Things That Make Me Laugh

Busy, busy week this week! Its what Jared and I have decided will be our typical busy-ness and I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything. We've done church things, school things, parties (eating cupcakes with giggly children...just terrible), we've visited sweet old church members, and spent half of our life savings (slight exaggeration) going grocery shopping yesterday. Going shopping without the benefit of gift cards from wedding celebrations is a revolting development, but I'm also learning the art of coupon clipping!

As can be expected, a week this busy is a week full of funny things happening. If you are in need of a pick-me-up, you've come to the right place.

Spirit Week
This week was spirit week at MCCS to support our girl's volleyball team! They smashed their opponent last Friday night and were excited to celebrate this week. Monday was pajama day. Kids are always sleepy on pajama day. Tuesday was nerd day, and at least a third of the school's population had their pants under their armpits. Pigtails and taped glasses dotted the campus and everyone talked like Steve Urkel. Yesterday was crazy hat and sock day! It was also picture day, so the kids were bursting at the seams to put on their hats once we had our pictures taken. And today was crazy hair day.

Crazy Hair Day
When you're a teacher, you do things like plan to run errands after school. Like going to the license plate agency, for instance. And then you do things like sleep in curlers and wake up with a legit afro and wear poofy poodle-ear pigtails to school. Sometime around 10:00, you realize you in fact can't go to the license plate agency because you have growths coming out of your head and ribbons tied around said growths.

I'm not speaking from experience, or anything...

But really. I'm talking Bozo the Clown, hair sticking out inches from the side of my head kind of afro. At first I laughed, but then I was just really terrified to look at myself, so I settled for poofy pigtails instead.

The smart board man came to work on my smart board today and spent a solid two or three hours with us. Not looking like Bozo the Clown was a smart choice.

Picture Day
Picture day was Wednesday, and that was also the day that I woke up at 7:04 instead of 6:00 as I normally do. Falling asleep the second my head hit the pillow Tuesday night, I forgot to set my alarm clock. I bolted out of bed Wednesday morning and got ready as quickly as I could, praising God that we live 5 minutes away from school! I made it to school at 7:29. 7:30 is the start time for teachers. How could I not laugh about that?

On the other hand, I'm concerned about how my school picture might turn out...

Explorers

Yesterday and today, my students wrote creative papers on an exploration mission they were sent on. Most of them wrote that they were sent to an uncharted island by the President, that they took their friends as their team, and that they found jewels and unicorns (a seeming theme for our class this year) and huge elephants. All of the stories made me laugh quite a bit. I got to the final story, written by a boy that spent about twice as long writing as the other students did.

He chose to take Paula Deen along as part of his crew. I wrote, "good choice!" and continued reading. He went on to talk about how they went into an underground temple in Belize and found Buddha remains. He was the second one to go in to a hidden passageway.
"When we got the end we found the treasure. I quickly switched it with Paula Deen's cake. Then Indians started shooting poison darts at us. I rolled Paula Deen at them. STRIKE!"

I laughed out loud at my desk over that one. Hilarious.

Politics & My Classroom

My nine students and I were gathered around my small blue table yesterday, studying the lines of latitude and longitude that run through the state of North Carolina in our big atlas. We found Wilkesboro, talked about where Millers Creek is located, and then conversation naturally went to..."Oh Charlotte! My grandma lives in Charlotte!" and the likes of that. We had a few minutes to spare, so we spent some time exploring our state in the atlas.

In about 2.5 seconds, we went from talking about Raleigh and the beach to talking about politics. How? I'm not altogether sure, but I figured a discussion about the upcoming election had plenty to do with Social Studies, so I ran with it. If you need your mood lifted, talk to a nine-year old about politics...it was pretty hilarious!

These are some of the comments that were made:

"If I was old enough to vote, I wouldn't. All those two men do are pick on each other and say what the other is doing wrong!"
"That's politics for you!"
(I said, "amen.")

This started a chorus of children talking in their best deep, grown man voices: "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve this message."
"I'm Barack Obama! And I approve this message."

"I know a lot of people that aren't voting because they don't like either man. I wouldn't either!"
*I took this opportunity to discuss how it is our responsibility as citizens of America to voice our opinions and beliefs through voting, so no worries!

"My grandmother said we don't have unicorns anymore because God let them play outside of the ark for a while. Then they missed the ark door closing, so they didn't get to go with Noah. Is that really what happened, Mrs. Blair?"

Unrelated, but we discussed that for a short while, too.
I can't make this stuff up!

"Presidents make promises that no one could ever keep!"
Followed by another, "that's politics for you!"
At this point, I was dying laughing on the inside!

"George Washington is THE BEST PRESIDENT this country has ever had!"
"Nuh-uh, Abraham Lincoln was!"

"What this country REALLY needs is another Ronald Reagan."
(I amen-ed again.)

It was the most hilarious 10 minutes that we've had this week. I loved that my students started this discussion on their own, without me hardly saying a word. And I love that they share the truths that so many adults think, but are afraid to say! I hope these comments made you laugh as much as they made me laugh. Love those kids!


On the same note, here are some pictures of my classroom! Enjoy :)

My desk area during our teacher workdays! If only it could stay that neat when school is actually in session :)

our behavior chart!

and classroom rules

My kids have lockers in our classroom! That was the most exciting part of moving to fourth grade for most of them.

A list of our daily subjects and a preview of the week's topics!

(Also, I have so much storage! There are three sets cupboards to the left of this cabinet that the Sunday School teacher and I share. Its so wonderful!)

Delectable.

Jared and I got an awesome Pampered Chef brownie pan from his parents for one of our wedding gifts! I broke it in yesterday and made us some Reese's Cup Cookie Brownies that were pretty awesome. This is a picture of the brownie pan from Pampered Chef's website.

I love it because of the individual wells in it! And, in typical PC style, there is a flipper/spatula that fits perfectly inside of the wells. Naturally. Very handy!

First, you squish chocolate chip cookie dough in to each individual well. I used the Nestle stuff, and two of the cookie dough squares filled the opening perfectly!

Then, you place an upside-down Reese's cup onto each cookie dough square.

Mix together some brownie mix...

And scoop some brownie mix on to each cookie dough Reese's cup square! Then bake at 350 until the brownies are finished. Super easy!

The finished product! Chocolatey, peanut buttery, gooey goodness. Yum. I ate one and felt like my teeth were going to fall out. Sweet, but tasty!

More Wedding!

I saw a ton of cute bridesmaid gift ideas on Pinterest, but none of them really fit my taste. For instance, a box full of various types of alcohol...I didn't think that was quite our style :) So, I got off Pinterest and created my own!

I made each bridesmaid a "Bridesmaid Survival Kit!" I found the owl bags at Bath and Body Works near the cash register. I thought they were adorable, and they were a reasonable price. I bought the mini hand lotion from there, too. Everything else I found at Rite-Aid in either the travel or candy section!

This is the poem that I attached to each bag!

I also wrote each bridesmaids' first initial on the outside of the bag (the pictured bag has an "L," not a weird "I," haha). Sharpies are great!

I also gave each bridesmaid the jewelry that they would be wearing in the wedding. Teenia, Miss Maid of Honor, was a big help in the bracelet-making process! We made the bracelets by threading beads onto a string, sandwiching each bead between two ribbon folds. It was tedious at first, but we soon enough got the hang of it, and it was a fairly quick project. I made the earrings on another free summer afternoon that I had. Thank goodness I'm a teacher and have the summers off! I didn't have my bridesmaids buy all the same shoes or do their hair any certain way, so I thought matching jewelry would complete their outfits nicely!

While it may have been a tad time-consuming, it was so much fun making the survival kits and jewelry for my lovely bridesmaids. Those five girls were a huge help to me on our wedding day, and I thought they deserved a gift that would be helpful to them!

Our Wedding!

Jared and I have been married three weeks as of today! It's been a fun three weeks :) Fun and crazy busy! He got right back to work at Millers Creek the day after we got back from our honeymoon, and my workdays at Millers Creek Christian School started right away, too. We're both blessed to have jobs in ministry that we love so much. God is good!

Getting married meant moving, and moving means a long to-do list...people to call, delivery men to not be home for, and appointments that don't happen when they're supposed to! Luckily, everything worked out eventually and our little house is coming together very nicely. We had our internet set up on Tuesday. Its crazy how reliant we've become on having the internet! Not having it for a week and a half or so was surprisingly (and sadly) strange. But alas, we survived.

Now that we have the internet, I can get back to the blogging world. So excited! I know everyone is wondering about wedding things...so wait no longer!

Our wedding was just perfect for us, and we had a lot of fun planning it. It was great and non-stressful, and everything went off without a hitch! I had a great time doing crafts and making decorations for the wedding, and I had a trusty team of crafters that were just a phone call away, waiting to fold tissue paper and punch out flower shapes. I couldn't have done it without them! Jared even got in on some of the crafting fun. Sadly, I don't have any picture proof of that. :)

This was one of my favorite wedding crafts! We put engagement pictures from our wonderful photographer on the ends of some of the pews in the sanctuary in place of flowers on the pews. I painted the frames, glued some flowers on them, and learned how to tie pretty bows to glue on them, too (thanks Pinterest!). 

The finished product - I was really happy with how they turned out!

I also made reserved signs. I had to have ones that matched the color scheme, naturally. :) The yellow part is a decoration that my friends/bridesmaids had left over from a wedding shower they threw for us. So that part was free! The black part chalkboard paper that I bought at Michael's. Sadly, the chalk was very hard to see on the paper, bought I found that a silver Sharpie did the trick wonderfully!

We also made a guestbook poster to hang, rather than having a typical guestbook that we may never open again. This was based off of a Pinterest idea too! My mom mentioned a few months ago that if I stayed off of Pinterest, the wedding planning would go faster. She was right. But! Everything was finished just in time for the 28th.

I drew the silhouettes of the bride and groom and cut them out of black scrapbook paper. Mod Podge is holding them on, as well as their yellow bows and our names, because that stuff is awesome! Then we stamped the balloons with a stamp that we found after spending a long time in Michaels...Jared is such a trooper!

The tin pail was another Michael's find, and it has a cute chalkboard oval on the front!

The slate also came from Michael's. Can you tell I like Michael's? Kinda my happy place!

That about does it for this wedding post. I encourage anybody that is planning a wedding to do as many homemade things as you can! I think it made our wedding even more special, seeing decorations that we had worked on for so long before the wedding day. It also saved us quite a bit of money!