Lollipops

Every year all the teachers at my school create a classroom banner to hang in the cafeteria - just something fun and cute to represent your class. Last year I did Mrs. Lofland's Lightning Bugs and was up to my eyeballs in gold glitter making fireflies. They turned out cute, but this year I came up with something equally cute and MUCH easier to construct. Mrs. Lofland's Lollipops!

Cut styrofoam cylinders in half (a bread knife worked pretty well)...

Wrap them in multi-color tissue paper....

Stick them in clear plastic treat bags (and stick a lollipop stick in them which I didn't have at the time and forgot to take a picture of later)...

And tie with ribbon! I left the ribbon long because I also have tags that I'm going to attach with each students' name on them once I know who they are!

I think they turned out so cute and lollipops can be used for tons of fun stuff...I'm thinking little kid birthday decor if you were doing a Candyland or candy shop theme!

Anybody Watch Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations?

The season premiere of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations started out in Petit St. Vincent - our honeymoon location! No one has ever heard of PSV when we tell them where we went, so I was happily surprised when we saw him at our favorite spot! The episode is called Caribbean Island Hopping and PSV is only shot in the first 5-10 minutes of the episode, but it made me want to go back right nowww!

Fun fact we learned from the show: Tabago Cays where we went snorkeling was where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. We had no idea!

Anthony Bourdain photo

Honeymoon photo

Anthony Bourdain photo

Honeymoon photo

Anthony Bourdain photo

Honeymoon photo

Anthony Bourdain photo

Honeymoon photo

Here is Anthony's review of PSV:

"The journey begins on the tiny island of Petit Saint Vincent, a very small, but very beautiful island in the Grenadines. There is no airport, no TV, and no Internet. The only means of communication is a little yellow flag which you raise whenever you are feeling particularly hungry. Your typical day begins with fresh lobster and fruit on the beach. In short, it does NOT suck to be on Petit Saint Vincent."

http://www.realtelevision.net/2010/07/03/anthony-bourdain-no-reservations-season-premiere/

Ok, now I'm REALLY not ready for summer to be over. PSV is calling my name!

Blessing Box

Natalie is hosting a new linky called Blessing Box which is something we all need to be reminded of from time to time! Go to her blog and link up if you want!

{One}

My husband. He's amazing all the time, but has been disgustingly amazing these past few weeks as we tackle some unknown territory together! Love love love him!

{Two}

My job. I'm lucky I have one in general and that I have one I enjoy! I'm not ready for summer to end, but I am ready to see some of my friends on a regular basis again!

{Three}

My family, duh. And not just because they get me awesome birthday gifts, although they do! On Saturday my mom, dad, brother, me, and Will all went to see Dinner With Schmucks together just because. Who does that? We do! And we have lunch with Will's family every Sunday and it's always the best meal we get all week haha.

{Four}

You've Got Mail 0n DVD which I am currently watching. It always puts me in a good mood :)

{Five}

The homemade meals we have been given recently - no cooking for me! Will's mom sent us a roast and my mom is bringing us chicken and dumplings tomorrow, yum!

I think One, Two, and Three will be the same every week, but I will try to remember the little things too...like a good movie!

Catching Up!

We finally finished celebrating my birthday last night! Yeah right, I'm not complaining about a week long birthday! I was s.p.o.i.l.e.d. this year!

From my brother!

From my in-laws! The tall one.

Also from my in-laws - one of each! They also got me a tripod for my camera which I have been wanting but never mentioned to them!

New chair cushions from Anthropologie from my mom and dad! I almost bought these before we left, but they only had three at the store so my mom tracked four down while we were gone and surprised me!

I love them! They are reversible too.

From my mom and dad! They are suuuuper comfy.

Thank you all for the encouraging comments about our new jobs! :)

So I don't have much to post in the way of classroom progress because there really hasn't been much. My mom and I spent about 5 hours up there last Wednesday, but we spent most of the time moving furniture and boxes from my old third grade room and the storage room to my new first grade room. We did get some bulletin boards up but just the backgrounds. You can get an idea about the color scheme though. The school is closed this week for cleaning, but I'm hoping to get back there this weekend to finish it up!

My desk area and a little writing center. I'm going to use the long section of the bulletin board for student work and the small section for teacher stuff.

The left board will be morning meeting activities and the right will be for A.R. points.

The library so far. My owl decals from last year were no longer sticky once I removed them from my old room's wall so I had to get new ones. These aren't as tall, but they're cute enough.

What I've been working on at home...owls galore!

Oh yeah, and all my cabinets and my desk drawers are still completely empty. I have a lot to do!

Saturday I went to wedding shower for my friend Brianna's upcoming wedding! She has a bridal blog here if you want a sneak peak.

That's pretty much what's been going on around here. This week is my last real week of summer before staff development starts so I'm going to soak it up as best I can!

New Jobs!

Two great things that happened during our Myrtle Beach vacation - Will and I got new jobs!

Mine's not exactly a new job, but I got a new grade. I will be teaching first grade this year! Most of you know I taught second last year, and was told I would be moving up to third because the upcoming number of second graders wasn't large enough to need three teachers. My principal knew I really wanted to stay in primary and was hoping to get back there eventually, so when the need for a third first grade teacher opened up he gave it to me!! He called me on Tuesday night right before we were about to watch fireworks over the water. Talk about perfect timing! I went up to the school yesterday to see my classroom, which is only two doors down from my old room, and today my mom and I are going back up to start unpacking/ decorating. I love my new teammates, and I'm right next door to my old ones so everything's perfect! I was stressing all summer about what grade I was teaching and how it was going to go and I can't believe how everything worked out so well!

Will's new job is a *real* new job - he is now the Vice President of Investments for an awesome company! He went on a job interview before our trip and was hired, but he still had to go through all the background check, etc. before he got the complete green light to start. Well on that same Tuesday he got the call that everything checked out great and he was ready to go! He started this past Monday and he is really liking it so far! I'm so happy for him, and I think this will be really great for our family!

*If we get enough accomplished in my room today I will try and take some pictures. I'm going with the owl theme again, and I got some really cute new stuff at the teacher store!

We're Back!

We're back from Myrtle Beach and we had the best time! We actually got back late Sunday night, but I had to get up early to go to a workshop all day yesterday so I was exhausted when I finally got home. Anyways, we enjoyed the beach and hanging out with our friends Jon and Jo, Jorge and Mayra for eight days, but we are glad to be home too! Lots of amazing things happened on this trip, I can't wait to share everything!!

I took over 500 pictures, so here are just *some* of the highlights, ha!

The girls - Mayra, Joanna, Me

The Boys - Jorge, Will, Jon

fireworks!

Jaws!

Typical day on the beach!

Me and hubs at dinner one night.

1,500 piece puzzle completed in 4 days!

One of my favorite parts of the trip.

Will and I woke up early to watch the sunrise over the ocean.

Will surprised me with a birthday cake!

Myrtle Beach, 2010!

**Thank you all for the sweet birthday comments, 24 is going to be great!**

24. Not Too Bad. Will's still older :)

Happy Birthday to Moi!

I'm almost a quarter of a century old...Yikes!

It's also my sis-in-law's b-day...Happy Birthday J-lo!

Hope y'all have a great day, I know we will!