Babies and Fried Apples

We're having another good week up here in Wilkesboro! The apple festival was so much fun this past weekend. It got to 75 or 80 degrees while we were at the festival; add that to hundreds of people and at least 3 mullets, and it was a toasty day. But there were so many cute crafts and the food was delicious, and I also got to see my students dance. It was a super fun day!

In the spirit of fall, the art teacher had the kids paint fall-y scenes, and she gave them to me to hang up in the classroom. They're so pretty! It's kind of hard to see, but each child painted a tree and fallen leaves and some birds. I was super impressed!

I work with a third grade student after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We were in my room this afternoon and we heard an "Awww he's adorable!" out in the hallway, so we both turned to look. One of our middle school students is a new big brother, and he was holding his baby brother in his arms, walking through the hallway outside my door. The student that I was working with put down her pencil, because babies are more exciting than fractions, and was completely enthralled by the dark-haired baby in the hallway.

"Mrs. Blair, do you have, you know, like a daughter?"
I told her, "Pastor Jared and I have only been married a little more than two months, so we don't have any kids yet!"
"Are you going to have a baby?"
"Not anytime soon, but we will sometime down the road..."
"YOU'RE GETTING A BABY?!"
(Is that how people get kids, by stealing them?)
I laughed a lot and then I said, "No. We're not getting any babies anytime soon."
That's not one we need to get circulating through the third grade! It was so cute and she said she can't wait until the day I get a baby. How sweet of her.

I came home after I was done with tutoring and some grading and I saw this scene out in the backyard:

Jared was being crafty! I always knew he had it in him...obviously, he married me! We were given a really nice bluebird house at our shower at Millers Creek, and the giver of the gift suggested that we might stain the birdhouse before hanging it. We picked out some stain last week and Jared had it basically done when I got home!

See how he's sitting in the midst of some trees? Apparently this fell on him while he was sitting there and he picked this (so calmly) off of his shirt when we got back in to the garage.

Cute little worm! I would have been flipping out, smacking myself to get it off my shirt, but Jared didn't react that way...go figure :)

And now, we are making some fried apples that smell basically amazing. We got on Google this afternoon to look for a recipe for Cracker Barrel Fried Apples (Jared's favorite!), and we found one that seemed pretty legit. We have plenty of apples from the festival on Saturday that we wanted to use, and got the spices we needed when we went grocery shopping this evening.  They're almost finished, and it's making our house smell wonderful. We used our cast iron grill skillet last night to make some hamburgers, and they were delicious, but our house has smelled kind of smoky since then. If you ever need an air freshener, make some fried apples. Seriously the best smell ever!

I hope everyone else is enjoying fall as much as we are :) Does anybody have a favorite fall recipe we should try?

Muffins and Explosions

This morning, one of my sweet students brought in and set this bag on my desk.

"Mom made chocolate chip muffins!"

Good morning to me...bless her heart :)

It was delicious!

And see that bright light coming in? I almost forgot what it was...but the sun actually came out for a little while today! So exciting.

We came upon snack time, and it is not uncommon for a student to ask me to open something: a bag of gummies, a package of string cheese, or in today's case, one of those bottles of drinkable yogurt (foil lids are especially tricky for my students...and for their teacher). A girl came over and said, "Mrs. Blair, can you open this?" and handed me her bottle of yogurt. "Sure!" I said, and started peeling the long edge of it. The second my fingers made contact with the foil, my student unexpectedly dropped to the floor on the other side of my desk. 

I stopped and said, "Are you okay?!"

She stood up and, very seriously, informed me, "they always explode when you open them." 

We cracked up. It was the funniest thing that happened today!

I'm super excited about this weekend. Jared and I are going to become official Wilkes County residents as we attend the Brushy Mountain Apple Festival. I'm excited to see the fall crafts, and to eat a lot of tasty food. I also have a couple students that will be dancing with their dance class that I will get to watch! Our families are coming up to join too, so it'll be a fun fall-y weekend :) 

If you're reading this and you've ever been to the Apple Festival, let us know what we should be on the lookout for on Saturday!

Dear House, Welcome to Fall!

I finished my wreath that I began last night!

This is how it started. I was slightly concerned...

I bought 4 and a half yards of fabric, following the Pinterest directions (I have so much fabric left over!). I started by cutting a couple strips, tying a couple strips...cutting, tying...it took so long! I decided to go ahead and cut all of my fabric (hello, carpal tunnel) at once and then tie it. Last night, I made it as far as cutting everything, and then it was bedtime for me and my tired hand!

I sat down tonight and started tying my fabric strips on to the wreath. It started filling in really quickly and began to look much more like I had pictured it originally.

Once I was happy with the fullness of the wreath, I decided to make a bow to put on it!

Thanks, leftover wedding ribbon! :)

The finished product! Our door isn't crooked, maybe I am? Either way, yay for fall!

Hot Chocolate!

Today was one of those beautiful, crisp, sunny fall days.

Oh wait, no it wasn't.

It was cloudy all day and misted all day long...the nasty kind of rain! It was pretty in a weird way, and it made it feel like it really is fall (or winter, but who's counting?). I think it was about 60 degrees here today, too, which made it pretty chilly!

It was a nice calm Monday and we had a lot of fun. We stayed on schedule for the entire day, even going ahead of schedule for part of the day! That's almost unheard of, with the way that we enjoy having discussions. We were also kind of sleepy today...maybe too sleepy to discuss things. Either way, it was a great Monday! Our P.E. teacher had to leave early to drive the volleyball team to their game, so he let me take my class to the gym to play for the last half hour of the day. Always a fun time!

There is a large supply of basketballs in the gym, so each student had one, and I grabbed one, too. We weren't actually playing basketball, just shooting around. Nonetheless, every time I shot, before I could get the rebound, one of my students kept taking my ball and running with it.

I was joking around with him and I said, "You keep taking my ball!"

"...Mrs. Blair. That's kind of the point of basketball, isn't it?"

Fair enough!

We went back to the classroom and dismissed. Car line moved fast today, but it felt like we were out there for a long time, "because it's so cold!" one of the fifth graders said. He was right...it was chilly, almost to the runny nose kind of chilly.

A minivan pulled out of the line and parked, handing one of the teachers a tray of drinks through the window. It was our PTF (like the PTO) president, who had brought each of us car line ladies a cup of Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate! It was such a blessing and warmed me up right away. She tends to do that on the cold, snot-freezing-to-your-nose kind of days, I was told. She's so sweet...God has given me such a wonderful school to teach in!

heaven in a cup!

Jared and I ventured out in the mess to Walmart tonight. We've gone a week or two without going, and we just missed it so much, my heart was hurting...except not at all. I got an itch to be crafty, so Jared said, "let's go!" We found a plain straw wreath and some fabric that I liked...Pinterest and I are going to attempt our first wreath, one that will hopefully look fall-like if it all works out. We shall see!

Leaving Walmart, we were putting our bags in the trunk and Jared started to take the cart ("buggy," now that I'm a Wilkesboro-ian) back to the cart return and he said, "oh I'll just park it there," and he pointed to a cart that was pushed up against the median. He was just kidding. He took the cart to the cart return, literally just steps in the other direction, and I stood by myself in the parking lot and laughed like a fool. 

And then I took a picture.

Odds are you don't find that as funny as I did, but seriously. Lazy! Cracks me up.

My wreath and I are about to get to work...let's hope I have a good report for you later about it!

The beginning:

Straw wreath and some autumnal (? ha!) fabrics!

Why Today was Awesome.

1. I wrote "Irish wristwatch" on the board and told my kids to try saying it. Funniest thing ever. They took turns going around the room attempting it, and it ended up in a chorus of "Irish wrishwrashres." If you've never tried saying it, please do so now and then laugh at how impossible it is to do!

2. As we said our blessing before lunch, the student praying asked that "we won't yell at each other playing basketball this afternoon." Amen!

3. I walked in the workroom after said blessing to retrieve my lunch from the refrigerator. Someone (obviously an angel, or Jesus himself) put a dozen-sized box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts on the counter with a sign that said "Free - help yourself!" I looked around the workroom and set my lunch down, bracing myself for what was sure to be an empty box. Instead, I found 11 perfectly glazed delicious doughnuts. I always get to the workroom when the "Free - take one" items have already been taken and all that's left are crumbs and chocolate chips. Today was my day, and my inner fat kid jumped for joy at the glorious sight before me.

4. We got to lunch, and some of our church member friends were in the kitchen preparing dinner for tonight. Our church fed West Wilkes' football team before their homecoming game tonight, so our friends were there preparing food. These particular friends, along with several other church members, belong to the Yosef Club at ASU. They offered Jared and me their tickets (all 4 of them!) and their parking pass (if you've ever been to an App game, you know why this is incredible). We had already bought tickets for tomorrow's game, but it will be easy enough to unload those on somebody once we get to the game. You just can't turn down Yosef Club seats and parking! And, since we have two extra tickets, Mom and Dad are going to join us for the day. We can't wait!

5. My kids earned free gym time this afternoon. We started out by all shooting hoops, and my kids were impressed by my athleticism (i.e. I could at least get my ball to hit the backboard, if not actually make a basket). The kids dispersed to do other things, I almost got hit in the head by one of their basketballs, and then they started World War IV. What happened to World War III, you ask? Legitimate question; I asked the same thing. "We had World War III last year in third grade, Mrs. Blair." Fair enough. World War IV consisted of almost the entire class trying to hit one particular student with a ball. Don't worry, he had a fun time, too.

6. My students presented their history projects today, for which they had to interview a family member and figure out some of their family genealogy and history. It was so interesting, and it was great to see the kiddos so excited about their projects (they were even excited about history, but I didn't dare tell them that!). I really enjoyed hearing their stories, how an ancestor was a horse thief, and another ancestor didn't have records left in England because he was outrunning the English government. Crazy, and so fascinating!

7. We were invited to partake in the food that was left once the football team had gone back to school for their game. Free dinner? And no dishes? We were all over that one! Good food and fellowship made a wonderful end to our day!

...a weasel?

Today was a beautiful fall day! Cool breeze, warm sun, not a cloud in the sky as I looked towards the mountains...my ideal and perfect day.

For one particular student in my class, fall is not so beautiful and perfect. It's an allergy-ridden sneeze fest for him, and the sneezes and coughs were in full force today. Everyone said, "Oh it's beautiful! I love this weather!" except for him. He didn't complain; he's quite the trooper. He just sneezed his face off all day.

My students were packing up before P.E. and they were standing at their lockers. This boy had a coughing fit, and I asked him if he was okay.

One of the other boys piped up and said, "Yeah, he's...coughing up a weasel or something..."

The rest of the class and I collectively paused mid-whatever we were doing, squinted our eyes, and turned to look at this boy. He looked surprised, and maybe a little confused.

a weasel.

In fact, the class and I looked a lot like this little guy.

Once allergy boy got a grip on his coughing spell and could speak, he pushed up his glasses and said, "I think what he meant to say was that I'm wheezing. Wheezing...not weasel, wheezing..."

There was another pause, and we all cracked up. It was the hardest I had laughed all day! Even the boy who made the weasel comment laughed his head off. 

It was a great Monday, and so many funny things happened today, but I can't remember most of them. I tried to keep them in mind, but the weasel comment took the cake today. Hilarious!

Extreme Makeover: Kids in Worship Room, Part 2

I had full intentions of posting this blog last night, but my laptop had different ideas! It has been giving me problems recently, partially because the battery is completely dead and very swollen. If the power cord comes out (which is very easy to do on a MacBook), the laptop turns itself off. Then, my power button stopped working, so I could only restart it by popping out the battery. And then, I couldn't keep the battery in! Once I got it in, my track pad wouldn't left click, only right click...which isn't the most helpful button ever. Jared searched Apple troubleshooting forums and found a guy with the same exact problem I was having, and he said it was due to a swollen battery. We figured that was probably part of it. So we popped the battery out, and she works like a charm now! As long as I keep it plugged in.

I have thousands of pictures on my laptop, and we plan on moving them to Jared's external hard drive soon in case my laptop gives out completely. I decided to go through and delete old pictures that I don't care to keep anymore. I deleted about a thousand of them, probably! Jared and I laughed at old pictures and I found so many ridiculous ones that I had taken and forgotten about. We're talking blackmail quality pictures. So if I've ever had my camera out around you...be careful. ;) Just kidding, just kidding. But really.

Jared and I painted for a few hours yesterday afternoon! The room is almost done :) Jared made a lot of progress on his own the past couple weeks during the work day.

Completed yellow wall!

Green wall with border left to paint

View from the green wall to the entry side of the room

Notice the entry room on the left side of the picture above? We're painting in there, too!

Getting fancy, adding stripes!

I worked in the entryway room while Jared finished up the green borders and touched up several other places in the room.

The walls inside the room are completely done now! All that's left to do is the tops of the walls in the entryway. My spaghetti arms were getting tired - painting on cement blocks is about the most difficult thing ever! We were also joined by a swarm of mosquitos. We probably have at least 20 bites between us! The spiders were there in their great multitudes yesterday, as well. I painted in the entryway on the ladder with a big one above my head, unknowingly, for quite a while. I was less excited about painting in the entryway once I spotted him. I'm positive he was staring at me the entered time I was on the ladder painting.

We had a couple science lessons on spiders this past week. Poor timing. 

After the painting is done, we need to figure out what to do for furniture, curtains, maybe some decorations, and possibly some flooring options. And Jared is in the process of designing a sign/logo for the kids' ministry...so much fun! Be in prayer for the children's ministry at Millers Creek Baptist as we prepare and start using this location, hopefully by the end of the month!