Spirit Week

A few weeks ago Chloe Jo had Spirit Week at school.

We love to participate in all of the activities at school and this week was no different. This was a 4 day week so that is why there are only 4 pictures and not 5.

Lazy or Athletic Day

Neon Day

Camo Day

Extreme Spirit Day

I love all of these extra activities to help the kids have fun in school!

Chloe Jo is doing much better at morning drop-off. We have gone a few weeks now with no tears. Last week I was able to sub 4 times in her school (for the same class!). She loved getting to go in with me, but it made for a rougher morning today. She didn't cry, but she really wanted me to go to school with her again. I don't have opportunities to sub every day and I didn't get a call this morning. She sat in the back seat and sighed (obnoxiously) all the way to school. *eyeroll*

I can't believe that Wednesday is the first day of October! Where did this year go?

Beginning Another Curriculum

This week has been crazy busy for my little family!

The church we are members of is having a Gospel Meeting this week and we are housing the visiting minister. It was been a wonderful meeting so far. Tonight is the last night and I am looking forward to getting Chloe Jo back on her regular sleep schedule. Gospel Meeting weeks mean that she goes to bed at least an hour past her bedtime. This usually makes for some not-so-great mornings, but this week she has been a champ. No crying at drop-off all week!!! YAY!!!

During the summers, our congregation has a summer series on Wednesday evenings. That means that those of us who teach on those evenings get a break all summer. Breaks are much needed for the 4 of us who are willing to teach because we all teach Sunday morning and Wednesday evening without breaks throughout the year.

I teach the 2 year olds on Sunday morning and the 4 and 5 year olds on Wednesday evening. It just so happened that I basically started new material for both classes at the same time. So far, I am completely thrilled with both curriculums that I chose!

After VBS, my 2 and 3 year old classroom really needed a revamp. We usually keep decorations up for a year and then change out. VBS just happens to be a great time to change out decor since we are redoing the classrooms for that weeks theme anyway.

I don't do the 4 and 5 year old classroom, but I did have full reign over the 2 year old classroom. After searching for ideas, I finally decided to go with a bee theme. I love the way it turned out and, best of all, my little students love it, too!

My door says 2's and 3's, but I actually only have 2 year olds right now unless we have a visitor.

I added 8 felt squares to this wall and created a timeline. Each felt square has pictures that velcro to it so the kids learn the order of the stories we talk about.

Oriental Trading was great for this theme. I bought the little bees, the bee posters and the bee hives from them. I love them because they ship fast and they are inexpensive so I don't feel like I have to preserve everything.

We are really working on learning the books of the Bible and some basic Bible facts. I bought the kids pointers and I have them point to the different things on the board. They love the pointers!

I'm so happy that my kids love the classroom as much as I do. It is so bright and friendly when you walk in and I know my little students love being there!

#10

Russ and I are celebrating our 10 year anniversary today!

It is insane that it has been 10 years...it is also insane that it has only been 10 years.

We are looking forward to many more years together.

Birthdays, Holidays, and House Repairs! Oh my!

Hi Friends!

My weekend has been pretty great! I have about a million things to do this week, but I wanted to put up a blog post before going to bed.

Russ and I both turned 32 last week! Russ is almost exactly 24 hours older than me and it is so fun to share birthday celebrations with him. Well, I say celebrations, but really we didn't do much for our birthdays this year.

We ended up being very practical with our gifts.

We bought a new kitchen faucet. Our old one had given us problems since the day we moved in. It leaked around the top. It leaked around the bottom. Russ was constantly having to repair it. So this week we finally picked out a new faucet and Russ installed it. We love it! I'm so glad we finally replaced it! I purposely chose a tall one so my stockpot could fit under it.

We also decided to buy a new vacuum. I know, I know...we're living on the birthday edge. Our current vacuum is several years old and losing it's suction. It just really needed to go. I ordered this one from Amazon. It is a Bissell and it had 4 1/2 stars from over 1,500 reviews. I am so excited to get it!

Friday evening, I decided to trim Chloe Jo's hair. It was getting to be a mess. I had been planning on taking her to get it trimmed, but I hate paying $20 for a child's hair cut so I just did it myself. She was so funny afterwards. She kept running her hands through it and telling me that she loves it. It's not perfect, but I'm really not that worried about it since she likes it so much.

On Saturday morning we just hung out around the house for a while. It was the perfect way to spend my birthday morning. By the way, did I mention that we had to take the back off of Chloe Jo's carseat? Girl child is getting so tall. She was actually big enough (by height and weight) to take the back off in April, but I wanted to keep it on as long as possible. Well, the 3 inches she grew this summer made taking the back off a necessity. She loves just using the booster!

I love my little family!

 Chloe Jo was sorely disappointed that we did not have any birthday cake so we decided to make cookies. I had 2 chocolate bunnies left over from Easter that hadn't been open. I put them through the food processor and used them as the chocolate chips in the cookies.

Chloe Jo loves helping me in the kitchen!

The cookies ended up looking less like chocolate chip cookies and more like oatmeal since I didn't use real chocolate chips. They tasted delicious, though!

 We ended up taking some of the cookies to a friend's house that evening.

My parents came down Saturday evening to spend the holiday with us, also. They arrived late so Chloe Jo had to go to bed soon after since we go to Bible class and worship services on Sunday. Sunday evening, our congregation had an ice cream social. Yum! We had 3 flavors of homemade ice cream, a ton of toppings, cookies and brownies. I took more of the chocolate bunny cookies we made on Saturday. My recipe made about 3 dozen so I was trying to get rid of them left and right!

Monday was spent hanging out with family at our house. My sister and her family came over and we let the kiddos play in the pool. My dad, Bro-in-law and Russ did some home repairs. We had found some dry rot on our siding so they had to rip out the siding, some of the board underneath and replace it all. We desperately need to repaint our house, but we just don't have the funds right now. Our plan is to do it in the summer. I'm going to try to do some touch ups around the house this week to hold us over until we can do the whole thing.

While Russ was waiting for caulking to dry so he could paint, he repaired part of our fence. We had a couple of slats that were broken on the bottom. Luckily, the homeowners before us left a nice pile of fence slats in the attic when they moved. Yay for repairs that don't cost anything!

While the guys worked outside, Mom and Chloe Jo did a few crafts. I had found 3 craft kits and a puzzle at the Dollar Tree last week so we got those out. Chloe Jo loves crafts! Girl after my own heart, I tell ya!

She loved her new jewelry! The multi-colored bracelet has sand in it. I may go get a few more of those. It was Chloe Jo's favorite thing we did today.

Tomorrow, Chloe Jo goes back to school and I have some shopping I need to get done. I have a few orders for the shop that need to be completed this week. Our 10th anniversary is on Thursday and we are wanting to go to The Melting Pot, but we aren't sure what we are going to do with CJ since my sister and her family are going to be out of town. Then we have a town event to go to on Saturday. I'm kind of tired just thinking about how busy we are going to be over the next few days.

I don't know what the weather is doing everywhere, but we are in the midst of severe thunderstorm warnings and a few tornado warnings (although our area has only gotten thunder and lightening so far). If you are in the area, be ready to hunker down.

Have a great week, friends!