction since Pre-K really never uses that technology.

For the rest of the day, I hung out with Bryan, and later Collin & Laura too. We ate, went swimming & watched a movie. Laura helped me cut out my few remaining name-tags, too.

And that brings us to this morning! We got up, attended Prince of Peace Catholic Church (we're still looking for a church home), which was a really nice service. The little girl (maybe 6 years old?) next to me mimicked everything I did the whole service. It was pretty cute. Now we're just doing some chores, getting some work done and relaxing.

And that's pretty much it .... sorry for the delay!!

Hiya Neighbor

This pooped girl is about to go to bed, but thought I'd share about Day 2 of orientation before I shut down completely.

But first, last night after I'd gone to bed there was a lot of knocking on our door. I hate answering the door at night if I don't already know someone's coming and I REALLY didn't like it when no one else was at home, but I turned on the light and stumbled over the door and hollered "who's there!?" through the door. I heard giggling and the answer, "your neighbors!" Truly against my better judgment, I opened the door a smidgen and peered out. Thankfully, it turns out it really was our neighbors! They gave us a welcoming gift of bread, peanut butter and jelly and were just wanting to meet us. I thought that was so incredibly sweet and I feel terrible about how rude/timid/asleep I was when we talked. I wrote them a thank you note this morning explaining that I was mostly asleep and promised to head over to meet them (again) when Bryan is in town and I'm fully dressed :) How friendly is that though!? We have lovely neighbors apparently!

I immediately went back to sleep and woke up nice and early again to attend New Teacher Orientation Day 2. This time we met at Faithbridge Methodist Church, which I think we're going to try this Sunday anyway, so it was nice to get a look inside. Today they were actually expecting me!! (unlike yesterday) so I actually had a place:

Which made me feel better about attending :)
I still felt a little foolish though because I was the ONLY first-year teacher new to Nitsch Elementary!! I was a little island all by myself ... sad times ... until thankfully the Nitsch mentor showed up to watch the orientation! (She'll be presenting it next year, apparently.) I felt much better after she showed up. We were paired with the new first-year teachers from Benfer Elementary and they were all good people too.

They gave us a ton of literature to read, so I've been trying to get through all of it before tomorrow. I did really well from about 7am-1:45pm, but started massively shutting down around then. 2-3:30 was more like torture than training (and from all of the wiggling, shifting, whispering, and checking phones on the sly all around the room, I think MANY other people were feeling the same). Tomorrow we report to the same place, but hopefully I'll be engaged the ENTIRE time!!

Am I oriented yet?

Today was the first day of New Teacher Orientation held at Klein Collin's High School. The morning got off to a rocky start, but quickly improved, thank goodness. I met the 2 other teachers starting at Nitsch this year, although they both have quite a bit of experience. I can tell I'm going to really enjoy getting to know both of them this year. Unfortunately, because they already have experience and I'm a complete newbie, I'm on my own tomorrow while they attend a different training. Meeting new people every day!

A union and two professional teacher organizations were represented today and we had the opportunity to visit with them before the day started and during our lunch break. It is recommended that ALL teachers are involved in some sort of organization primarily for liability insurance, but some organizations offer much more than that. (I pray I never need the liability insurance!) I'm pretty sure I've decided to join one of the professional organizations, but I'm going to check over the information they gave us today before I decide. The dues are ever so slightly more, but they offer a lot of neat and informative trainings and workshops locally(!) which is wonderful and a huge plus. I'm WAY more likely to attend a workshop somewhere in Houston than driving to Oklahoma or some other state. This may sound odd, but I also just feel weird about the idea of joining a union... I don't think it's for me, although it sounds like they have some great things going for them too.

I drove home, changed clothes and hit up the gym. After working out, I walked nearly all the way home and decided I hadn't had enough fresh air yet today so I took a walk! I think I sweat nearly as much walking outside as I did on the elliptical inside --- It's HOT!! Although the elliptical certainly wore me out more :) Then there were some little boys playing in the apartment swimming pool so I sat on the side of the pool and visited with them a little bit while their Dad soaked in the hot tub, haha. I hope I have some sweet boys like them in my class!! I think I just love people.

Now I'm home, made dinner & am watching HGTV. I've been doing lots of research lately and gathering good teaching resources and lesson plan/activity ideas, so I will probably end up doing some more of that this evening too. Bryan, on the other hand, will be attending a Fightin' Texas Aggie FOOTBALL practice tonight! Those that know my husband will be excited for him too :) They aren't allowed to take phones, cameras or video recorders (or anything like that) into the practice to protect the integrity of the practice and team, I guess. He's been pretty much addicted to TexAgs reading all of those football forums, so I bet he really enjoys it. If we must be apart for a while, I'm glad we can stay busy and have fun!

Am I ready for Orientation round 2 tomorrow?

Over Zealous

Monday - Thursday this week is New Teacher Orientation for Klein ISD and I am EXCITED!
I am also incredibly nervous.
But this makes me feel SO much better:


Oh yeah :)

Sundays are the best - and busiest!

We started our morning with a much earlier church service than we usually attend, but it was well worth it to get a start on finding a new church home now that we've moved! I don't think I'm a very good natural "fisher of men" so it was good to reminded of what I'm supposed to be doing.

Getting started early also meant we were able to get a whole lot done today:

1. Church with the Powells
2. Visited Nitsch Elementary for a tour of the building & to see my new classroom!!
3. Went to the Amish Barn in Old Town Spring to order our new dining room chairs :)
4. Had lunch in Old Town Spring
5. Drove downtown to look around The Dump & Fry's
6. Visited a woman in downtown who has left teaching & was getting rid of a ton of great children's books for early readers

I'm not sure how many miles we drove total and I'm not really sure I want to know, but it was a really good day to spend with Bryan.

Pictures of the chair we ordered (note that the colors will be very different when we get them in a couple of months):



So exciting!! Can't wait to start having people over for dinner!

Staff Development

Today was a staff development day for my new school, Nitsch Elementary. I was nervous because basically before today I'd only met the principal, one of the assistant principals, and the Title 1 specialist during my interview and no one else. It was going to be a development day AND team building day, which I thought would a bit awkward given that everyone would know each other but me. Although there were weird moments (which is only natural) it went really well! I met some really lovely people and am glad I have some great co-workers that I can go to when I get stuck (which I undoubtedly will... quite often!). I'm looking forward to getting to know these women better! I was told that we have males on staff but not a single one showed up, so I'll believe it when I see it :)

They decided that the few new people didn't stand out enough, so they asked us to wear these somewhere on our person:



What you're seeing is a square of race car checkered fabric. I'm sure I looked pretty silly wearing it around my ponytail, but several ladies introduced themselves without me seeking them out, so I guess it served it's purpose!

In case you're wondering what Bryan did while I attended a staff development day on his day off, he went to look at the place where I found chairs I love with my Mom (how awesome are they?) and then had lunch and visited with his grandparents all afternoon. He mentioned to MeMaw that I had a TON of ironing to do after I washed every item of clothing we own, and she VERY sweetly offered to work on it for me this afternoon!! THANK YOU, MeMaw! Now my pile of ironing is much smaller. Yay! I met up with Bryan and MeMaw and Paw after my training at their house, we visited a bit and then went to eat at Los Cucos - yum!

Then we went to Walmart & Target for a few things, including new guitar strings. For the rest of this evening Bryan's been putting on the strings, tuning them and playing while I just relax and let my brain soak in everything from today. It's so nice to have him here!! I wish he didn't need to go back to College Station again next week!

Sunset on the Lake

This Friday evening we are staying at my parent's because their house is a little closer to Lake Livingston where I need drive to tomorrow than our apartment. Not to mention we love being out on the lake!! 4 pictures to give examples as to why:

Ducks!

And beautiful sunsets :)

Last week of vacation!

Since Bryan has been living in College Station & I have been living in Houston, I spent my last remaining free weekdays in CS with him (well, Wednesday night & all day/night Thursday).

Wednesday we went out to eat and just hung out, which was really nice. Thursday was a different story... I had to take my PPR final exam that morning (It's FINISHED!! Whoop!) and then I literally had NOTHING to do all of the rest the day. I had planned to use some of the downtime to do some things online I'd been procrastinating on (or just didn't have time for), but the internet was down the ENTIRE day and Bryan didn't get off work until 6:30. I also didn't have any books with me or anything. By the time he came home I was pretty grouchy and bored. We made dinner & then Bryan decided we could go see a movie to make up for the yucky day. We went and saw Ramona and Beezus as our last trip to the movies for $4 a person. It was really cute! I loved Ramona when I was a little girl, so I was pretty excited to see the film. It was probably nothing award-winning, but I think we both enjoyed it!

Today Bryan went back to work again and I drove to Brenham for another Classroom Management workshop. It was pretty much the same thing as a few weeks ago, so I'm not entirely sure why they did this one unless they felt like we needed 3 days of same material to get it fully into our brains. In any case, I'm glad I feel somewhat confident about my classroom management, and hopefully won't have any problems in 2 weeks!

My principal called me and told me we have a staff development/team building day tomorrow that I didn't know about, so I'm off to do that tomorrow while Bryan relaxes and plays some xbox :) I wish we could spend the day together, but it'll be good to get to know my principal better and meet some of my coworkers.

Sorry our lives aren't terribly exciting this week!! Maybe it's a good thing? :)

Mightnight Gold

Many of you know I'm not much of a night owl, but since there was still a load of laundry in the dryer, I decided to do a little browsing around for good Pre-K websites.
I struck gold!!

The laundry has long since been finished but I could not stop reading this blog by a Pre-K and Kindergarten teacher: Blog | Pre-K Pages
It had a huge wealth of information if you've got the time to do some digging.

I also discovered Heidi Songs: Little Songs for Language Arts which are just incredible!! I'm going to ask my principal if we have these resources at school already, and if not, I'm going to invest for sure!! What an incredible way to teach the basics! She incorporates music, singing, dancing/moving and pictures to help students learn the alphabet, numbers, shapes, sight words, etc. Pretty sweet idea.

I am now 100% exhausted and it's about 2 hours past my usual bedtime at least, so I'm off. I had to share those websites though for all of you parents of younger kiddos and fellow teachers. So cool!!

Clothes > Chairs

Still no chairs!!! But we did find a very promising place that could make chairs that work for us, although they're a little more than we budgeted for. I'm taking Bryan there this weekend to check it out and see what he thinks. I love to negotiate, so maybe it can be made reasonable! Mom actually decided to order 2 chairs from them, so we'll see how that all works out too.

Then we went clothes-shopping, which I usually don't like very much. Especially when it's something hard to shop for like, for example, teacher clothes! It's not exactly business dress ... or business casual... or really anything exactly. I needed to find "professional" clothes that would work in a crazy Pre-K environment. Just when I was about to give up, Mom & I found several things that would work! (Thank goodness. And thank you, J.C. Penny.)

Lastly (and possibly the most fun), we visited a store meant just for teachers! I am SO proud of my restraint, actually :) I wanted everything & only bought a few things. (I'm sure Bryan is very thankful to read that.) They were all things I could REALLY use too. I'm counting down the days! This year is going to be so much fun!

Floor > Chairs

Mom & I took on the furniture stores of Houston today!

Bryan's Dad, Ronnie, built us this incredible table:

But since we've been moving around so much (and in pretty shoddy places) we haven't moved it into our place until now so we wouldn't damage it during all of the transitions. Now that we feel comfortable using it, we moved it into our new apartment! However, we gave away our very large, khaki colored fabric chairs to people who lived close to us in College Station who needed some so we literally don't have any chairs.

Today, Mom & I were on a serious mission. She was looking for a sectional coach for their media room upstairs, and I was looking for 6 "casual" dining room chairs. Neither of us found exactly what we were looking for, despite looking in: Rooms To Go, Ashley Furniture, The RoomStore, Star Furniture, Gallery Furniture, Castle Furniture, Affordable Furniture & Diamond Furniture. (We did drive to The Dump as well not realizing that they were only open on the weekends. Oops.) Mom found a few things that might work for their media room but I only found 2 chairs in all of those places that would work at ALL. Why is everything so dark anyway!?

One was at Ashley Furniture and I haven't ruled those out, although I'm not sure I love them.

Here is the second chair that could have worked. It's a pretty sweet chair:

Would you like to hazard a guess as to how much EACH one is, though??
$338 a POP! Whoa!
The lady said she could "take some off" but could she take 75% off? I doubt it. Which meant it was very quickly ruled out! :) Crazy overpriced furniture stores.

I really just want some simple, light colored wood chairs. Have you seen any? If so, point me in the right direction please! I'm searching J.C. Penny, Macy's & IKEA online tonight. Tomorrow Mom & I are going to try a few other places, so we'll see. Should we be successful, I will post a victory picture!!

Mmmm, pineapple

I LOVE pineapple - the taste, the look, and the smell.

This candle is a recent purchase of ours. It smells sooooooo good!!

Honey Do's

I can't believe how great our apartment is looking! Give us a few more days and I'll post pictures. I want everything to be (close to) perfect first. We accidentally forgot to pick up our comforter from the dry cleaners before we left College Station so our bed doesn't look as pretty, oops. Bryan's going to pick that up when he goes back this week.

I've been keeping busy washing all of our clothes. I want EVERYTHING to be washed now that we're in a new place without a weird smell. Plus I've been rearranging our bathroom, office, and kitchen to be functional and tidy.

Bryan, meanwhile, has been kept quite busy himself. He's been assembling, hanging, reaching, setting up our wireless internet, and running "manly" errands like Radio Shack :) I'm proud of him. He leaves to go to back to College Station this evening so I made sure he did all of the things I'm either terrible at or don't know how to do before he leaves!



It really stinks that we have a month we'll have to live apart from each other, but I keep reminding myself that lots of couples have to do this periodically - some couples even longer when spouses work on oil rigs or are in the military. Still, it's the first time we've been separated for more than a weekend since we've been married and I'm not excited about it. Who am I going to steal the covers from?

On a much happier note - I'm so excited about school! We went to Walmart today to pick up a couple of essentials like bread, milk, cereal, etc. and walked out with some unintended school supplies :) I am really excited! My PPR final is this week, all day certification training on Friday, and then Monday, Aug. 9 I start New Teacher Orientation! And then the fun won't stop until next summer, haha. Yay!