Gearing Up For School

Well, most of you (or your kids) are back to school already. The summer flew by (although I'm not sad that its on its way out, it was too hot for me!). As I mentioned before, I got offered a teaching job at Adriana's and (now) Paxton's school. I was SO excited and it was a HUGE answer to prayers. I am going to be in a room with ALL boys! Yep, 9 boys who are Paxton's age. Yeah, I'm going to lose my mind!! I'm so excited though! Anyway, school starts for us next Monday, so this last Monday, we had Open House. Me and my co-teacher, Manda, got there extra early to make sure our room was prepped and ready to go. This is the first year for both of us, so we are kind of going in blind, but I know we will do great!

This poor lady has to put up with my OCD tendencies when it comes to decorating and doing crafts. I think we will balance each other out really well and I'm looking forward to getting to know her better and working with her.

This is our room. There was NOTHING on the walls. We felt like, even though we are dealing with 1-2 year olds, and they might not be able to read, they need stuff to look at, so we got it looking (I think) pretty cute!

The flag banner in the background was my Sunday evening project. I though it would be cute (and inexpensive) to make an alphabet border. This thing ended up being such a thorn in my side, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. Below the banner on the floor is our reading/circle time area. We got a rug and bean bags to cozy up the place.

Where the kids are going to hang their book bags.

Their take home folders (I also whipped up on Sunday. Yes, I wait till the last minute, I know!).

Our welcome poster with the kids names as "hand" leaves as they walk in to their new room.

So, not only was it my turn to meet with my new students and their families it was also my turn to meet with A and P's teachers too. We got to go in a little early to meet with them. Adriana LOVED her new room and teachers. She has asked everyday since then, "how many more days till we start?" She is so excited to start Pre-K.

And then it was Mr. P's turn. He will be right next door to me and our class and his class will have gym class and playground time together. I hope he does well, going back to his own class after seeing me twice a day. He also LOVED his room and was all in the games and puzzles. Those poor women are going to have their hands full with this little one! Good luck Ms. Cheryl and Ms. Tiffany, you will need it!

So that's it! I CAN'T wait! So anxious to get in our groove and get the year going. I'm not hoping that the year flies by, because that means, this time next year, my baby will be going off to Kindergarten. I will try to savor this year! So anxious to Paxton to be going to school too and getting that structure and social aspect in. Its going to be a great year! Here's to kids (and teachers) all over, having a blessed year!

Photo Shoot With The Kids

I wanted to get some pictures of the kids. I feel like they are growing up so fast, and its been forever since we have taken them to get their pictures taken. Since the place we normally go for pictures, is shut down, I figured I would take them to a park and shoot them myself. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE photography, but something about shooting your own kids in this kind of heat and humidity can really test a Mama's patience, but we still got some good shots. Here they are.

New Hair Styles

So there's new website (well, new to me anyway), called Pintrest.com. Its a "hub" if you will, of different blogs and websites FILLED with anything you can think of. Any DIY projects, decorating, cleaning, style, hair, make-up, food, anything you can think of, you can probably find an idea on there. Its kind of a complicated website, so I'm not even going to act like I completely understand, nor will I tell you how it works. The point is, I have found a few blogs on there that give me ideas and how-to's for Adriana's hair. Some of the styles are pretty extensive, but I have tried my hand at a few and wanted to share them with you. Adriana, as girly as she is, really doesn't care to have her hair done. She much rather it be in her face and messy. So, if she sits still long enough for me to fool with something new, I'm all for it. Here are some of the styles we have tried.

This isn't the best picture, and
its actually something I made up,
but its 3 braids and then I braided
the braids into one big braid.

The Criss-cross do. So easy, just would have never thought of it on my own.

Alright, this one is pretty extensive. I braided 8 little braids, crossed them over each other and put them in little pig tails. Well, if you noticed in the first picture of this hair style, Adriana is crying. No, its no because I pulled her hair or anything, she didn't like that I put her pig tails up in "poms" as we call them. She "hates" her hair up in poms. She use to ALWAYS wear her hair that way, but for some reason, she thinks she looks so silly. So, after taking forever to braid her hair and pull it back, she had a complete melt down because of the finished product. She eventually got over it and all was well, but I can guarantee, if I did it like that again, she wouldn't

wear it. This child tests my patience so much sometimes! Either way, I'm having a good time trying new things. Who knows what we will think of next.

Free Bath Mats? Yes, Please!

So a couple of months ago, I earned enough "Swag Bucks" to get a Target $20 gift card. If you aren't familiar with Swagbucks.com, its pretty much like a search engine, like Google, however, you earn points the more you use it. You then, can cash in your points in the Swag Store and get great gift cards. It took us about 6 months to earn enough swagbucks to get as many as we needed for the Target gift card, but it was worth the wait. I knew exactly what I wanted. The kids bathroom has needed bathmats, since, well, we moved in almost 2 years ago. I, am however, too cheap to pay for them. I found some awhile back at Target so I knew that I wanted to try to get them for free by earning enough Swagbucks. I got my gift card, went online, bought them and BAM! my bathroom is now "cozy"!

Before, cold hard floors

Ahhh...sweet comfort on this hard floor.

Completes the look of the bathroom.

Thanks SwagBucks for the new bath mats!

Weekend Getaway

A couple of weekends ago, me and Ryan were able to escape for a weekend getaway, to celebrate our 6th anniversary. Thanks to my parents and Ryan's mom, who watched the little ones for us, we were able to skip out of town for a much needed break. First thing (really the only thing) planned, ZIP LINING!! I was able to get tickets from a friend, who sold them to us for half price. We were so excited. I actually wasn't scared, which is saying a lot, since I HATE roller coasters or anything like that. We were 2 people out of 6 going on a "tour" for our zip lining.


Here's Ryan, geared up and ready to go.


Me, ready to go. Don't ask me what I'm
doing with my foot or my left hand.


After a very scary, bumpy ride on a Gator and a bus, we made it to the top. Our "tour" started at about 60 feet high, but the highest one they have, is 360 feet. It. was. high! The shot above is a picture of our highest point, where we started. It was also probably the longest line we did. I was a little nervous, but still, not really scared.


Ryan volunteered to go first. What is wrong
with the man? He looks a little scared in his face.


There he goes!

I, on the other hand, waited as late as I could before I took the plunge. This annoying lady that was with us, really wanted to take my picture before I went. The picture above is a picture of me before I got "hooked up" on the line. (The lady's son is the one standing next to me. He was 6 and went, BRAVE!)

Before I took my first jump.

Me, later on the course, getting the hang of it.

Ryan, showing off. Really, it was a lot of fun. The scariest part for me? The swinging bridges and the swinging tree stands (in the background of the picture above). I didn't care to be that high up, on what SHOULD be a solid surface, and have it sway. No Thanks!

Again, not a fan of something that is swinging, when I have a nice gravel road underneath me to catch my fall.

Coming in for a landing!

Ryan flying in. It was among trees, so the scenery was so pretty. You can see a little creek at the bottom of the picture above.
Zip lining, was by far, the highlight to our trip. It was SO hot that weekend. We really didn't do anything else the rest of the weekend. I was a little bummed by that, but everything costs so much down there, and we just didn't have the funds to spend. It was great to get away for a night, kid free, and just hang with Ryan. Even though we didn't do anything, it was nice not HAVING to do anything either.