Loving my mailman today....

well.... that sounds kind of dirty.   Not literally - that would be a completely different kind of post -com-pleeeeet-ly - the man is like 115!  But,  I am loving what he keeps leaving on the porch.   It might even be the mailman and the UPS man working together - but they are making happy, happy, happy!   A few weeks ago I found this fabulous pledge on a bloggers site (I forgot whose it was,  I am so sorry - so if it was you, please jump aboard and take credit!).  I loved it so I copied it and created a poster to go with it to match my room for next year.   I am going to be using www.pinkcatstudios.com 's cute owls all over my room next year so I made this to match by sending it off to VistaPrint.   The resolution is not perfect but from any distance away you can not tell at all... I love it!

(in case you are wondering,  those are pieces of Loving Family Dollhouse furniture on the corners,  I know I am sort of shocked that people don't ask me to a photographer because of my excellent staging- snort).

 

 

If you would like your own copy,  I added it to TpT as a freebie.

You can find it here .

 

I also made these little products to go with it.   I think I will be using the Sunny Stripes so as to not get to matchy, matchy!  You can find these on TpT as well.   Each alphabet set is only $1.00 and each set of word wall letters and numbers to 100 is $2.00.  You can find them here.

 



 



 



Look what was waiting for me on my porch today!

My new Erin Condren planner!

Even the package was pretty!



E

Cutie cute wrapping...

And my new baby!   I love it!   It is BIG and full of everything I need!   I am so excited to actually have a real planner again!  I am a techie girl,  but sometimes it is easier to just write it all down in one place!

 

I love the little extras - gift tags that are personalized from me!

A zippy pocket in the back to keep all those little things I constantly lose - like receipts!  Erin even threw a couple $10 off coupons in there!

Class list, checklists - all ready to fill up with my new babies names!

Cutie cute quotes throughout the whole book!

Stickers to remember important things.

 

I am in love and I know that is nerdy,  but today I am just embracing my inner nerd and owning it!    I am so glad I bought this thing!

Wrapped in LOVE!

Our school district accepted Rachel's Challenge last year.   If you haven't heard of Rachel's Challenge you can read more about it here.  Rachel was one of the first victims of the Columbine shootings.   She had spent her short life spreading the message of acceptance, caring, compassion and love and her parents created a program to let her message live on.    It is one of the most amazing things we do as a district.

Throughout the school year students and staff have written "links" to each other for each act of kindness they have appreciated.   Each class hangs their links in their classrooms,   and today we took all our links down and wrapped them around the school.   We didn't make it all the way around but we did make it 1/4 mile!   It was so cool to see.   Our class had 602 links.   602 times someone's kindness was acknowledged!  That is pretty amazing!

 

 

After we were finished we took all our links into the cafeteria and dropped them on the stage.   Several of my kids asked what they were going to do with them.   One of my sweeties told me he had an idea.   He thought we should go and wrap them around the mayors house to let him know how much the kids of our town care!  Be still my heart.   Have I mentioned that I am going to have a VERY HARD time letting these kids go?  



My favorite linky - CURRENTLY!

Currently is always my favorite linky of the month!

Here is mine for the month.  If you have never linked up go and see the Fabulous Farley and link up here !

A real lesson plan BOOK - for real! I can't wait to get this!

I was blog hopping this weekend and ran across this fabulous blog... http://www.teachingwithatouchoftwang.blogspot.com/ .   Cutie pie blogger Sambra,  posted a picture of her new planbook for next year.   I fell in love.   I had never heard of Erin Condren and have not used a real paper lesson plan book for YEARS,  but I visited her site and I fell in LOVE with this...

It has EVERYTHING, can be totally personalized - like you can even change the color of the paisley design to any colors you like or pick a totally different design.   It was kinda spendy - $59 - but is on sale until the end of the month for teacher appreciation!  

I tried to talk myself out of it,  but I kept going back to the site and looking at it again and again.  I watched the whole video.... then I rationalized that am writing curriculum this summer for project based learning,  and know that I will need to "write" a lot more notes than I have previously, so I justified it!  I CAN NOT wait to get it!   Are y'all shopping for next year already?

Five for Friday!

I have not blogged for a while.    We have had a case of what I can only assume was the bubonic plague go through our house.  Every one of us has had it now but most of us are finally feeling better.  Thank God!    I have been busy trying to keep up with the laundry and catching up on sleep.  But Five for Friday seems like a great reason to get back to it!

I have also been trying to learn to sew.   I might not have mentioned that I didn't know how when I insisted that I get a new sewing machine for Mothers Day.   My sweet husband,  having known me for 21 years and never having seen me sew a stitch,  did question me when I told him what I wanted.  I looked at him incredulously and just re-asked the question,  "do I sew?".   Of course, the answer was no,  but I kept that to myself.    I have not sewn since I was in home ec. in the eighth grade and I was very bad at it then.   In fact,  my very weird interesting teacher told me that my purple duffle bag looked like,  "a piece of puke".   She was not one to hold back to spare the feelings of her students so much.     But as I do,   I believe that anything on Pinterest is within my reach, so I have been working at it.   A lot.     Here are a few pics of things I have been working on.

This week has been very stessful.   The Moore tragedy has been heavily on my heart.   I have had a hard time even wrapping my mind around it.   The following day,  we had tornado watch warnings all day and some strong storms blow through. The kids were very upset and we were all on edge.   We were so thankful that our storms did not live up to the hype.   I hate tornado season here.   Hate it!

Thankfully the next day was full of sunshine!   It was my favorite day of the year in my district.   Each year,  we host the Special Olympics.   My son Grant,  is an athlete.    It was such a special day for our family and so many others.  Our boy was so proud of his medals and enjoyed every second of being in the spotlight. 

We have less than two weeks left of this year!   I am getting a little emotional about saying good-bye to my kids.... but excited for summer!

My new toy!

This was my Mothers Day gift and I love it. 

Now,  remember I really BELIEVE I am crafty,  but that is not always the case,  but I really try. So,  I just plan on believing I am a seamstress, until it happens or someone forces me to stop.  This thing is SUPER easy to use,  so the only thing to really mess me up is me.   I have been planning what I want to do for next year, and I found some super cute navy and white chevron print duck material.   I think I am going to mix it with Kelly green and some hot pink.   I am going to cover one of my bulletin boards with it and maybe make a table skirt.  I made a partner read pillow to go with it tonight and I think it turned out really cute and MUCH cheaper than any of the ones I have seen to purchase!   

 Hope everyone had a happy mothers day!