Makenzie the Photographer

On Saturday I went to my older niece's soccer game. To keep Makenzie occupied I taught her how to use my camera and view the pictures. She caught on quickly but not so much to getting the picture in the view finder; she just liked to point and click! Here are some of her favorites; she was extremely proud of about 50 of them but I picked just a few here from hair, to grass, to the sky, and Karley running after the ball! We laughed a lot and had a lot of fun spending time with her.

Happy Harvest Time

This weekend my four year old niece came over for a bit so we decorated the outside of the house. We went to Steins and got the corn stalks, the pumpkins and the scarecrows. My sister helped us as well. We had a great time trying to manuever the paths at Steins with all that stuff piled onto the cart! So here is our house decorated for the fall. Makenzie has named the boy scarecrow Curt and the girl scarecrow Papa. Today I saw a squirrel run off with an ear of corn; it was very cute because the corn was as big as the squirell! Curt has cut me off and said I can not get anything else. I wanted to do orange lights but he said that was too National Lampoon! Just wait until Christmas Curt!

Thanks for a great birthday!

Thanks everyone for a great birthday! We had a family get together on Saturday at my parents house since my brother had the girls for the weekend. My mother made my favorite cake of all time; white cake with peanut butter frosting! Delicious!
And of course I have been completely spoiled! Roses delivered to school, Wicked tickets, Guess leather bag and wallet, new Adidas, gift certificate to the spa, flowers and strawberry desert, little trinkets and big hugs from my students, lots of phone calls, and and an absolutely gorgeous Bulova watch. Granted I picked it out but with the help of a 25% store sale, then a 20% Goodwill coupon plus a giftcard from my sister and money from Curt's mom, Curt's grandma, and my grandfather I was able to get an amazing watch. Thanks everyone for spoiling me on my 32nd birthday!

We are going to Wicked!

For my birthday Curt decided that we would go to Chicago to see Wicked. I have been talking about going to see this for over a year now and it's finally going to happen! Even though my birthday is this week we aren't going to go until the end of October! Very excited and a great b-day gift!

All School, All the Time

So the past three weeks have been consumed with a lot of school...

1. We started back without kids the week before Labor Day. Now the kids have been back for two weeks and they have wiped me out! I forget what the beginning of every year is like! You would think after 10 years I would figure that out... I seem to have a decent class; still figuring them out and "training" them to the Room 10 way. I have 14 kids; 6 girls and 8 boys.

2. I started teaching a master's level post-baccalaureate course at Mt. Mary College up the street from me. It is a Math Methods course for students who have a bachelors degree in something else and have decided that they would like to become a teacher; so while they are taking courses for two years and they are also teaching in a classroom as a full-time teacher. My role is teach best practices and ways in which to teach children not teach the students how to do math. So far, good; after the 1st few weeks of nerves, I am doing a little bit better with it!

3. Quilting class started! This is one of the hardest classes I have ever taken. There is so much attention to detail and exact precision; which is not my style at all. Of course I want things to look nice but if it's off an eighth of an inch, then so be it. I missed last weeks class because of open house at school and I wasn't disappointed at all. But I'm plugging away at it and I go to my mom's house for extra help. In two weeks I have to go in with 12 nine inch blocks completed. I have 4 done in about 6 hours of time! Two classes left and then putting the backing on...which I think I am going to have the shop do but I'll post it as soon as it's done.


Well hopefully this breaks the blogging hiatus and we'll have more interesting and exciting news to share!

Jaime