A Frock By Friday

A Frock By Friday This is a link to a project that I am interested in doing. The blogger posts a free pattern and gives instructions for each day so that by Friday you have made the dress. I have printed the pattern and will cut it out. Tomorrow it is off to the fabric store!

playing with my newest toy

After church and delicious pancakes at IHOP we stopped at Savers to see if they had any glue guns since mine has been MIA after I lent it to a parent during the Wiz performance. I am considering it lost now but I need a glue gun for some crafting projects I have been wanted to make for gifts.

Our stop at Savers was a success (as most stops at Savers are for me!) Not only did I find what may potentially be the BEST glue gun ever (the battery is currently charging, who knew that there were battery powered ones?) but I also found a great blazer and shirt for Joel and he found a great art kit for me. I like to draw quilts that I am designing to see the possible color combinations and was in the market for some colored pencils. Well now I have colored pencils, watercolors, crayons and markers in a neat kit. It may have been designed for a elementary student but I plan to do great things with it!

Lindy of course came to investigate the newest toy we got for her.

Here is what I did while playing around with my colored pencils tonight. It is supposed to be Joel, myself and Lindy.

what to say?

It has been quite the week.

To sum it up:

students: awful for sub

health: sucks

personal life: tough

job: cut for next year

husband: supportive

me: hopeful, I know it will all work out

and thankfully

God: good

tomorrow's project

I am up past my bed time...but I am feeling inspired and needing to create. So I am going to leave my newest project on the table with plans of making a picnic quilt tomorrow. I might change it a bit but I am hoping to make it out of materials that I already have. I will probably be able to do it too! I have such an amazing craft room that is well stocked and ready for summer! Goodnight, don't let the bed bugs bite.

getting my craft on

I bought this tee for $4 at Wal-mart and using scraps from another t-shirt I made this. Now I know how to make ruffles. Not bad for my first attempt. Plus shirts like this cost $40 at jcrew! I am not entirely confident about it... but maybe I will get a compliment while wearing it to boost my confidence. I have wanted to try making a shirt like this for a long time. It took Joel telling me it was fine to cut up a shirt and give it a try. It is hard for me to try new things. I don't like to start until I am sure how I am going to do it. Not this time. I just gave it a try. Thanks for all of your support Joel!

date night oh how I love thee

Friday night is date night. It is sacred. I love it. I start getting really excited on Thursday knowing that tomorrow if Friday, the work week will be over and soon I will be hanging out with Joel without any other distractions. I am sad that it took us almost 4 years to get serious about date night but I am SO glad that we did! Usually we do pizza and a movie at home. It is relaxing and wonderful. This week Joel wasn't interested in pizza so I threw out the idea of going to buy each other "Chucks" or converse All Stars. I have wanted a pair ever since I saw The Sandlot at a friends sleepover at about the age of 10. To be honest I never thought I was "cool enough" to own or wear a pair. But I am over that now. Here are my new and most favorite shoes! Soon Joel will have a matching pair in black. I can't wait :-) He looks so cute in them!

After shopping we went home and watched the movie The Informant. It was pretty funny. I can't believe it was based on a true story.

p.s. I love you Joel

one small change has made a HUGE difference!

The one thing that has made this year difficult for me is all of the behavior issues in my classroom! I came home from school feeling burnt out and frustrated most days and didn't have the control of my classroom that I needed to have. So I decided to switch up my behavior plan a little bit. I will not bore you with the details... just ask me if you want to know about it. But I will show you the cute thing I made that has made a huge difference. The goal is to have sunny days in first grade. I have made a huge deal out of it and kids are trying to remind each other to make good choices so we can all be on the sun! It is great.

Special thanks to Sheri my step-mom and fellow first grade teacher for sharing the idea. It has helped so much!

baby shower in my classroom

The day we returned to school after spring break was a teacher work day. That is one of the things that I love about my school. We always have a work day at school to get things ready before the kids return from break. It is a great transition time for me and it really allows me to enjoy the break without thinking about what I need to get ready for school.

I didn't end up getting much work done on that work day because I was busy decorating for a baby shower in my classroom. It was really fun hosting a party there, I wish I could have left all the table clothes and flowers on the desks...pretty sure my first graders would have handled that well!

This was the view from my desk of all the students desks covered for the party.

There are three teachers at school expecting babies in May so we decided to throw them a shower at school. I was part of the decorating committee for the shower. I wanted to do a spring picnic themed party. I tried to find decorations that would be reusable to have a more classic feeling and to be earth friendly! I bought all of the table clothes at savers. I had all of the mason jars from my wedding decorations. I purchased them at a garage sale originally. I filled the jars with fresh flowers from cub. All of the fresh flowers made me even more anxious for summer! At the end of the party I sent the flowers with teachers to brighten up their desks on the first week back from break. I still have some on my desk that are alive and pretty.

We had a potluck lunch that was delicious. My contribution is pictured above (not a great pic but oh well). I decided to stick with the spring theme and make these special K type desserts and shaped them into nests and then added spring colored m&ms as the eggs. They were cute and so delicious. I served them on the cake stands that I made.

The party was a success. Everyone had a great time and I think my decorations helped to set the mood! Now I have all of these great table clothes to use again. Who wants to have a party?

I love my cat. Here is one reason why!

spring break

I am on spring break now, thank God! I am relaxing, taking a lot of long luxurious naps with my cat and doing whatever I want! It is very refreshing.

I have done a little bit of spring cleaning. It has felt really good to get rid of things we no longer use. Usually I am too sentimental about possessions to get rid of anything, but not this week! I am sick of having to ask Joel to move junk around in the basement so that I can reach something I need. Needless to say he is sick of it too :-)

My mom and sisters and basically anyone that has lived with me can speak to the fact that I am a little bit messy and I tend to leave a trail of things behind me where ever I go. But I am really trying to change this habit. I am really working on picking up after myself immediately so that I don't have to spend the week living in a messy house and the weekend cleaning up. I am proud to say that I am actually doing very well! I have discovered that I only like cleaning up and putting things away when everything has its place and that there is enough room for everything to be put away. For example, a lot of the time I don't like putting my clothes away and clean clothes will sit in the laundry hamper for days. I have discovered that I am more motivated to put clothes away if I have enough hangers for all everything and drawers with plenty of room to put things away in. So to help I have cleaned out my closet and am trying to keep only things that I wear and not things I am sentimental about.

I think this is a sign I am growing up!

I am sure that my mom is wishing I had discovered this about myself in high school... I would like to take this time to formally apologize to my mom for my perpetually dirty room in high school. I am sincerely sorry!

Over break I have also been spending a lot of time with my friend Shawn. We both love to go to thrift stores so we did that on tuesday. She helped me make two cake stands. I will be using them at my girls brunch this weekend and for a baby shower at work. I am sure I will add pictures from one of those events. Yesterday Shawn and I worked on painting a mural of birch trees on her bedroom wall. It was so fun! I will post pics of it when it is done but for now here is our inspiration from this blog.

Today I slept in, relaxed, took a nap, did laundry and then sewed three baby slings for the upcoming baby shower. It felt SO good to sew. It has been too long. I hope to do some more sewing before spring break is over.

Joel cooked dinner and then we went for a walk. It has been gorgeous outside this week! So that is my break so far. I didn't make any plans so that I would have a lot of time to sleep. Now I am going to go read in bed until I fall asleep :-)

I hope you are all doing well.

ten things that make me very happy

1. books that make me laugh out loud
2. holding my husbands hand
3. creating
4. brightening someones day
5. putting away silverware
6. ice cream
7. making breakfast for friends
8. laughing with kids
9. my family
10. when my cat snuggles with me
11. cats purring
12. treasure hunting at thrift stores
13. sending letters or gifts in the mail
14. receiving letters or gifts in the mail
15. dancing with my husband
16. water
17. the seasons changing

yes I am aware that there are 17 things on that list...but it is my list and I can do what I want! Comment with your list of ten (or more) things that make you happy. I would love to know!